Vitamin D: The New Darling of the Health Food Industry

Vitamin D is made by our skin when we are exposed to the sun. It is present in our diets and available in supplements. We have been told that we need Vitamin D to help maintain bone health but we also need it to maintain our immunity towards many diseases. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to rickets, a disfiguring and in severe cases, crippling disease of the skeletal system, in the past. Rickets historically occurred in children growing up in tenement projects in the inner cities of the USA where children were housed with their families in close packed high rise buildings. They had little or no opportunity to get out in the sun to play or just to sit in the sun to read or play a quiet game. Those children often suffered rickets. In todays low income housing, builders are obliged to include some open spaces where children can play in the sunshine. Most foods in our diets today are also enriched with Vitamin D, these two factors have gone a long way towards erradicating the incidence of rickets in society in the USA.

The question we must ask ourselves is do we need more? Is more, good for us and can we live healthy lives with out adding greater amounts to our bodies? Vitamin D3, the most highly touted of the D vitamins, it is not just vital to building and maintaining bones.

What else can this substance do for you? Vitamin D3 may be one of our greatest allies in our battle against a long and growing list of cancers, respiratory infections, skin infections and loss of physical abilities as we grow older.

The truth be known, Vitamin D3 is not really a vitamin! Vitamins are organic compounds that are necessary in our diets in small amounts. Vitamin D3 is the substance that is synthesized by our skin when it is exposed to the sun, it is not normally in our diets. A bit of cholesterol in our skin reacts to the sunlight and that cholesterol is converted to Vitamin D3. When we fail to get enough sunlight we need to add this precious vitamin to our diets.

Enter the dermatologist holding a large tube of SPF forty sunscreen. He tells us to apply it every day to all exposed areas. We do as we are bid, the problem comes when that sunscreen inhibits our bodies from manufacturing vitamin D3. Basking in the suns rays, we are told, is forbidden today. It will cause skin cancer so we sit in the shade, wear long sleeves and big brimmed hats. In ancient days the sun was a god, worshiped and celebrated. Now we are told that is not good for us. We need to rethink our approach, remember Thoreau? "Everything in moderation." Those were his words, and wise words they were.

Yes, too much sun is bad for your skin but there are many people who go for weeks and months with no exposure at all. In higher latitudes of the world the inhabitants never see the sun for months on end. Even closer to the equator clouds can block the suns rays for weeks on end inhibiting the skins ability to make Vitamin D3. In higher latitudes where the suns rays shine less intensely we see an increased incidence of both ovarian and colon-rectal cancer when compared to those areas closer to the equator where the sun is more intense. This is according to Cedric Garland, PhD, associate professor of family medicine at the University of California. There is also a similar correlation in rates of kidney cancer. Garland's studies have been published in The American Journal of Public Health as well as in The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Lower sun days or no sun days due to weather or latitude reduce our blood level of Vitamin D3 to unhealthy levels leaving us venerable to loss of bone mass, cancerous cell growth, auto-immune diseases such as type 1 diabetes. A study published in the Journal of American Medical Association in 2006, blood serum levels of D3 were looked at in both the Army and the Navy. It was noted that, in white populations there was a 62% lower incidence of Multiple Sclerosis than those with the lowers levels of D3. There was too few in the population of African Americans and Hispanic with Multiple Sclerosis to make a significant observation or draw a conclusion.

For just pennies per day, perhaps less than twenty dollars a year per person, we could reduce the cancer incidence dramatically and slow the cancerous tissue growth making existing cancers more treatable. There would be a reduction in other costly diseases too. When this is compared to the millions of dollars that it costs to treat cancer and the other diseases in this country in a year, the comparison staggers the mind. If we were to use just the sunshine think of the money that could be saved. Just a simple supplement could go a long way to resolving the rising costs of medical care.

The current USRDA sets our requirement for adults over 51 years of age at 400 IUs. For infants and children the USRDA is 200 IUs. Some doctors are saying that those limits should be revisited and raised to 1500 to 2000 IUs per day.

There are dangers to be awair of that are related to too much Vitamin D3. These include kidney, heart, and blood vessels calcification. Though calcification in any one of these organs can cause the bodies system irreparable damage, worrying about toxicity of Vitamin D3 is like worrying about drowning while dying of thirst in the desert. Please check with your doctor before starting to take Vitamin D supplements.

Information regarding the statistics and studies mentioned in this article was collected from "Natural Solutions for Common Health Concerns," Fall 2007.