Information on Vitamin D

What is Vitamin D? 

Vitamin D is actually more of a hormone than a vitamin.  Vitamin D was first isolated from fish oil 1936. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin, meaning that your body can store extra vitamin D in your fat reserves.  Vitamin D is the only known precursor of a potent steroid hormone calcitriol which is known as activated Vitamin D.  Other types of fat soluble vitamins are vitamins A, E and K.  Vitamin D is measured in IU, which is hard to understand when people are always taking about Micrograms and Milligrams.  1000 IU is equal to 25mcg which is 0.25mg.

What does Vitamin D do in the body?

Vitamin D enters your body either from diet or from sunlight UVB rays (wavelengths of 290 to 315 nanometers) being absorbed and converted through the skin via cholesterol.  The D is then transported to the liver where it is hydroxylated into 25-hydroxyvitamin D.  The kidneys catalyze this using an enzyme into 1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D which is the most potent form of Vitamin D.  Most of the powerful effects of Vitamin D come from this last form and more than 50 genes are controlled using it.  Immune, brain, heart, stomach, pancreas, bone, T and B lymphocytes, skin and other cell in your body all have a vitamin D receptors within them. This means that if you are Vitamin D deficient then all of these cells are not working correctly in some way.  You can see just by this simple fact that Vitamin D is something that you most defiantly need to maintain health.

Vitamin D plays a crucial role in regulating the absorption of calcium from the foods that you eat, as well as maintaining the level of calcium in the blood.  Activated Vitamin D turns protein production on and off as your body requires it. That is, vitamin D regulates genetic expression in hundreds of tissues throughout your body.  Vitamin D also increases your body’s absorption of phosphate.  People do not generally get enough Vitamin D on a daily basis to be at least at a preventative if not therapeutic level, and usually wait until it is too late to supplement on Vitamin D if they are low.   Vitamin D is a potent antibiotic.  It does not directly kill bacteria and viruses but in fact increases the body’s production of antimicrobial peptide proteins. The 200 known antimicrobial peptides directly and rapidly destroy the cell walls of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, and play a key role in keeping the lungs free of infection.

What affects Vitamin D absorption? 

Cholesterol needs to be in the skin for our body to correctly absorb the sunlight.  Having more melanin pigment in the skin will cause your skin to absorb less sunlight.  This causes people like African Americans to be at a high risk of vitamin D deficiency.  The winter months will cause you to absorb little if no UVB sunlight that can be converted.  This is because the rays needed by your skin have to travel at an angle through the ozone  layer and are soaked up before getting to the ground.  8SPF sunscreen is shown to block 95% of the suns rays.  30SPF sunscreen will effectively block out 99% of the suns rays from being absorbed.  If you are obese your body will hold onto the vitamin D stores in the fat you have accumulated instead of releasing it.  Cystic Fibrosis and Cholestatic liver disease weaken your ability to absorb Vitamin D.  Vitamin D is very tolerant and not much affects its absorption when taken with multiple nutrients.  It can be taken at any time, with or without food or drink, with or without fats.  Vitamin D will also not interfere with the absorption of other nutrients. 

What forms of Vitamin D are there?

There are 3 forms of Vitamin D. Vitamin D that is converted from sunlight by your body, Vitamin D2 and Vitamin D3.  Vitamin D from sunlight stays in your body 2 to 3 weeks while D2 and D3 last only 1 to 2 weeks.  People with weight issues may need to supplement because they cannot effectively convert sunlight UVB rays.  D2 comes from plant or yeast sources and D3 will come from animal sources.  D2 and D3 differ by 1 molecule, so it is suggested that they have different strengths in he body.  D3 is suggested to be as much as twice as effective over D2. 

What are natural sources that have Vitamin D? 

There are not many natural sources of Vitamin D that will come from your diet.  Sunlight and certain fish oils are going to be your best and possibly your only major options.  Fish oils work so well because they cannot metabolize vitamin D, so it accumulates in their tissues.  The problem with fish sources is that there could easily be other chemicals that also have accumulated such as PCBs and mercury.  Animal sources include something like wool so the animal is shaved and not harmed in any way to acquire the Vitamin D.

How much do you need?

15 to 20 minutes of full body exposure on a bright summer day will deliver up to 20,000 IU of Vitamin D to the body within 48 hours.  That is of course if you are truly healthy and have adequate amounts of cholesterol in the skin.  Most people are led to believe cholesterol is bad, and society has shut out cholesterol as a whole which leads to many problems other than the ones suggested here.  In studies showing people taking Vitamin D at 800 IU a day, taken with calcium, had a reduction of hip fractures by 43%.  1000 IU or more is needed on a daily basis to be at a truly preventative level, and 2000 IU a day is needed to be at truly therapeutic levels for children and 5000 IU for adults.  The suggested RDA for Vitamin D is a disappointing 200 IU for ages 0-50, 400 IU for ages 50-70, and 600 IU for ages above 70.  When science has shown that it is safe upwards of 20,000  IU or more, why are the daily amounts recommended so low?

What can Vitamin D help out with in our day to day health?

Vitamin D will boost immunity and helps build strong bones.  Vitamin D protects the heart.  Studies have suggested that if you take 1000 to 2000 IU a day then you can reduce your risk of colorectal cancer by as much as 50%, breast cancer by as much at 60%, and reduce your risks of other types of cancers as well.  A study gave women 2000 IU a day which in turn lowered their risk of developing upper respiratory tract infection by 90%.  Toxicity of Vitamin D (overdose) can cause you to be thirsty, depressed, constipated, and give you high blood calcium.  Active vitamin D is effective in treating psoriasis.

Not enough Vitamin D can cause Rickets, Crohn’s and IBS inflammatory pain, chronic back pain, bone pain, musculoskeletal pain, Osteomalacia, Osteoporosis, Hyperparathyroidism, type 1 Diabetes, autoimmune diseases, Hypertension and more.

MISC facts about vitamin D.

Fortified milk supplemented with vitamin D only contains 100 units per every eight-ounce glass.  Synthetic Vitamin D that is prescribed to you is usually in the form of Vitamin D2, which is shown to be less effective that D3.  A study was done with pregnant women taking 600 IU a day at the date of birth.  76% of mothers and 81% of the babies were vitamin D deficient.  This shows that even 600 IU IS NOT ENOUGH.  Vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy can cause pre-eclampsia.  The Merck manual states that 40,000 IU day produces toxicity within 1 to 4 months in infants, and as little as 3,000  IU a day can produce toxicity over many years. 100,000 IU produced toxic effects in adults over several months worth of time.  A study shows that infants survived 200,000 to as many as 600,000 units of vitamin D given in a single dose at a time.  Hyperparathyroidism has been successfully managed with 50,000 to 200,000 IU of vitamin D daily.

According to Dr. Michael Holick, as little as 5-10 minutes of sun exposure on arms and legs or face and arms three times weekly between 11:00 am and 2:00 pm during the spring, summer, and fall at 42 degrees latitude should provide a light-skinned individual with adequate vitamin D and allow for storage of any excess for use during the winter with minimal risk of skin damage.

Image from here

SOURCE * SOURCE * SOURCE * SOURCE * SOURCE * SOURCE * SOURCE * SOURCE