Vitamin D AT A GLANCE
From the Island Sun Times Magazine
Vitamin D is a fat- soluble vitamin, which means it can be dissolved in fat and is carried through the body by fat and stored in fat tissue. Getting too much can be harmful.
Vitamin D can be produced in the body, as well as, obtained from the diet.
Vitamin D is called "The Sunshine Vitamin"; this is because the body can make vitamin D after sunlight, or ultraviolet light, hits the skin. Ten to 15 minutes of sun exposure three times a week is all the body needs. Older people are less efficient with this conversion.
Vitamin D helps build strong and healthy bones and teeth. It does this by helping the body to absorb the minerals calcium and phosphorous and to deposit them in bones and teeth. If the body does not get enough vitamin D and calcium, a person is at higher risk for bone mass loss, which is known as osteoporosis. Low levels of vitamin D also increase the risk of bone softening, known as osteomalacia, in older adults. Children who do not get enough vitamin D over a long period may develop rickets, which is defective bone growth.
Sunshine vitamin may help slow aging
From United Press International
A study of 2,100 female twin pairs found those with higher vitamin D levels may knock off five years of aging, British and American researchers say.
Researchers at the London School of Medicine;St. Thomas' Hospital, in London; and the University of Medicine and Denistry of New Jersey used a genetic marker- leukocyte telomere length- and found those with the highest vitamin D levels had longer leukocyte telomere length, indicating lower levels of inflammation and body stress.
The telomere difference between those with the highest and lowest vitamin D levels was equivalent to five years of aging, the researchers say.
Previous research found that shortened leukocyte telomere length is linked to risk for heart disease and could be an indication of chronic inflammation-a key determinant in the biology of aging.
Several lifestyle factors affect telomere length, including obecity, smoking and lack of physical activity, but the researchers noted that boosting vitamin D levels is a simple change.
These findings are published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
More vitamin D may lessen chronic pain
From Ivanhoe.com
Researchers from Mayo Comprehensive Pain rehabilitation Center in Rochester, Minn., report about one in four patients who have chronic pain also have inadequate blood levels of vitamin D.
The study kept track of the serum vitamin D levels of 267 adults getting outpatient tratment for chronic pain. It also looked at the dose and duration of the morphine they took for pain relief.
In patients with a vitamin D deficiency, the morphine dose was nearly twice that of the group with adequite levels of vitamin D. They also used the pain medication for an average of 71.1 months, compared to 43.8 months, and had lower levels of physical functioning and poorer view of their overall health.
"This is the first time we have established the prevalence of vitamin D inadequacy among a diverse group of chronic pain patients," says W. Michael Hooten, M.D., Medical Director at the Mayo Comprehensive Pain Rehablilitation Center. "The implications are that in chronic pain patients, vitamin D inadiquacy is not the principle cause of pain and muscle weakness, however, it could be a contributing but unrecognized factor."
keepin' it real
Information from real magazine
Unreal:
Any tan is damage to your skin.
Get Real!
Tanning is a natural process- it is what your body is designed to do. Melanin production in your skin naturally increases your skin's defense against sunburn. And melanin is one of the most effective free-radical scavengers there is- that's good for your skin, too.
Saying that tanning damages your skin is like saying that exercise damages your muscles. Did you know when you exercise you actually damage muscle tissue, but that your body naturally repairs that damage and builds even stronger muscles? That's how it works. It's not damage- it's nature.
So what's real? Your body knees UV light from the sun to be healthy, and a tan comes with that exposure. So get your sun in a non-burning fashion to keep it real.
Unreal:
Just a few minutes of sun exposure will give you all the vitamin D you need.
Get Real!
That's not necessarily true. It's different for every person and every climate. The darker your skin, the more sunlight you need to make the same amount of vitamin D. Dark skin types may need five- to 10- times the amount of sun that a fair- skinned person needs to make the same amount of vitamin D. Also consider: Sun in the south makes vitamin D more quickly than sun in the north, and for much of the year in northern climates- period we call " Vitamin D Winter"- you can't make any at all.
Whats more, the older you get, the less efficient your skin is at making vitamin D. So an older person may need twice the sun a younger person needs to make the same amount of the sunshine vitamin.
So what's real? Practice sunburn prevention, but get regular sun exposure. it's natural and it's necessary.
Children who got 2,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D daily were 80 percent less likely to develop Type 1 diabetes during the next 30 years, according to one major study.
Multiple sclerosis- now believed to be related to vitamin D deficiency-is twice as common north of the 37th parallel in North America, where sunlight is less prevalent.
The Canadian Paediatrics Society now recommends 2,000 IU daily for pregnant and nursing women- 10 times higher than current government recommendations. The reason? 2,000 IU will lead to more- natural vitamin D levels necessary to raise a nursing mother's vitamin D levels high enough to pass vitamin D on to the baby.
"It is likely that all benifits of vitamin D can provided by sunbed use, including prevention of cancer, ostioporosis, heart disease and more..."
-Dr. Marc Sorenson
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