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Maximize your vitamin D

An interesting video from Dr Mercola that highlights some of the factors that impact vitamin D production in your body from exposure to sunlight.

Summary:

After the skin has been exposed to the sun, the skin will manufacture vitamin D for a period of up to 48 hours.  Therefore, it’s important not to wash the entire body with soap during that time or the production of vitamin D will be negatively effected.  You can still wash under the arms and the groin with soap as long as you use plain water for the rest of your body.

Exposure to sunlight includes both UVA and UVB rays.  Only UVB is used in the production of vitamin D by the skin.  UVA rays actually destroy vitamin D.  If you spend a lot of time in sunlight filtered by windows, you are only getting UVA light so you may be actually reducing the amount of this vitamin in your body.

If you want to find out your vitamin D levels, the Vitamin D Council is a non-profit organization that sells a home testing kits.

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RDA and Race

If you are dark skinned and living in the upper latitudes, you are very likely to be deficient in vitamin D. The darker your skin, the more difficult it is for your skin to convert sunlight into vitamin D.  At the equator, this is probably a good thing.  But if you live in the upper half of North America or Europe, and work in an office, your skin doesn’t get enough sunshine to work its magic.

Even if you are pale like me, our modern lifestyle suggests that perhaps 50% of us will be deficient in this important vitamin.  But if you have a darker complexion, the current recommended daily allowances of vitamin D are a cruel and dangerous joke.  Up to 90% of people with dark skin may be deficient.  As mentioned in my previous vitamin D post, the current RDA is a mere 400 IU per day.  Experts in this field now recommend 5000 IU per day.

However, the vitamin D that is added to our food, especially milk, is particularly useless given the fact than many people with darker skin also have lactose intolerance.  The irony is that those who most need the additional vitamin D supplementation, are those least likely to benefit.

I doubt that there is any overt racism in this decision.  It is just another example of how the authorities (who are still largely white skinned and male) completely fail to imagine that anyone could be different.  Being white skinned and male myself, I know that I often make the assumption based on my own experience, too.  I’m sure if the world were run by women with dark skins, we would see a similar bias but in different directions.

The important thing to realize is that we must take control of our own health as individuals.  Vitamin D supplements are inexpensive.  To learn more, visit the Vitamin D Council for more information on the importance of vitamin D, or to order a home testing kit.  I don’t make any money from the sale of these test kits.  I simply feel this issue is important enough for me to spread the word.

Vitamin D and the sun

Being fair skinned of Irish/English descent, I never really looked at the sun as my friend.  I burn easily.  As I’m fond of saying, “I don’t tan, I crisp!” Sunscreen and burkas seem like a really good idea.

However, recent studies on the potential importance of vitamin D are making me rethink my relationship with that large yellow orb in the sky.  Why?  Because the majority of the vitamin D in our bodies is produced by the exposure of our skin to the sun’s rays.  At least that is how it was done during our millions of years of evolution.  Today we sit in sunless offices, slathered with sunscreen and layered in clothing that prevents the sun from touching our skin in any meaningful way.

Not to worry though.  There are foods such as milk and Fruit Loops®  that contain added vitamin D, right?  More like “Right, but…!”  If you were to stand in the midday sun with exposed skin, your body would produce between 10,000 to 20,000 International Units (IU) of vitamin D in just 30 minutes. Yet the recommended daily allowance is a mere 400 IU.  While this is enough to prevent rickets, it is obviously nowhere near the natural amount of vitamin D that man was built to run on.

Why is vitamin D important? Researchers now believe that vitamin D is responsible for turning on and off more than 2000 genes.  The ability to turn off genes and regulate the lifespan of cells is a critical factor in the development of cancers.  A cancerous cell does not know when to stop: it just keeps growing.  Vitamin D may play a key role in preventing cells from turning cancerous by ensuring they die at their proper time.

Vitamin D also appears to be a factor in cell differention.  Liver cells are different from bone cells which are different from brain cells.  But all cells start out the same.  Vitamin D is the trigger that changes a cell into the type needed by the body.  Cancer cells are undifferentiated.

Why has vitamin D been neglected? Two reasons: money and laziness.

Follow the money and you discover that there isn’t any profit in vitamin D.  Supplements are cheap, readily available and cannot be patented.  The sunscreen and cosmetics industry make far more by convincing us that even the smallest amount of sun will kill us.  Yet I wonder how many cancer deaths could have been prevented if everyone had “normal” levels of vitamin D in their bodies.

Laziness is a factor, too, because “normal”  vitamin D supplement levels vary tremendously between individuals.  If  you are light skinned, work outside and live in equatorial Africa, you may not need any additional vitamin D.  If you are dark skinned, work in an office and live in the northern lattitudes, you are very likely to have a severe vitamin D defficiency.

As a general rule of thumb though, some doctors are recommending 5000 IU per day.  That’s what I take now because the amount of actual sunlight on bare skin that I get is almost non existant.  5000 IU is more than 10 times the RDA but still well below the 20,000 IU I could get from the sun in half an hour so I don’t think it’s an unacceptable risk.

However, if you want to know what your base level of vitamin D is, it is possible to get it tested by your doctor.  There is even a home testing kit from the Vitamin D Council, an organization devoted to informing the public on the benefits of vitamin D.  You have to make sure you get the right test done, so I definitely recommend visiting the Vitamin D Council site for additional information.

Meanwhile, I looking forward to spring and gardening so I can work on my tan!

Interesting Factoid: Vitamin D is not a vitamin at all.  It is actually a hormone.

Photo: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3647/3575240385_c6dd36985c_m.jpg

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