Post by magnusmulliner on Apr 15, 2009 17:30:56 GMT
I’ve recently become interested in knowing more about ‘The Sunshine Vitamin’. Vitamin D. What is it and what does it do?
Vitamin D is actually not a vitamin! Vitamins are a collection of complex organic compounds that occur in food we consume. Vitamins have to be supplied through the diet as animals have lost the ability to synthesise them, and their absence in a diet can cause specific deficiency diseases.
In terms of chemical structure they have very little in common, but vitamins:
occur in tiny amounts in biological materials. Usually measured in ppm or IU’s.
are essential compounds of the biochemical or physiological systems of animal and plant life.
are chemically different from the three main nutrients - fats, carbohydrates and proteins.
Between 90/95% of all vitamin D in the human body actually comes from the sun, that is our skin produces this STEROL after converting UVB sunlight.
Taken from the Vitamin D Council website…
“The high rate of natural production of vitamin D3 cholecalciferol (pronounced cho·le·cal·ci·fer·ol) in the skin is the single most important fact every person should know about vitamin D—a fact that has profound implications for the natural human condition.
Technically not a "vitamin," vitamin D is in a class by itself. Its metabolic product, calcitriol, is actually a secosteroid hormone that targets over 2000 genes (about 10% of the human genome) in the human body. Current research has implicated vitamin D deficiency as a major factor in the pathology of at least 17 varieties of cancer as well as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, muscle wasting, birth defects, periodontal disease, and more.
Vitamin D's influence on key biological functions vital to one's health and well-being mandates that vitamin D no longer be ignored neither by the health care industry nor by individuals striving to achieve and maintain a greater state of health.”
Sunshine and Your Health
Here’s the important bit… If you regularly avoid sunlight exposure, research indicates a necessity to supplement with at least 5,000 units (IU) of vitamin D3 daily. To obtain this amount from milk one would need to consume 50 glasses. With a multivitamin more than 10 tablets would be necessary. Neither is advisable.
The skin produces approximately 20,000 IU vitamin D in response 20–30 minutes summer sun exposure—100 times more than the US government's recommendation of 200 IU per day!
How To Get Enough Vitamin D
Here’s the HOW TO… There are three ways for adults to insure adequate levels of vitamin D:
regularly receive midday sun exposure in the late spring, summer, and early fall, exposing as much of the skin as possible.
regularly use a sun bed (avoiding sunburn) during the colder months.
take 5,000 IU per day for three months, then obtain a 25-hydroxyvitamin D test. Adjust your dosage so that blood levels are between 50–80 ng/mL (or 125–200 nM/L) year-round.
The question that springs to my mind is… How come our bodies make so much of this sterol/vitamin so quickly? The main reason is because it’s so essential and important to our wellbeing. Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D) is formed in the skin when ultraviolet light of the correct wavelength, UVB, strikes bare skin. Enormous quantities of cholecalciferol are rapidly made in the skin if: the sun is high in the sky (midday and the summer season), your skin is not covered by clothes or sunblock, you stay in the sun until your skin just begins to turn pink (not red), you are not behind glass. Glass blocks virtually all UVB, preventing vitamin D from being made.
Studies show that if you go out in the summer sun in your bathing suit until your skin just begins to turn pink, you make between 10,000 and 50,000 units of cholecalciferol in your skin. Professor Michael Holick of Boston University School of Medicine has studied this extensively and believes a reasonable average of all the studies is 20,000 units. That means a few minutes in the summer sun produces 100 times more vitamin D than the government says you need! As discussed in other pages, this is the single most important fact about vitamin D. At least 85% of the UK population is vitamin D deficient and as you have read it is crucial to our wellbeing. Some other research has show that 77% of all cancers can be prevented by having enough Vitamin D in our bodies.
Here’s an interesting bit… The skin does another amazing thing with cholecalciferol. It prevents vitamin D toxicity. Once you make about 20,000 units, the same ultraviolet light that created cholecalciferol begins to degrade it. The more you make, the more is destroyed. So a steady state is reached that prevents the skin from making too much cholecalciferol. This is why no one has ever been reported to develop vitamin D toxicity from the sun, though it is possible when taking vitamin D orally.
Here’s the crux…
Block the Sun, Block Vitamin D
Remember, our ancestors lived naked in the sun for several million years. Then 50,000 years ago, some of us migrated north and south to places with less sun. Then we put on clothes, started working inside and living in cities where buildings blocked the sun. Then we started travelling in cars instead of walking, or riding horses, and glass blocked even more of the UVB in the sunlight. Then, only a few years ago, we started actively avoiding the sun and putting on sunblock. All this time we humans have been steadily reducing the tissue levels of the most potent steroid hormone in our bodies, one with powerful anti-cancer properties.
The really significant reductions in sunlight exposure have occurred since the industrial revolution, just the time the "diseases of civilization" like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer seem to have greatly increased. Pretty frightening when you think about it.
If you’d like to learn more about Vitamin D then I strongly recommend this non-profit organisation.
www.vitamindcouncil.org/news.shtml
Vitamin D is actually not a vitamin! Vitamins are a collection of complex organic compounds that occur in food we consume. Vitamins have to be supplied through the diet as animals have lost the ability to synthesise them, and their absence in a diet can cause specific deficiency diseases.
In terms of chemical structure they have very little in common, but vitamins:
occur in tiny amounts in biological materials. Usually measured in ppm or IU’s.
are essential compounds of the biochemical or physiological systems of animal and plant life.
are chemically different from the three main nutrients - fats, carbohydrates and proteins.
Between 90/95% of all vitamin D in the human body actually comes from the sun, that is our skin produces this STEROL after converting UVB sunlight.
Taken from the Vitamin D Council website…
“The high rate of natural production of vitamin D3 cholecalciferol (pronounced cho·le·cal·ci·fer·ol) in the skin is the single most important fact every person should know about vitamin D—a fact that has profound implications for the natural human condition.
Technically not a "vitamin," vitamin D is in a class by itself. Its metabolic product, calcitriol, is actually a secosteroid hormone that targets over 2000 genes (about 10% of the human genome) in the human body. Current research has implicated vitamin D deficiency as a major factor in the pathology of at least 17 varieties of cancer as well as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, muscle wasting, birth defects, periodontal disease, and more.
Vitamin D's influence on key biological functions vital to one's health and well-being mandates that vitamin D no longer be ignored neither by the health care industry nor by individuals striving to achieve and maintain a greater state of health.”
Sunshine and Your Health
Here’s the important bit… If you regularly avoid sunlight exposure, research indicates a necessity to supplement with at least 5,000 units (IU) of vitamin D3 daily. To obtain this amount from milk one would need to consume 50 glasses. With a multivitamin more than 10 tablets would be necessary. Neither is advisable.
The skin produces approximately 20,000 IU vitamin D in response 20–30 minutes summer sun exposure—100 times more than the US government's recommendation of 200 IU per day!
How To Get Enough Vitamin D
Here’s the HOW TO… There are three ways for adults to insure adequate levels of vitamin D:
regularly receive midday sun exposure in the late spring, summer, and early fall, exposing as much of the skin as possible.
regularly use a sun bed (avoiding sunburn) during the colder months.
take 5,000 IU per day for three months, then obtain a 25-hydroxyvitamin D test. Adjust your dosage so that blood levels are between 50–80 ng/mL (or 125–200 nM/L) year-round.
The question that springs to my mind is… How come our bodies make so much of this sterol/vitamin so quickly? The main reason is because it’s so essential and important to our wellbeing. Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D) is formed in the skin when ultraviolet light of the correct wavelength, UVB, strikes bare skin. Enormous quantities of cholecalciferol are rapidly made in the skin if: the sun is high in the sky (midday and the summer season), your skin is not covered by clothes or sunblock, you stay in the sun until your skin just begins to turn pink (not red), you are not behind glass. Glass blocks virtually all UVB, preventing vitamin D from being made.
Studies show that if you go out in the summer sun in your bathing suit until your skin just begins to turn pink, you make between 10,000 and 50,000 units of cholecalciferol in your skin. Professor Michael Holick of Boston University School of Medicine has studied this extensively and believes a reasonable average of all the studies is 20,000 units. That means a few minutes in the summer sun produces 100 times more vitamin D than the government says you need! As discussed in other pages, this is the single most important fact about vitamin D. At least 85% of the UK population is vitamin D deficient and as you have read it is crucial to our wellbeing. Some other research has show that 77% of all cancers can be prevented by having enough Vitamin D in our bodies.
Here’s an interesting bit… The skin does another amazing thing with cholecalciferol. It prevents vitamin D toxicity. Once you make about 20,000 units, the same ultraviolet light that created cholecalciferol begins to degrade it. The more you make, the more is destroyed. So a steady state is reached that prevents the skin from making too much cholecalciferol. This is why no one has ever been reported to develop vitamin D toxicity from the sun, though it is possible when taking vitamin D orally.
Here’s the crux…
Block the Sun, Block Vitamin D
Remember, our ancestors lived naked in the sun for several million years. Then 50,000 years ago, some of us migrated north and south to places with less sun. Then we put on clothes, started working inside and living in cities where buildings blocked the sun. Then we started travelling in cars instead of walking, or riding horses, and glass blocked even more of the UVB in the sunlight. Then, only a few years ago, we started actively avoiding the sun and putting on sunblock. All this time we humans have been steadily reducing the tissue levels of the most potent steroid hormone in our bodies, one with powerful anti-cancer properties.
The really significant reductions in sunlight exposure have occurred since the industrial revolution, just the time the "diseases of civilization" like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer seem to have greatly increased. Pretty frightening when you think about it.
If you’d like to learn more about Vitamin D then I strongly recommend this non-profit organisation.
www.vitamindcouncil.org/news.shtml