Winter and Your Need for Vitamin D

For many years Vitamin D deficiency was thought to be uncommon in the U.S. and associated with such muscloskeletal health conditions as rickets, osteomalacia, osteoporosis, and other disorders of the bones.

However modern research has found that Vitamin D deficiency is actually common among a majority of Americans as the Daily Recommend Allowance was woefully inadequate. We have discovered that Vitamin D plays a significant role in the prevention of Heart Disease, Hypertension, Arthritis, Chronic Pain, Pre-eclampsia in pregnancy, Depression, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Obesity, Premenstrual Syndrome, Muscular Weakness, Fibromyalgia, Diabetes, Crohn’s Disease, Dementia, Premature Birth, Multiple Sclerosis, Autoimmune disease, Autism, and Cancer.

It was the ground-breaking research that discovered that adequate Vitamin D levels can significantly decrease the risk of 16 types of cancer including breast, prostate, rectal/colon, pancreatic, lung, ovarian, and skin cancers that changed the medical world’s perspective on the importance of Vitamin D. More importantly, new evidence suggests that the type of cancer isn’t so important because vitamin D play a vital role in preventing ALL types of cancer. You can imagine if a pharmaceutical drug could prevent practically every form of cancer known to humankind the fanfare in the media would be deafening. Even though Vitamin D is not patentable per se, it has caught the attention of the medical establishment.

Its important to point out that Vitamin D is not a vitamin, but actually a hormone, meaning the body can produce vitamin D. Through a complex process the liver converts cholesterol (yes, cholesterol) into the the precursor of vitamin D which is then transported to the skin to be converted via sunlight into the inactive form of Vitamin D.

Vitamin D deficiency in the U.S. and Canada

You are probably wondering at this point if you are Vitamin D deficient, and chances are if you live in the Pacific Northwest, the answer will be yes. In fact, since the discovery of the new roles of vitamin D wider scale testing of vitamin D levels have found that over 80% of Americans and Canadians are deficient in vitamin D. This is especially true for the elderly, dark skinned, overweight, or chronically ill individuals.

Why are we vitamin D deficient as a nation? As a Naturopathic physician, I’m prone to point to diet as a culprit and that would be partially correct. No doubt that junk and fast foods are utterly devoid of nutrients, and our consumption of Vitamin D rich foods (including fish, Vitamin D fortified foods, sun dried mushrooms, and eggs) are limited for the most part. Ironically the biggest role in the widespread deficiency of Vitamin D is the use and abuse of sunscreen. Yes, sunscreen can prevent sunburns by blocking UVB rays – which have been correlated with causing skin cancer.

However, ultraviolet-B (UVB) rays are necessary for the production of Vitamin D. Add to this the amount of sun light needed daily to produce adequate levels of vitamin D varies significantly depending where you live. The closer to the equator the less time needed to make sufficient amounts of vitamin D. In fact, in Oregon we recieve Vitamin D producing sunlight between mid June to late August – on a good year! Add to this our near obsession with sun screen and we have an epidemic on our hands! Curiously enough, many of the ingredients found in many brands of sun screen have been identified as cancer causing. Furthermore, several studies have found that melanoma – a very dangerous form of skin cancer – is more common in office workers who work by windows than individuals who work outdoors. This is in part because the other ultraviolet ray (UVA) is the primary culprit for skin cancer, and it penetrates through windows and is much stronger year round. Interestingly enough, exposure to adequate amounts of UVB – and thus enough sunlight to produce healthy levels of vitamin D – actually reduces the risk of skin cancer!

Osteomalacia (bone softening) has been documented in women who cover all of their skin whenever they are outside for religious or cultural reasons. But more commonly, the application of sunscreen with an SPF factor of 8 reduces production of vitamin D by 95%!

The Risk Factors for Vitamin D Deficiency

As mentioned, the amount of usable UVB rays, which vary by region and season, determine your overall vitamin D levels, but there are other risk factors that lead to vitamin D deficiency:

* Dark skin: People with dark-colored skin synthesize less vitamin D on exposure to sunlight than those with light-colored skin. The risk of vitamin D deficiency is particularly high in dark-skinned people who live far from the equator. As an example in Somali, autism doesn’t exist – there isn’t even a word for the condition in that language. However, Somalian refugees living in Sweden have an alarmingly high rate of autism among the children born in this sub-arctic country, much more so than the lighter skinned native Swedish. The Somali population has come to call this the “Swedish Disease”.

* Aging: The elderly have reduced capacity to synthesize vitamin D in skin when exposed to UVB radiation, and the elderly are more likely to stay indoors or use sunscreen, which blocks vitamin D synthesis.

* Fat malabsorption syndromes: Cystic fibrosis (a genetic disorder) and bile deficient based liver diseases impair the absorption of dietary vitamin D. Additionally, the synthesis of vitamin D via the liver is often impaired as well.

* Inflammatory bowel disease: People with inflammatory bowel disease like Crohn’s disease appear to be at increased risk of vitamin D deficiency.

* Obesity: Obesity increases the risk of vitamin D deficiency. Once vitamin D is synthesized in the skin or ingested, it is deposited in body fat stores, making it less available to people with large stores of body fat.

How Does Vitamin D Prevent Cancer?

Vitamin D’s protective effect against cancer works in multiple ways, including:

* Increasing the self-destruction of mutated cells (which, if allowed to replicate, could lead to cancer)

* Reducing the spread and reproduction of cancer cells * Causing cells to become differentiated (cancer cells often lack differentiation)

* Reducing the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones, which is a step in the transition of dormant tumors turning
cancerous

A study by Dr. William Grant, Ph.D., an internationally recognized research scientist and vitamin D expert, found that about 30 percent of cancer deaths – which amounts to 2 million worldwide and 200,000 in the United States – could be prevented each year with higher levels of vitamin D!

Get Your Vitamin D Levels Checked Today

We’ve established the important role that vitamin D can play in both cancer prevention and now even treatment. I highly recommend getting you Vitamin D level checked. This is a simple blood test should be performed at least annually, most labs offer this service, and I order it regularly with my patients. The correct test is the 25(OH)D, also called 25-hydroxyvitamin D, which is the better marker of overall D status than the other tests available. There have been debates between practitioners and labs as to what defines adequate amounts, however the new baseline per current research states that Vitamin D blood levels should be a minimum of 50 ng/mL.

This is the marker that is most strongly associated with overall health. This holds true for both men and women – especially if you or anyone in your family has or had cancer!!

How Much Vitamin D Do You Need?

Based on the most current research, the recommendation for dosage via oral supplementation is 35 IU’s of vitamin D3 per pound of body weight. As an example, for a child weighing 40 pounds, the recommended average dose would be about 1,400 IU’s daily, and for a 150-pound adult, the dose would be just over 5,000 IU’s.

That said, it’s important to understand that vitamin D requirements are highly individual, since your vitamin D status is dependent on numerous factors, such as skin color, your location, and the level of sunshine you’re exposed to on a consistent basis. The only way to determine the correct dose is to get your blood tested since there are so many variables that influence your vitamin D status.

Vitamin D Supplements

Regarding the use of vitamin D supplements, vitamin D3 is recognized as the most effective form you can take. Vitamin D2 is typically synthetic and isn’t absorbed very well. Additionally, many of the fish oil does not contain enough vitamin D if blood level show you to be deficient. It should also be mentioned that taking vitamin A and D together has been found to reduce the anti-cancer properties of vitamin D, so if you are taking Vitamin D for the anti-cancer properties its best to take Vitamin A and D far apart from one another. On a positive note taking vitamin K2 with vitamin D3 enhances the overall effects of vitamin D, and is especially important for anyone with osteopenia or osteoporosis.

I find powder or liquid vitamins to be more effective than either pills or capsules. At Blue Sky Wellness Studio we use both isotonic formulations (that take about 5 minutes to enter the blood stream) or sub-lingual emulsified drops to get both better and faster results.

Conclusion

If you have not had your Vitamin D level checked recently, now is the time as winter can wreak havok on your health. Dr. Soszka is registered with most labs in the Portland metro area and can order and interpret your test to guide you on your way to optimal health. Call for an appointment today!