WHAT IS the deal with vitamin D? It is known as the ‘sunshine vitamin’ because your body absorbs it during time spent outdoors, but then again, it is also in some of the foods you eat.
This vitamin has an important role to play in keeping your bones strong and your immune system healthy. Vitamin D, formally known as calciferol, is a fat-soluble nutrient that has two main responsibilities: helping calcium reach your bones, which keeps them strong, and supporting your immune system so it can fight off infections.
However, an estimated 35 per cent of adults in Jamaica have a vitamin D deficiency, and around the world, that number is much higher. Vitamin D is a little bit tricky, and harder to get enough of than you might expect.
Vitamin D is one of the 13 vitamins discovered in the early 20th century by doctors studying nutritional deficiency diseases. Ever since, scientists have defined vitamins as organic (carbon-containing) chemicals that must be obtained from dietary sources because they are not produced by the body’s tissues. Vitamins play a crucial role in our body’s metabolism, but only tiny amounts are needed to fill that role.
ESSENTIAL FOR HEALTH
Although vitamin D is firmly enshrined as one of the four fat-soluble vitamins, it is not technically a vitamin. True, it is essential for health, and only minuscule amounts are required, but it breaks the other rules for vitamins because it is produced in the human body; it is absent from all natural foods, except fish and egg yolks; and even when it is obtained from foods, it must be transformed by the body before it can do any good.
According to Dr Orlando Thomas, medical doctor and functional medicine practitioner at Thomas Medical and Shockwave Centre in Old Harbour, our bodies make vitamin D from exposure to sun. It is also naturally present in some foods, like salmon, and added to others, like milk. Depending on a few factors, like how sunny it is where you live, you might need a vitamin D supplement.
“Vitamin D is the most important of the lot, and essential for bone health, immune function, and brain health, and muscle. It is linked to reduced risk of dementia, depression, and infections. It is also synthesised through sunlight exposure and obtained via diet or supplements that regulates over 1,000 genes,” Dr Thomas said.
Your body naturally produces vitamin D when you are in the sun. When you are exposed to ultraviolet (UVB) rays from the sun, a compound in the skin (7-dehydrocholesterol) is converted to pre-vitamin D3, and then vitamin D; but the amount you make, and how readily you make it, depends on factors like age, skin tone and time spent outdoors.
“Low levels of vitamin D affect half the population, yet it is rarely diagnosed. It is linked to cancers, heart disease, diabetes, depression and autoimmune conditions,” Dr Thomas said.
Vitamin D’s best-known role is to keep bones healthy by increasing the intestinal absorption of calcium. Without enough vitamin D, the body can only absorb 10 per cent to 15 per cent of dietary calcium, but 30 per cent to 40 per cent absorption is the rule when vitamin reserves are normal. A lack of vitamin D in children causes rickets; in adults, it causes osteomalacia. Both bone diseases are now rare, but another is on the rise, osteoporosis, the ‘thin bone’ disease that leads to fractures and spinal deformities.
MUSCLE WEAKNESS OR CRAMPS
Vitamin D deficiency can be silent for a long time, or it may cause non-specific symptoms that are easy to overlook. These can include fatigue or low energy; muscle weakness or cramps; bone or joint pain, especially in the lower back or legs; mood changes, including irritability or depression; frequent infections or slower healing; hair thinning or loss[ and difficulty concentrating, or brain fog.
“You can make your vitamin D the old-fashioned way, by exposing your skin to UVB radiation in sunlight. It does not take much. Diet can help, but it is very hard to approach the new goals with food alone. Fish and shellfish provide natural vitamin D (oily fish are best). Other foods have even less vitamin D, which is why manufacturers fortify milk, some yoghurt, some orange juice, and many cereals with vitamin D,” Dr Thomas said.
Most people require supplements to get the vitamin D they need. It is the main benefit of a daily multivitamin; most provide 400 IU. Remember to read the labels carefully so you won’t get too little or too much, and although cod liver oil is rich in vitamin D, it has too much vitamin A for regular use.
“Most people take vitamin D without understanding how it works. One common mistake is supplementing without supporting nutrients. This can lead to calcium imbalance, kidney stones, or arterial calcification,” he said.
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