To Prevent Vitamin D Deficiency,
Listen to Your Mom
By Seth D. Torregiani, D.O.
When it comes to staying healthy and preventing disease, it turns out that our mothers may have been the smartest physicians of all. Much of their sage health advice throughout the years holds up pretty well to modern scientific scrutiny. For example, when your mother (or grandmother) tells you to eat your vegetables, she is actually teaching you to prevent cancer and heart disease through diet. When she feeds you chicken soup to fight your cold, she may be modulating your immune system to decrease your cold’s symptoms.
Another piece of motherly advice, the admonition to go outside and get some fresh air and sunshine, also seems to have a solid basis in science – exposure to the sun helps prevent vitamin D deficiency.
Most people know vitamin D as the vitamin that is found in milk and that helps support healthy teeth and bones. While it is important for these reasons, vitamin D plays a host of other vital roles in the body – from cancer prevention and immune support, to controlling inflammation (and possibly reducing pain) to staving off seasonal depression. Ensuring that we have adequate levels of this important substance in our body is crucial to good health.
Sunlight is the main ingredient for transforming vitamin D from its inactive form in the skin, known as vitamin D2, to a more active one, vitamin D 3, which then gets converted by the liver and kidney to the bioactive form of the vitamin, which then works on the cells in our body.
Unfortunately, there is a near epidemic of vitamin D deficiency in this country, especially among the elderly. And the main culprit appears to be a lack of exposure to the sun. Most of us are not getting enough sun exposure to synthesize meaningful levels of vitamin D in our bodies to do the work it needs to do to prevent disease and keep us healthy.
Many elderly people do not get outside for long enough periods to ensure adequate exposure to sunlight. This has also become true of many working adults and children as well, who may spend most of their day inside an office or school, then much of the remaining daylight glued to a computer or television screen.
Thus, our modern lives, combined with concern over the very real health risks of overexposure to the sun (such as skin cancer and premature aging of the skin) have combined to create this new public health concern.
How concerned should we be about vitamin D deficiency? Recent research has implicated low vitamin D levels in up to 16 different kinds of cancer, and, it may actually have a role in preventing and treating some cancers, such as colon and prostate cancers. Furthermore, low levels of vitamin D are associated with increased susceptibility to certain infections, such as influenza. Finally, vitamin D is being looked at as an adjunctive treatment for diabetes, and it is well-known for its important role in maintaining bone and muscle health.
Fortunately, vitamin D can be taken as a supplement (vitamin D3 is best) and adequate sunlight exposure helps maintain normal levels in the body. As this issue gains greater attention in the medical community, physicians may also begin ordering blood levels of vitamin D, just as they order blood levels of cholesterol, as part of an overall health screening strategy for patients, and suggest supplementation if levels are low. If you are concerned that you may have low levels of vitamin D, it is advisable to speak with your physician to get your levels checked before taking supplements yourself.
How much sunlight is enough to ensure healthy levels of vitamin D without increasing risk for skin cancer? As your mom might have said…all things in moderation.
Dr. Seth Torregiani practices osteopathic manipulative medicine, acupuncture and integrative medicine in Newark, DE. He has recently added facial rejuvenation acupuncture to his practice. For more information, call (302) 266-9010 or visit www.dr-seth.com.