Vitamin D: Why It's Easy to Be Deficient
Have you ever seen
pictures of children with extremely bowed legs? It is a condition called
rickets and it's from low levels of vitamin D, causing the bones to become soft
and weak.
Vitamin
D is crucial for bone health. It helps your body keep a good balance of calcium
and phosphate in the blood. With low vitamin D levels, children can develop
rickets and adults can develop osteomalacia, a condition in which weak bones
cause bone pain, fractures, and muscle weakness.
Vitamin
D also has many other functions in the body. It helps control the growth of
your cells, improves your immunity, provides nerve and muscle strength, and
reduces disease-causing inflammation in your body.
Some
studies suggest it may help with type 2 diabetes, weight loss, multiple
sclerosis, high blood pressure, depression, heart disease, colon cancer, and
other types of cancer.
Nursing
home residents seem to have significantly fewer falls when they start a daily
vitamin D supplement.
While
the jury is still out on all of the studies related to vitamin D, we know it is
essential that you have enough but not too much so that it becomes harmful.
Simply put, you need to have optimal levels of vitamin D.
How
Do You Get Enough Vitamin D?
There
are 3 ways for you to get vitamin D:
1.
Your skin makes vitamin D through sunlight
2.
You can get vitamin D from food
3.
You can take a vitamin D supplement
Let's
start with the sun on your skin.
As
a general rule, exposure of the face, hands, arms, and legs to sunlight 2 to 3
times a week may produce enough vitamin D to stay healthy. Exposure should be
about 1/4 of the amount of time it takes for you to get a mild sunburn.
Depending on your skin color, this can mean from 5 to 30 minutes of sun
exposure between 10 am and 3pm.
It
is the ultraviolet B radiation in sunlight that helps your skin make vitamin D.
Complete cloud cover reduces this radiation by about 50%. Shade, including the
shade from severe pollution, reduces this ultraviolet B radiation about 60%.
How
about food?
Surprisingly,
there are not too many foods that are naturally high in vitamin D. The
following list includes the foods highest in vitamin D:
Vitamin
D Measured in IUs:
Cod
liver oil, 1 tbsp, 1,360
Swordfish,
cooked, 3 oz., 566
Sockeye
Salmon, cooked 3, oz., 447
Mackerel,
canned, 3 oz., 214
Sardines,
canned, 3 oz., 197
Tuna
Fish, canned in water, drained, 3 oz., 154
Orange
juice Vitamin D-fortified, 1 cup, 137
Milk,
Vitamin D-fortified, 1 cup, nonfat, reduced fat, & whole, 115-124
The
abbreviation IU stands for "international unit" and is what you will
find on food and supplement labels.
The
third source of vitamin D is from supplements.
In
general, there are two different forms of vitamin D on the market: ergocalciferol
(also known as vitamin D2) and cholecalciferol (also known as D3). I will
discuss their effectiveness in the following section.
How
Much Vitamin D Do You Need?
Well,
if you can get enough sun on your skin as described above, you really do not have
to worry about getting more vitamin D from food and supplements.
On
the other hand, food and supplements can provide a healthy dose of vitamin D if
you have any (or a combination) of the following risk factors for low vitamin
D:
·
You do not spend enough time outdoors,
especially in the sun.
·
You live in a northern latitude,
especially north of the Philadelphia-San Francisco line. For example, in
Boston, there is not enough sunlight to make vitamin D in your skin for about 4
months of the year. If you go further north to Edmonton, Canada, your skin
cannot make vitamin D for 5 months of the year.
·
You have been following your
dermatologist's suggestion of liberally using sunscreen to protect yourself
from the sun's radiation.
·
You have darker skin. Skin pigment
reduces the skin's ability to absorb the ultraviolet radiation in the sun. In a
bathing suit, a light-skinned person spending 10-12 minutes under peak July sun
in Boston can make 10,000 to 20,000 international units of vitamin D. It will
take an Asian Indian person, who has darker skin, about 30 minutes to make as
much vitamin D. It will take an African American with very dark skin about 120
minutes to make the same amount of vitamin D.
·
You are obese. Fat cells hoard vitamin
D. This reduces the circulating vitamin in your blood.
·
Your have a medical condition such as
Crohn's disease, celiac disease, and cystic fibrosis that impairs your gut's
absorption of vitamin D.
·
You are a strict vegetarian.
·
Your kidneys are impaired so they cannot
activate the vitamin D you have.
If
you have any of these risk factors, how many international units of vitamin D
should you aim for a day?
This
depends on whom you talk to. In recent years, various scientific authorities
came up with different amounts of vitamin D that they consider good for your
daily intake through food and supplements.
To
spare you the confusing numbers and arguments, here is the bottom line.
If
you are an adult, aim for 600 to 2000 IUs of vitamin D a day from your food and
supplements.
And
if you get vitamin D from supplements, keep in mind that unit for unit,
cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) is better used by your body than ergocalciferol
(vitamin D2).
In
general, vitamin D3 is about 3 times more powerful than vitamin D2.
How
Do You Know if You are Vitamin D Deficient?
If
you are low on vitamin D, you may have bone pain and muscle weakness. But,
often the symptoms of low vitamin D are very subtle. And even without any clear
symptoms, low vitamin D can badly affect your health in different ways.
Your
doctor can order a simple blood test, 25-hydroxy vitamin D, for you. Again, the
normal range for vitamin D also varies according to different authorities. But
here is what you need to know: a level of 30 to 50 ng/mL is considered optimal
for bone health and overall health.
If
your blood test suggests that you are very low on circulating vitamin D, your
doctor may give you a prescription for high-dose treatment for a period of
time. Make sure you follow his or her directions.
Can
You Get Sick From Too Much Vitamin D?
Yes
you can!
Too
much vitamin D in your body can make you not want to eat, lose weight, urinate
excessively, and have abnormal heartbeats. Even more seriously, it can make
your blood calcium level too high, resulting in damage to your heart, blood
vessels, and kidneys.
Unless
you are under close monitoring by you doctor, do not take over 4000
international units of vitamin D from food and supplements a day. Exceeding
this dose will increase your risk for having a toxic overload of vitamin D.
On
the other hand, your skin will not make too much vitamin D from sunshine. Your
body is such a marvelous creation that when you get too much sun, your skin
actually rids itself of the extra vitamin D automatically.
Keep
reading to discover the keys for defusing ticking health bombs that could be
lurking in your body. Click
here to discover the medical secrets necessary to know so you
can live a better, longer, healthier life.
Don't
miss your opportunity to discover the secrets to defusing ticking health bombs
that could be lurking in your body. It is possible to live longer & better.
Discover what you need to do NOW to keep you & your family disease-free.
Zen-Jay
Chuang, MD, is a primary care physician and Chairman of the Whole Health Alerts
advisory board. Click here to find out how Dr. Zen-Jay's
biodynamic, cutting edge approach to ancient and modern medicine can help you
achieve the best health of your life.
RE
Health, Inc. 781-878-7114. 100 Weymouth St, Bldg D, Rockland, MA 02370
Article
Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Dr._Zen-Jay_Chuang/1491804
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