Let me help ease some of the confusion with a D-Briefing:
Vitamin D is actually misleading in that it's not a vitamin at all. It's a steroid hormone (cholecalciferol, try saying that 3 times fast) produced in our skin by the UVB rays of the sun. It's also seen in fortified foods like milk, breads, and orange juice. I'm not getting into the boring chemical science of how vitamin D is broken down in our body and where it goes. However, know that it plays a BIG role in our lives from life to death. It's responsible for the development, growth, and maintenace of our bodies...I guess this is why it's hitting all the headlines lately.
More and more researchers are looking into all the benefits of optimizing vitamin D levels in our bodies. Current research has linked vitamin D deficiency in heart disease, strokes, hypertension, asthma, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, chronic pain, arthritis, osteoporosis, weight gain, birth defects, and plays a major factor in at least 17 different types of cancer! Can you imagine what our society would be like if half of these medical conditions were alleviated...healthy? That's almost a fairytale with our American lifestyle!
If you were to go outside midday in the summer without sunscreen, our bodies would make about an average of 20,000IUs of vitamin D in 15 minutes. That's more than 100 times what the goverment recommends! I can already hear you asking: Doesn't the excess vitamin D get stored in our fat and become dangerous as it builds up? The answer - no. After we make 20,000IUs the same UVB light that makes the vitamin D, begins to degrade it so that we have a constant state produced in our bodies. Hence, no one has been know to have vitamin D toxicity from sunlight. Unfortunately, the same is not true when taken orally.
There's always an irony to every story right?
Our bodies produce vitamin D with sun exposure, but with sun exposure we risk getting skin cancer, and it's just not worth the risk. So our villian in this fairytale is sunscreen. All hope is not lost! Instead of drinking the equivelent of 50 glasses of milk (gag), or more than 10 tablets in multivitamins a day...you can take up to 4,000 IUs a day (1,000 IUs for kids). Make sure you get your blood checked 2-3 months later (25-hydroxyvitamin D). Making sure you have optimal levels, between 50-80 ng/mL of Vitamin D in your system, can help ward off diseases and make your body a finely tuned fighting machine!
Is Vitamin D our knight in shiny armour sitting on a white stallion waiting to take us to our healthy ever after? I can't vouch for any one but myself; however since I started taking 4,000 IUs of Vitamin D a day my immune system has been top notch this winter!
Instead of "The End", I'll end this fairy tale with "To Be Continued..." Feel free to share your experiences!
For more information please visit http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/
