How vitamin D works with your body?

A fantastic hormone is working in your body right now. It has been called a master hormone, and it helps regulate blood pressure, bone density, mood and behavior, muscle strength, hair growth, immune function, and programmed cell death. This process of programmed cell death is called apoptosis, and it is important in stopping damaged or cancerous cells from reproducing.

What could it be? Growth hormone? Testosterone? Insulin?

None of the above! In fact, medicine was ignorant of its multiple functions for so long, that it was named a vitamin, because just a little bit of it prevents rickets. Still give up? It’s vitamin D!

Whereas even a few years ago, scientists thought this amazing vitamin only controlled bone health, we now know that there are vitamin D receptors on almost every cell in the body.

Humans obtain vitamin D by conversion of substances in the skin after exposure to UVB, light from the sun. We can make up to 50,000 IU of vitamin D in our skin in one day, although 20,000 IU is much more common. As the amount in our skin increases, the skin production diminishes, keeping the supply steady—assuming we get a lot of sunshine. Compared to the paltry amount in foods (cod liver oil contains 400 IU, and fortified milk contains only 100 IU—just enough to prevent rickets), our skin was clearly intended to be our major source of vitamin D. But there are several problems with obtaining your vitamin D only from the sun, especially in the Western world.

The farther north we go, the less vitamin D we can make from our skin. Experts tell us that, in the winter, it is impossible for those who live above the 37th parallel to get enough vitamin D from sunlight. This represents a line starting in Santa Cruz, just south of San Francisco, California, continuing eastward at the northern border of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, and ending at the coast. The majority of Americans would be vitamin D deficient in winter even if they wore no clothes and stayed in the sun all day long!

Even in the summer, there are many factors fighting our vitamin D production. Given the concerns over skin cancer and aging, many people use sun block on a daily basis. Sun block even appears in make-up and lotions. We spend most of our time indoors where window glass blocks from our skin the UVB light necessary for the production. Darkly pigmented skin functions as natural sun block, so it is estimated that dark skin requires 5 to 6 times longer to make the same amount of vitamin D as a fair or light skin. The skin of the elderly is less efficient at conversion, and obese people also are at high risk of vitamin D deficiency.

So living in the South, in the summer, we all should have plenty of vitamin D, right? Wrong again. Health professionals in the sunny South have been checking vitamin D levels, and despite well-tanned skin, normal vitamin D levels are rare, even in late summer, when levels should be highest.

So how should we get our vitamin D? And what kind is best? Supplementing vitamin D, specifically D3, is necessary for most people in industrialized nations. Vitamin D3 is also called cholecalciferol, and while the recommended daily allowance of up to 600 IU is only enough to prevent rickets, experts are now calling for much higher amounts (up to 5,000 IU) to reap all the benefits of this remarkable hormone. Vitamin D3 can be extracted from wool in an animal-friendly way, just as sheep are shorn without harm so that the wool can be used for clothing. Acquiring vitamin D from wool actually mimics what animals do when they lick their fur to obtain vitamin D.

Vitamin D2, also called ergocalciferol, is made from irradiated mushrooms. This substance has a very weak vitamin D effect and a very high side-effect profile. Although this is probably the kind of vitamin D your doctor would prescribe, his decision is based upon pharmaceutical industry marketing and not concern for what is healthiest or most natural. I would never recommend vitamin D2.

Vitamin D helps promote bone health, cardiovascular health, emotional health, strength, hair growth, immune function, and normal cell life span. So take at least 5,000 IU daily to ensure the best health you can have!

Vitamin D the Hormone

Vitamin D is actually a HORMONE, which acts as a master hormone, regulating and orchestrating what the rest of the body’s hormones are doing. In addition, it is responsible for bone health, cardiovascular health, emotional health, strength, hair growth, immune function, and normal cell life span. Recent research into this substance reveals just how powerful it can be!
Low vitamin D levels are associated with high blood pressure, and a number of studies suggest improvement with supplementation. Animal models suggest that the association of low vitamin D with high blood pressure is due to over-activation of the renin-angiotensin system due to vitamin D deficiency. People with higher vitamin D levels are at DECREASED risk for heart attack.

Dual roles in the immune system both make autoimmune diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, or Type 1 Diabetes, less likely or less severe; but also mean greater ability to ward off infections. For example, vitamin D tells white blood cells to produce their own antibiotic, called calthelicidin. Before we had antibiotics, doctors used vitamin D to treat tuberculosis. Modern researchers have found that a single dose of vitamin D makes people who were exposed to tuberculosis less susceptible than those who didn’t receive vitamin D.

An astounding study performed in Finland showed that giving infants 2,000 IU of vitamin D daily for one year cut the risk of Type 1 diabetes by almost 80%! Most interesting, the effect lasted for 30 years. Although vitamin D is not a vaccine, these results prove to have a better track record than ANY vaccine we have ever had.

Low vitamin D levels have been associated with 18 different types of cancer, including breast, rectal, colon, prostate, lung, oral, esophageal, stomach, bladder, ovarian, renal, uterine, cervical, gallbladder, laryngeal, pancreatic, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Researchers were interested in improving bone health in menopausal women north of the ‘sun belt’, (where the sun exposure was inadequate to maintain healthy vitamin D levels). They gave one group a placebo, another group 1000 mg of calcium daily, and the third group 1,000 mg of calcium PLUS 1,000 IU of vitamin D daily. The news flash was the decreased incidence of cancer in the vitamin D groups—the risk was cut by 60% for ALL TYPES OF CANCER. When they excluded the cancer cases diagnosed in the first year, which were more likely already present when the supplementation began, the risk was cut by 75%.

The association of vitamin D supplementation and reduced fracture risk in the elderly may be associated with both stronger bones and stronger muscles. Even patients whose bone mineral density did not change were less likely to experience broken bones. This may be due to stronger muscles and that falls were less likely.

Low vitamin D levels are associated with depression and seasonal affective disorder. Yet even people without a mood disorder reported improved mood in placebo-controlled studies. Vitamin D is required for the brain to make norepinephrine and epinephrine, and without these substances, it is difficult for the brain to feel “happy”.

Vitamin D helps promote bone health, cardiovascular health, emotional health, strength, hair growth, immune function, and normal cell life span. So take at least 5,000 IU daily to get the best health you can!

For more on vitamin D, check out this helpful resource. Vitamin D Council