Understanding The Role Of Vitamin D In Your Health – MADIGAN MEDICAL CENTER, JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, WASH. – Winter is coming to the Pacific Northwest. With the onset of the rainy season, the temperature drops and the hours of sunlight shorten. As the days get darker and we spend more time indoors, there are real health risks. This is vitamin D deficiency.
According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), nearly half of the US population is vitamin D deficient.
Understanding The Role Of Vitamin D In Your Health
“Military personnel, particularly those assigned to duty stations above the 35th parallel, such as Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, are no exception to the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency. Working to get adequate levels of vitamin D can help prevent respiratory disease. This reduces the risk of musculoskeletal injuries and optimizes performance and fitness, says Mary McCarthy, MD, senior nurse scientist at Madigan Medical Center, who has conducted extensive research on vitamin D.
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Vitamin D is an important micronutrient that helps many processes in the body. This hormone plays an important role in bone health by regulating calcium and phosphorus. Deficiency can cause soft and weak bones. Over time, children may develop rickets, and adults may develop osteoporosis. Deficiency has also been linked to poor mental health, leading to seasonal affective disorder and depression.
Vitamin D is often called the “sunshine vitamin” because the skin is able to produce vitamin D naturally when exposed to sunlight. Ideally, spending 10-15 minutes outdoors in the spring and summer should keep your vitamin D levels up year-round.
However, most people do not get enough vitamin D from sunlight alone. There are many reasons for this, including skin type, sunscreen use, and cloudy weather. Getting enough vitamin D is especially difficult in the winter.
Few foods naturally contain vitamin D. These include animal foods and mushrooms, with oily fish and cod liver oil being the best sources. The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for adults and children over 1 year of age is 15 mcg (600 international units [IU]). If you are over 70, increase to a maximum of 20 mcg (800 IU).
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“Finding a good source of vitamin D can be difficult, but many foods are fortified, such as milk, orange juice, cereals and oatmeal. Newer choices on the market include plant-based dairy options and eggs, especially from sun-raised chickens, or diets rich in vitamin D. Who knew?! Vitamin D content can vary, so check the label to determine vitamin D content,” McCarthy said.
The NHANES analysis showed low daily intake of vitamin D. On average, men consumed 5.1 mcg (204 IU) and women 4.2 mcg (168 IU). Children aged 2 to 19 years consumed 4.9 mcg (196 IU) more than men.
“Choose your vitamin D supplements carefully. Third-party certification guarantees that a product has successfully passed the analysis of its claims for quality, safety, performance and benefits. Look for the United States Pharmacopoeia Convention or USP certification mark on the product package, McCarthy says.
Supplementing with vitamin D can help bridge the gap and prevent deficiency. Many multivitamins and multimineral supplements contain vitamin D. There are also stand-alone vitamin D supplements. Look for vitamin D3 over vitamin D2 because D3 is more effective. Vitamin D is fat-soluble, so it is best absorbed when taken with foods that contain fat.
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Be careful, as too much vitamin D can be harmful. The Food and Nutrition Board recommends no more than 100 mcg (4,000 IU) per day for adults. Your body limits the amount of vitamin D it can make from the sun. However, excessive consumption can cause nausea, vomiting and kidney failure.
In general, vitamin D will be very important in the coming months. Include foods rich in vitamin D in your diet and include a vitamin D supplement in your daily regimen. These simple steps will help you avoid mistakes.
For more information, visit the Office of Dietary Supplements at ods.od.nih.gov or contact the Department of Nutritional Administration at Madigan Medical Center. Here are some facts about cicadas: How’s your appetite? Life Can Be Tough: Building Your Resilience Plan Bite the Bug: Safety Precautions for Kids Spice up your paddle with these three great exercises. What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? Prostate cancer: Brachytherapy is associated with a long-term risk of secondary cancers. Are there good side effects of the drug? Salmonella is tricky. Be careful Planning for hot weather is essential. Stronger legs enhance summer exercise: hiking, biking, swimming, and more.
The discovery of vitamin D in 1920 was the culmination of a long period of research into treatments for the childhood bone disease rickets. Within a decade, food fortification with vitamin D was underway, and rickets was rare in the United States. But solving the problem of rickets is just the beginning of vitamin D research. Research has shown that vitamin D may also affect other aspects of human health.
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Vitamin D is one of 13 vitamins discovered by doctors studying nutritional deficiency diseases in the early 20th century. Since then, scientists have defined vitamins as organic (carbon-containing) chemicals that must be consumed through food because they cannot be produced in the body’s tissues. Vitamins play an important role in our body’s metabolism, but only small amounts are needed to fulfill this role.
Vitamin D is listed as one of the four fat-soluble vitamins, but it is not technically a vitamin. In fact, it is very important and is needed in very small amounts. However, it breaks other rules regarding vitamins because it is produced by the human body and is not found in all natural foods except fish and egg yolks. Even when taken from food, they must be transformed in the body before they can do any good.
As habits change, many of us can no longer rely on our bodies to produce vitamin D the old-fashioned way. Instead, we increasingly rely on artificially fortified foods and pills to supply us with this essential nutrient. In today’s society, this substance may actually fit the technical definition of a vitamin.
Vitamin D is not one chemical, but several chemicals. Its natural form is produced in the skin from cholesterol in its commonly used form.
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. In contrast, most dietary supplements are made by exposing plant sterols to UV energy to produce vitamin D.
Although they are combined under the name vitamin D, neither works until the body does its magic (see picture).
It is transported to the liver and then to the kidneys, where it is converted into active vitamin D.
The first stop is the liver, where vitamin D absorbs additional oxygen and hydrogen molecules.
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Or 25(OH)D. This is a chemical that doctors usually measure to diagnose vitamin D deficiency. However, although 25(OH)D is used for diagnosis, it cannot function until it reaches the kidneys. From there we get the last pair of oxygen and hydrogen molecules.
Vitamin D’s best-known role is to keep bones healthy by increasing calcium absorption from the gut. When vitamin D is deficient, the body can absorb only 10 to 15 percent of dietary calcium, but when vitamin D supplies are normal, 30 to 40 percent is usually absorbed. If a child lacks vitamin D, rickets develops. For adults
. Two bone diseases are now rare in the United States, but another is on the rise.
Low vitamin D levels cause your bones to store less calcium, which increases the risk of fractures. Even though vitamin D doesn’t do much more than protect your bones, it’s still important. But researchers are beginning to gather evidence that it can do much more. In fact, many tissues in the body have vitamin D receptors, proteins that bind to vitamin D. Receptors in the intestine capture vitamin D and ensure efficient absorption of calcium. But similar receptors are found in many other organs, from the prostate to the heart, blood vessels, muscles, and endocrine glands. And ongoing research shows that good things happen when vitamin D binds to these receptors. A key requirement is getting enough vitamin D, but many Americans don’t.
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When most men rolled up their sleeves to work in the sunny fields, vitamin D deficiency was rare. But that changed as work moved from the farm to the office. People of color are especially at risk because pigmentation can reduce vitamin D production in the skin by more than 90%. Deficiencies are also common in patients with intestinal disease that limits fat absorption and in patients with kidney or liver disease that reduces the conversion of vitamin D to its active form, calcitriol (1,25(OH)2D). In addition, some medications reduce the availability or activity of vitamin D. Even among humans, the risk of vitamin D deficiency increases with age.
Although criteria vary, most experts agree that 25(OH)D levels below 20 ng/mL (nanograms per milliliter) indicate clear vitamin D insufficiency, while levels of 20 to 30 ng/mL are borderline.
A variety of factors may play a role. limited exposure