Vitamin D

[Rustic Pumpkin]

As Vitamin D is formed by the action of unfiltered sunlight on the skin for 15 minutes a day, daily for about 6 months to give a 12 month store of this vitamin in the liver, does anyone have any thoughts on the impact of the British summer 2008 on the Vitamin D levels of the population in general?

[keepersdaughter]

Hi Rustic. There has been quite a lot of talk on TV here recently (US) about the population here being dramatically low generally in Vitamin D.

For the past few months I've been back and forth between different doctors and hospital trying to figure out why I've been having some odd results with blood tests, among them Vitamin D. This really surprised me to say the least because I'm living in southern US, where we've experienced extreme drought conditions and blaring sun day after day after day. I eat well, including fish regularly, fish oil supplements etc. and yet my D was still low. Can't figure it out. I'm taking mega once a week dose of D prescribed by Dr. now and it's where it should be.

But this leads me to wonder why, taking into account all of the above, would D be low. If I can have low Ds no wonder with grey British summer would people experience this back home.

[Rustic Pumpkin]

Hi, Keepers. My reading shows that it is formed by a daily 15 minutes exposure of unfiltered sunlight directly on the skin. Hands and face is enough to be exposed, and we need 6 months of a daily dose to make enough to see us through the winter. The action of the sunlight causes cholesterol to rush to the surface of the skin where the sunlight turns it into vitamin D. It then gets taken to the liver where, as a fat soluable vitamin, it is stored until needed. If you don't get 6 months of your daily 15 minutes then you don't build up enough store in your live to see you through the winter months. Personally, I don't think I got enough to see me through two weeks of winter. And I can't recall the conditions of deficiancy.

[keepersdaughter]

Hi Rustic, that's the strange thing, I get so much more than 15 mins a day direct sun. However, and I may be totally off course here, but I'm also wondering about the increased use of sunblock. I wondering if this is somehow stopping the absorption of D in some small way too. I had a pre- skin cancer removed from my chest a couple of years ago, right where the sun hits your chest through the windscreen. I now have to put sunblock on that area and keep sunblock in the car to put on back of hands and lower arms (when I remember :rolleyes:). Could the sunblock be blocking the sunlight's D. Even so, with all the sun here I get on legs etc. I would have thought I'd have an excess not a deficiency. So with all the sunlight I get each day and I'm still deficient, I can only imagine how many grey days would lead to a national British deficiency. There has to be more to it than sunlight alone I think.

I have read that low vitamin D can lead to problems with heart disease.

[Rustic Pumpkin]

Everything to do with anything like this is a minefield. We have to become informed on our own initiative, sort through the contraindications and side effects, other issues etc ourselves and at the end of the day weigh up all the pros and cons while considering any hereditary or pre-existing factors that get thrown in for good measure!

Apparently, sunblock does affect Vitamin D formation, and you also cannot get the right rays if you get your sunlight through glass!

[keepersdaughter]

Here's a link re. possible problems associated with lack of sufficient D.

http://onetouchgold.com/gold/news/20081201elin005/?_DARGS=/lfog/frag/gold_signup.jhtml.2

The problem is there is so much info. out there. One year Vitamin E is the cure all for almost everything, then they say it doesn't do a thing and is bad in excess. Like you say, you have to assess things and use your own good judgement. I do have to say though, I've been feeling more energetic since on the D.

[Oola]

KD it might be that another deficiency is affecting your ability to 'naturally' absorb vit d form sunlight?