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Vitamin D: Vital Role in Your Health
Vitamins like C and E continue to be the darlings of many supplement lovers. But those vitamin superstars are being forced to share their throne with the long neglected vitamin D, which is finally getting the attention it may have always deserved.
No doubt, you're probably familiar with the role of vitamin D in promoting healthy bones, largely by promoting the absorption of calcium. "If you have a vitamin D deficiency, particularly in your older years, it can lead to osteoporosis or osteomalacia [bone softening]," says Lona Sandon, RD, assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas.
Bess Schear, now age 48, once aspired to be a professional chef, but now she is happy just cooking for her husband, Howard, and their closest friends. But she's not complaining because there was a time when she didn't even think this type of informal cooking was possible. Diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as a newlywed at age 23, Schear was forced to give up her dream of becoming a chef because it became increasingly harder to lift stockpots and chop veggies, even with the help of her sous...
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But there is recent and mounting evidence that links low levels of the vitamin to an increased risk of type 1 diabetes, muscle and bone pain, and, perhaps more serious, cancers of the breast, colon, prostate, ovaries, esophagus, and lymphatic system.
If you want to lower your blood pressure, vitamin D may be just what the doctor ordered. If you're trying to reduce your risk of diabetes, or lower your chances of heart attacks, rheumatoid arthritis, or multiple sclerosis, then vitamin D should be at the front of the line in your daily supplement regimen.
D-fense for Your Health
As the research into vitamin D is accumulating, it's hard to know where the accolades should start. "Activated vitamin D is one of the most potent inhibitors of cancer cell growth," says Michael F. Holick, PhD, MD, who heads the Vitamin D, Skin, and Bone Research Laboratory at Boston University School of Medicine. "It also stimulates your pancreas to make insulin. It regulates your immune system."
Just consider these recent studies:
- At Boston University, after people with high blood pressure were exposed to
UVA and UVB rays for three months, their vitamin D levels increased by more
than 100% -- and more impressively, their high blood pressure normalized.
"We've followed them now for nine months, and their hypertension continues
to be in remission," says Holick, professor of medicine, physiology and
biophysics at Boston University. One theory about how vitamin D reduces blood
pressure: It decreases the production of a hormone called renin, which is
believed to play a role in hypertension.
- In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association in December 2003, of more than 3,000 veterans (ages 50 to 75)
at 13 Veterans Affairs medical centers, those who consumed more than 645 IU of
vitamin D a day along with more than 4 grams per day of cereal fiber had a 40%
reduction in their risk of developing precancerous colon polyps.
- In a report in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in
February 2004, researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland showed
that elderly women who took a vitamin D supplement plus calcium for three
months reduced their risk of falling by 49% compared with consuming calcium
alone. Those women who had fallen repeatedly in the past seemed to gain the
most benefit from vitamin D.
- A study in the Jan. 13, 2004 issue of Neurology indicated that women who get doses of vitamin D that are typically found in daily multivitamin supplements -- of at least 400 international units -- are 40% less likely to develop multiple sclerosis compared with those not taking over-the-counter supplements.
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