Vitamin D Good for What Ails You

It seems like every time we turn around there is more and more information on how our bodies utilize vitamin D. Another way of looking at it is what a vitamin D deficiency looks like. The same information can be interpreted as what ailments will increase your vitamin D ‘cure’. Since vitamin D deficiencies are linked to osteoporosis, depression, and autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, it is unsurprising that people (especially young people) who choose to block the sun, rather than embrace it, might suffer from the same in the long-term. Mainstream medicine pegs normal levels at under 50 ng/ml down to 30 ng/ml and even lower. According to Dr. Frank Lipman, those readings are sufficient "to prevent rickets or osteomalacia (soft bones), but not for optimal health."

The FDA says that nutrition and/or supplementation will never cure anything, only drugs ‘cure’ diseases. In one aspect they are right. If you are not deficient in a nutrient then increasing that nutrient will not do you a bit of good. This is why one person is helped and another doesn’t see any effects. But, more and more evidence is being shown that if you are deficient then increasing that nutrient will reduce the symptoms of that deficiency. Reducing the symptoms until they disappear (according to the FDA) evidently is not the same as ‘curing’ the ailment.

Hypertension is defined as high blood pressure. High blood pressure can do damage to your heart and arteries. After measuring several markers among both high and low serum D level subjects, they determined that vitamin D plays a role in reducing cardiovascular inflammation, arterial, and left ventricular heart stiffness among recently diagnosed hypertensive patients. Simply elevating vitamin D blood saturation levels from 30 to 50 ng/mL would equate to lowering the risk of becoming hypertensive by more than half.

Asthma is the constriction of the airways, making it difficult to get a full breath. Especially in children, vitamin D has been shown to help reduce the severity and prevalence of asthma symptoms, and may help quell the inflammation responsible for restricting airways and making it difficult for asthmatics to breathe Research has linked both vitamin D deficiency and lower levels of unprotected sun exposure to a higher risk of developing MS (multiple sclerosis). If you already have MS Increased exposure to sunlight may help alleviate the depression and fatigue associated with it, and may even reduce the overall level of disability caused by the disease, research suggests.

Is there a reason that older people are more likely to have rheumatoid arthritis? Could it be that they tend to get less sunshine, and therefore less Vitamin D than younger people? "Our study adds to the growing evidence that exposure to UV-B light is associated with decreased risk of rheumatoid arthritis," said Dr. Elizabeth Arkema, co-author of the study. "The mechanisms are not yet understood, but could be mediated by the cutaneous production of vitamin D and attenuated by use of sunscreen or sun avoidant behavior." Rheumatoid arthritis is considered an autoimmune disease. Other autoimmune diseases seem to respond in similar ways.

There is some strong evidence that optimum levels of Vitamin D seems to protect against many types of cancer. Bladder cancer is one of them. Vitamin D regulates a specific protein, FGFR3, that is a critical part in the development of this type of cancer. By regulating the FGFR3 protein, vitamin D controls metastasis of bladder cancer cells, the primary mechanism by which most cancers spread throughout the body and create remote tumors that result in death. Breast cancer is another one. Women in Saudi Arabia who have low vitamin D levels have six times the risk of having breast cancer than women with higher levels.

Have you ever wondered why one person can smoke like a chimney and never get cancer, while another stays completely away from them and gets lung cancer? It could be their vitamin D levels. A team of researchers from several esteemed academic institutions found that supplementing with or getting the equivalent of at least 800 international units (IU) of vitamin D daily can help reduce the risk of lung cancer among non-smoking, postmenopausal women by 63 percent. Is obesity a result of low vitamin D, or is low vitamin D a result of obesity? Because body fat can sequester vitamin D, it is now recognized that children and adults who are obese require 2 to 5 times more vitamin D to treat and prevent vitamin D deficiency,

The potential for vitamin D toxicity from supplementing comes at around 100 ng/ml serum level with the 25(OH)D test, which can be done every six months if you're concerned. The body shuts off vitamin D production from sunlight if it gets too high. As people age, the capacity for converting UVB ray sunlight diminishes and supplementing becomes necessary.