Sunbathe & Eat Fatty Foods to Stay Healthy!! (Vitamin D)

Member Name: chezza99

Product:	Vitamin D
Date:	05/04/09 (128 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Protects against a multitude of diseases, including cancer and MS

Disadvantages: Need to balance the risk against skin-care concerns and dietary ethics

A friend of mine has advanced osteoporosis and, being a geeky type of health nut, I offered to do some online research to help her find out about alternative therapies. She's a vegan, so I began by looking at dietary influences.

Vitamin D, the Sunshine Vitamin, is necessary for bone health. It activates calcium within your body - calcium builds bone, a process which goes on throughout our lives (though not in my friend, unfortunately). Did you know your bones are only eight years old??! There goes your excuse to get out of the gardening ...

The link between Vitamin D and bone health has been known for decades. Lack of the vitamin causes rickets in children, which is why it's added to baby milk. But I was astonished by more recent research into Vitamin D!

It is an important regulator for thyroid function and many other hormones, meaning your body cannot work properly without it - it now seems certain that Vitamin D can prevent and treat many immune-related illnesses including cancers and MS (multiple sclerosis). It looks as though our preoccupation with avoiding skin cancer has led to widespread deficiency. For example, Australia is reviewing its "slip, slap, slop" sun-protection policy: lack of vitamin D contributed to 26,500 cancer deaths a year there. By comparison only 1,648 Australians died from skin cancer in 2006.

Our bodies photosynthesise vitamin D, but that means we need our skin to be exposed to sunshine directly - not through glass, clothing or sun cream. You can take Vitamin D supplements, or increase your intake of oily fish, but it's thought that food sources of the vitamin are used far less efficiently by the body than its own, solar-powered, variety.

For people who are photosensitive, and those who live outside the tropics (that certainly includes us in the UK), recommended intakes of Vitamin D are likely to increase sharply, very soon. Current thinking is that we may need ten times today's recommended dose (about 4,000 IU per day) as supplements in winter.

There's more. Our bodies make the vitamin when sunlight meets cholesterol on the skin. It's then transported through the body as fat ... that is, Vitamin D cannot be made without cholesterol and it can't do its work without body fat. Specifically, yellow fat - that's animal fat.

Some time ago, a nutritionist told me "You don't need Vitamin D supplements unless you're a vegan red-head!" I didn't know how right she was. Soya milk and margarine are fortified with Vitamin D by law in the UK, although the jury's out on whether this synthetic form of the vitamin is as beneficial as the natural form.

For the sun-worshipping omnivores amongst us, it's all good - actually getting MORE sun exposure and MORE animal fats may protect us against cancers, degenerative diseases, diabetes, blood disorders, hormone disorders and tissue damage. Hurrah!

For my friend it's not such good news. She will not eat animal products, is very skinny and suffers from thyroid disease as well as osteoporosis. The one thing on her side is that she loves being outdoors. I've suggested she stops using sun-block: I hope she listens.

Some links to find out more:
http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind.asp
http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm/fuseaction/show/p ageid/1334
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/0805 27084255.htm
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/05/16/f-healt h-vitamin-d.html
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vi taminD/
http://www.vegansociety.com/food/nutrition/vitami nD.php

Summary: Convincing weight of new research suggests the "sunshine vitamin" wards off illnesses.