Health Benefits of Vitamin D - Food and Health

Health Benefits of Vitamin D 

Major sources of vitamin D are the skin the body can actually synthesize it as well as the GI tract from dietary intake major dietary sources are vitamin D fortified foods like milk fish eggs and the u.s. milk is the primary source and sometimes you hear people ask about what the factors are for vitamin D synthesis and sun exposure there's two things that matter one is how close you are to the equator or your latitude the closer you are the more you'll synthesize the second one is the skin tone and the darker skin the slower you absorb sunlight to convert to vitamin D so vitamin D absorption and metabolism is actually pretty complicated so I'm not going to get into it too much biochemists out there will know what I'm talking about but it basically you absorber it in your small intestine and then transfer it to your liver and then to your kidney it so has to be modified a few times before your body can really use it the way that it intends to so unfortunately there's more than one type of vitamin D the one that you want to use is called vitamin d3 or cholecalciferol and then of course if you have kidney or liver disease make sure to talk to your doctor so you're taking the right type because we've already might not be able to properly use the other ones what does the function of vitamin D as primary purposes calcium and phosphorus regulation in the body so when blood levels of calcium drop your body will synthesize and I use more vitamin D to bump that back up and then there's another hormone called parathyroid hormone that works in concert with that which we won't get into so vitamin D has a lot of protective and Beneficial health effects that I'm going to try to summarize briefly here appears to have a association with prevention of depression so people with low vitamin D levels are more likely to have depression it also appears to have protective effects against multiple sclerosis Alzheimer's and Parkinson's so it can help reduce the risk of developing those diseases it may have some role in sleep hygiene smoothly quality although that's not well proven it is it is associated with an overall reduced reduced risk of death especially in people over the age of 60 excuse me low levels of vitamin D are associated with an increased risk of breast cancer colon prostate pancreatic and ovarian cancer so if you have low levels increased risk therefore normal or stupid therapeutic levels will help reduce that risk somewhat it does play a role in heart and lung health.

I won't get into all the details and appears to concede efficiency appears to increase the risk of developing insulin resistance so you has a protective effect against diabetes and is associated with increased testosterone for all you weight lifters out there individuals with the deficiency will benefit from it as far as exercise and performance go once that he did note that supplementation may improve athletic performance and especially are reducing the risk of injury and fractures because it helps with calcium when strong bones because of that regulation it's also important and bone and joint health so having a great level people to reduce the risk of damaging bone density developing osteopenia and osteoporosis and increasing your risk of fractures so that's a good reason to keep your vitamin D levels level things that can cause deficiency most likely is inadequate sunlight exposure specially at higher altitude or higher latitudes or farther away from the equator and inadequate dietary intake those are the two big ones but you can also have malabsorption syndromes if you have problems their GI tract or liver or kidney disease so make sure you are in touch with your doctor if you think that you might have something that would cause you to have a deficiency usually the efficiency just leads to low serum calcium and over time that can increase your risk for fractures and osteoporosis I can also lead to things and they called rickets and children and osteomalacia and adults I won't get into that vitamin D toxicity is very rare and pretty much only associated with people who are taking too much of it as a supplement wouldn't worry too much about that many professional medical organizations recommend supplementing vitamin D intake let's see what else is there right here it's worth noting that the darker your skin the more sun exposure you need to generate adequate levels of vitamin D like I mentioned earlier so for example a Caucasian individual of Northern European descent generates more vitamin D than an african-american individual with the same amount of sun exposure and the same latitude so I do have the recommended daily allowances here and it's generally considered safe to take levels up to 2,000 international units per day for newborns under 12 months 400 international units per day for children aged one to adults age seventy the recommended daily allowance is six hundred and four adults over seventy is eight hundred but again for adults you can safely go up to two per day and of course you can talk to your doctor if you need to do more...