Vitamin D: The One-Molecule Wonder

Current research shows that vitamin D not only betters bone health and provides muscular stability but it also prevents gastrointestinal and neurological ailments. ^{4, 5} Recently, vitamin D has been shown to play a role in cancer prevention, raising its stature amongst healthcare professionals.^{4, 6} Vitamin D is unique both in function and in its manner of absorption. And that means a special effort is needed to understand to make sure you are getting the full benefit of this wonder molecule.

Diet is Not the Primary Source of Vitamin D

Your body doesn’t produce vitamins on its own, but derives them from their precursors consumed in food. Vitamin D is an exception in that the availability from food sources is low. ^{1, 5, 7} As a result, the FDA directs companies to add it synthetically to products. ⁷ Milk, fruit juices, cereals are all fortified with vitamin D in order to curb the rising vitamin D deficiency worldwide. The other sources are fish - sea fish, river fish, fatty fish etc. and eggs. Hence, vegetarians often depend on dietary supplements to fulfil their body’s vitamin D needs.

But Dietary Supplements Don’t Suffice

Dietary supplements predominantly contain vitamin D2, the plant form of vitamin D. ^{1, 4, 7} Our health requires vitamin D3, which is the active form of vitamin D. To utilize D2, it has to undergo additional cycles of hydroxylation and UV-mediated processes, which reduces the speed of its utilization. Also, vitamin D2 only contains one-third of the activity of vitamin D3. ²

Sunlight Arms You With Maximum Vitamin D

Sunlight breaks down a universal form of cholesterol to form Vitamin D’s precursor in the skin cells. This means that the best way to stack up vitamin D is to be out in direct sunlight, while taking precautions to prevent over-exposure, of course.

From the skin, vitamin D’s precursor travels to the liver where it changes to an intermediate, calcidiol. Calcidiol moves to the kidney where a water molecule is added to it to form calcitriol, the primary form of vitamin D in humans.

Vitamin D Helps Burning Fats

Since cholesterol is one of vitamin D’s precursors, more production of vitamin D means more utilization of fats. Vitamin D balances plasma lipid concentrations, ^{4, 6} thereby promoting heart health. It’s no wonder that morning workouts enrich our bones and muscles while increasing our breathing capacities. Read more about Cholesterol...

Vitamin D Builds the Body’s Natural Immunity

Vitamin D activates natural killer cells, one of the immune cells that act on foreign bodies surfacing the skin. Vitamin D helps in treating autoimmune diseases, like multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease, where it acts an immune modulator. ^{2, 6} Vitamin D reduces risks to viral infections by boosting engulfing properties of specialized immune cells known as macrophages.

Vitamin D’s Ability to Prevent Cancer

Most importantly, vitamin D affects the expression of at least 10% of our genes. ^{5, 6, 8} This is owing to the high availability of receptors for vitamin D in our DNA. ⁸ Researchers at the University of Oxford found more than 2700 binding sites of vitamin D on the human genome. These abilities help vitamin D to prevent cancers. ^{5, 8}

Autoimmune Diseases Can Be Treated With Vitamin D

Similarly, autoimmune diseases, diseases present from birth that occur because of errors in our DNA, have found solutions in Vitamin D. It affects 229 genes associated with autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes and Crohn’s disease, reports ScienceDaily.

Conclusion

A “wonder molecule” is an appropriate moniker for a nutrient that can influence so many parts of human health including preventing cancer and inhibiting diabetes. The flipside is that although increasing amounts of vitamin D potentially prevents cancer and diabetes, over-absorption of vitamin D doesn’t solve the problem. It only leads to vitamin D toxicity.

Thus, the trick is to absorb vitamin D naturally on a regular basis, but not overdose. This also points to the fact that building up on this one nutrient can arm us with immunity towards a host of chronic health conditions. Hence, it’s best not to ignore vitamin D deficiency, especially since 2 out of 5 Americans are deficient. (CDC, 2015).

References

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