Having trouble logging in? Sign up for a free account Get unlimited access on Medscape. Tammi Leader Fuller, 55, is outdoors most of the time, running her Malibu, Calif.-based sleepover camps for grown-ups. Yet, she knows she does not get enough of D, the "sunshine vitamin," because it requires ultraviolet rays to be absorbed.""So I'm in the sun, but my D level was way low. Now I take a 10,000 IU supplement a day and eat vitamin D foods, and my level is almost normal." Vitamin D deficiency is not unique to people in cloudy, Northern states, said Kim Larson, a registered dietitian/nutritionist in Seattle and a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. It's a byproduct of our lifestyle.""We stay inside in the North to keep warm, or in the air-conditioning in the South to keep cool," Larson said. "Instead of going outside to play, we're inside, on our computers. When we're out, we wear clothing or sunscreen to protect us from cancer." Although the advent of D-fortified milk in 1932 eliminated widespread rickets (soft bones) among children, milk is no longer a diet staple.
Gone are the "Ozzie and Harriet" days when almost every meal included milk.About 42 percent of adults are D-deficient, according to the most recent National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey. The percentage varies a lot by race: Blacks have the highest rate, 82 percent.Most people she tests in Seattle lack enough vitamin D, Larson said, and it is especially prevalent among teens. "They complain of being sore and tired, and you think it's because of their busy sports schedules," she said. "But they aren't getting enough D." Half of the 60 adults in his 2014 study did not have enough D, said Peter Horvath, associate professor of exercise and nutrition sciences at the University of Buffalo in New York state. "You might not see the effects for years, though, so you don't know it," he warned. D is the closest thing to a magic bullet in the vitamin world, affecting our health from every angle. It maintains our calcium and phosphorous levels, which in turn strengthen our immune system, keep us sharp and help prevent heart disease, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes and many types of cancer.
D helps prevent osteoporosis (weak bones) and osteomalacia (bone pain).Doctors prescribe high D levels for the treatment of a range of ailments from autoimmune disorders to multiple sclerosis.Getting the right combination of food and sunlight, though, is complicated.Dark-skinned people are at greater risk for D deficiency because their skin shields them from sunlight. Older people's skin is less able to process sunlight. Being overweight means D is jailed by your fat tissues instead of used efficiently.Many common medications, including diuretics and anti-seizure drugs, counteract vitamin D.Ask your doctor to give you a vitamin D test, which may not be part of an annual exam, Larson said. Then a dietitian can prescribe a custom combination of foods and supplements.For Gail Rubin, 56, of Albuquerque, N.M., for example, a 2,000 IU (international units) supplement of D keeps her on track. She's a breast cancer survivor, has osteoporosis in her genes, eats D-rich foods but avoids the sun — all of which affect her D intake.
Rubin and Leader Fuller said they read food labels because scouting vitamin D in the grocery store is tricky. Outside of cod liver oil and some fish, few foods meet the daily requisite of 600 IUs for people ages 1 to 70 and 800 for ages 71-plus, as recommended by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies."Fortified" cereals vary from 10 percent of the recommended level of D in Raisin Bran to 25 percent in Total. The cup of 2 percent milk you add to your cereal gives you only 25 percent.Horvath favors D-rich sun-dried mushrooms. "Either eat mushrooms, which you can dry yourself in your backyard, or add the powdered form when you cook something like an omelet," he said. triangular logo, Larson said. They tell you those goods have been checked by independent labs.Ideally, also get some midday sunlight, sans sunscreen, although experts concede this is not a reality for many of us. During the winter, the Earth's tilt away from the sun reduces your exposure. "Then, you could lie outside naked in the snow and not get enough sun because of the sun's angle," Horvath said.
In the next decade, we'll see a "burst of research about vitamin D," Larson said. "We're learning more about the effects of D on autoimmune diseases, cancer and heart disease, especially."This will underscore the importance of D, Horvath said, the vitamin we must chase "despite our immobile, indoor lifestyles."read lessDesigning a good health regimen involves doing a lot of research, asking a lot of questions, and eventually doing your best to make the most informed decision possible. Choosing a sun protection method (part of a complete health regimen) is no exception.We’re told to protect our skin from skin cancer, that daily sun exposure increases our risk, and that we should lather up accordingly. But most sunscreens on the shelves contain harmful chemicals, such as oxybenzone, which has been shown in some studies to be carcinogenic and hormone-mimicing. One might wonder if it’s better to brave the sun alone than to wear a sunscreen that’s toxic. Luckily, there are natural, nontoxic ingredients, like zinc oxide, that can give us sun protection and peace of mind at the same time.
Except for one thing: Does protecting our skin from the sun, whether it be with natural or unnatural ingredients, prevent us from getting the vitamin D that we need? Today we explore this topic.Just so we’re clear on why we need to get enough vitamin D, here’s what it does:A study done in 2009 at the University of Colorado Denver correlated low vitamin D levels with more frequent cases of respiratory infection. Their tests showed that people with the lowest blood vitamin D levels reported having significantly more recent colds or cases of the flu.This study suggests a connection between cold and flu season and a lack of sunlight exposure during these colder months. Maybe in addition to upping our vitamin C intake to ward off colds, we should be incorporating some sun bathing as well.Despite the fact that it’s one of the most researched vitamins (technically not a vitamin at all, but a prohormone) there’s a lot of confusion surrounding vitamin D.Why is 50% of the population deficient?
Even those in warm and sunny climates, like Hawaii, are not making enough vitamin D. (Numbers vary, with another source stating that ¾ of US teens and adults have this deficiency. But in general, we are seeing deficiency go up.)To throw a personal anecdote in here, about a year ago our office got blood testing done to see where we were, nutrient-wise. The most common deficiency we saw was vitamin D.As you probably know, our bodies use sunlight to produce vitamin D. To get detailed, we excrete vitamin D2, which gets exposed the the sun and then pulled back into the body over a period of 24-48 hours as vitamin D3. This is the form that our bodies use.According to the Vitamin D Council, you only need to expose your skin to the sun for about half the time it takes for you to turn pink. So if your skin reacts quickly to the sun, the amount of time it takes you to produce vitamin D is less.The more skin you expose, the more vitamin D you will produce. Other factors include how close you are to the equator and the time of day.
And yes, if you use products that protect your skin from UV rays, you are reducing your production of vitamin D. According to Scientific American, wearing protective clothing and lotions can reduce your body’s production of vitamin D by 99%.But are people applying sunscreen extensively and often enough that they are preventing themselves from getting the sun they need? It could certainly be the case for some, but does it explain the widespread deficiency that we’re seeing?Vitamin D, like vitamins A and E, is fat soluble, so our bodies need fat in order to absorb it. In the case of vitamin D, the oil on our skin acts as the fat source. Recent research has shown that when we wash the oil off our skin, essentially every time we shower, we interfere with our uptake of vitamin D3 (a process which we said before, takes about 24-48 hours).This is more true with soaps and body washes that have harsh ingredients and/or are formulated to remove oil. These products can damage your skin’s acid mantle, which also causes problems like messing with your body’s natural ability to protect itself.
One alternative here is using a gentle and natural product, like our Rosemary Body Wash, that cleanses without disrupting the skin’s pH balance. However, even a natural product is going to remove some of the oil from your skin, and thus have an effect on your vitamin D uptake.Is it possible that vitamin D deficiency could be associated with our habits of daily (or even twice daily) showers? I definitely wouldn’t rule it out.And we shouldn’t forget our scalps. The skin on our heads can also synthesize vitamin D3, which is perhaps another reason to avoid washing our hair (aka washing away our oils) everyday.Many of us are under the impression that certain foods, like mushrooms for example, can provide us with the vitamin D that we need. Mushrooms do contain some vitamin D, specifically mushrooms that are grown in a certain way, and are then laid out with their gills exposed to the sun for at least 6 hours. When you’re buying mushrooms from the grocery store, it’s very unlikely that they’ve been grown using this method.
Other food sources of vitamin D are fatty fish eggs, red meat, and liver. For a lot of us, that’s not what we want to eat, so getting most all of our vitamin D from the sun is a high priority.Okay, we can’t actually give you “the bottom line.” Here’s the thing: Skin cancer and vitamin D deficiency are both prevalent afflictions, and you may be genetically more prone to one versus the other. You might make vitamin D quickly, or your skin might get sun damaged easily… We can’t tell you exactly what your body needs.One thing we can do is suggest that if you’re concerned, you ask your doctor for a Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D blood test. So if your levels are good, you can rest easy, and if they’re low, you can adjust your game plan. The other thing we’ll do is tell you what our team does to manage our vitamin D levels while also protecting our skin.Speaking about our team as a whole, we wear sun protection, either a hat or a natural sunscreen, on our faces pretty much everyday.
It’s an easy way to protect the part of your body that’s constantly exposed to the elements– not just sun, but also wind and air pollution.Many of us bike or walk to work in the morning, which means we’re out in the sun for somewhere between 30 mins to an hour a day. In general, we let our arms and scalps (and on particularly sunny Berkeley days, legs) soak up some sun during this time, sans sun protection.A full day at the beach, a long picnic or hike? We’re lathered up head to toe.A few of us supplement with vitamin D3 to prevent deficiency. You can read more about how we choose our supplements here.The last thing we do is cleanse with products that don’t strip our bodies, faces, and hair of our natural oils. This helps our skin absorb vitamin D, in addition to keeping it super soft.The rest is up to you to decide! Take a look at our sources below for more information on vitamin D and sun protection.Kris Carr – Vitamin D, How I Love TheeRenegade Health – The Health Benefits of Vitamin D: Exclusive Articles with Dr. J. E. WilliamsRenegade Health – Can You Wash Off Your Vitamin D With Soap?