Hollywood…Law and Order…SVU on sunlight, vitamin D deficiency and the Sunscreen Scare.

This video was sent to me from Canada, who has a Vitamin D awareness month every year in November.
The video talks about a girl being out of the sun for many years and her associated vitamin D deficiency because of it.
They also mention the Sunscreen industry and the Sun Scare campaigns that has made a generation of people
who have vitamin D deficiencies. They finally got it right!

Watch video on photobucket.

Sunlight, vitamin D, sunscreens and drama: is Hollywood (or TV drama) beginning to pay attention?

A friend just told me about watching an episode of Law and Order, Special Victims Unit.

The storyline involved a woman who had been locked up for four years, and one of the characters in plot mentioned that the victim of this heinous crime was terribly deficient in vitamin D.

Amazingly, he went on to say that a whole generation is now vitamin D deficient due to applying sunscreens when venturing outdoors.

Hallelujah!

Is the media starting to wake up to one of the most atrocious crimes of all—vitamin D deficiency brought on by the advice of the American Academy of Dermatology and other “professionals” who insist that we never go outside without “protection?”

I hope so. The media are a powerful force for either good or evil in society, and it appears that at least this one time, they got it right.

How to get vitamin D during the winter months? Tanning? Supplements?

Video is about getting vitamin D in winter months through tanning beds or supplements!

Vitamin D and depression: how SAD!

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of winter-time depression experienced by people those who live in northern latitudes such as those of New York, Seattle, all of Canada, and Northern Europe.

I believe it is primarily a disorder of sunlight/vitamin D deficiency.

Vitamin D, when administered in late winter, produces a positive effect on mood in only five days.[1]

One theory for this is that vitamin D stimulates the brain to produce more serotonin.

In a wintertime experiment, serum vitamin D levels doubled in six months through supplementation and dramatically increased scores on a wellbeing assessment.[2]

Two groups were given either 1,000 IU or 4,000 IU of vitamin D daily. And although both groups improved, the higher dose produced better results.

In another investigation, researchers studied the association between vitamin D levels and the risk of mood disorders in the elderly.

The results were impressive. Those whose vitamin D levels were deficient—defined as less than 20 ng/ml—had 11.7 times the incidence of depression when compared to those whose vitamin D levels were highest.

Usually an association is considered meaningful when a measured factor correlates to a 50% increase or decrease.

In this case, the correlation between vitamin D deficiency and risk of mood disorders was a staggering 1,169 percent![3]

In addition, the researchers measured cognitive ability (mental capabilities).

In two of four tests, those with vitamin D deficiency exhibited cognitive performances that were 5.22 times and 3.22 times poorer than those who were not deficient.

Everyone that has ever ventured outside on a sunny spring day after a long winter, or even visited a tanning bed during winter, know how much the mood is elevated by the experience.

It is likely that the combination of light and vitamin D produce the effect.

Keep your vitamin D levels high this winter!

[1] Lansdowne, A. et al. Vitamin D3 enhances mood in healthy subjects during winter. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 1998;135:319-23.
[2] Vieth, R. et al. Randomized comparison of the effects of the vitamin D3 adequate intake versus 100 mcg (4,000 IU) per day on biochemical responses and the wellbeing of patients. Nutr J 2004;3:8.
[3] Wilkins C. et al. Vitamin D Deficiency Is Associated With Low Mood and Worse Cognitive Performance in Older Adults. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry;2006;14:1032–1040).

Vitamin D reduces the risk of placental infection: another boon for women.

Earlier, I wrote that autism was linked to vitamin D deficiency in pregnant mothers, and that women’s cancers were dramatically reduced by regular sunlight exposure. Now, research indicates that the risk of placental infection is impressively lowered by increasing vitamin D levels.[1]

This research did not surprise me. Immunity is enhanced by high vitamin D levels through the increased production of an antimicrobial peptide called cathelicidin, which keeps both bacterial and viral infections at bay. This is the exact reason that flu occurs almost exclusively in winter months in both hemispheres; blood levels of vitamin D are much lower in winter months (see my earlier posts)

In this research, placental cells were exposed to E. coli bacteria and then treated with vitamin D. The treatment reduced the risk of infection by about 50%.

Remember that there is also a dramatic reduction in the risk of breast and ovarian cancer among women with high sunlight exposure and high vitamin D levels; now we can add one more advantage of vitamin D to the list of benefits for female reproductive tissue.

[1] Liu, N. et al. Vitamin D Induces Innate Antibacterial Responses in Human Trophoblasts via an Intracrine Pathway. Biol Reprod 2008 Nov 12. [Epub ahead of print]