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 Protect Your Skin this Summer, But Don't Forget Your Vitamin D!
How Many Health Benefits Can
Optimal Vitamin D Levels Impart?
Perhaps
the most telling piece of information is the fact that higher
vitamin D levels significantly reduce mortality rates from ALL causes!
And
it’s no wonder, really, when you consider what vitamin D really is, because
it’s far more than “just a vitamin.” Rather it’s the only known substrate for a
potent, pleiotropic (meaning it produces multiple effects), repair and
maintenance seco-steroid hormone that serves multiple gene-regulatory functions
in your body.
In
fact, there’s compelling evidence that vitamin D is in fact KEY for proper gene
expression.
How
does it work?
Well,
each cell in your body has its own ‘DNA library’ that contains information
needed to deal with virtually every kind of stimulus it may encounter, and the master key to enter this library is activated
vitamin D.
For
example, memory ductile cells in a woman’s breast need vitamin D to access DNA
that enables the response to estrogen.
So
it stands to reason that without sufficient amounts of vitamin D, your cells
cannot access their DNA libraries. As a result, their functions are impaired
and all sorts of problems can ensue, depending on how well your cells are able
to compensate for the lack of vitamin D.
This
is why vitamin D functions in so many different tissues, and affects such a
large number of different diseases and health conditions.
So
far, scientists have found about 3,000 genes that are upregulated by vitamin D,
which is remarkable when you consider the human body only has about 30,000
genes total.
Receptors
that respond to the vitamin have been found in almost every type of human cell,
from your brain to your bones, which explains why researchers keep finding
health benefits from vitamin D in virtually every area they look, including:
Researchers
have calculated that simply increasing levels of vitamin D3 could prevent
diseases that claim nearly 1 million
lives throughout the world each year!
For
example, one recent study showed that the annual death rate in Canada could fall by
37,000 deaths -- more than 16
percent of total deaths in that country! -- if serum vitamin D
levels were raised to adequate amounts. In addition, the economic burden of Canada would be reduced by $14.4 billion
-- less the relatively minor cost of introducing a program to get the vitamin D
levels of Canadians up into the healthy range.
Another
fascinating area of vitamin D research is in the area of detoxification, which
could have a significant impact on a number of disorders caused by mercury
toxicity.
For
example, one recent study
found that vitamin D helps to safely remove mercury from your body by
radically increasing the amount of intracellular glutathione.
Health
Benefits are Dose Dependent
It’s
important to note, however, that reaping the health benefits of vitamin D is
dose dependent, meaning you need to make sure your levels are
within therapeutic ran
.
And
this range is far higher than previously thought.
One
thing is clear. If you maintain optimal vitamin D levels, your cells will
function optimally, which in turn will help prevent all sorts of health
ailments and chronic diseases.
The
Lowdown on Sunscreen
Although the risks of sun
exposure have been greatly overblown, anyone who has ever gotten a sunburn
knows that too much sun genuinely can damage your skin. What is less well known
is that for many years, sunscreens only protected you from the potentially beneficial,
vitamin D producing UVB rays, while letting through skin-damaging UVA light.
Both UVA and UVB can
cause tanning and burning, although UVB does so far more rapidly. UVA,
however, penetrates the skin more deeply than UVB, and may be a much more important
factor in photoaging, wrinkles and skin cancers.
Even today, while most
sunscreens do a good job blocking UVB, fewer filter out all of the UVA. That
means they do not help to prevent the beginnings of melanoma formation. In
fact, a sunscreen without adequate UVA protection can end up increasing your
risks. If you think you are protected by sunscreen, you are likely to stay out
in the sun longer -- and all the while, you will be soaking up the highly
penetrating, wrinkle and cancer causing UVA radiation without the warning sign
of a burn (remember that a UVA burn takes much longer to appear).
I’m not a big fan of
sunscreen use on a regular basis; even when it works, it blocks your body’s
natural production of vitamin D. But in situations where you must be out in the
sun long enough to burn, be sure to use a product that protects against both
UVA and UVB, such as a natural sunscreen, which uses a titanium dioxide/zinc
combination that reflects both types of rays -- while also giving you a
beautiful, glowing and healthy tan.
Potentially harmful chemicals such as dioxybenzone and
oxybenzone are some of the most powerful free radical generators known to man!
So if your sunscreen contains dioxybenzone, oxybenzone, or
any of the other chemicals I just revealed, I highly recommend you switch to a
formula that is safe and healthy for your skin.
 Join Dr. Jennifer Greenfield on June 3rd at North Regional
Library for a Community Session on Vitamin D and Sun Safety.
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