What's going on with Vitamin D?

I mentioned before that Mr. Jelly Belly nearly busted a gut laughing when I came home two years ago and told him I had just been diagnosed as being Vitamin D deficient. Because Vitamin D is known as the “sunshine vitamin” it was not surprising that I, a hater of the sun from way back, would be found lacking in this area. My days of baking in baby oil are long gone – these days I avoid the sun at all cost. Always. If I am forced to be outside, I coat myself in sunscreen and pride myself on my “bar room pallor”. Morticia Addams has got nothing on me.

Then there’s Mr. Jelly Belly – a lover of all things outdoors. On the weekends, if he’s not outside working in the yard from sunup to sundown, he’s on the golf course for hours, sans sunscreen, baking in the mid-day sun, desperately trying to break 100. During the week I have to hold dinner for him so he can work in the yard from the time he gets home from work until it gets dark. (What the heck does he DO out there??) He rarely sweats, he tans easily and he doesn’t have even one single wrinkle. Sometimes I hate that man.

So we were both quite surprised when his recent blood work came back indicating a Vitamin D deficiency. What the heck? Experts advise anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes of sun daily, with 40% of your body exposed (no sunscreen) in order to get adequate Vitamin D from the sun. Obviously, Mr. Jelly Belly gets WAY more than that. So if someone like him can’t maintain an adequate Vitamin D level, what hope is there for the rest of us mere mortals?

Because so many people either purposely avoid the sun due to the fear of skin cancer or, for the more shallow among us, premature aging, or because we spend most of our daylight hours at work, Vitamin D deficiency is reportedly reaching epidemic levels. Supplementation is almost becoming mandatory.

It used to be recommended that you supplement NO MORE than 1000 IU per day. It is now being reported that one can supplement up to 10,000 IU per day with no ill effects. But that’s the extreme. Most experts are recommending anywhere between 1000 and 5000 IU per day. BUT, your Vitamin D supplement should contain D3. Because it is really the D3 that’s important.

A D3 deficiency can lead to high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, obesity, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis (because we need D3 in order to absorb calcium) and Alzheimer’s disease. Studies are currently being done that link D3 deficiencies to increased risk of breast cancer.

When you eat a food that is “Vitamin D fortified” what you are probably getting is Vitamin D2, a synthetic form of Vitamin D that is less well utilized by the body than D3. Good food sources of D3 include salmon, mackerel, sardines, egg yolks and beef liver. (I’ll stick with the salmon, thanks.)

Seriously, don’t screw around…get your Vitamin D levels tested and (oh, how it pains me to say this) discuss your supplementation needs with your doctor. You just might discover the source of some of your aches and pains.

Okay, enjoy the sun this weekend, if you’re That Type of person…I’m off to slather on some sunscreen, pop some D3, and find out where I can buy that Casper t-shirt. Have a great weekend!

Gummy Vitamins for Adults

Last week our youngest daughter (age 21) called from school to say she was sick. Again. She couldn’t figure out why it kept happening. Since she works nights and goes to school during the day, I am sure it has to do with a combination of lack of sleep and poor eating habits. She said both of those things were definitely true, so I suggested she start taking a multi-vitamin, which I thought might help at least with the poor eating aspect of her problem.

Anyway, two days later, on the weekend, she calls while we are, coincidentally, in Target and says she wants to come home to spend the night. She is feeling even worse and her roommate is making it impossible for her to get any sleep. We say fine and I head over to the vitamin aisle - because her call reminded me that I had promised to pick her up some.

And that’s where I spotted it. Gummy Vitamins for Adults. How perfect is this? I try to decide whether she will think this is goofy or fun and decide “fun”. Plus I think she will be more likely to take them if she isn’t trying to choke them down. You know how huge multi-vitamins can be. So I bought her a bottle of the multi-vitamins and a bottle of Vitamin C and the total price was still less than the first bottle of multi’s I had originally picked up.

Her verdict? She LOVES them. She is afraid she will be tempted to take too many because they taste so good. She had to hide them when she went back to school. When her friends spot them, they say, “Oh! Can I have one of your vitamins?” I’ll bet that never happens with a One-A-Day.

(Since she had never taken a vitamin before, perhaps I should have thought to warn her to expect the odd-colored urine. She called in a panic the next day, thinking the yellow-orange color was somehow related to her illness.)

If you’re looking for a multi-vitamin, for yourself, for teen-aged children, or for anyone who might experience difficulty swallowing, look for them. I think you’ll love them.

Super K

I hope you’re not going to be disappointed to find this post has nothing whatsoever to do with K-Mart.

Yesterday’s post about broccoli mentioned that it was a vegetable very high in Vitamin K. It was stressed as if that was really important. Because I have absolutely no idea what Vitamin K is or what it’s supposed to do for me, I put on my Food Detective hat and set out for the land of Google.

Turns out, Vitamin K is a simple vitamin to understand because it only does one thing. Hardly even worth the post, really, but now you will know for the rest of your life that if you did not have Vitamin K in your system, your blood would not clot.

Well that's pretty important. Nobody wants to slowly bleed to death from a shaving mishap. Or suppose your period just never stopped. Eventually, even a starving vampire wouldn't find you worth the effort.

It is very rare for a person to be Vitamin K deficient. (But it is important to note that a deficiency can occur following a long-term antibiotic treatment.) If you were deficient, all of your symptoms would relate to bleeding. Extended periods, bleeding gums, excess bruising...that kind of thing.

Vitamin K is produced in the body by normal gastrointestinal bacteria, but you might wonder what foods you can also find it in. I’m thinking probably Special K cereal – otherwise I just can’t explain the name.

Cabbage, cauliflower, spinach and other green, leafy vegetables are all good sources of Vitamin K. And CEREAL. Aha! I knew it. Oh. Wait. Maybe the "K" stands for Kellogg's.

(Food Detective on-the-fly research result: There is ZERO Vitamin K in Special K cereal.)

So there you have it. Eat your green vegetables and keep your blood inside your body.

Giving vitamin D its due

Poor little vitamin D, chugging along quietly in the background, helping us absorb calcium and strengthening our bones, while his better known siblings, like C, E and B12 get all the press.

Until I was diagnosed with a vitamin D shortage, I never really gave too much thought to what this vitamin does and why it’s important. I am one of those rare people who despise being in the sun – and it’s the sun that causes the body to produce vitamin D - so this diagnosis really came as no surprise to me, or to Mr. Jelly Belly, the great outdoorsman, who laughed when he heard about it.

The main job of vitamin D is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus. It aids in the absorption of calcium and may provide protection from osteoporosis, high blood pressure, cancer and several autoimmune diseases.

Other than exposure to sunlight (10-15 minutes twice a week – without sunscreen – should be adequate), vitamin D can be found in foods such as fish, eggs, fortified milk, cheese, yogurt and cod liver oil. Cod liver oil? Yeah, that’s what they said, but I have to seriously question whether anyone actually ingests that stuff.

Studies have shown a link between vitamin D deficiencies and depression, including seasonal affective disorder (SAD). This could be good news for people who would like to get off the Prozac and supplement their vitamin D instead.

Vitamin D deficiency can lead to rickets (skeletal deformities found in children) and osteomalacia (weak bones and muscular weakness, found in adults).

People who may be at risk for vitamin D deficiencies include the elderly, obese individuals, infants who are exclusively breastfed and those who have limited sun exposure. Individuals who have fat malabsorption syndromes, such as cystic fibrosis, or inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s disease) are also at risk.

The problem with supplementing vitamin D is that it’s possible to get too much – something that’s unlikely to happen from food sources or sun exposure. Too much vitamin D in your system can lead to symptoms like nausea, vomiting, poor appetite, constipation, weakness and weight loss. Now some of those don’t sound all too bad (I kid, I kid), but it can also cause more serious problems like confusion and changes in heart rhythm due to the raised levels of calcium in the blood.

So how much vitamin D is enough – and how much is too much?

There has been some research indicating the current recommendation of 200 IU’s per day for people under 50 and up to 600 IU’s for those over 50 may not be enough for most people and that 800–1000 IU’s may be more beneficial. As a general rule, you should never supplement more than 2000 IU’s per day.

And you probably shouldn’t supplement at all unless you know for sure you are deficient. This can be determined through a simple blood test.

So get out in the sun, enjoy it, and produce yourself some vitamin D. Your bones will thank you.