Importance of Vitamin D - in short

Recent studies suggest the importance of Vitamin D3 in immunity, and indeed, vitamin D3 deficiency has been linked to multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertensioni [1], heart diseasei [2], depression, diabetes, chronic pain, osteoporosis and many other illnesses:

The Vitamin D Epidemic and its Health Consequences [3]

Vitamin D3 has also been shown to play an important role in host defense against pathogens by promoting the production of the human antimicrobial peptides, cathelicidins (LL-37). These cathelicidins have been found to have broad spectrum antimicrobial activity, showing activity against the following microbes, among others:

• C. albicans [4]

  Image: C. albicans treated with LL-37 [5]

• C. trachomatis [6]
• Bacillus species (Several members) [7]
• B. burgdorferi (Lyme Disease) [8]
• E. coli [9]

  Image: E. coli treated with LL-37 (Figure 10, Page 10) [10]

• H. pylori [11]
• M. tuberculosis [12]
• Cytomegalovirus [13]
  
• M. furfur & Dermatophyes (Seborrheic dermatitis and tinea infections) [14]
• P. aeruginosa, S. aureus, S. epidermidis, Herpes simplex virus type 1, and Adenovirus [15]
• Streptococcus species (Group A) [16]

While cathelicidins (LL-37) have been shown to have little or no direct effect against C. pnuemoniae, Vitamin D3 has been shown to disrupt the mechanism that the intracellulari [17] forms of C. pneumoniae use to prevent normal celluar apoptosisi [18], and it is believed that Vitamin D3 is active against the intracellular forms of C. pneumoniae through this mechanism. The resulting die-off effects from Vitamin D3 can be quite large, and symptoms of secondary pophryia can also be dramatically increased. Vitamin D3 levels should therefore be increased very slowly when treating a C. pneumoniae infection!

There is much controversy surrounding the optimum levels of Vitamin D3 supplementation, and while the currently established safe upper limit for Vitamin D3 is listed as 2000 IU per day for adults and children over the age of 12 months, many experts are now questioning this level and calling for the upper limit to be increased to levels as high as 10,000 IU:

National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements: Dietary Supplement Fact Sheet: Vitamin D [19]

Risk assessment for vitamin D [20]

Council for Respnsible Nutrition: Scientific Experts Call for Increased Vitamin D UL [21]

Another method to obtain adequate levels of Vitamin D3 is through approximately 15-20 minutes of near full body exposure to the sun at peak sun times during the summer. In this amount of time at peak sun during peak sun months, our skin produces between 10,000 and 20,000 IU of Vitamin D3. No additional Vitamin D3 is produced in longer exposure, and peak levels are produced prior to any sunburn pinkness.

However, the time of the day, the season of the year, and the latitude you live in alter the the amount of UVB rays (the Vitamin D3 producing rays) you are exposed to as the following study from India points out:

UVA and UVB in sunlight, Optimal Utilization of UV rays in Sunlight for phototherapy [22]

[22]

Even at high noon, UVB exposure varies so much by season, that you may have trouble getting enough Vitamin D3 in the near winter and winter months depending on your latitude as the diagrams of UVB exposure in various US cities by month in the following article show:

Estimations of the human vitamin D UV exposure in the USA [23]

Vitamin D3 supplementation may be contraindicated in certain diseasesi [24] including sarcoidosis, so please talk to your doctor before taking high level supplements of Vitamin D3.

Video: The Vitamin D Pandemic and its Health Consequences, Presented by Michael Holick, PhD, MD, Professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics and director of the General Clinical Research Center at Boston University Medical Center [25]

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Treatment for Rosaceai [26]i [26]

• CAPi [27]i [27]:  01/06 - 07/07
• High-Dose Vit D3, NACi [28] & FIRi [29]i [29] Sauna Only:  07/07 - 11/08
• Intermittent CAP, High-Dose Vit D3:  11/08 - Present