Don Smith

Is this a — which comes first, the chicken or the egg — conundrum?

Must you be “healthy” to have a “healthy” vitamin D level?

Or must you have a “healthy” vitamin D level in order to be “healthy”?

Don Smith

Or, to put it another way:

Do vitamin D levels represent a “healthy” state in an individual?

Or do they represent a "means to achieve" a healthy state?

Tony

chicken came first

peach

Chances are that you wouldn't be vitamin D deficient if you were living a normal life (ie-getting normal UV exposure by sunlight and / or indoor light). It used to be most common in older people-primarily in women who just didn't get out much.

Low Vitamin D among the younger population is a new phenomenon that has been created by the dermatology industry by scaring young people out of the sun and tanning salons.

That is why cancers from a lack of vitamin D are on the rise in this country while melanoma cases are relatively low and not on the rise statistically.

Don Smith

"Chances are that you wouldn't be vitamin D deficient if you were living a normal life (ie-getting normal UV exposure by sunlight and / or indoor light)."

Response: Yes, if the "normal life" was before the industrial revolution. Today the "world wide average" vitamin D (blood) level is 54 nmol/L (22 ng/ml) - a level that is insufficient.

"It used to be most common in older people-primarily in women who just didn't get out much."

Response: In "days gone by" folks didn't live as long and so they didn't develop many of today's "age related diseases" (instead, they died of diseases that have, for the most part, been eliminated today). There is a growing body of evidence (in the rapidly growing discipline of epigenetics) indicating that the "impact" of vitamin D insufficiency is harmful to both the individual and to his/her offspring.

"Low Vitamin D among the younger population is a new phenomenon that has been created by the dermatology industry by scaring young people out of the sun and tanning salons."

Response: And to the fact that kids today are more interested in playing video games than they are playing outside. When I grew up kids were playing "work up" baseball anytime they could get on a field. There are three baseball fields (and 3 soccer fields) near me and it is a rare occasion when kids are playing on them.

"That is why cancers from a lack of vitamin D are on the rise in this country while melanoma cases are relatively low and not on the rise statistically."

Response: A recent study showed that individuals with low vitamin D levels double your odds of premature death (from all causes). That fact should (but probably won't) cause the medical profession to "change their tune" regarding controlled ultraviolet radiation exposure.

Your "very good" response results in (yet) another question:

Is the stimulation of vitamin D the "primary" (i.e., the most important) result of UVR exposure?

Don Smith

I asked the question: "Is the stimulation of vitamin D the "primary" (i.e., the most important) result/benefit of UVR exposure?"

Feel free to disagree but I believe that the stimulation of vitamin D by UVR is a "secondary" benefit, albeit a very, very important one. The most important benefit (IMHO) is the development of photo-protective, thermo-protective and immuno-protective facultative pigmentation, a.k.a., a "tan". The fact that vitamin D is stimulated at the same time you are developing a tan is a valuable "fringe benefit".

Think about it: From an evolutionary point of view the ability to increase your tolerance to UVR (and decreasing your sensitivity to UVR) made it possible to spend more time outdoors in sunlight hunting, fishing and farming; all activities necessary for survival.

That is why I have come to believe that the best way to "change the discussion about indoor tanning" is to focus on the incontrovertible benefits of developing a tan and only secondarily about the "side benefit" of stimulating vitamin D. In summary, the message should be that the client gets two benefits for the price of one.

peach

Derms have poo poo'ed the idea that tans protect the body since day 1 of the debate. But what do they know? They call freckles pre-cancer!

The biggest health problem in America today is the fact that most Americans believe at face value everything a doctor tells them and everything that they read in glamour magazine. Americans have come to terms with the fact that just about everything they see and hear is truthless propaganda. You have to be willing to seek the truth, which for many Americans just takes too much effort.

Don Smith

Here is a "tidbit" of information regarding sunscreens that I found interesting.

Janet Woodcock, the director of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, explained to a House hearing in April that "some sunscreen ingredients are absorbed through the skin, and that leads to systemic exposures that are chronic, that have not previously been understood or anticipated."

uts-sj

If humans migrated from Africa to northern latitudes and, thus, the skin lightened up due to lack of sunshine and/or power of the sun at those latitudes, wouldn't it be in order to allow more sun in so that proper level of vitamin D would be produced?

If that's true, then priority would be VitD>Tan