Here is Why Vitamin D is So Much More Important Than You Think
Everyone knows vitamin D as the sunshine vitamin. It is called that because the body makes vitamin D when the skin is exposed to sunlight. The main function of vitamin D is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus.
Vitamin D along with calcium helps build strong bones that are healthy and resilient. Vitamin D is required to help your body absorb calcium and if one is vitamin D deficient, then the body has a reduced ability to absorb calcium and hence weak bones develop.
One could take all the calcium in the world and still eventually develop weak bones if that person is vitamin D deficient. But that’s not it. Vitamin D serves other major important functions that are crucial to keeping bodily functions in check and to prevent diseases and other illnesses. Some of the major benefits are:
- It supports the immune system and keeps it balanced.
- It lowers the risk for many cancers.
- It is great for the heart.
- It lowers the risk of diabetes.
It supports the immune system and keeps it balanced.
Vitamin D serves a major role in supporting the immune system that many people don’t know about. Vitamin C gets all the attention and it does for a good reason. Vitamin C is well known for its role in supporting a healthy immune system but vitamin D also has a few tricks up its sleeve. Vitamin D receptors are expressed on immune cells such as B-cells and T-cells and these immune cells also have the capability to synthesize active vitamin D.
Countless studies have proven that high vitamin D levels have been associated with lower risk of infections of the upper respiratory tract and protects against colds and flu.
In 2017, there was a large analysis of prospective clinical trials and it showed that taking vitamin D reduces the chances of developing a respiratory infection by up to 42% in people with low levels of vitamin D.
Another study that involved more than 11,000 participants between the ages of 0 & 95 years clearly showed that daily doses of vitamin D supported respiratory tract health and reduced the chances of contracting a respiratory infection.
If this doesn’t convince you of the sunshine vitamin’s role in supporting the immune system, then this might. In 2020, we all know that there is a COVID-19 pandemic and it has wreaked havoc all throughout the world.
Due to the fast spread of this disease, many research studies were put into action to see how one could prevent getting infected by COVID-19 or increase the chances of recovering after an infection. Many such studies showed some sort of a relationship between low levels of vitamin D and poorer survival rates. Low vitamin D was tied to COVID-19 severity and many patients that were in the ICU and were severely vitamin D deficient had lower chances of survival compared to patients that were not vitamin D deficient.
It lowers the risk for many cancers.
Majority of studies have found a protective relationship between a sufficient or high level of vitamin D status and lower risk of cancer. Some of these studies are described here:
A greater proportion of melanoma patients had deficient or insufficient levels of vitamin D than normal control.
Women with breast cancer that were deficient in vitamin D had larger tumors and had reduced chances of survival.
Improving vitamin D status could reduce colorectal cancer by 25% to 50%.
Nurses that had blood levels an average of 48 nanograms per millileter reduced their risk of developing breast cancer by 50%.
This all demonstrates that having sufficient levels of vitamin D is beneficial in cancer prevention and helps in the prognosis of cancers. This makes sense if you consider the fact that vitamin D already supports the immune system. Having sufficient levels of vitamin D may therefore help the immune system track down and destroy cancers and tumors thus lowering cancer risk.
It is great for the heart.
Vitamin D has received widespread attention for its preventative role in lowering the risk of heart disease, hypertension, stroke, etc. A growing number of studies point to vitamin D deficiency with an increased prevalence of coronary heart disease.
The reasons are simple. Vitamin D is well known to be a regulator of blood pressure, cardiac functions, and smooth muscle cell functions. Vitamin D regulates more than 200 genes and if there is a deficiency of this vitamin, then diseases and dysfunction start to arise.
Vitamin D helps improve the lining of blood vessel walls to allow easier flow of blood and helps reduce inflammation.
Vitamin D can help repair damage to the heart and blood vessels that is caused by high blood pressure.
A major study found that vitamin D3 is a powerful stimulator of nitric oxide (NO) which is a major signaling molecule in the regulation of blood flow and helps prevent the formation of clots in the vascular system.
It lowers the risk of diabetes.
Numerous studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency is a contributing factor in the development of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Vitamin D increases insulin sensitivity and improves beta cell function. The results of some studies are described here:
An observational study from Nurses Health Study that includes 83,779 women that were more than 20 years of age found an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in those participants that had low vitamin D levels.
Vitamin D supplementation in early childhood decreased the risk of developing type 1 diabetes by 29% compared to those children who were not given vitamin D supplements.
Increasing vitamin D levels from 25 to 75 nmol/L results in a 60% improvement in insulin sensitivity.
Conclusion
As you can see, vitamin D is a very necessary vitamin that is needed by the human body to keep itself in titptop shape. Most people think vitamin D is only good for bones but it is much more than that. Vitamin D impacts and affects the body in so many ways.
Good sources of vitamin D are red meat, liver, egg yolks, fortified milk, fortified orange juice, etc. Fortified means that vitamin D has been added to the product. The best source of vitamin D that is free is the sun. Getting optimum amounts of sunlight a few days every week goes a long way in ensuring that one has adequate vitamin D levels.
