Vitamins, vitamins everywhere!

[cjsmith]

Why yes, I am a very pale woman who avoids sunlight because I burn so darn fast. I even work indoors all day. Why yes, I throw up when I eat fish and seafood. Why yes, I am mildly lactose-intolerant and do not drink a lot of milk.

I am now on 5000 IU of vitamin D per day, and after a couple of weeks, I'll want to maintain at 3000 IU/day.

Guess what vitamin D deficiency can cause. Guess. Remember all the agony I was going through with dietary sodium? Vitamin D deficiency can cause high blood pressure! Heh.

So now that's five little pills for D and one annoying injection of B12. There's hope that I can stop the B12 in a month or so... unless my feet spontaneously heal, in which case, bring on the needles.

Comments

[dizzdvl.livejournal.com]

How much sunlight does it take to get your vitamin d? I'm usually only out enough to go from the car to my house. I've got the stupid lactose thing too, but I can get away with cheese and yogurt. But no milk or ice cream. I miss milk. Soy milk is ok, especially the chocolate stuff, but I miss milk.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I should let rfrench answer this one, as he's been researching ultraviolet radiation recently. If I remember right, the upshot for pale people is well under an hour under noonday sun -- twenty minutes maybe? O'course, that doesn't say what latitude you're at.

Like you I am usually out only between my car and my house. It was different when I could hike and run and go backpacking (*sigh*).

D is also in a lot of fortified breakfast cereals. And fish. Lots of fish.

[dizzdvl.livejournal.com]

Good to know!

I may have to wander out a bit more :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, go stand on the seashore until you catch a herring with your bare hands, then eat it, and whether you succeed in catching one or not you're probably all set. ;-)

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of factors that affect how much sunlight you need. Vitamin D is synthesized by exposure to UV-B radiation. Without going into too much gory detail (I'm currently writing a major paper on a related subject, so I could go on for pages):

- A black person can need 8-12X as much as a pale, white-skinned person
- UV-B decreases with latitude. Above a line from about CA/OR to Boston, insufficient UV-B is available half of the year no matter what you do. (This is probably why we became white to begin with!)
- UV-B increases with altitude. You need less exposure if you're on top of Mt. Shasta.
- Sunscreens, even lame ones, can remove 95% of UV-B.
- UV-B will not penetrate glass or most plastics.

The bottom line is that a normal white person needs to be exposed to midday sun at a mid-latitude (e.g. central California), with a significant portion of their body uncovered (e.g. shorts and a T-shirt), for 10-30 minutes at least several times per week without sunscreen or glass in the way in order to produce a sufficient amount of Vitamin D.

Milk is not a great source of Vitamin D. You would have to drink 10 large glasses a day to get what you need. Milk is explicitly fortified with Vitamin D during manufacturing. Most cheeses and yogurts aren't, so they don't help the problem.

Remember that the USRDA for most vitamins is based on the absolute minimum to survive. The USRDA for Vitamin D is 400 IU, which is just enough to prevent rickets.

I get outside on a daily basis, I don't use sunscreen, and I drink a fair amount of milk, but I was recently tested and am also somewhat Vitamin D deficient. I think this is probably a huge problem for the average person who works in a building and only gets sun going to or from their car.

[dizzdvl.livejournal.com]

That is fascinating! My sister is a nurse and I asked her and she was going to look it up online because now she was curious, but I read this to her. Fascinating.

Thank you!

:)

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Excellent information, thank you so much for sharing!

I noticed a general improvement in health and vitality when I made a point of going for a walk outside every day at work. That got me thirty minutes outdoors with no sunscreen, usually around noon. Could be because it gets me out of the bloody office, but it actually is one of the therapies suggested for SAD, which I have in spades. I bet I've also improved my vitamin D production.

CJ, have you looked into learning more about things that help and hinder absorbtion of Vitamin D and other vitamins? It may be worth investigating, if one is eating things that interfere, or doing other things that interfere, one might take tons in but still not be at an adequate level. I am short on time and can't dig into it, but I'd suggest you do.

I know for B12, one thing that can interfere with absorbtion is the phytates in soy protein. For a person who is either vegetarian or an omnivore who consumes large amounts of soy every day, this can lead to poor absorbtion of B12, which if unchecked for sufficient time can have some Very Nasty Side Effects. I don't know this from personal experience, but know a person who went through this. Total reversal of their symptoms upon some heavy B12 supplementation and some diet changes.

Checking into absorbtion factors can be very very useful. Oh, the calcium thing.. in the absence of vitamin D, calcium is not absorbed as well. My first ph.d. advisor did research on that before entering her current field. So, promoting a better level of vitamin D may also improve bone density, over time with a good calcium intake.

Good luck and hugs from your friendly neighborhood biochemist.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

A bit of clarification on the milk. The NIH claims that one cup of milk is 25% of the US RDA. Of course, whether the US RDA truly is all you need... *snort*.