The Sunshine Vitamin... For Your Heart

Just how important is Vitamin D? Or a better way to ask this question...just how much sunshine do we need? The answers are increasingly clear. Vitamin D just may be the health rediscovery of the decade. Careful research has found it to be of more and more significance to our health, as shown in a recent journal article in Circulation that was based on data from the venerable Framingham Study. And Evolutionary Medicine explains clearly why this is so.

We know our ancestors evolved near the Equator. As they moved toward the poles, mostly north, they shed their thick covering of body hair, probably to give our itchy, crawling, skin parasites less opportunity to grab hold of us, but also to let more sun fall onto our skin. Those individuals with lighter color skin were then able to absorb more sunlight in the shorter periods it was available in the northern latitudes. The consequences of not getting enough sun, and therefore not enough Vitamin D, turn out to be legion: thinner and weaker bones, less active immune cell function, higher risk of several cancers, depressed mood, and now clearly much greater risk of heart disease and stroke.

This study shows that those with low levels of Vitamin D have a 60% greater risk for heart disease than those with "adequate levels." This is a greater percentage effect than ANY cholesterol lowering drug has ever been shown to have.

What it doesn't show is whether getting Vitamin D from pills will have a preventive effect. It is very likely that because Vitamin D is present in our bodies in 4 forms, simply taking it in pill or supplemented form will be ineffective in preventing cardiovascular disease. Let's hope that when the inevitable clinical trials testing the effect of D, at least one group has the sense to test the difference between D in pill form and D derived the way we are evolved to make it, from the sun!

Just how much sunlight do we need? As little as 15 minutes a day will usually do the trick. That shouldn't be too hard for most people...how about a 15 minute walking break today when the sun happens to be shining? And if it is raining or snowing, well you will just have to make it up tomorrow. Luckily our bodies can store Vitamin D for some time in our fatty tissue to stock up for the cloudy days.




Read the original study here:
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.706127v1
This is a good article based on the study:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080107181600.htm