(old post, but very interesting topic).

I have question about sun exposure. During the winter months, I get almost no sun exposure (I live in New York). I am wondering about your opinion on indoor tanning. Is it an acceptable alternative to normal sunlight during the summer months, as far as stimulating production of Vitamin D?

Is it in any way more dangerous than sun? I would think not, since the sessions are carefully timed, and during the max recommanded session at a place I have been to a few times (9 minutes) I get just a slight tan. – probably equivalent of spending 15 to 30 minutes outdoors.

Hi Joe–

MRE

I increased my D to 4000iu/day, think that’s enough? Since it’s “within normal limits” my doc wont’ repeat it until my next check in 6 months.

Hi Cindy–

The lab test you had (1,25 dihydroxy vitamin D) is not the best test to determine vitamin D levels.  You should get a 25-hydroxy-vitamin D levels, which is more stable and a much better representation of actual vitamin D levels.

I take 5000 IU/day of vitamin D unless I’m out in the sun.  A recent article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition indicated that people could safely take at least 10,000 IU per day, so I don’t worry about 5000 IU.

Vitamin D has been an unheralded vitamin until just recently.  It needs not be ignored if one desires good health.

Cheers–

MRE 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-02-27-antioxidants_x.htm.

Thanks again for helping all of us understand these issues more clearly.

David Futoma

Another great post. All the research on vit D that has come out over the past few years is very exciting. I look forward to your posting on vitamin D itself. Have you ever visited the Vitamin D Council(www.vitamindcouncil.com)? They have some great research there. What do you feel about testing blood levels of 25 hydroxy cholecal? I’m sure you would advocate it but do we need to be very diligent when doing 5000-10000 iu’s? I have a couple of ms people whom I want to check. Life Extension has the test for $47 which seems much cheaper than most. Sorry for all the ?’s. The only other person I have met who has been widely published and well known who has taken the time to talk to the little people is Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D. I approached him at one of the Functional Medicine symposium about 5 yrs ago and interestingly the subject was folic acid. (I found it fascinating how we learned certain nutrients could turn genes on/off, FA being one.) He talked to me like we were old college pals and I really appreciated that. Success and humility are a wonderful combination. I can now add you to that list.

Hi Robert–

I think blood levels are a good thing to check, but it doesn’t hurt to take vitamin D3 without them as long as the doses aren’t huge.  5000-10,000 are well tolerated and won’t cause problems.  Yes, I have visited the Vitamin D Council site–it’s a great site.  The medical literature is stacking up on the benefits of vitamin D, and the Vit D Council tries to keep up with it, but the mass is just growing too fast.

Cheers–

MRE

P.S. Being fair-skinned wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the fact that both my siblings easily tanned as dark as they wanted and would sing “I’m a little moonbeam” every time I wore shorts.

Hi Esther–

You can get plenty of vitamin D from the sun without burning if you do it with graduated exposure.  Just a few minutes of full-body sun (what you would get in a two-piece bathing suit) in the summer will do it.   And you shouldn’t burn. It probably won’t be enough during the winter unless your in a southern clime such as Arizona.  But you can get plenty of vitamin D in supplement form now with the vitamin D3 supplements.  I take 5,000 to 10,000 IU per day, which is a perfectly safe range.

I’ll get the post on vit D finished and up soon.

Cheers–

MRE 

Awesome info, as usual.

Hi Cathy–

Thanks.

MRE 

Mary T.

Hi Mary–

No, tanning reduces the amount of vitamin D absorbed as does naturally dark skin.  You should encourage your mother to take a vitamin D supplement (make sure it’s vitamin D3).  I take from 5,000-10,000 IU daily during the winter months when I get little to no decent sun exposure.

Best–

MRE 

Afore it there’s a super duper article on how birth month, via lack of vit d/sunlight amongst other seems to switch on or off gene expression vis a whole slew of psychiatric disorders. Wonderful stuff.
Yr take on it would be i assume as always,well hopefully pun slightly intended, enlightened

Hi Simon–

I read both articles when I got my issue of TNS in the mail, but neither of them really tripped my trigger as they obviously did yours.  Thy sunlight one was interesting, but didn’t really provide any useful info.  Everything was “unknown” at this time, i.e. whether what held for rodents would hold for humans.  The article was intriguing, but not particularly ‘enlightening’ to me.  Other than confirming my opinion that most people in the northern latitudes get inadequate vitamin D, I didn’t get a whole lot out of it.

The piece on the increased calorie consumption was – to me, at least – a little more interesting.  It shows what anyone with good sense already knows: that some people can eat more than others and not have as many apparent negative effects.  It would be interesting to see what the outcome of this experiment were had it lasted a year or two instead of only a month.  The most interesting aspect of the experiment to me was in this paragraph:

Then there is cholesterol. Over recent years it has become clear that it is very difficult to substantially change your cholesterol levels by changing your diet. Nyström’s [the director of the study] findings push that notion to the limit. Not only did many of his subjects show very little change in the amounts of cholesterol and other fatty biomolecules circulating in their bloodstream, some of them even had less low-density lipoprotein – “bad cholesterol” – and an increase in the “good” form, high-density lipoprotein. It’s not clear why a junk-food diet should improve your blood lipids, but it may be down to the precise composition of the diet. With receipts for all the food his volunteers bought, Nyström has the means to find out whether there is any correlation between certain foods and blood fat levels.

Even a month of pigging out on a horrendous diet doesn’t seem to have much effect on cholesterol levels in a number of people.  I wonder what effect it had in the others?  I’ll be interested to see when the full study is published what specific foods – if any – have any effect.

Cheers–

MRE 

Have noticed anecdotally people who use high grade EPA darken their hair so any ideas about why folks go grey ?

Heard a very interetsing thing on the radio years back by a vet but buggered if can remember who it was and its thrust.

thankee

Hi Simon–

I don’t really know what makes us go gray.  I’m sure there are papers out there on why, but I haven’t read them.  I’ve heard anecdotally that people who take a fair amount of fish oil sometimes find themselves with less gray hair and more dark hair.  I’m going to take a shot in the dark as to why this may be so (If, in fact, it really is so.  I, myself, have no direct evidence.).  The only supplement that I’ve ever heard of that supposedly converts gray hair back to normal is copper.  (I’ve had one patient who swears by this, and I have no reason to doubt him.  He has light brown hair that he told me was almost totally gray until he started taking copper supplements.  He is a guy who works in the entertainment biz and thinks he needs to look perennially youthful to maintain his position.  He has copped to a face lift, an eyelid job, and a host of other cosmetic procedures, so I would think he would confess to dyeing his hair if that’s truly how he keeps in non-gray.  But he swears it’s the copper supplementation.)  Much fish oil comes from fish livers.  Fish livers contain a lot of copper.  So, if the fish oil does contains a lot of copper, and if copper does reverse the gray, then maybe that’s the answer.

Cheers–

MRE 

Loved the Pizza Party Show,
Mary

Hi Mary–

Stick your mom on some vitamin D3.

Best–

MRE