Vitamin D deficiency increases risk of countless health woes (I)

If you do not get enough vitamin D, you may increase the risk of countless health woes:

Osteoporosis
Our bodies rely on vitamin D to help absorb calcium and grow bones that stay dense and strong throughout our lives. In fact, more than 50% of women treated for bone loss have inadequate vitamin D levels. Accordingly, the National Osteoporosis Foundation recommends an intake of 400 to 800 IU (international units) of vitamin D per day for adults under the age of 50, and 800 to 1,000 IU for those over the age of 50 (the risk of osteoporosis increases with age).

Rickets

Rickets (the softening and weakening of bones in children) is usually caused by an extreme and prolonged vitamin D deficiency. Children who are 3 to 36 months old are at highest risk because their bones are growing so fast.

Erectile dysfunction

Vitamin D deficient men are 32% more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction than men with higher levels, according to research presented at the 2015 annual meeting of the American Heart Association. The findings reflect the effect that vitamin D has on vascular function, including vessels that carry blood to the genitalia.

Heart disease

Heart disease and vitamin D deficiency are known to go hand in hand. A 2009 study found that subjects with extremely low levels of vitamin D were nearly three times as likely to die of heart failure and five times as likely to die of sudden cardiac death. However, there is no evidence of a direct link between higher vitamin D levels and lowering cardiovascular risk.

Childhood language impairment

Women who had low levels of vitamin D at 18 weeks pregnancy had nearly double the risk of having a child with signs of language impairment at ages 5 and 10 compared to women with higher levels, according to an Australian study published in Pediatrics. The results did not prove that vitamin D causes those difficulties, but they did highlight its importance in fetal brain development.

Obesity

People who are obese are 35% more likely to be vitamin D deficient than normal-weight people, and 24% more likely to be vitamin D deficient than overweight people, according to a 2015 meta-analysis. Obesity might limit the body's ability to use D from both sunlight and dietary sources, since fat cells hold on to vitamins and do not release them efficiently.

Diabetes

People with diabetes or prediabetes have lower vitamin D levels than those with normal blood sugar, according to a Spanish study published in 2015 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. The authors believe that vitamin D deficiency and obesity "interact synergistically" to increase the risk of diabetes and other metabolic disorders.

Lupus

Lupus, a chronic inflammatory disease in which the body's immune system attacks its own organs and tissues, is frequently associated with vitamin D deficiency—in part because lupus patients are often advised to stay out of the sun (the source of 90% of our vitamin D) and prescribed corticosteroids, which are also linked to low levels of D.

Preterm birth

In a study of more than 2,000 mothers-to-be, women with higher levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D (an indicator of our bodies' vitamin D stores) had a lower risk of giving birth before 37 weeks. Vitamin D could be having a protective effect by reducing bacterial infection in the placenta, which can cause preterm birth. In another study, researchers who examined data from the study of more than 42,000 women reported that among nonwhite mothers, higher concentrations of 25-hydroxy D were associated with a reduced risk of birth before 35 weeks.

MS (Multiple sclerosis)

In 2013, an international team of researchers examined data from 465 people with early-stage MS, an often-disabling autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system, reported that higher levels of 25-hydroxy D measured at the onset of symptoms (and then 6, 12, and 24 months later) predicted a slower rate of disease progression. Subjects with higher levels of D had a slower increase in brain lesion volume, fewer new lesions, lower brain volume loss and lower disability levels than those with low levels of D.

PMS (Premenstrual syndrome)

According to the Nurses' Health Study II, women between the ages of 27 and 44 with a high intake of vitamin D had the lowest risk of experiencing PMS symptoms. The study found that higher calcium intake was also associated with lower PMS risk. A 2010 pilot study suggested a connection between vitamin D levels and PMS for younger women as well.

Inflammatory bowel disease

Patients with active ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), especially those who take corticosteroids, are often deficient in vitamin D, a study in Digestive Diseases and Sciences suggested, and some researchers believe deficiency could have a role not only in increasing the risk of developing IBD but also in determining the severity of a person's symptoms.

Alopecia and hair loss

Women with female pattern hair loss had significantly lower levels of vitamin D than those without hair loss, a study in Skin Pharmacology and Physiology found. The vitamin is crucial for hair cycling, and helps push hair from its resting phase to the growing phase. Turkish researchers found that patients with alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that attacks follicles and can cause hair loss all over the body, had significantly lower levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D than folks without the condition, and the lower their D levels, the more severe their disease.

Insulin resistance

Insulin resistance, which leads to glucose buildup in the blood and type 2 diabetes and prediabetes, has been linked to vitamin D deficiency for quite some time. But the correlation was not proved.

Eczema

Research suggests that children with atopic dermatitis, a type of eczema, have more severe symptoms the lower their vitamin D levels. Indeed, eczema tends to worsen in the winter when the air is dry and we get less sunlight to receive vitamin D.