50% of UK Vitamin D deficient

22 January 2010

Spending too long indoors, applying excessive sun screen and the changing ethnic population is causing precariously low levels of Vitamin D in parts of the UK, warn Professor Simon Pearce and Dr Tim Cheetham at Newcastle University.

"More than 50% of the adult population have insufficient levels of vitamin D and 16% have severe deficiency during winter and spring," they say. "The highest rates are in Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England. People with pigmented skin are at high risk as are the elderly, obese individuals and those with malabsorption."

The research published in the British Medical Journal, has found that the most commonly affected are people of Asian and African descent who live in the North; a key part of the research focused on young Somalis who live in east Newcastle.

Other causes include consistent sun screen application instead of allowing 20 to 30 minutes exposure to the sun two or three times a weeks, staying indoors all the working day and children sitting in front of computer games rather than playing outdoors.

Pearce has written to the Department of Health proposing Vitamin D is added to milk. It is already added to artificial baby milk.

Rickets are associated with the 19th century and young workers in industrial cities. The disease causes softening of the bones and muscle weakness. When a child has rickets, there is not enough mineral in the bones, making them soft and weaker.

Some vitamin D is obtained from certain foods: egg yolk, liver, oily fish such as sardines, herring, tuna, salmon and mackerel. A diet low in these foods will contribute to a lack of vitamin D but the main cause of the problem is lack of sunlight on the skin.

COMMENTS

The situation is far worse that detailed above.
The problem arises because the level defining deficiency is set only at the level that prevents rickets.75nmol/l.
If you want to absorb maximum amounts of calcium from your diet then 80nmol/l is the minimum. If you want that calcium to stay put in your bones, so you have maximum Bone Mineral Density most people require 110nmol/l. But it doesn't end there.
Your body works best when it has more vitamin D coming in than it uses daily. When there is stored Vitamin D3 it is better able to deal with infection so at levels ABOVE 137.5nmol/l we find least incidence of most chronic diseases. If you think it's a smart move to have your baby born not only with strong bones but also with access to Vitamin D3 naturally present in mothers breast milk then a level around 150nmol/l is ideal. If you have a cancer diagnosis and want to be better able to reduce the proliferation of cancer cells than a high and stable 25(OH)D3 level is required.
This paper Circulating 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Levels in Fully Breastfed Infants on Oral Vitamin D Supplementation
is free online and shows 6400iu/daily/D3 is required to optimize vitamin D3 in breast milk.
While food fortification may help it would be better if EFFECTIVE amounts where provided in prenatal vitamins.
TedHutchinson - Louth / UK,/ retired

Everyone should know about the connection between vitamin D deficiency and cancer, especially breast and colon cancer. You can see all the data at www.vitaminD3world.com The site also has links to a very neat micro tablet version of vitamin D3
toby lee - Dover DE

A while ago I came across this very readable 47-page report published by the Health Research Forum in 2004: 'Sunlight Robbery: Health benefits of sunlight are denied by current public health policy in the UK'. It is available online at http://www.healthresearchforum.org.uk/reports/sunlightrobbery.pdf
Loraine Wojciechowicz - Intute, University of Nottingham