The Regenerative Properties of Vitamin D

As a child, I often had my vitamin D levels tested during my bi-yearly check-ups at my pediatrician. Because I was an active youth who spent a decent amount of time outside and maintained a relatively healthy diet, my vitamin D levels were nearly always within the recommended range. However, as I grew older, and my extracurricular involvement tended more towards indoor environments, I began to see decreases in my vitamin D levels. Looking back, stress due to my academic workload during high school and my early undergraduate years also contributed to the depletion of my vitamin D reserves. As I learned, vitamin D is necessary for nearly every cell in the human body. It is no wonder that my vitamin D reserves were depleted when I was experiencing health issues during my high school years. 

Vitamin D has proven to be essential for the regeneration of the intestinal lining. It supervises the function of the tight junctions, the space between the cells in your gut that could allow large, undigested molecules to pass into the bloodstream. Within this mechanism, zonulin holds our cells tightly together in the gut working like shoelaces that loosen a little to let small molecules slide down between the cells to be screened and cleared by our immune system before being allowed into the bloodstream. Vitamin D serves a critical function in the tying and untying of the intestinal shoelaces. 

Along with intestinal tight junction regeneration, vitamin D is also the fuel for many different families of good bacteria in the gut. Without the correct and sufficient amount of fuel, bad bacteria in the gut may take over which will result in dysbiosis- an imbalance in the gut flora. This is why it is critically important to maintain a diet low in refined sugar, to prohibit an environment where bad bacteria can thrive, and high in vitamin D. 

Like me, you may be wondering how vitamin D is actually created in the body from sunlight. The sun converts hormones in your skin made of LDL cholesterol. Many people believe that LDL cholesterol is the bad cholesterol, but only excessive amounts of this type of cholesterol can be bad. Experts recommend spending about 15 minutes in the sun every day. It is also important to get your vitamin D levels checked at least every year. The best time to check vitamin D levels is in the spring because sun exposure during the winter will have been limited, so vitamin D levels will be at their minimum. There is an interesting correlation between the prevalence of autoimmune diseases in countries farther from the equator. One factor may be that these countries have less exposure to the sun. 

During my health journey, I have learned about the important function of vitamin D throughout the entire body. Without vitamin D, our cells don't function. If you do not have enough vitamin D, intestinal permeability, liver and kidney dysfunction, or brain-related dysfunctions such as cognitive impairment can occur. In fact, a host of recent studies demonstrates that low vitamin D levels adversely affect the pre-frontal cortex which is associated with executive function and decisionmaking. Needlessly to say, proper levels of vitamin D are paramount to enhancing brain health. 

-Sean