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Vitamin D in the Crossfire

For decades, dermatologists have urged patients to scrupulously practice sun protection to prevent skin cancer, which, according to the American Cancer Society, is the most common cancer in the country, making up nearly half of all new diagnosed cases.

While the tried and true advice — seek shade, wear sunscreen, avoid direct sun exposure between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. daily — hasn’t changed, recent research indicates that our hyper-vigilance about sun exposure may actually be compromising our body’s ability to maintain healthy levels of vitamin D.

We’ve long known vitamin D is essential to building strong bones, but a flurry of emerging studies is linking deficiencies of the sunshine vitamin to a growing list of serious health concerns, including hypertension, diabetes, depression and a variety of cancers. Despite vitamin D also coming from foods like eggs, cod liver oil, fatty fish and fortified products, many Americans, especially those living in cloudier climes, do not get today’s “adequate intakes” for bone health (set at 200 to 600 IU daily, depending on age, by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies) — and essentially no one is getting the daily 1,000 IU that more researchers are starting to recommend.

“Many people are deficient in vitamin D. A glass of milk, for example, has only 100 IU. Other foods, such as orange juice, yogurt and cheese, are now beginning to be fortified, but you have to work fairly hard to reach 1,000 IU a day,” says Cedric F. Garland, a professor at Moores Cancer Center and the Department of Family and Preventative Medicine at the University of California, San Diego’s School of Medicine, and coauthor of a study linking vitamin D supplementation to a 50-percent decrease in colon, ovarian and breast cancers.

To supplement deficient dietary intake, Garland agrees with advice given by a growing number of doctors and researchers: Take in a moderate amount of daily sun exposure in the mornings and evenings, when the sun’s rays are less harsh. “We recommend no more than 15 minutes of exposure daily over 40 percent of the body, other than the face, which should be protected from the sun,” Garland explains. “Dark-skinned people, however, may need more exposure to produce adequate amounts of vitamin D, and some fair-skinned people shouldn’t try to get any vitamin D from the sun.”

If you’re concerned about a vitamin D deficiency, have your D levels tested by a nutritionally savvy physician, counsels Joseph Mercola, DO, an Illinois-based osteopathic physician who runs the natural healing site www.mercola.com. To ensure you’re receiving the gold standard in vitamin D testing, Mercola advises you request the 25 OH-D test, also called 25-hydroxy vitamin D.