Vitamin D, Sunshine and Dahlias

It's mid October, and big, fat Dahlias are still brightening Toronto gardens with their vivid colours.  A Sunday afternoon walk with my camera (okay, the Samsung phone), is so beautiful, I don't even notice the cold wind. 

It's quiet.  The park next door is undergoing a major multi-year reservoir reconstruction project, and only a few of us seem to know the secret path to the Volunteer Garden.  The bees are still softly buzzing from blossom to blossom.  It's an afternoon of blue skies, sunshine and pretty pink flowers!

It's known as the Sunshine Vitamin.  Your body produces vitamin D when your skin is directly exposed to sunlight.  Actually, the ultraviolet-B (UVB) rays of sunlight do the trick.  Black people absorb more UVB in the melanin of their skin than whites, and need more sun exposure to get the same amount of vitamin D.   

In parts of the world where the hours of sunlight nearly disappear for months at a time (think of Canada from November to April), where sunlight is obscured by heavy air pollution, or people live and work indoors from sunrise to sunset, lack of vitamin D is a real issue. An estimated one billion people have vitamin D deficiency.

Almost one hundred years ago, a link was found between vitamin D, and the prevention of rickets (a disease which causes bone deformaties).  Six years ago, the National Centre for Biotechnology Information, part of the US National Institutes of Health, published a report by the Journal of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapeutics, that vitamin D "may play a role" in preventing "cancer, heart disease, fractures and falls, autoimmune diseases, influenza, type-2 diabetes, and depression".  For the past several years, many Canadians have been supplementing their diet with a daily dose of 1,000 units of vitamin D, or more.

Then, earlier this month, a controversial review of 81 vitamin D studies showed the vitamin had no effect on increasing bone density, or preventing bone fractures.  In New Zealand, Aukland University's Associate Medical Professor, Mark Bolland reviewed nearly 54-thousand cases, and found that even in higher doses, vitamin D had no preventative effect.  His conclusion is that if you are healthy, you don't need extra vitamin D to prevent fractures, however, if you are seriously deficient -  take vitamin D.  

The review did not cover vitamin D and cancer or heart disease.  Right now, more than 100-thousand people around the world, are in vitamin D trials, including research into cancer and heart disease. 

The weather forecast shows sunshine most of the week, and I plan to be outdoors enjoying the UVBs!  Although, midweek could see thick clouds of smoke covering the sunlight in many Canadian cities...October 17th, marijuana becomes legal, and this country's skies could be a little hazy.

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated