Get out in the sun, sunbed or vitamin D supplements?
Narrowband UVB therapy may be a better treatment for vitamin D deficiency than supplementation, Swedish researchers reported:
A total of 32 patients completed the full 6 weeks of Narrowband UVB treatment.
Patients treated with UVB phototherapy had significantly greater improvements in serum vitamin D levels than those taking supplements, rising from 19.2 nmol/L to 75 nmol/L in the phototherapy group compared with an increase from 23.3 nmol/L to 60.6 nmol/L with supplementation.
Narrowband UVB is known to be more efficient at elevating vitamin D status in most adults, but especially in the malabsorption prone.
I have read a few articles on this and have to come to realise that taking Vitamin D supplements is a poor second place to getting UVB sunlight. We don’t yet know any other important physiological process bypassed by taking vitamin D orally instead of Ultraviolet Light on the skin.
So what is UVB?
UVB is of the same wavelength of light that synthesizes vitamin D in our skin creates a reddening of the skin a.k.a sunburn. During this time, blood is transferred to skin to soak up and harvest the Ultraviolet energy. It is possible to transfer 60% of your blood mass into your skin in the case of bad sunburn before other major organ systems begin failing – not something that I highly recommend.
Again, I am not recommending anyone intentionally burn themselves in the sun. There are some benefits to this increased blood flow to the skin: during this time blood pressure actually reduces by opening up blood vessels nearer the skin and by giving slack to the vasculature, you can think of like reducing the pressure in a water pipe.
Another beneficial outcome of UVB has been to decrease vascular inflammation in mice and also significantly decrease C Reactive protein - a protein associated with the developed of arterial plaques. So could short amounts of sunlight of narrow band UVB actually be beneficial?
Did you know that that inflammation is the precursor to calcification, especially in the case of vascular osteogenesis, basically the formation of bone in the artery, the same thing that researchers have noticed in specimens that take high doses of oral vitamin D. Could it be that high levels of oral vitamin D are causing our bodies to react?
Researchers had recently identified arterial calcification is induced not by imbalanced hydroxy D levels - but by dysregulated vitamin D activity. Could it be that we are causing dysregulation and inflammation by taking vitamin D supplements instead of getting the vitamin D from Ultraviolet light? Of course our body should be making our own vitamin D from sunlight, but what if it's not possible? A low level dose of oral vitamin D could be beneficial for you, but you are an individual and should not take it for granted that you need vitamin D supplementation. If we had sunlight, your body would produce as much vitamin D as was needed, with supplements we potentially disrupt this balance of hydroxy D levels in the blood. It is something that you should be aware of.
It is estimated that 90% of vitamin D was meant to be synthesized in the skin via Ultraviolet Light.
For us living in the Northern hemisphere – what can we do? We know that there is no UVB wavelength that will reach are skin during the winter months, is it ok to use sunbeds? A research review from 2012 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22017922) concluded that the use of sunbeds for vitamin D production outweighed the potential dangers. It must be said that minimal to moderate usage of sunbeds is required as high doses of ultraviolet radiation were recorded from the sunbeds and over time can cause damage.
There is now enough clinical evidence that Narrowband UVB therapy can help prevent atherosclerosis, they are doing a clinical study on humans.
Scientists will irradiate participants 3x a week for 12 weeks and then measure levels of inflammatory biomarkers in the blood.
I can’t wait for results, this could be a massive step forward for people living in Nothern and Southern lattitudes where sunlight and subsequent UVB light is at very low levels during the winter months.
Just remember, make the most of the summer months and increase your vitamin D production through natural light all the time it's possible.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29080365
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1972833
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29524288
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29786640
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27765767
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03083730
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5087213/