Dukan Diet

Inflammation and Vitamin D Deficiency

Does Dietary Inflammation Reduce Skin Production of Vitamin D?

The media discovered the vitamin D deficiency pandemic last week. Amazingly researchers were recorded on camera saying that the D deficiencies are caused by insufficient exposure to ultraviolet in sunlight and inadequate consumption of vitamin D-laced milk. Have all of these people been avoiding the biomedical journals?

Have they noticed that my tan improved since I started eating anti-inflammatory?

Let’s shine some sunlight on these knowledge deficiencies:

• Serum vitamin D levels have been dropping (as chronic inflammation has been increasing) over the last three decades -- has something changed in our diets?
• Vitamin D deficiencies occur globally (not restricted to Northern latitudes or winter) -- related to diet?
• Women are more vulnerable, because of cultural modesty in some countries, but males are still D-deficient.
• A subset of people exposed to ample sunshine are still D-deficient.
• Vitamin D deficient individuals also have elevated TNF.
• Vitamin D deficiency and inflammation are risk factors in the same diseases.

It seems that the simplest conclusion is that chronic inflammation leads to vitamin D deficiency, even though vitamin D deficiency may also contribute to inflammation.

This also probably means that chronic inflammation makes it harder for skin to produce vitamin D during exposure to sunlight.

One would expect those who are inflamed to get sunburned more readily and people who eat plenty of omega-3 rich seafood probably produce more vitamin D, even if they are not in the sun as much.

Inflammatory starvation (or American fast food) diets high in starch and omega-6 vegetable oils, should produce vitamin D deficiency even on the Equator.

We should not be surprised that inflammatory degenerative diseases are associated with vitamin D deficiency. It would be interesting if vitamin D supplementation to eliminate deficiency, reduced inflammation and reversed degenerative disease.

Do statins reverse vitamin D deficiencies (and improve tanning) as they lower inflammation? [Statin lowering of LDL is unrelated to reduction in cardiovascular disease. Only the anti-inflammatory side-effect is important.]

Does NFkB activation (inflammatory signaling) inhibit vitamin D receptor activity and vice versa?

You can forget all of this confusion, if you just stick with an anti-inflammatory diet (that includes vitamin D supplements) and exercise frequently in the great outdoors.