Want to reduce your Type II diabetes risk? Get some sunshine and up your vitamin D intake

Friday, February 22, 2013 by: PF Louis
Tags: type-2 diabetes, sunshine, vitamin D

(NaturalNews) It's amazing how many different meta-analysis papers and epidemiological studies keep popping up associating vitamin D3 with lower disease occurrences for heart disease, breast cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and Type II or onset adult diabetes.

An earlier Japanese meta-analysis "...found a correlation between calcium levels, low vitamin D status and insulin resistance (IR). (...) Findings suggest that low vitamin D and low calcium status may be associated with IR." (http://www.vitasearch.com/get-clp-summary/40508)

Denmark really got into vitamin D research also. The Danes recently published one for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), associating low vitamin D levels with RA. Now, another Danish epidemiological study was submitted on vitamin D's health merits.

The focus of this study was to determine an association of low vitamin D3 to Type II diabetes, a theme similar to the Japanese study.

The Danish vitamin D3 Type II diabetes epidemiological study

A vitamin D3 population study is done with the most standard blood level test, the 25(OH)D3 or serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D blood test. The only problem with the Danes in this diabetes/D3 study might be the problem they had with their epidemiological rheumatoid arthritis/D3 study.

It seems that Denmark's normal level is too low. This makes the study results more ominous. Subjects with Danish established normal D3 levels are already low. This translates to a bunch of pre-diabetic individuals slipping through with what they consider normal D3 levels.

In other words, the impact of D3 deficiency should be even higher than their results. It appears, after converting different measuring systems, the Danes consider 20 ng/ml (nanograms per milliliter) normal.

Even mainstream medicine in the U.S. has begun to consider 30 ng/ml more desirable than their previous 20ng/ml standard of normal. Holistic practitioners and researchers think your 25(OH)D3 serum level should be 50 ng/ml to be optimally healthy and disease free.

The Danish study included 9,841 participants from the general Copenhagen population, of whom 810 had developed Type II diabetes during 29 years of follow-up. Despite their shortcoming on what is a normal D3 blood level, the Danes came up with the conclusion that there is "...an association of low plasma 25(OH)D with increased risk of Type II diabetes. This finding was substantiated in a meta-analysis."

But a higher normal may have revealed an even higher risk factor with the probability of noticing more IR (insulin resistant) cases of prediabetic or metabolic syndrome among several who hadn't fully developed Type II diabetes.

Ensuring your vitamin D3 levels are high

Keeping your 25(OH)D3 count at or around 50 ng/ml requires a good deal of bare skin to sunshine exposure. It's the UVB rays that interact with your skin's cholesterol to initiate a conversion process that creates the pre-hormone called vitamin D3 to promote other hormonal activity throughout the body.

If sunshine exposure is limited and you can't sunbathe for 20 minutes daily four times a week, a UVB tanning bed is an option. Both of those procedures allow your body to shut down vitamin D3 conversion when it senses there's enough.

Many experts suggest that you not bathe the exposed skin areas with soap too soon after sun bathing. It's possible that your skin's oils may be washed off before completing the initial conversion phase of UVB ray to vitamin D3.

The last option is supplementing. In lieu of sunshine, 4,000 to 10,000 IU (international units) is a common intake of cholicalciferol vitamin D3 supplements.

Although it's rare, it's possible to overdose using vitamin D3 supplements with high daily dosing over time. Finding a local or online lab to measure your levels is wise if you don't have the wherewithal to deal with a holistic practitioner.

Sources for this article include:

"Low 25-Hydroxyvitamin D and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes: A Prospective Cohort Study and Meta-analysis," (The Danish study summary)

http://www.vitasearch.com/get-clp-summary/40570

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23232064

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23318705