Updated 5 August 2023
Vitamin D is a nutrient insufficiency that affects half the population, and has been linked to many cancers, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, depression, fibromyalgia, chronic muscle pain, bone loss, and autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis.
Yet, it is almost never diagnosed.
And hardly anyone links it to your home.
In building biology, the focus is to create a space to help the body grow and function optimally—as Nature’s laws dictate, not just function. As a building biologist and mother, I have become increasingly impressed and fascinated by the role of vitamin D in creating optimal health.
I decided to write this article to share how we can increase your Vitamin D levels despite many of us living indoor lifestyles, essentially having to be indoors much of the time. You will see how your home or work environment can be changed to naturally raise Vitamin D levels.
Vitamin D is completely different from most other vitamins
Vitamin D is a steroid hormone produced from cholesterol when your skin is exposed to the sun. Yes, vitamin actually isn’t even a vitamin, it’s a hormone synthesised in the skin from sun exposure, and activated in the liver and kidneys.
Hence, the term “the sunshine vitamin. However, most of us hardly get enough time in the sun. If you stay indoors or in a car behind glass or use sunscreen, you will produce less vitamin D — or none at all.
We can store Vitamin D in our bodies for weeks or months at a time.
Vitamin D deficiency is now recognised as a pandemic
Study reports suggest that around 50% of the global population have vitamin D insufficiency. Even if we’re in the sunny tropics—a real pandemic. One study reviewed 65 studies from South Asian countries (that’s Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, which accounts for almost 25% of the world’s population ) and found at least 68% of people were deficient in Vitamin D. [2]
In sunny Malaysia, more than half of Malaysians have insufficient vitamin D levels, despite being a country that is close to the equator.[3]
The lower your Vit D levels, the higher your risk for common cancers, autoimmune diseases, hypertension, and infectious diseases. The darker your skin colour, the greater your Vit D needs.
Ironically, the closer you live to the equator and in urban areas, the likelier you have Vit D deficiency as you tend to spend your time indoors avoiding the hot sun.
In children, it contributes to growth retardation and, in severe cases, bone deformities known as rickets due to poor mineralization of the collagen matrix in their young bones.
In adults, it leads to hyperparathyroidism, which causes a loss of minerals, increasing the risk of osteoporosis and fractures. It also causes muscle weakness, increasing the risk of falling and fractures.
Vitamin D deficiency in adults can also cause a de- mineralisation defect
People experiencing this de-mineralisation often complain of bone discomfort, along with aches and pains in their joints and muscles.
They may be diagnosed with other dis-eases instead, such as fibromyalgia, dysthymia, degenerative joint disease, arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, and other diseases [5].
A Japanese study found that children receiving 1,200 IU of vitamin D each day reduced their risk of getting the flu by almost 50 percent. Every tissue and every cell in the body has a vitamin D receptor protein. It’s estimated that upwards of 2,000 genes are directly or indirectly regulated by vitamin D.
We evolved in sunlight. Our hunter-gatherer forebears were making thousands of units of vitamin D every day, and our body has adapted to that need
Many people are afraid of the sun as there is a belief that it causes cancer. Unless you are getting yourself sunburnt very regularly, exposure to sun is vital to health rather than harmful.
Vitamin D is necessary for proper bone formation and maintenance. Without it, we cannot grow well.
Vitamin D is produced in the skin as a photochemical product from the action of UV light on its precursor cholesterol when the skin is exposed to the sun. Yet most of us lead indoor lifestyles, and our work keeps us indoors too (unless you’re lucky enough to have an outdoorsy and fun job). The irony is that many try to supplement their way out of deficiencies with nutritional supplements…
The bone-deforming disease rickets in children was first recognized by Sniadecki in 1822. Only one hundred years later was it observed that exposure to ultraviolet B radiation (UVB; 290–315 nm) from a mercury arc lamp or sunlight prevented and treated rickets.
In the 1930s, fortified milk became popular as a way to beat rickets in the United States and Europe. But the unfortunate outbreak of hypercalcemia in the 1950s in Great Britain was blamed on the overfortification of milk with vitamin D.[4]
Since the COVID-19 pandemic that clearly showed a link between Vit D and the illness, interest has surged in understanding the role of vitamin D in supporting a strong immune system.
At the same time, the lockdowns woke many people up to the “defiencies” in their own home. Many realised their homes were not able to provide basic needs such as movement
Some of these are no-brainers. There’s only so many primal kettle-bell moves you can do at home.
Others show how we are at risk of divorcing ourselves from nature’s feedback mechanisms, keeping us in a cycle of poor quality of life, while bringing forward our demise. One of these is Vit D and how much sunlight we can get at home.
Sunlight is superior to supplements
A supplement could give a few thousand IUs. Being in the sun where there is UVB however will generate up to 10,000IUs.
The liver then converts this to a form that lasts up to three weeks in the blood, converting when it needs to to “Vitamin D”.
Supplements can be extremely helpful. But not everyone can take them everyday. It also takes a practiced hand especially for vitamins and minerals - we learn more and more about the co-factors required in metabolism. After all, Our bodies truly are a wondrous dance, not a machine of isolated processes. Your skin makes Vit D far better than you trying to eat enough food sources[1]
Let the sunlight in — the Vitamin D solution
Being indoors much of the time guarantees you will be Vitamin D deficient, unless you change how you live and work in your indoor space.
Dr Michael F. Holick was one of the first to identify the mechanism for how vitamin D is synthesized in the skin. His studies show the impact of manmade factors such as obesity, sunscreen use, skin pigmentation, and clothing on this vital process in our skin.
See his lecture on sunlight here [6]
The latitude, season,and time of day can affect vitamin D synthesis. The ultraviolet rays that promote vitamin D synthesis are blocked by heavy clouds, smoke or smog.
But for most people, the biggest factor is that they avoid the sun.
Easy solutions include:
Let in plenty of indirect sunlight through open windows, whether it’s by sitting at a strategically placed work-from-home desk or while driving in the car.
More about windows — glass windows block UVB. Cracking open your windows will allow the full spectrum of sunlight in.
Set up an al-fresco eating area. It might be a small apartment balcony or your garden. Big side benefit for parents: children sit a lot longer at the dining table if it is outdoors or has a view of the outdoors!
Don’t bury yourself in sunscreen if you don’t need to. Especially at home. Sunblock reduces your ability to make vitamin D through your skin.
Identify opportunities to get the noontime sun, which tends to be highest in UVB. This is usually between 10am to 3pm, depending on where you live. For example, your 10-min laundry session at noon could provide your bodily Vit D needs.
Set up your sleep areas to optimise sunlight. This could getting the sunrise, or a sunset bask.
References
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-nutritional-science/article/physiological-significance-of-vitamin-d-produced-in-skin-compared-with-oral-vitamin-d/F91B8317B430A6B810D6D13B559B17D4Up
[2] https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-021-11888-1
[3]https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2022.1050745/full
[4] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/87/4/1080S/4633477
[5] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Severe%20generalized%20bone%20pain%20and%20osteoporosis%20in%20a%20premenopausal%20black%20female%3A%20effect%20of%20vitamin%20D%20replacement&author=AO%20Malabanan&author=AK%20Turner&author=MF%20Holick&publication_year=1998&journal=J%20Clin%20Densitom&volume=1&pages=201-204
[6] https://youtu.be/oAAlMYWtF_s