Air Pollution Linked To Vitamin D Deficiency In Newborns

According to a new study, gestational exposure to ambient urban air pollution, especially late in term, possibly contributes to lower vitamin D levels in children. The study’s authors say that the deficiency could affect the child’s risk of developing disease later in life.

http://www.inquisitr.com

The study, accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM), shows that maternal vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy might have an influence on the development of asthma and other allergic diseases in young offspring. Though a number of factors could have an effect on vitamin D supply in women, exposure to high levels of air pollution is suggested by the authors as a prime factor in vitamin D deficiency in adults and children, reports Medical News Today.

    “We investigated the associations between gestational exposure to urban air pollutants and vitamin D cord blood serum level,” said Nour Baïz, MASc, of Intitut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) in Paris, France who led the study. “Our findings show for the first time, that exposure to ambient air pollution comparable to current World Health Organization standards might contribute to vitamin D deficiency in newborns.”

For the study, researchers looked at the associations between gestational exposure to urban air pollution and 25-hydroxyvitamin D cord blood serum level in 375 mother-child pairs. Maternal exposure to urban levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter less than 10 micro meters during the whole pregnancy was a strong predictor of low vitamin D status in newborns.

The study’s authors found that the association between gestational exposure to air pollutants and vitamin D deficiency in newborns was the strongest in late-term pregnancies.


Source : Inquisitr

Vitamin C Might Protect Lungs On High-Pollution Days

An antioxidant-rich diet could do your lungs a favor when exposed to air pollution, according to a small new study.

 
Researchers from Imperial College London found that asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients were more likely to be admitted to the hospital on days when there were high particulate matter levels outside, Environmental Health News reported. Particulate matter is a pollutant that causes oxidative stress in the body (raising the risk of health problems like heart attack).

However, the researchers found that people who had higher levels of vitamin C in their blood were less likely than those with low vitamin C levels to go to the hospital on these high-pollution days, MyHealthNewsDaily reported.

The findings add to "a small but growing body of evidence that the effects of air pollution might be modified by antioxidants," Michael Brauer, an environmental health scientist at the University of British Columbia who was not involved in the study, told MyHealthNewsDaily.

The study, published in the journal Epidemiology, included 209 people who were admitted to London hospitals. While researchers did find a link between vitamin C levels and hospital admission, they did not find as strong of a link for uric acid and vitamin E levels. They found no link between vitamin A levels and hospital admission, according to the study.

Previously, Cornell University researchers found that a diet rich in antioxidants could help to preserve lung function, the Cornell Chronicle reported. That study, presented at a meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in 2008, showed protective benefits of selenium and vitamins C and E in particular.

Plus, in 2001, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers found that vitamin C supplements seemed to protect lungs against ozone, WebMD reported.

And humans aren't the only ones who can benefit from vitamin C. University of California, Riverside, researchers found that even plants can get some help defending against harmful effects of ozone when they are engineered to have increased vitamin C levels in their leaves. 

Source : Huffingtonpost

VITAMIN D

Caucasian skin produces approximately 10,000 IU vitamin D in response to 20–30 minutes summer sun exposure—50 times more than the US government’s recommendation of 400 IU per day!  While Vitamin D comes from the sun, and is the optimum source, we are not absorbing enough sunlight daily to get enough.  Vitamin D also occurs in some food sources but not in quantities to meet daily needs.

This high rate of natural production of vitamin D3 cholecalciferol (pronounced koh·luh·kal·sif·uh·rawl) in the skin is the single most important fact every person should know about vitamin D—a fact that has profound implications for the natural human condition.

Technically not a “vitamin,” vitamin D is in a class by itself. Its metabolic product, calcitriol, is actually a  hormone that is the key that unlocks binding sites on the human genome. The human genome contains more than 2,700 binding sites for calcitriol; those binding sites are near genes involved in virtually every known major disease of humans.

Current research has implicated vitamin D deficiency as a major factor in the pathology of at least 17 varieties of cancer as well as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, muscle wasting, birth defects, periodontal disease, and more.  Three cancers Vitamin D deficiency is significantly associated with are breast, colon and prostate.  Over 53% of the population is deficient and research is showing us that optimal levels are higher than ever thought.

 


Vitamin D’s influence on key biological functions vital to one’s health and well-being mandates that vitamin D no longer be ignored neither by the health care industry nor by individuals striving to achieve and maintain a greater state of health.  Vitamin D is especially important in pregnancy for the developing fetus.

To find out what your vitamin D level is to start with, you should have your vitamin D checked with a blood test.  Blood levels of Vitamin D are not routinely checked although many physicians are starting to add this to their yearly lab workup during annual physicals.  If treatment is required, a supplement will be recommended. It is important that you take your supplement with a fatty meal, as Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin and cannot be absorbed properly without the accompanying fat. After treatment to bring your level up (3-6 months), you should be rechecked and then find the dosage of vitamin D you need to take to maintain a level between 50-80 ng.

Vitamin D has co-factors that the body needs in order to utilize vitamin D properly. They are: 

• Magnesium 
• Zinc 
• Vitamin K 
• Boron

Magnesium is the most important of these co-factors. In fact, it is common for rising vitamin D levels to exacerbate an underlying magnesium deficiency. If one is having problems supplementing with vitamin D, a magnesium deficiency could be the reason why.

For more information, check out The Vitamin D Solution, by Michael F. Holick, PhD, MD, professor at Boston University School of Medicine.  Also, www.vitamindsociety.org.

Food Sources for the Vitamin D co-factors above:

Magnesium – artichokes, pearled barley, oat bran, buckwheat & whole wheat flours, nuts, beans, spinach, tomato paste, cornmeal, salmon

Zinc – oysters, wheat germ, sesame seeds & tahini, pumpkin seeds, dark chocolate, peanuts, liver, beef tenderloin, lamb

Vitamin K – green, leafy vegetables (kale, spinach, chard, etc.), brussel sprouts, broccoli, romaine lettuce, asparagus, green beans

Boron – apples, pears, grapes, avocadoes, nuts, beans, wine

Source : http://nutritionhealthnet.com