Vitamin D deficiency will become more prevalent over the years as jobs will use more brain than "brawns". This is vitamin D explained!

1. Vitamin D
Deficiency
Presented by Essence Perry

2. History Vitamin D is one of the 13 vitamins
discovered in the early 20th century
by doctors studying nutritional
deficiencies. Ever since, scientists
have defined vitamins as organic
(carbon-containing) chemicals that
must be obtained from dietary
sources because they are not
produced by the body’s tissues.
Vitamins play a crucial role in our
body’s metabolism, but only tiny
amounts are needed to fill that role.

3. What is it’s role in the body?
Vitamin D’s role....
● Enhancing calcium absorption: Strong bones
● Regulates mineral concentrations of calcium and
phosphorus
● Helps support a healthy immune system: fighting infection
● Muscle/Neuromuscular function
● Cardiovascular function: healthy heart and circulation
● Respiratory system: healthy lungs and airways
● Brain development
● Anti-cancer effects
● Intercellular communication

5. How does it work?-Step 1
Vitamin D is the only vitamin that can
be created inside the body. vD is not one
chemical but many. The natural type is
produced in the skin from a universally
present form of cholesterol, 7-
dehydrocholesterol. The sun’s ultraviolet
B (UVB) energy converts the precursor to
vitamin D3. In contrast, most dietary
supplements are manufactured by
exposing a plant sterol to ultraviolet
energy, thus producing vitamin D2.

6. How does it work?- Step 2
When your skin is exposed to the sun, it
produces vitamin D and sends it to your
liver. From here, your liver changes it to a
substance called 25(OH)D or hydroxyvitamin
D. This chemical is sent all over your body
where tissues, including your kidneys, turn it
into activated vitamin D. There it acquires a
final pair of oxygen and hydrogen molecules
to become Calcitriol; scientists know this
active form of the vitamin as 1,25(OH)2D.
This activated vitamin D is now ready to
perform its duties.

8. Symptoms
● Bone pain
● Muscle weakness
● Hypertension: high blood
pressure
● Increased risk of death from
cardiovascular disease
● Cognitive impairment in
older adults
● Severe asthma in children
● Rickets: Bone tissue isn’t
mineralized (child)
● Osteomalacia: Softening of
bones (rickets as an adult)
Vitamin D has also been linked
to…
● Cancer
● Asthma
● Type-II diabetes
● Hip or Non-Spinal fractures
● Depression
● Alzheimer’s
● Autoimmune diseases:
○ Multiple sclerosis (MS)
○ Crohn’s
○ Type-I diabetes.

10. Vitamin D and Cancer
Vitamin D has an important role in
regulating cell growth. Laboratory
experiments suggest that it helps prevent
the unrestrained cell multiplication or
mitosis. vD reduces cell division by
restricting tumor blood supply
(angiogenesis) and increasing the death of
cancer cells (apoptosis), and limiting the
spread of cancer cells (metastasis). The
cancers associated with vD deficiency are
prostate, ovarian, pancreatic, lung, and
colorectal.

12. RDA
● 1 and 70 years of age: 15 micrograms (μg)
per day. (600 IU)
● 71 years or older: 20 μg per day (800 IU
per day)
● For infants, the IOM could not determine
an RDA due to a lack of data.
● Adequate Intake level of 10 μg per day
(400 IU per day), which should provide
sufficient vitamin D
1 μg is equal to 40 International Units (IU)

14. Location
● Sunlight
● Fatty Fish
● Canned Tuna
● UV grown veggies
● Fortified Juice/Milk
● Supplements
● Egg Yolk
● Beef Liver
● Cod liver Oil
● Fortified Cereal