Vitamin D Crisis in Urban Life (and Lockdown – Work from Home)

Already the current lifestyle cuts much of the sunlight from our life. Our office, home and car are all fully air-conditioned with sealed doors and windows. Even urban homes are so designed that there are only a few apartments that get a good view of the sky and the sun. Rural sectors are still doing a little better till now. People there get much more sun exposure than the urban sectors. But as they are getting more and more of urban culture and as technology and communication are deeply reaching there also so the hope for the future naturally is not too high. 

Upon this situation the pandemic of Covid-19 and the federal lockdowns to curb it have added to the already aggrevating vitamin D deficiency problems among people. We need to make ourselves understand that the lockdown and social distancing are there for preventing a disease but not to give rise to other incurable diseases. For an adult any deficiency or damage in his or her skeletal (bone) system can lead to many serious implications. Such conditions are often irreversible, especially if the person is a little older. So it will always be better to prevent it than cure it. 

What is Vitamin D?

Other than nutrients like protein, carbohydrate and fat, our body needs some more nutrients in very minute quantities. Hence they are usually called micronutrients. Vitamins and minerals generally fall under this category of micronutrients. 

One such vitamin is called Vitamin D or calciferol. Though there are other vitamins also but many researches indicated that this vitamin is perhaps the most important vitamin that our body needs for healthy function. So important is this vitamin that when NASA sends astronauts in space then the first mandatory supplement that they provide separately to their astronauts is vitamin D. 

Before it was believed that vitamin D plays the most important role to maintain the bones and skeletal health by optimizing the absorption of calcium in guts. But as more research was conducted, both calcium and vitamin D found their importance in various other organs and systems of the human body. Calcium is even one of the most important minerals for the heart, brain and nervous system beside many other systems. 

Vitamin D directly interferes with the functions of metabolism and the endocrine system including our immune system. In this era of pandemic we all are so concerned about our immune system and discuss that always but where is a decisive and deterministic process or protocol to cover up deficiencies of this very important vitamin?

Instead through the process of lockdown we are entering into even deeper probabilities of deficiency of vitamin D by minimization of sun exposure. We need to understand our immune system and its requirements better before we can successfully counter any disease like Covid 19. 

How Much Vitamin D?

Already in this era of air-conditioned sealed offices and homes we are highly running in deficiency of vitamin D. As our sun exposure is getting lower we need to find alternative dietary sources of this vitamin. But unfortunately this vitamin is scarcely available in our food, vegetarian or nonvegetarian. Only some sea-fish oils contain a little good quantity of it. Such is the condition that the USA fortifies many foods including milk and fruit juices to meet up the daily requirements of vitamin D. 

So it is not at all a very intelligent decision to cover the deficiency of this vitamin through our daily food. Every vitamin has a recommended dietary daily intake quantity assigned by an international health organization like the World Health Organization (WHO). It is technically known as RDA or Recommended Dietary Allowances. Intake of vitamins following the RDA guidelines will prevent deficiencies of that vitamin but at the same time will ensure that we are not intaking too much of it so that we can have the risk of any adverse side effects. 

Before 1997 the RDA of vitamin D was at 200 units (IU). But due to our lifestyle and minimum exposure to sun the deficiencies were high so the RDA was increased to 600 IU. But the main question is from where to get this 600 units of vitamin D? In our normal choice of food, egg yolks seem to contain the highest of it at around 20 IU. So how many egg yolks one needs to consume per day in order to meet up that 600 IU? Moreover by cholesterol content even one yolk is sufficient for an average person so intaking more than that can create risk of higher cholesterol levels and associated cardiovascular issues. 

Sunlight is the Best Solution

So we can see that alternative sources of vitamin D are not very feasible and accessible. So we are left with two choices. Either replenish the deficiencies by supplementation or fortification of food or go out more in the sun. 

Fortunately our body has got the total mechanism of synthesis of vitamin D in our skin by converting bio-ingredients with the help of sunlight. Then that intermediate vitamin product passes through a long physiological process in the liver and kidney to become the usable active vitamin D compound. 

Ignoring and not using this natural gift and searching for the solution in food and artificial methods are not at all a very intelligent choice in the case of vitamin D. So we need to make time and routines to get our share of vitamin D from sunlight if we want to stay in good health. 

Current researches are finding more and more important functions of vitamin D. Deficiencies of it are associated with many kinds of male and female diseases including many cancers like prostate cancer and breast cancer, etc. Other than that, this vitamin is very important for skeletal health, endocrine or hormonal system and immune system among many other functions. So there is hardly any scope to ignore this vitamin and instead we need to adjust our lifestyle to meet up the requirements. 

How much Sunlight?

This is a very important question at least in the current times. The ozone layer is already damaged and there is excess of ultraviolet radiation in the sunlight. So there is enough strong reason to get into the safe zone in the question of sun exposure even though that also poses many health issues including bone health retardation and many forms of arthritis and related symptoms. 

Sun’s rays consist of 3 types of ultraviolet rays, viz. UVA, UVB and UVC. Out of these UVC are the most high-energy and damaging part of the uv spectrum and these are supposed to be almost totally blocked by the ozone layer at the upper atmosphere of the earth. But due to ozone layer damage by greenhouse gas emissions there is always a good possibility to get a fair amount of these extremely harmful types of ultraviolet rays in our atmosphere. And these UVC are the most cancer causing part of the ultraviolet rays. 

UVC has got nothing to do with our vitamin D synthesis. So it is always best to avoid these at most. It is the UVB that plays the role of vitamin D. Though UVB is also harmful by causing the tanning and sunburn and also some kinds of skin cancer. But it is less harmful than UVC and has a beneficial side of vitamin D synthesis from the human skin. 

UVA is the lowest energy type of ultraviolet, yet one of the major causes of various types of skin cancer, sunburn and tanning. And it has nothing to do with vitamin D. 

So we can see that excess or uncontrolled sun exposure can invite more problems than benefits. So there is a need to understand the proper format of sun exposure so that we can ripe the most of the benefits and avoid the harmful sides as much as we can. 

Know Hows of Sun Exposure

Many people think that having a sunbath can be good, especially in winter. But that is not the exact truth. Sunbathing is good but not beyond a limit. I would not specifically suggest the concept of sunbathing because I would support regular sun exposure to a certain limited time duration than occasional sunbath of extended duration. 

Regular sun exposure can help us to neutralize the bad effects of the ultraviolet rays to a considerable extent. Sudden or occasional exposure can cause more tanning, sunburn or skin cancer possibilities. Regular sun exposure of short durations is better than occasional sun exposure of longer or extended duration. 

It is better to limit direct sun exposure to approximately 30 minutes per day. Higher duration than that may not do much harm usually but in some cases there can be skin related issues and even some cancers. Many people have more sun exposure than 30 minutes but there are great possibilities of tanning and sun burning to an excessive level. In any case if it is more than 60 minutes of direct exposure (worse if even continuous), then you may need to take additional protections for the skin. 

If excess sun exposure is compulsory for anybody, due to profession or something else, then it is better to use good sunscreen to protect from harmful ultraviolet rays. Even better is to cover as much of the body as possible with clothes. 

To speak about the harm done by ultraviolet rays, I would just like to put one analogy that can make things much clearer to you I suppose. You must have heard about those UV water filters? There inside a UV lamp radiates the water to kill almost all the germs and microorganisms including bacteria. 

So does it anyhow tell anything about the action of ultraviolet rays upon living cells? And don’t forget that an UV lamp is no comparison to sunlight in terms of amount and intensity of radiation. Only the great protection that made life possible on this planet Earth is the presence of the ozone layer. And most unfortunately the ozone layer itself is endangered at current times.