About Vitamin D

The earth is a ball, spinning and wobbling as it orbits the sun. One spin makes one day, while one wobble completes in 365¼ days, making one year. Natural production of vitamin D occurs in the skin of all people everywhere when 7-dehydrocholesterol molecules in the skin are exposed to the 290-300 nanometer (nm) long wavelengths of ultraviolet-B (UVB) light in sunlight, light that varies with the spin and wobble of the earth.

Once a day each day, when the sun is at its highest in the sky, 290-300nm light may be reaching the surface of the earth during the middle hours of the day at where you have located yourself on the earth’s surface, for longer amounts of mid-day time at locations closer to the equator, and not at all at latitudes closest to the poles.  

The wobble of the earth causes the earth to tilt. When the earth is tilting toward the hemisphere you are in (northern or southern), the days are getting longer, the sun is getting higher in the sky each day, and sunlight has more and more 290-300nm light in it during the mid-day hours of the day (it is the summer season). When the earth is tilting the other way, the opposite is true.  Where you are located, the time of the day, and the season of the year determines how much 290-300nm light is available to you, therefore how much natural production of vitamin D can occur in your body.

Clouds, ozone, and pollution in the air absorb light at these wavelengths.  So, at your location, even though the time of day and the season may be right for mid-range ultraviolet-B light, 290-300nm light, which should be in the sky and getting all the way down to the ground, that light may not be there due the number of clouds, and the amounts of ozone and pollution in the sky. And also, for vitamin D production to occur in skin, the sunlight must be shining directly on the skin, not blocked by glass, clothing, sun screen, dust in the air, or dirt-and-oil on skin. Once in skin, the UVB light is absorbed by 7-dehydrocholesterol molecules in the lower layers of the skin, which converts the 7-dehydrocholesterol to vitamin D (cholecalciferol) molecules. Darker skin color also blocks ultraviolet-B light from reaching deep into skin (darker blocks more).

Once in skin, mid-range UVB light immediately starts producing large amounts of vitamin D.  An hour of whole-body exposure to ultraviolet-B bearing sunlight has been estimated to produce 30,000 IU (International Units) of vitamin D in the skin of an average sized light-skinned person (by weight, 400 IU of vitamin D equals 10 micrograms of vitamin D).  The body safely handles such large quantities of vitamin D in skin keeping it in the skin until vitamin D-binding protein (GC) from the liver is made available to pick the vitamin D up and carry it into circulation. In spite of the human body’s ability to produce large amounts of vitamin D rapidly, many variables reduce natural vitamin D production.  Because of these many factors, the locations where most people live today, and the many cultural restrictions/limits most people living today live by, most people alive and living around the world are vitamin D deficient.

Since the 1930’s in the Western world, and in India, China, and Russia in the East, governments have been extracting lanolin from sheep’s wool, a rich source of 7-dehydrocholesterol. After irradiating the 7-dehydrocholesterol with ultraviolet-B light, they have been using it to provide vitamin D to their populations. But this method of producing vitamin D proved unable to meet world demand by even before the start of the 21^st century. Since then, among concerned scientists and governments around the world, a search has been ongoing for years now for economical and practical new sources of vitamin D.

In the 1980’s Western scientists learned how to synthesize vitamin D from scratch in the lab. Even more recently 7-dehydrocholesterol or vitamin D itself has come to be extracted from a variety of natural sources. The world’s demand for vitamin D now far exceeds what can be obtained each year through washing, extracting, and irradiating lanolin from sheep’s wool. One method of producing vitamin D that has emerged that appears capable of producing a potentially limitless supply of vitamin D is done by bioengineering the Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast, which has been used in bread, wine, and chocolate production for hundreds of years.  Saccharomyces cerevisiae is now re-engineered for 7-dehydrocholesterol production, then exposed to the same ultraviolet-B light as skin is in the natural production of vitamin D, converting 7-dehydrocholesterol molecules in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast to vitamin D. Rubbing this yeast production vitamin D into the skin allows the skin to absorb the vitamin D and it remains in skin (it is hydrophobic, “water fearing” and blood has a saltwater base (what it fears)) until vitamin D-binding protein (GC) from the liver picks the vitamin D up and carries it into and through circulation.

Another method of producing vitamin D, one that is also capable of producing a limitless supply of vitamin D, and producing it at very low cost, is to produce 290-300 ultraviolet-B light from scratch.  Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) that emit 290-300nm light have started appearing in marketplaces around the world (in the United States, Japan, Germany, and South Korea in the West, and likely in the Soviet Union and in China in the East). So far none of these 290-300nm range LED lamps has maintained any more than a temporary toehold in the marketplace before disappearing, perhaps due to concerns about possible premature skin aging, skin damage, and skin cancer from exposure to UVB light.

Whether vitamin D is produced naturally in skin, or is added to skin, once attached to GC protein (vitamin D-binding protein), vitamin D is free to move through the body. On passing back through the liver the vitamin D is converted to 25-hydroxyvitamin D (calcifediol (25(OH)D)) and then stored in adipocytes (fat storage cells) throughout the body in that state or is directed to continue on in circulation (depending on demand for vitamin D converted to 1a,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (the next step (described in the next two paragraphs))).

If there is little 25(OH)D in fat storage cells, the body tends to store it. If the body has demand for 1a,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (the next and final conversion of vitamin D, the conversion to its biologically active form), the body tends to convert 25(OH)D to 1a,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (calcitriol (1,25(OH)₂D)) and put it to work immediately. Very little 1,25(OH)₂D is ever seen in circulation, because it is put to work immediately when it is made due to the demand that triggered the conversion. 

Exercise, hard work, or, in general, any vigorous physical activity [a rule of thumb, does the activity make you sweat?] create immediate strong demands for 1,25(OH)₂D. This is the key to understanding vitamin D: it is converted to its active from not only by exercise and vigorous physical activity but also by needs for it from throughout the body. In every case, it is put to work immediately, by demands which cause it to disappear from circulation.

1,25(OH)₂D (active D) acts through binding to the vitamin D receptor (VDR).  Needs for active vitamin D (1,25(OH)₂D) come from throughout the body, and vitamin D receptors are located throughout the body. The following list of active vitamin D effects is from scientists, researchers, and health care professionals.  These are all published findings, and well-supported findings in vitamin D literature. They are also very conservative, mostly based on studies of people taking about 400 IU of vitamin D daily (the FDA approved daily dose in the United States):

Needs for active vitamin D (1,25(OH)₂D) come from throughout the body, vitamin D receptors are located throughout the body, and calcium phosphate salts spontaneously form and accumulate throughout the body. 1,25(OH)₂D creates calcium-binding proteins and phosphatases to break up these calcium phosphate salts and return the useful calcium and phosphate ions they are made of back to circulation.  [You’ve got to get this; this is what vitamin D is all about: this is vitamin D’s root function!]

As we all come to see and understand that calcium phosphate salts are spontaneously forming and accumulating throughout the body in everybody, we will come to see that billions of people, most people, nearly all people(?), are vitamin D deficient.

The body (it’s cells) can be described very simply as (1) organized into nerve, muscle, bone, and support mechanisms/systems to support nerve, muscle, and bone. Vitamin D uses phosphatases and calcium-binding proteins it produces through the genes it controls to clean and clear open space (extracellular space) of the calcium phosphates that form and accumulate there. Calcium phosphates form spontaneously throughout the body from circulating calcium and phosphate ions. The body is (2) organized for thinking (nerve) and acting (muscle and bone); (1) calcium phosphates accumulate everywhere throughout the body; (2) calcium phosphate accumulation is increased during fever; (3) calcium phosphate accumulation is increased during times of metabolic imbalances; (4) calcium phosphate accumulation is increased during pregnancy; and (5) calcium phosphate accumulation is increased at and around sites of injury. Cleaning and clearing open space of calcium phosphates is essential to maintaining healthy bodies that act (muscle and bone) when told to act (nerve).

Where there are large accumulations of calcium phosphates in open space, circulating macrophages combine and make themselves into multinucleated macrophages (Figure 4), to surround (using neoplastic, “new form” membrane), break up, dissolve, encapsulate, and transport away calcium phosphate masses throughout the body, another tool the body uses to thoroughly clean and clear open space areas in the body.

Figure 4: A multinucleated macrophage looking for some calcium phosphate to consume. Multinucleated macrophages that consume calcium phosphate are also called osteoclasts (“bone splitters”).

WorkoutD is a method of applying vitamin D powder directly to the skin to make vitamin D plentiful in the body. The powder is manufactured by Provitas, at www.Provitas.com (thank-you, Provitas). Once a day apply a gram (100,000 IU, a heaping quarter (¼) teaspoon) or 2 grams (200,000 IU, well less than a teaspoon) of the vitamin D powder directly to your skin. Expect the vitamin D powder you apply to continue to be absorbed all day.  Remember, when you are in sunlight rich in 290-300nm ultraviolet-B (UVB) light you are naturally making and safely handling large quantities of vitamin D.

WorkoutD with exercise extends open space calcium phosphate cleanup to every corner of the body. After you apply vitamin D powder, exercise, walk, run, lift weights, play, work in your garden, work in your yard, work on your car, work at your job, be active. You will be helping multinucleated macrophages locate calcium phosphate masses throughout your body. Phosphatases and calcium-binding protein work locally w/cells, multinucleated macrophages work system-wide, w/circulation.

J. Dalen