What causes Vitamin D deficiency and its BEST Treatment

What causes Vitamin D deficiency and its BEST Treatment

BY Dr. Aurangzeb Afzal Sep 18, 2020 06:53:25 PM

What causes Vitamin D deficiency and its BEST Treatment

How is it made and what is the natural way Vitamin D operates in the body, what is the best treatment option with medicine and without medicine. 

This is the topic of the day, before jumping on to the topic, I forgot to mention one thing in my previous article that Vitamin D is associated with immunity and it has a very close connection with immunity. 

Watch video on this article:
Englishhttps://youtu.be/CNM4sjGWnhc
Urduhttps://youtu.be/ffyFCHmETII

The immune cells are dependent on Vitamin D for their proper functioning if it isn't available; we are going to get a lot of infections, I won't name all the infections but if it's not there properly it can even lead to malfunctioning, it can lead to autoimmunity, our own antibodies may start to target our own body, so that's why the diseases like systemic lupus arithmetic called SLE connective tissue diseases or under many other autoimmune diseases have been linked with low Vitamin D levels. 

Once again research is against and for it but it makes a lot of sense when we go into the detail. Now coming back to the topic of the day is what is the real mechanism, how is the Vitamin D made by almighty. 


Vitamin D is made in three steps

  •  First is in the skin.
  • Second is in the liver.
  • Third is in the kidney.


In the skin is the sunlight and the UV light, the ultraviolet light touches the skin and it converts something into a molecule- 70 hydrochloric stroll and then it moves into the liver where it is hydroxylated at 25 positions and in the kidney at one position or alpha hydroxylation, we call it now these technical or fancy names you don't have to remember it. You just need to remember as a combination - teamwork of skin liver and kidney. In that Vitamin D is made once Vitamin D is made it's being utilized all over the body, in all the nucleated cells of the body, there is a receptor called Vitamin D Receptor (VDR), it goes there and then it does the necessary wherever it has to function, it does what is the function of Vitamin D, I have already told in my last Article in detail, in this article now I am going to talk about what are the causes of Vitamin D deficiency, reasons behind Vitamin D deficiency.

Let's start with skin, there is inadequate exposure of sunlight or the skin, the reasons are so many, there isn't any single reason that I can enumerate- sometimes we are living in a place where the sun explosion isn't sufficient, it's mostly raining, it's cloudy in winters, the sun is scarcely available or we are not really familiar with going out in the sunshine. We don't have time for it or we have some kind of professional obligation that we have to work in the night and in the daytime, we are sleeping or we are living in a zone in a temperate zone first like in the USA, for people in Boston usually in the winter seasons- the Vitamin D deficiency goes down the drain and literally this sun-related Vitamin D manufacturing almost comes to hurt, this is so many other areas, Boston is just one of them I have just named it then what is the time gap, at that at what point Vitamin D deficiency goes into a normal value. 


Once we are in the sunshine, 200 international units of Vitamin D are formed within a few minutes, if we are exposed to sunlight, the recommended daily allowance the RDA is usually 600 internationals for adults so the optimum amount of time that you should spend in the sunshine is not really in a consensus. At this point in time but it's different indifference afro-Americans is different. It's different in Caucasians whites and dark brown people and the reason for that is with darkening of the skin, there is a material called melanin in the skin and it reduces the conversion rate of an inactivated form of Vitamin D to the activated form, So the darker skin is relatively in favor of Vitamin D deficiency. 

Next thing is, if the skin goes fine then malabsorption- we are having some kind of problem within the stomach and we are not able to absorb the Vitamin D from our diet, this may be true in terms of so many conditions that cause diarrhea for example diarrhea causing conditions are ulcerative colitis celiac disease irritable bowel syndrome diarrhea, predominant and so many other conditions and i think i should not go into the detail of this malabsorption syndrome because i'm going to detect from the real topic but the thing is if you're having a lot of diarrhea loose tools you may be suffering from Vitamin D deficiency because of that and it needs to be treated for your Vitamin D to be sufficient then one obvious thing is that we are not taking Vitamin D up to the level that we should be taking, that happens in so many conditions for example a baby is using a milk that is not properly fortified with Vitamin D and it should be properly fortified and there is a recommended daily allowance for that at least the babies should be using below one year of age 400 international Vitamin D must be used and if the baby is on breast feeding there should be an additional supplementation of Vitamin D through drops and they are available commercially all over the world and that will take care of Vitamin D deficiency in infants and child, in adults in terms of eating milk & yogurt helps to maintain a good amount of Vitamin D in our nutritional status and then soya milk also helps it, then in fish- Fatty fish does help, salmon, tuna, trout all are available in USA and Europe i think and they are a rich source of Vitamin D and fish liver oil capsule and fish liver oil is otherwise also available that helps to maintain it then beef liver also helps in terms of maintenance of Vitamin D but that is not generally recommended to take it. Egg's yolk is a rich source of Vitamin D2 so if we are not taking these things that would lead to Vitamin D deficiency then there is a condition called Rickets in which Vitamin D receptors are not responsive, even if you are taking a sufficient amount of Vitamin D. 


It's not being allowed by those receptors to work so the result would be vitamin if the all the feeling of Vitamin D deficiency would be there all the Vitamin D in the blood was good but the receptors did not allow it to work and that's a natural decision and it needs to be treated another way and it should be assessed and treated by a proper physician/ surgeon of your own territory. 

Then I've already talked about the professional detail that if you are sleeping throughout the day and working in the night then Vitamin D deficiency is obvious because of the lack of exposure to the sunlight then I'll come back to the teamwork that I have talked about in the initial part of this article- Skin; if the skin is diseased and your doctor has told you not to expose your skin to sunlight that would lead to a lack of first step of Vitamin D manufacturing and Vitamin D deficiency on the other hand if your liver isn't functioning for example in the patients of hepatitis-c with having a chronic liver disease with an enlarged spleen and the societies and the protuberant abdomen and a weak liver they may not be able to manufacture Vitamin D to the same extent that they should and it results in all the problems that I have previously mentioned in articles.

If you're having a kid or you or any patient is having a kidney failure weak kidneys that will lead to the decreased third step of Vitamin D manufacturing and Vitamin D will need to be supplemented in that case so these are the general things that need to be taken into account in order to understand what are the actual things that would lead to Vitamin D deficiency, old age per se it should not be a cause of Vitamin D deficiency but old age is associated Vitamin D deficiency because of the lack of stores and the lack of good nutrition and there are so many things that doctors say that you should not be eating this and that and that may contribute to this Vitamin D deficiency because of limited diet.

Now the best treatment:

The best treatment is take plenty of Vitamin D when you can take it and the doctors haven't asked you to stop taking egg yolk and milk and all that due to some reason and there are very few reasons that we stop these things and if you take sufficient amount of these things you don't need any medicine, yogurt is a good source of Vitamin D, remember that if the level of Vitamin D is less than 20- in that case you will be needing some kind of supplementation and one of the supplementation mechanism is 50000 internationals or Vitamin D should be taken on weekly basis for six weeks and after that the supplementation should be on the basis of age, 600 internationals daily for age one year, to 70 and above 70 years the recommended daily allowance is 800 international units, now this maintenance dose is available with so many multivitamins that are commercially available and you don't have to separately take a pill for Vitamin D but initially you may another regime is that capsule of 2 lakh international universities available 200,000 international universal Vitamin D is available and it's being taken on a monthly basis for three months so there are so many regimes available that i should not be going into each and every detail of these regimes but they are all good and if they are properly tailored to the patient that is being subject of that prescription i must add here that Vitamin D deficiency should not be self-proclaimed and self-diagnosed and self-treated, i have seen results of calcium related stone formation in the kidneys because of excessive use of Vitamin D, so excess use of Vitamin D should be discouraged and a sufficient use of Vitamin D should be encouraged and who will decide your physician and experienced surgeon whoever is treating you will help you to decide what is the recommended dose of Vitamin D for you.  I hope I answered a few of the confusion regarding Vitamin D.

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