Susan Tellem learned she was vitamin D deficient by accident.
"I went in for an allergy issue, and a blood test showed my vitamin D was at an all-time low," says Tellem, 62, of Malibu, Calif.
Tellem's D level was 7 ng/mL (nanograms/milliliter), well below the deficiency mark of 20 ng/mL or lower. A normal reading is 30 ng/mL or higher.
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, as many as 36% of Americans are vitamin D deficient.
In a review of vitamin D medical literature published last July in The New England Journal of Medicine, vitamin D expert Michael Holick, professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at Boston University Medical School, says D deficiency in adults has been linked to an increased risk for osteoporosis, osteomalacia — the softening of bones — and certain cancers, autoimmune diseases and cardiovascular problems.
Vitamin D also may play a role in preventing diabetes and hypertension, according to the National Institutes of Health. A study in last week's Archives of Internal Medicine found that men 40 to 75 with below-normal vitamin D levels had a higher risk of heart attack.
Experts, such as Tanya Edwards, head of the integrative medicine department at the Cleveland Clinic, say Americans probably have always been deficient, but increasingly so because of poor sun exposure and diet. Also, there has been more research of vitamin D over the past several years that has raised awareness.
Like Tellem, many adults are not aware they are low on vitamin D, Edwards says.
Older Americans, whose skin cannot synthesize vitamin D as efficiently and whose kidneys are less able to convert vitamin D to its active hormone form, aren't the only adult group at risk, Edwards says.
She began screening all of her patients last year and says 95% have come up deficient. "I'm even seeing it in twenty- and thirtysomethings," she says.
Since genetics play a part, check your D level if a relative is deficient, Edwards says.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-06-16-vitamin-d-side_N.htm
Lack of vitamin D rampant in infants, teens:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-06-16-vitamin-d-main_N.htm
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