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Vitamin D Deficiencies Rise as Winter Arrives
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Many people enjoy spending time in the sun but this activity is curbed as the rains of winter arrive. This lack of time in the sun, apart from forcing people to spend more time indoors (or wet) also has an effect on our health. The primary place that people get their vitamin D from is the UV-B radiation given off by the sun. This problem is huge because vitamin D deficiencies affect people’s immune system in many ways from reducing inflammation to increased cancer risk.
Adrian Gombart from the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University has been researching the many effects of vitamin D. This research has been seriously impacted however because the only way to test possible new therapies using vitamin D is on primates. Humans and other primates are the only ones who have the same biological pathways that are needed to demonstrate if a therapy is efficacious. Constrained by the lack of primates to test on the researchers at OSU are hoping to create a group of genetically modified mice with the correct characteristics that can be tested on.
In a time where seventy percent of people have vitamin D deficiencies research of this sort is vital. In places like the northwestern United States that spend half of the year shrouded in clouds vitamin D deficiency is very likely. Unless research like Gombart’s at the Linus Pauling Institute elsewhere is fruitful a continued effect is being felt with a high risk of coronary artery disease, stroke and even the common cold.
For more information about Vitamin D head here.
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