Woman 2 Woman - Vitamin D – The Continuing Saga

One sits in the oh so urbane gatherings of modern women & the topic most under discussion is how their aches & pains have miraculously disappeared since they have started taking Vitamin D supplements following a blood test that showed very low levels. When one identifies her specialization as an infectious disease specialist-pathologist, the vision is of a poor soul scientist, tucked away in the remote corner of a forlorn hospital corner laboring over an ancient microscope! What most fail to understand is that evidence based medicine is the rule of the day & no clinician will move an inch without an appropriate lab investigation. And who unfolds the mystery of medical sciences and reports these are the poor old ‘introvert’ docs slogging in their labs.
 

Now coming to the vitamin D story, I have yet to find a consensus opinion among all pathologists and clinical scientists in chemistry about the best way to measure this elusive chemical in blood and even what constitutes the normal range. No wonder that I have rarely come across a ‘so called normal’ level and no surprises that on the insistence of the orthopedician my own level was 9!

---

And to top the complexity are these hundreds of publications linking this vitamin to all possible ailments under the sun from mild aches & pains in muscles, bones and joints to cancers, heart diseases, autoimmune disorders, asthma and even obesity. Even cognitive impairment in older adults has been linked to this vitamin deficiency, so if you are getting forgetful of where you left those darned keys, then blame it on low Vitamin D levels!!! So what does one do? Well to start, get up & move as much as you can in the morning or evening sun. And please stop lathering that sunblock all over the face & exposed arms. Much to the dismay of my dermatology colleagues, I think in normal brown females there is very limited role of this particular brand of creams. The creator has given enough melanin in their skins to protect against the harmful UV rays and any further shielding will only stop the synthesis of this naturally made vitamin in their skins. So forget about joining the band wagon of fair & lovely and let the lovely sun help your bones and muscles stay healthy.