et another benefit of vitamin D has been discovered. Vitamin D decreases the chance of getting peripheral arterial disease (PAD).

PAD is a common disease that occurs when arteries in the legs become narrowed by fatty deposits, causing pain and numbness and impairing the ability to walk, and, in some cases, leading to amputation.

Scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York, the United States, found that people with low levels of vitamin D in their blood run an increased risk of getting the peripheral artery disease.

They based their findings on a United States government-sponsored health survey involving 4,839 adults.

These 4,839 adults had their vitamin D levels in blood measured, besides undergoing a screening method for PAD that evaluates blood flow to the legs.

It was noticed that people in the lowest 25% of vitamin D levels were 80% more likely to have the peripheral arterial disease than those in the highest 25%, the news agency Reuters quoted researchers as saying.

According to Dr Michal Melamed, who led the study, “participants in the survey who had the lowest vitamin D levels had a much higher prevalence of peripheral artery disease.”

However, Dr Melamed cautioned that it would be premature for people to start taking vitamin D supplements because since studies are needed to confirm that it is protective.

The study conducted by researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine was presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association held in Atlanta. It was also published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, the journal of the American Heart Association.

Vitamin D, or 25-hydroxyl vitamin D, which helps the body absorb calcium, is considered essential for the health of the bones. In adults, deficiency of vitamin D can lead to osteoporosis, and in children, the deficiency causes a condition known as rickets.

Other studies conducted recently have shown that high intake of vitamin D can drastically cut the risk of a variety of cancers as well as cardiovascular diseases.

According to the American Heart Association, people with the peripheral arterial disease run 4-5 times greater risk of having a heart attack or a stroke, and about 8 million Americans suffer from PAD.

The best source of vitamin D is sunshine, with 15 minutes of sun exposure a day considered enough to meet Vitamin D requirements.

The food that is most rich in vitamin D is oily fish, such as salmon fish. Since dietary sources for vitamin D are limited, vitamin D is used to fortify a number of foods, including orange juice, milk and cereal.

Answered by Sidh Vicky , an ibibo Citizen, at 10:52 AM on October 13, 2008

The major biologic function of vitamin D is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus. Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium, helping to form and maintain strong bones. Recently, research also suggests vitamin D may provide protection from osteoporosis, hypertension (high blood pressure), cancer, and several autoimmune diseases.

Answered by Mohd Saqib , an ibibo Specialist, at 1:59 AM on September 27, 2008

well RINKU, Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin. What this means is that it can be produced in the skin from the energy of the sun and we do have to be concern about getting it from what we eat. Acting like hormones, vitamin D is formed in one place but carries out its function in another part of our body.
Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin and is important for calcium and phosphorus absorption. Although the amount needed for the body is small, it is still very important to help regulate calcium metabolism. Lack of vitamin D will lead to weak bones and could also contribute to osteoporosis.

In Nature
Apart from the sun, you could also get your relatively smaller supply supply of vitamin D from fishes like herring, mackerel, sardines and rainbow trout. Apart from that, salmon, tuna, eggs and cheddar cheese do contain vitamin D ? although the amount is very low.

In general, if you're concern about not getting enough vitamin D, you should be outdoor more often. Keep your sunscreen at home too since those cream would only block the necessary rays from creating vitamin D in your body. You should not be concern about getting skin cancer if you're only exposed to 10-15 minutes of sun everyday.

Benefits of Vitamin D

1. Because it encourages the absorption of calcium, vitamin D protects against osteoporosis.
2. It boosts the immune system and is believed to protect the body from infection.
3. Necessary for strong teeth and bones.
4. Helps in treating psoriasis.

Answered by Satya ~ , an ibibo Master, at 11:47 PM on September 24, 2008

The major biologic function of vitamin D is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus. Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium, helping to form and maintain strong bones. Recently, research also suggests vitamin D may provide protection from osteoporosis, hypertension, cancer, and several autoimmune diseases.

Vitamin D plays an important role in the maintenance of organ systems.

Vitamin D regulates the calcium and phosphorus levels in the blood by promoting their absorption from food in the intestines, and by promoting re-absorption of calcium in the kidneys.

It promotes bone formation and mineralization and is essential in the development of an intact and strong skeleton. However, at very high levels it will promote the resorption of bone.

It inhibits parathyroid hormone secretion from the parathyroid gland.

Vitamin D affects the immune system by promoting phagocytosis, anti-tumor activity, and immunomodulatory functions.

SOURCE SITE :http://english.pravda.ru/news /science/10-06-2008/105476-vit amin-0

Answered by Sanya Tahir , an ibibo Master, at 9:44 PM on September 15, 2008

Benefits of Vitamin D :

Did you know your body can make some of its own vitamins?

Your body makes vitamin D when sunlight hits your skin. Actually, vitamin D is both a vitamin and a hormone. Vitamin D is a vitamin because bones can't use calcium without it. Vitamin D is a hormone because the skin makes it in response to sunlight.

Too much sun, as we all know, is a risk factor for skin cancer. Not enough sun, as not everybody knows, is a risk factor for people who don't get the benefits of vitamin D.

And what's one of the major results of low vitamin D? Increased risk of skin cancer!

Scientists have long suspected that vitamin D is a natural anti-cancer agent. Decades of research now suggest that vitamin D protects against skin cancer and several other kinds of cancer by promoting "apoptosis."

One of the benefits of vitamin D is its ability essentially to tell the cancer cell to switch itself off and stop reproducing. It may in some cases even cause cancer cells to revert to normal cells.

And the anti-cancer benefits of vitamin D are just the beginning. Other potential applications of vitamin D include:


• Alzheimer's Disease. Preliminary studies show that vitamin D may increase the rate of cellular repair in the brain 200%.

• Prostate cancer. Vitamin D seems to have a special anti-cancer potency in the prostate.

• Breast cancer. Women who consume 500 IU of vitamin D a day with low-fat dairy products have a greatly reduced risk of developing breast cancer before menopause.

Of course, cancer prevention is only one of the benefits of vitamin D. The major application of vitamin D? Bone health!

You need calcium and phosphorous for healthy bones, but your bones can't absorb these minerals without the hormones your body makes with the help of vitamin D.

Researchers at Harvard University recently completed a study of 72,337 women over 18 years. They found that women who got the benefits of vitamin D from consuming what was once considered a high dose (about 500 IU) in food and supplements had a greatly lowered risk of broken hips. The Harvard researchers concluded that neither milk nor calcium is enough to maintain bone health, and that taking vitamin D supplements is a good idea.

No fracture is more likely to lead to death and disability than a broken hip. Vitamin D definitely helps prevent this condition. And although osteoporosis is more commonly associated with women than with men, over 5 million men a year in North America alone develop this disease.

Vitamin D also prevents that scourge of the early twentieth century, rickets.

Rickets is a condition of brittle bone in children and young adults that usually can be prevented by exposure to sunlight. In the early age of the industrial revolution, children were forced to work indoors in factories and never got to see the sun. These unfortunate children suffered vitamin D deficiency and rickets.

Amazingly, rickets occurs in the United States today - but not because young children are forced to work in factories. In the twenty-first century, rickets most commonly occurs in children of good parents and good homes. It is, for reasons doctors don't understand, most common among African-Americans, in the Southeast, and among children who are breastfed.

Who may need supplemental vitamin D to get the full range of benefits of vitamin D?

The skin's ability to convert vitamin to its active form begins to decline at age 20. Your body's production of vitamin D goes down as soon as you become an adult. By the time you are 65, your body's production of vitamin D with the help of the sun goes down as much as 60%. Improper diet, menopause, and lack of sun also contribute to vitamin D deficiency.

So who needs supplemental D? The short answer is, just about every adult.

Vitamin D is

Answered by Yogeshwar , an ibibo Specialist, at 3:28 PM on September 15, 2008

It helps in insulin secretion.If there is deficiency o fD vitamin, there will be reduced absorption of calcium and that can cause osteoporosis.It also leads ot Alzheimer's disease.Deficiency of vitamin D leads to formation of kidney stones,bone loss etc...

Answered by Vida Writer , an ibibo Master, at 4:32 PM on September 14, 2008

well,Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble prohormones, the two major forms of which are vitamin D2 (or ergocalciferol) and vitamin D3 (or cholecalciferol).[1] The term vitamin D also refers to metabolites and other analogues of these substances. Vitamin D3 is produced in skin exposed to sunlight, specifically ultraviolet B radiation.

Vitamin D plays an important role in the maintenance of organ systems.[2]

* Vitamin D regulates the calcium and phosphorus levels in the blood by promoting their absorption from food in the intestines, and by promoting re-absorption of calcium in the kidneys.
* It promotes the absorption of calcium into the bloodstream which, combined with adequate levels of vitamin K, has been suggested to promote bone formation and mineralization[citation needed]. However, at very high levels it will promote the resorption of bone and no studies exist showing that extra vitamin D promotes bone mineralization better than calcium supplementation alone in otherwise healthy individuals.
* Absent vitamin K or with drugs (particularly blood thinners) which interfere with Vitamin K metabolism, Vitamin D can promote soft tissue calcification.[3]
* It inhibits parathyroid hormone secretion from the parathyroid gland.
* Vitamin D affects the immune system by promoting phagocytosis, anti-tumor activity, and immunomodulatory functions.

Vitamin D deficiency can result from inadequate intake coupled with inadequate sunlight exposure, disorders that limit its absorption, conditions that impair conversion of vitamin D into active metabolites, such as liver or kidney disorders, or, rarely, by a number of hereditary disorders.[2] Deficiency results in impaired bone mineralization, and leads to bone softening diseases, rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults, and possibly contributes to osteoporosis.

Vitamin D regulates the expression of genes associated with cancers and autoimmune disease by controlling the activation of the vitamin D receptor (VDR), a type 1 nuclear receptor and DNA transcription factor.[4] Research has indicated that vitamin D deficiency is linked to colon cancer and more recently, to breast cancer.[5] Conflicting evidence links vitamin D deficiency to other forms of cancer.

Answered by Debashis , an ibibo Master, at 10:05 AM on September 14, 2008

Vitamin d is needed in the development of strong, healthy bones. Its chief function is to maintain the right concentration of calcium and phosphorus in the body. Vitamin D is necessary for the calcification process. This is particularly important in babies and young children, whose bones develop comparatively at a faster rate. Vitamin D maintains normal structure of bones and assists to govern the balance between bone calcium and blood calcium. It also helps in the development of the normal teeth. In deficiency of vitamin D the formation of the teeth becomes defective and leads to the development of dental caries. Vitamin controls the retention of calcium and parathyroid regulates the level of blood calcium by controlling movement of calcium from the bones. Thus vitamin D and parathyroid help each other in calcium metabolism and bone formation. It lowers the pH in the colon, caecum, ileum, etc. and increases the urinary pH simultaneously. It also permits normal growth. On the whole the function of vitamin D is to cause increased absorption, longer retention and better utilization of calcium and phosphorus in the body.

And for more information visit the source site:
http://www.healthvitami nsguide.com/vitamins/vitamin-d .htm

Answered by Dinesh , an ibibo Master, at 7:16 AM on September 14, 2008

dear rinku!
Vitamin D is helpful to strengthen the bones.

Answered by Cuty * , an ibibo Advisor, at 6:54 AM on September 14, 2008

Well Rinku,

It has now been suggested that autism may be caused by insufficient vitamin D during pregnancy and/or early years. Autistic children have difficulty in forming relationships, but they also tend to have larger heads, changes similar to those found in baby rats that are bred with insufficient vitamin D.

so i think vitamin D is very imp.

Answered by Priyanka C , an ibibo Master, at 12:46 AM on September 14, 2008