Posts Tagged by SAD

The clocks go back an hour soon, so you’re not crazy if the

word “Vitamin D” seems to be all over the health news these days suggesting

that we need to up our Vitamin D intake to ward off the impending winter

blues.

The reality that winter is on it’s way cannot be denied any longer. The

days are shorter and cooler, the leaves are falling if not almost all gone, and though the changing

colors are beautiful to look at, we may find ourselves more moody, and less

energetic then just a few short weeks ago.

Before you know it we’ll be getting up in the dark, and coming home in the

dark, and days or even weeks will go by leaving us feeling like we can’t

remember when the last time we saw sunlight was.

That alone is enough to cause anyone to feel ” blue”, after a delightful

summer of long warm days with carefree trips to the beach, bare toes in the

cool grass, and sipping cold ice tea. But, there’s another reason some of us feel

the dread of it all even more so.

Studies say that a lack of Vitamin D from not

enough exposure to sunlight can cause mild to moderate or even severe

depression in about 3 percent of Canadians every year. This has been a long

known fact, that had become noticeable enough by 1984, that a criteria was set

for the symptoms of lack of sunlight in the winter months caused in people,

and a diagnosis was given for it. They called it Seasonal Affective Disorder, or

SAD.

Winter Blues is different from SAD, as many people like me who suffer

from SAD every year can tell you. We often feel misunderstood and that our

struggles with SAD are minimized by others just by the acronym itself, because

SAD is so much more then just being down or feeling blue for a few hours or a

few days in the winter. SAD can really pack a devastating punch into the

quality of our daily living, and our families if we let it get out of hand.

People with SAD feel tired and lethargic and often withdraw from friends

and family for the entire winter season. They may have less interest in

activities that they usually enjoy, and It can be so severe that antidepressants

are prescribed to try and minimize the effects of this seasonal

depression.

People with SAD often struggle with the inability to concentrate, deep

levels of sadness or despair, increased appetite, cravings for sweet and starchy

foods and subsequent weight gain, irritability, increased sleepiness, severe lack

of energy, and a debilitating decreased interest in work and social activities

they usually find fulfilling and fun.

SAD can affect everyone different, but some people with SAD fall into a deep depression where regular everyday routines and

normal life functioning are so thrown off kilter they can barley get out of

bed in the day from November through to March. Over the years I have

experienced many levels of SAD from mild, to moderate, to deep levels of depression , until I decided to take control of SAD, instead of sitting around in September waiting for it to take a hold of me. I started to research the correlation between depression and Vitamin D levels,

and started to experiment with how I could ward of the seasonal depression by

making sure I got enough Vitamin D in the winter.

Vitamin D deficiency has long been associated as the missing link to

depression. This is especially the case for people in Canada, where we are so

far north of the equator, that even throughout the rest of the year when the

sun is shining bright, over 97 percent of healthy people lack proper levels of

Vitamin D in our systems to achieve optimal health.

In Canada, we have one of the higher rates of Seasonal Affective Disorder in the world. Though it is only about 3 % of the population that has been officially diagnosed with

SAD and sought medical help, rates in other countries are lower at .9% and

only 1% (officially diagnosed cases).

During the winter season the sun won’t stimulate vitamin D in your body if

your not getting exposed to it enough, due to its increased distance from the

earth and our habits of spending less time outside. This can cause your vitamin

D levels to drop as much as 50% in the winter as it is in the summer, and has been reported to affect people with darker skin tones , since they need to be in the sun longer per day to absorb the same levels of Vitamin D through the skin as lighter skin tones people.

But, in recent years we are starting to discover that it is not just SAD that we need to be concerned about when it comes to

our Vitamin D levels. Lower levels of vitamin D cause have been proven to

cause your immune system to not work at it’s best. In fact, recent studies have

shown that lack of vitamin D is linked to many health issues such as MS,

cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis, as well as many other health issues.

Through all the research I have done to beat my own SAD and make sure

my Vitamin D levels were adequate, I came to the conclusion that vitamin D

deficiency is a concern for everyone in society, and not just those of us with

SAD who are affected by lack of sunlight in the winter.

Vitamin D acts like a hormone that our body produces to help us absorb

calcium better. Optimal levels of Vitamin D have positive affects on our

immune system, our cardiovascular system, our level of white blood cells, and

even maintaining healthy skin. Ensuring you are getting enough even if your

not affected by winter blues is very important.

Studies in recent years show that Vitamin D helps prevent osteoporosis

and fighting off some cancers. Recent U.S. studies say vitamin D can help

prevent colon cancer by detoxifying the body’s own digestive products and

other tests at McGill University here in Canada show vitamin D can stop the

growth of malignant cells from breast and prostate tumors.

But, although scientists and researchers can agree on its beneficial affects to the human body,

and come up with new proof every day, Government agencies like Health

Canada and Doctors following their set guidelines cannot agree on what the actual optimal level of Vitamin D for individuals should be, because optimal levels of it for each person varies depending on sex, age, weight,

skin color, and ethnic background. The argument is that just a blanket

recommendation of a minimal amount might not be sufficient for some people

to see a positive change in their over all general health, preventative self care, or SAD.

When you add that to the increased warnings to cover up and avoid the

sun over the last 20 years, we are becoming a society of sick people who are

living in fear of the sun.

As far back as 2002, people like Dr. David Hanley, a professor of medicine at the University of Calgary in

Alberta have been saying that because

the sun comes in at more of an angle during our Canadian winters, and is lower

in the sky between October and March, the atmosphere filters out most of the

Ultraviolet B rays that we need to make Vitamin D in our body. Hanley

claims we fail to produce decent quantities of Vitamin D in the winter.

Dr. Hanley and a researcher Diana Rucker followed 188 healthy people

aged 27 to 89 for a year. They took blood levels every three months and found

that during the summer months, most participants were fine. But in the fall

and winter months, the participants levels of vitamin D fell to levels that put

them at increased risk of osteoporosis.

As a result Dr. Hanley advised that people do not need to sunbathe for

hours, but do need 15 to 30 minutes of exposure on the face, hands and

forearms every day to increase their Vitamin D levels.

It seems pretty simple to me that all I needed to do was expose myself to

some sunlight every day to get more vitamin D, but just how much sunlight

would I need, and how much converts to how much Vitamin D and just how

much Vitamin D I would personally need?

I set out across the internet to find out just how long every day I’d need to

sit in the sun to ward off my seasonal depression, and was bombarded with

endless information, contradictions and data. So I decided to wade through

the info, and then to be my own Guinea Pig.

Many scientists now say the fear of sunlight that has been instilled in our

society over the last 20 or so years due to fear of skin cancer

created a serious issue and that we went too far in the other direction. They

say that is why we are seeing increasing health issues that can be traced back to

lack of Vitamin D. Scientists and Vitamin D experts are now saying “moderation is key” to sunlight, but still won’t give a good answer due to fear that we as a population are too stupid to know what moderate sun exposure is, and that if they start saying the sun is good for us too much, we’ll have people going overboard and skin cancer rates will rise again.

I could not agree more that moderation is key when it comes to sunlight, as with most things in life. So I try to be moderate about my sun exposure, and even go out in the sun in the summer without sunscreen for the first 15 minutes to ensure my body is getting some naturally produced Vitamin D. I even let my kids go out in the sun unprotected for a short time to make sure they are getting it as well, before we slather on the sunscreen, and hats and sunglasses for long trips out. I decided to do this because I think it has been drilled into our brains so deeply

that the sun is bad, that we as a society have become afraid of the sun and are avoiding it too

much and we are spreading on too much sun block. I think a more reasonable, new middle ground needs to be found in order to ensure our own good health.

I think we as a society need to relearn how to have a healthy respect for the sun, and learn to use it to our health’s advantage in moderation, and it seems that though the governments are trying to hide this from us for fear that we can’t handle the truth and need protection from ourselves, the data from scientific studies can back up what I’m saying.

The current recommended dose by Health Canada for Vitamin D for

adults is 200 IU ( international units) a day. The amount, they say, that you

can achieve by drinking two full glasses of fortified milk. But experts are now

saying that is far too low a dose to be beneficial to our health in anyway.

John Cannell, MD, founder of the Vitamin D Council

has tirelessly studied Vitamin D and he and a growing number of scientists now

know how devastating vitamin D deficiency is to our overall health. His

website,

href="http://www.vitamindcouncil.org">Vitamincouncil.org is a virtual

mega resource for vitamin D research, with information on diseases related to

deficiencies, the physiology of vitamin D, treatment for deficiencies and much

much more. It is an amazing read that had me there for hours.

Dr. Reinhold Vieth, director of the bone and Mineral Laboratory at

Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Ontario is one who agrees with Dr Cannell.

He says current recommendations for vitamin D are not designed to ensure

anything and that they are they are simply based on the old, default strategy

for setting a nutritional guideline, which is to recommend an amount of

nutrient similar to what healthy people are eating.

When I read that, I decided to look into who makes the recommendations

for the guidelines for Vitamin D in Canada, and why are so many scientists and Vitamin D experts now

saying that 1000 IU a day is more like where the recommended dose needs to

be at, rather then 200 IU, like Health Canada still insists they’ll stick to since

that is a safe and proven dose, and adequate for the needs of our Canadian

Citizens.

I discovered that not only are many doctors recommending 1000 IU a

day for Canadian adults, but that they recommend even more if your pregnant

or nursing, or have a chronic illness.

In fact, I found out that in late 2007, the Canadian Paediatric Society

announced to the media and recommended that Canadian mothers and their

babies aren’t getting enough vitamin D and should increase their daily intake

after consulting a doctor to 2000 IU per day, to ensure healthy pregnancies, and to keep rickets at bay in children. But, Health Canada was quick to

publicly advised against that recommendation and refused to make any

changes to their recommendations stating that proper studies hadn’t been

done to warrant such a large increase in vitamin D intake in pregnant and

nursing women. They said there was no scientific data to conclude that 2000IU a day was

safe, and therefore would continue with their recommendation of 200 IUs a

day, which is set by The United States Institute of Medicine nutrient reference

values, the guideline that is used by Health Canada to set our countries policies

and standards.

Health Canada said that until an update of the Dietary Reference Intakes

for vitamin D is issued by the IOM, Health Canada would continue to

recommend 200 IU of vitamin D per day for adults 19 to 50 years of age,

including pregnant and lactating women as the safe dose and that recommending sahigher dose without medical data to back it up could be unsafe.

In response, The Canadian Paediatric Society noted that while it was true

that there was a lack of studies conducted on pregnant and breastfeeding

women involving use of higher levels of vitamin D, there was also recent risk

assessments based on a review of relevant, well-designed clinical trials in

healthy adults who are not pregnant that showed a non toxicity in the subjects

that used vitamin D dosages greater than or equal to 10,000 IU a day!! Yes,

that’s ten thousand IU, a number well above the amount they are

recommending for pregnant and lactating women.

The Canadian Peaditric Society went on to say that studies have

confirmed there is a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among pregnant

and lactating women and their breastfed infants, especially in northern

latitudes, and suggested that much higher amounts of vitamin D

supplementation may be necessary than those recommended by Health

Canada for pregnancy and lactation to achieve vitamin D sufficiency for both

the mother and baby during this important time in their lives.

Given all of that information, I started wondering what exactly the IMO’s

recommendation was , and when was that recommendation scientifically decided upon. So, with a few clicks of the mouse I soon found myself digging through information and data on Vitamin D on the

IMO’s website, and discovered that in 1997 they made the recommendation of

a minimum of 5 ug/d and a maximum of 50 ug/d for all children and adults over the

age of 12 months up to 50 years old, regardless of health status, weight, race,

pregnancy,lactating or otherwise. People who were older were recommended a minimum

higher dose of 10 or 15, but were also recommended the maximum of 50 UG/d. It stated that the recommendation of 50 UG a day was the maximum level of daily nutrient intake from all sources is likely to pose no risk of adverse effects. I figured that if the IMO could recommend a maximum dose, then they must have had scientific research to back that up, though their sources of how they came to those numbers was not available.

So, then I had to find out what a UG of Vitamin D is and how much IU’s of

Vitamin D that was, and wouldn’t you know it, the chart has the conversion

right there for you to do the math. That made it simple for someone like me who is admittedly terrible with math without finger and toes and a calculator. Thankfully I didn’t have to do very much math, as it said that 1 ug is equal to 40 IU of vitamin D. Which, when I did a quick little multiplication math meant that 50 UG/d was equal to 2000 IU’s of Vitamin D a day! Wait! what? 2000 IU’s a day? That’s what eh Canadian Paediatric Association was saying Pregnancy and Nursing women would take. So it IS safe for pregnant and

lactating women…as well as toddlers, and anyone of any age and health status over the age of one years old!

Yes, right there in black and white. The data and information that Health

Canada claims to strictly use as their guideline said that 2000 IUs a day is a safe

dose for a pregnant woman or breastfeeding woman. But, they have decided to

say that they cannot safely recommend any more then the minimum 200 IU’s

a day, and that the 200 IU’s a day is adequate?

Suddenly, I was angry, and frustrated and it made me wonder…did the people who work for Health Canada simply not know how to do conversions even though the math was right there for them, or did they have some sort of vested interest in keeping the Canadian population at large Vitamin D deficient. How could they take this stance and only be recommending an “adequate” level of Vitamin D daily intake, instead of an “optimal” level of daily intake, while experts were coming out with solid evidence that the minimum daily recommended dose was actually insufficient, and lacking? It didn’t make any sense to me. The Government sure isn’t quiet about complaining about how the declining health of Canadians puts a strain on the budget for our

federal health care system. They sure are not quiet about how we have one of the highest rates of MS in the world,

and how things like arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes, Alzheimers and cancers are

serious health issues for our aging population here in Canada. All health issues by the way, that

have been scientifically proven to at least in part to be traced back to a lack of

Vitamin D.

Looking back over my life, when I took the daily recommended 200 IU’s of vitamin d a day through

fortified milk, every winter I was quite depressed. I didn’t want to go anywhere, so anything, but just veg on the couch watching TV and waiting for spring. In fact, in the winter of 2006-2007 I got so depressed I hardly left the house. Only got dressed when necessary to go buy groceries…I homeschooled the kids from the bed or couch mostly, and only did the minimal basic household duties necessary to get by. I didn’t even use the computer for months. I was put on Antidepressants that didn’t make any positive difference, and in fact caused me so serious an anxiety that I developed a rocking “tic” as a way to cope with anxiety, which could have been as simple as trying to pair socks for a trip out to buy milk. It got so bad, I had to take anxiety medication to combat the side effects. As a result, I lost almost all my hair from the pharmaceutical solution to this depression and anxiety and I was still depressed, but now depressed with minimal hair. I decided to stop taking the pills by February since they were doing me no good, and my wonderful husband made me get my butt out of bed everyday to go for a walk to check the mail, and out for short walks to get

some air and sunshine. I hated every minute of it, and I was sure he had no clue how crappy I felt and how much I hated every second of it, but I tried as hard as I could and bit my tongue as much as I could and did it anyway and slowly as spring emerged I began to come back to life. It was by far was the worst case of SAD I’d ever had in my 32 years. Every minute of the winter from Halloween on felt like an eternity. Once the weather started to turn and the sun started to come back, I enjoyed every minute of spring and summer I could and tried to forget about that terrible winter.

But, soon I started to dread the coming fall in the middle of August around my birthday. I was terrified that I’d fall victim to the deep depression I endured the winter before, and I didn’t want to go through that ever again! That was when I started to research Vitamin D deeper. Because I was studying herbology, and basic nutrition I knew there had to be a solution, and I wanted to figure it out. Based on what I found out I began to take 2000 IU a day in a supplement form, and

tried to get out as much as I could. I picked up a new hobby of photography, and for the first time in my life I was actually looking forward to winter, and getting out to take some photography of the season I had dreaded most of my life. I refused any antidepressants, which my doctor was agreeable to, and I made it through a winter hardly unaffected by the SAD that once near choked me to emotional death. Spring emerged and the sun came back to life, and I had come through victorious over SAD. On the Spring Equinox, I stopped the Vitamin D supplements and got out for more sun and exercise, and
I felt good. I’d managed to make it through 3 seasons in a row pretty level in my moods and energy!

Photo by Ril Giles

Midday photo shoots out and about everyday made it easy
to get
sunlight to help ward off the symptoms of my Seasonal Affective Disorder.

When this summer passed and I felt great I didn’t even pay attention to when September came along and the days started to get shorter. Then as equinox approached I could feel an ever so slight change in my mood and interest in stuff. I quickly started taking the 2000 iu’s a day again and within a week the lethargic, let’s just veg for the winter feelings were gone once again. That was evidence enough for me. Now I take Vitamin D supplements and try to get as much midday sun as I can in the late fall and winter to ward off the negative affects of SAD, and it is helping me immensely.

I think by now, enough doctors and scientists have proven that higher doses are needed for

optimal health, and government agencies like Health Canada should instead be telling the

public at large what maximum dosage is considered safe, and giving a recommendation

to follow guidelines for supplementation set by a nutritionist or doctor for best

results for *their* personal health issues.

The proof is in plain view as far as I’m concerned. It couldn’t be spelled

out any better. Scientists and doctors from all over the world are telling

Government Health Boards, and the IMO, that research shows that their

current low recommendations could be hazardous to our health, and are completely inadequate, but they refuse to do anything about it in a timely fashion. Add the standard medical/media warnings to avoid any “unprotected” exposure to

sunlight and it is easy to see the potential and in my opinion already existing wide spread vitamin D deficiency

in society at large.

The American Association of Pediatrics just raised the

recommended dose for children to 400 IU’s a day in October. That’s twice the

daily dose Health Canada recommends for Adults. The Canadian Cancer Society

recommends at least 1000 IU’s a day for good health. Colleges of

Neuropsychopharmacology all over the world are seeing a correlation between

easing schizophrenia, ADHD, bipolar, depression and other neurological

health symptoms in patients with the use of higher the currently government recommended doses of Vitamin D, as well.

When will our government agencies wake up and see the sunshine? After another 257,000 cancer deaths linked directly to lack of Vitamin D? Dr. Grant, an ex-NASA scientist has taken on vitamin D research full time, and he recently presented very convincing evidence that he has found 15 cancers (colon, esophageal,

gallbladder, gastric, pancreatic, rectal, small intestinal, bladder, kidney,

prostate, breast, endometrial, ovarian, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and

non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma) that are all associated with lower UVB light” and said

that 257,000 cancer deaths in 2007 in the USA were accounted for by

inadequate vitamin D levels.

When the solution to so many ailments seems so simple, why are our

governments making it so difficult to spread the word and the truth about

this?

I would say, since they don’t care about me, or you, and our health, then

ignore them, and do your own research, as I have done. Rather than worry about Vitamin D

deficiency do what so many scientists and doctors are now recommending.

Talk to your doctor about taking a base supplement of 1000 international units, or

IU, per day, or higher based on current scientific evidence, your age, health status, and lifestyle.

Written by Ril Giles

Copyright November 2008

Ril Giles is the Director of www.nurturedmother.ca and has been studying herbology and natural nutrition for over 5 years to help improve her and her own families health status. She encourages you to do the same.