The Importance of Vitamin D
By admin on 2014-12-29

Vitamin D is crucial in helping the body's immune system stave off disease, new research has found.

Findings by Danish researchers suggest those with low levels of the vitamin results in their immune systems' killer T cells becoming less able to fight off infection.

T cells, rely on vitamin D to become active and remain dormant and unaware of the possibility of threat from an infection or pathogen if vitamin D is lacking in the blood. "When a T cell is exposed to a foreign pathogen, it extends a signaling device or 'antenna' known as a vitamin D receptor, with which it searches for vitamin D," said Carsten Geisler of Copenhagen University's department of international health, immunology and microbiology, who led the study.

"This means the T cell must have vitamin D or activation of the cell will cease. If the T cells cannot find enough vitamin D in the blood, they won't even begin to mobilize."

Scientists have long known that vitamin D is important for calcium absorption, and that there is a link between levels of the vitamin and diseases such as cancer and multiple sclerosis. a lack of vitamin D is also associated with the development of childhood rickets. "What we didn't realize is how crucial vitamin D is for actually activating the immune system -- which we know now," Geisler wrote in the study in the journal Nature Immunology.

Vitamin D is made by the body as a natural by-product of the skin's exposure to sunlight. It can also be found in fish liver oil, eggs and fatty fish such as salmon, herring and mackerel, or taken as a supplement. Geisler said there were no definitive studies on the optimal daily vitamin D dose but experts recommend 25 to 50 micrograms.