Vitamin D against aging

The vitamin the body produces from exposure to sunlight could help reduce cell aging and protect us against disease. 11/9/2007 - That's the conclusion of a study conducted at King's College London with 2,160 women ages 18-79. The research found that women who had higher levels of vitamin D showed fewer related changes with aging in your DNA.

"It has been seen that people deficient in vitamin D tend to have more muscle weakness and lose bone mass," said Dr. Daniel Bunout, a specialist at the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology (INTA) in Chile.

"But this work is very interesting because it links vitamin D to telomeres, the biological markers of aging, and suggests that it may play a very important role in this process," he adds.

Diet and sun

vitamin D about 90% of the body's supply of vitamin D occurs with sun exposure, but can also be obtained at lower levels with certain foods.

Among these, fish, eggs, fortified milk, and cereals.

Some studies affirm that it plays a fundamental role in the protection against cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

And the lack of this vitamin has been shown to be associated with an increased risk of diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and type 1 diabetes.

"In Chile," says Dr. Bunout, "we discovered that 50% of older adults are deficient in Vitamin D."

"Which surprised us a lot, because there is much more sun exposure here than in the Nordic countries."

"In England, for example, with low levels of sun exposure people must have a deficiency level of around 70 or 80%, " he adds.

"So we did a supplementation study, and we saw that vitamin D effectively managed to improve muscle mass parameters and bone mineral density in older adults," says the expert.