Clarkson Integrator

Issue date: 2/25/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Greg Gilbert/Seattle Times/MCT At Golden Gardens Tricia Leech, left, and husband David Leech soak up vitamin D the most efficient way: from sunlight. Seattle's usual winter weather rules out a steady supply.

Dreary northern winters are infamous for inducing depression. But being starved for sunlight can do more than kick you into a psychic hole.

A growing body of evidence suggests it can raise your risk of cancer, increase susceptibility to heart attack, diabetes and other disorders, and at least partly account for the region's sky-high rates of multiple sclerosis.

The reason is vitamin D, an essential nutrient produced in abundance by skin exposed to the sun's rays. Long dismissed as being important mainly for strong bones, the so-called sunshine vitamin is now recognized as a key player throughout the body, including the immune system.

"You're in a dark, gloomy place," said Bruce Hollis, a leading vitamin D researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina. "In the winter, you could stand outside naked for five hours and nothing is going to happen."

Increased use of sunscreen has turned a seasonal shortfall into a year-round condition for many people. A recent survey in Britain found 87 percent of adults tested during winter, and more than 60 percent in summer, had subpar vitamin D levels. Doctors in many parts of the world, including California, report a resurgence of childhood rickets, soft bones caused by lack of vitamin D.

"You're more likely to live longer and you're less likely to die of serious chronic disease if you have adequate vitamin D on board," said Dr. Michael Holick of Boston University School of Medicine, one of the world's top experts. "It may well be the most important nutrient of the decade."

In a study of 1,739 Boston-area residents reported last month, rates of heart attack, stroke and heart failure were about 50 percent higher in those with low levels of vitamin D.

In addition to strengthening bones, muscles and joints, high vitamin D levels have been linked with lower rates of colon, prostate, breast, esophageal and pancreatic cancer.

Harvard scientists found that high levels of vitamin D reduced children's odds of developing asthma, while researchers in Pittsburgh reported that pregnant women with low vitamin D had greater risk of preeclampsia, a dangerous form of high blood pressure.

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