People living in Scotland 400 hundred years apart have been shown to suffer similar seasonal declines over winter in their vitamin D levels despite the enormous changes in lifestyle and diet over the intervening period.
University of Aberdeen
Summary
- A study reveals that people in Scotland have experienced similar seasonal declines in vitamin D levels for over 400 years, despite changes in lifestyle and diet.
- Researchers from the University of Aberdeen, Ireland's Atlantic Technological University, and Boise State University (USA) used a new method to analyse vitamin D in human hair samples.
- Vitamin D levels were found to be higher in summer and lower in winter, both in modern participants and a 16th or 17th-century archaeological sample.
- The study highlights the ongoing challenge of maintaining adequate vitamin D levels in regions with limited winter sunlight.
Extracts
Vitamin D is essential for healthy skeletal growth and is increasingly recognised for its role in chronic disease development, inflammation and immunity. But in Scotland the sunshine is only strong enough to allow our bodies to produce our own vitamin D between April and September.
In addition to hours spent outside, vitamin D levels can be increased through diet such as oily fish and supplementation.
[Kate Britton said] “We might expect that with modern methods to enhance our vitamin D intake through diet and supplementation this seasonal variation would be less significant.
“But what this unique study has shown is that levels in many of our modern participants were similar to those of our archaeological sample, and that levels were consistently higher in summer and lower in winter in people who lived in the same city 400 years apart.”
Professor Baukje de Roos, a nutrition scientist from the Rowett Institute at the University of Aberdeen who was responsible for collecting hair samples from modern participants, and with Gary Duncan carried out the vitamin D analysis in hair, said: “It is important that we gain a greater understanding of how vitamin D in hair compares to vitamin D levels in blood, which is currently used to assess vitamin D deficiency globally.”
Some interesting research from the University of Aberdeen which shows that seasonal decline in vitamin D levels in Scotland today is not very different to the situation 400 years ago – mainly as a red of very low levels of winter sunshine.
Not surprisingly, people with ME/CFS are at risk of developing vitamin D deficiency, especially when they are housebound and not being exposed to sunshine.
So everyone with ME/CFS should consider taking a daily low dose vitamin D supplement (which I do on a personal basis) and having their vitamin D level checked if they are more severely affected.
The MEA has an information leaflet covering Vitamin D deficiency and ME/CFS.
Dr Charles Shepherd,
Trustee and Hon. Medical Adviser to the ME Association,
Member of the 2018-2021 NICE guideline on ME/CFS committee,
Member of the 2002 Chief Medical Officer's Working Group on ME/CFS
