Pale-Skinned People May Need Vitamin D Supplements: Study

If your skin is super pale, you're already well aware of your must-have items: sunscreen with a high SPF, and a hat (for shade). But a new study suggests you might also need some vitamin D supplements.

In the Cancer Causes and Control study of 1,200 people, researchers found that 730 of them had vitamin D levels that were below normal. But the people with the lowest levels of vitamin D were those with fair skin.

"Fair-skinned individuals who burn easily are not able to make enough vitamin D from sunlight and so may need to take vitamin D supplements," study researcher Julia Newton-Bishop, of the Cancer Research UK Centre at the University of Leeds, said in a statement.

BBC reports:

Supplements are already recommended for groups at higher risk of deficiency. This includes people with dark skin, such as people of African-Caribbean and South Asian origin, and people who wear full-body coverings, as well as the elderly, young children, pregnant and breastfeeding women and people who avoid the sun. Based on the latest findings, it appears that pale-skinned people should be added to this list.

Vitamin D, which isn't naturally found in many foods, is necessary for the body to absorb calcium (which then helps to build and maintain strong bones). CBS reports that the best naturally occurring sources of the daily value of vitamin D include cod liver oil, mackerel and salmon. Yogurt, eggs, tuna and milk contain some (but not the daily value) of the vitamin.

Vitamin D levels below 25 nanomoles per liter are considered deficient, and can translate to poor bone health, researchers said. Some experts say that vitamin D levels of 60 nanomoles per liter are necessary for optimal bone health.

The Institute of Medicine, last year, issued recommendations on how much vitamin D we should be getting a day. It said that most people in the United States, from age 1 to 70, needs to consume up to 600 international units a day of vitamin D, while people older than 70 could require up to 800 international units a day, the Associated Press reported. However, some scientists and health care professionals disagree with the recommendations, saying they are too low.

Those recommendations also suggested that there is such thing as too much vitamin D. Consuming too much of the vitamin can increase the risk of pancreatic cancer and can even cause kidney damage, the Associated Press reported.

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Comments

[ddanimal]

05:12 PM on 10/09/2011

The IOM lied in its vitamin D report. 600 or 800IU is a joke. Most people need 5000IU especially in the wintertime.

[wheelzroller]

10:42 AM on 10/07/2011

Anyone who lives in a Northern Climate should be taking Vitamin D and C all year long.

[NewHope360]

05:09 PM on 10/06/2011

This study is less intriguing than one that came out recently saying that vitamin D reduces mortality rate by 20 percent! More here: http://newhope360.com/vitamins/vitamin-d-reduces-mortality-rate-20-percent

And luckily for food and supplement manufacturers, it's pretty cheap to add vitamin D to their products. That undoubtedly motivated Subway to announce it will soon have vitamin D in its breads.

[RhiannonRings]

09:15 PM on 10/05/2011

I've been taking Bone-Up and cod liver oil with D3. Hope it helps!

[OrwellianOne]

05:43 PM on 10/05/2011

Ummm, this is news? Didn't researchers conclude this years ago?

Anyway, plethora of benefits for taking Vitamin D, the research just keeps piling up on this wonderful vitamin.

[unique]

04:19 PM on 10/05/2011

Where is the GOODDOC?

How do you weigh in on this?

[GOODDOC1]

06:01 PM on 10/05/2011

Right here! I agree that a lot of people are vitamin D deficient, because they're not getting sunlight. It can also be seasonally affected, with less sunlight in the winter. Pale skinned people (like me) will produce Vit. D with 20-30 minutes of sun exposure. (I'm not sure about the production of Vit D in people with Albinism, however). People with dark skin will need more sun exposure the farther they are away from the equator, because the sun's rays are not as strong, and the melanin in their skin will block some. Interestingly, the incidence of MS is higher in people born and raised farther from the equator. There has been some speculation that this could be in part be from the decreased Vit.D when the brain is young, and studies are being done in animals, I haven't seen if there has been any increased incidence of MS in Austrailia since they started their Slip (on a shirt), Slap (on a hat), Slop (on some sunscreen) campaign to reduce melanoma there. That would be interesting to see. Personally, I take 2000 IU of Vit D a day.

[GOODDOC1]

06:02 PM on 10/05/2011

By the way, I had to fan you for being an animal lover! My Furrball says Hi. Can you tell me how to make a micro-bio, or is it too late? (I'm basically computer illiterate.) Thanx

[unique]

07:38 PM on 10/05/2011

I fanned you also.

When you go to make a comment it says "edit your micro-bio," click on that and make your bio.
My four furballs 2 dogs and 2 cats are all rescue animals, I say Hi to your babies and so do mine.

I love reading your comments. You are so knowledgable.
I also take Vit D but I take 2000 IU four times a day. I also drink 64oz of water
to prevent kidney stones daily.

Here is something that might interest you:
I thought I was becoming somewhat forgetful, as I would walk into a room I ould say,
"Now why did I come in here?" So, I started to take ground Cinnimon, just a couple of shakes with every cup of tea or coffee. In just one week I have noticed a great difference, I now know why I came into the room.

Are you an MD or PHD or something else?

[jnsburke7]

03:57 PM on 10/05/2011

If a person is white,how does He know if He's pale or not.I'm '' a whiteter shade of pale.''

[Robert FrancoCA]

05:04 PM on 10/05/2011

Well this is actually easy. If your out in the sun for less then 20minutes to 1 hour, then are already turning red, then you lack vitamin D. Of course immediately put on sunscreen. It doesn't matter what color your skin is really. it depends on your diet.

I must complain about this post about only mentioning dairy products as a good soruce of vitamin d. As it seems vitamin D only comes from these products, and most of them are added in or (fortified). Which may not always be a good thing. Meaning, your body can't absorb it well. They also forgot vitamin E which plays a part.

[onionboy]

03:38 PM on 10/05/2011

"Supplements are already recommended for groups at higher risk of deficiency. This includes people with dark skin, such as people of African-Caribbean and South Asian origin, and people who wear full-body coverings, as well as the elderly, young children, pregnant and breastfeeding women and people who avoid the sun. Based on the latest findings, it appears that pale-skinned people should be added to this list."

Recommended by whom? Manufacturers of Vitamin D supplements?

Let me get this straight...dark-skinned people, light-skinned people, and tan(ish) skinned people. That about narrows it.

[Pete59]

04:41 PM on 10/05/2011

Vitamin d either as a supplement or by UVB lamp was recommended by most doctors until the 1960s, it is simply coming back in fashion.

[onionboy]

02:48 AM on 10/06/2011

Citation for "recommended by most doctors". Before 1960, after...any date you like.

[OrwellianOne]

05:40 PM on 10/05/2011

Recommended by researchers... Who do studies....

[onionboy]

02:53 AM on 10/06/2011

I saw no such studies cited. And before you send me a link to a peer-reviewed journal article, make sure it has a conclusion that involves recommending vit-D supplements to all dark-skinned people. A manuscript on the importance of Vit-D doesn't count. I'm not disputing its importance. It's a vitamin. I'm disputing the need to spend to spend money on a product.

[simzillyjp]

02:47 PM on 10/05/2011

Geez fifteen or twenty minutes in the sun, weather permitting, will do the same thing as a glass of milk.

[Pete59]

04:37 PM on 10/05/2011

If you live in the UK there is no vitamin d in milk. It is added as a supplement but not here. Also the UK has entered its vitamin d winter there is no more to be made from the sun until April.

[starstrz]

05:32 PM on 10/05/2011

True. You only need about 30min of sunlight to make your recommended daily dose of vitamin D.

[Pete59]

09:08 AM on 10/06/2011

That* may be true if it is summer and it is not raining. What do you do the rest of the year. It rained here most of the summer and now we are in winter.

* I have never seen either the 15minute or 30 minute idea proved in a journal paper it appears to be a guess.

[oberlinkay91]

02:09 PM on 10/05/2011

Looks like almost everyone's on the list

[Justin Stamper]

12:54 PM on 10/05/2011

Does Coconut milk count?

[unique]

04:17 PM on 10/05/2011

Fanned..........you are very funny.

Yes, if you are a coconut.

[Chuck Bluestein]

11:33 AM on 10/05/2011

The reason that the article says that dark skin people are at higher risk "Supplements are already recommended for groups at higher risk of deficiency" is when they are living in an area where the sunlight is a lot weaker than where dark skin people come from. For example the black skin is there to protect people who live near the equator like in Africa. A person with pale skin there can end up with 3rd degree burns on their skin. But on the other hand there are many blacks in America where the sunlight is a lot weaker than in Africa and they need 4 times the sunlight as pale skinned people to get the same amount of vitamin D.

This is how they learned that vitamin D could help with many other problems than just bone density. They noticed that in America, the rates of some diseases went up as you went up the latitiude in America. http://bit.ly/8XuDJn Andrew Weil, M.D. says "Increasing the amount of vitamin D in the body can prevent or help treat a remarkable number of ailments, from obesity to arthritis, from high blood pressure to back pain, from diabetes to muscle cramps, from upper respiratory tract infections to infectious disease, and from fibromyalgia to cancers of the breast, colon, pancreas, prostate and ovaries." For decades vitamin D has been the cure for rickets but is making a comeback in the U.S. due to lack of vitamin D.

[Pete59]

07:56 AM on 10/05/2011

After taking vitamin d supplements for a few years, I would now argue that being vitamin d deficient gives you pale skin and a tendency to burn. I used to burn very easily and now I don't even if I have not seen the sun for months.

[NVBio]

09:33 PM on 10/04/2011

Unfortunately for very fair-complexioned individuals, topical sunscreen also blocks the production of Vitamin D, so not only can they not be in the sun long, they also aren't going to produce much Vit. D when they use sunscreen. One product called Sunsafe Rx could prove very useful though; Sunsafe Rx is a natural nutritional supplement made with ingredients clinically shown to prevent sun damage from sunlight and it does NOT inhibit the production of Vitamin D. In fact, many users of Sunsafe Rx who are extremely sensitive to the sun say they are able to get some sun exposure and even get some color without burning. Sunsafe Rx is made from plants and is healthy for skin and eyes. There is a lot more info about it on the SunsafeRx website.

[Elizabeth-Swigar]

09:21 PM on 10/04/2011

Seems like everyone's on vitamin D these days. Esp. here in Rhode Island - we don't get a whole lot of sun!