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Why you need to take vitamin D deficiency seriously

TNN | Aug 22, 2017, 04.11 PM IST

It is quite surprising that despite being a tropical country where sunlight

reigns most time of the year, 70 per cent of India's population is deficient
in the sunlight vitamin, vitamin D. The sources of the vitamin are also not
that meager and still an alarmingly high percentage of Indian population
suffers from a lack of the vitamin. To understand what vitamin D deficiency
can do to a person, we talked to Dr Ankita Mathur, who practises as a
physiotherapist and clinical physiotherapist at IndoGulf Hospital and
Diagnostics, Noida and is a member of Indian Association of
Physiotherapist.

She started on a philosophical note because for a country born out of oral
folklore tradition, the best means to explain exigencies is through an
allegory. "Once, sitting on a chair from quite a long time, fixed as a log, I just remembered the movie 'Wall E' . A scene from the
movie shows future time where human beings were shown very inactive, fatty, always sitting on a chair, and their X rays
revealed very feeble skeletons. That thought took me to the whole process of bone formation," she said.

There are important aspects that we must know about vitamin D, the vital ingredient for bone formation, such as follows.

Vitamin D deficiency means weaker bones

Ailments in the bone are a very common symptom and result of the deficiency of vitamin D. "In its active form, vitamin D helps
in absorption of calcium into gut, hence making calcium available for bone mineralisation, modelling and remodelling and in
various neuromuscular and cell formation processes," said Dr Ankita.
It can also cause fatigue and muscular pain

One of the most common reasons of frequent joint pains, back pain, exhaustion and drowsiness is vitamin D deficiency.
However, still most of the people do not register it. The deficiency needs to be taken seriously because in the long term, it can
cause osteoporosis, obesity, cardiac disease, and even type 2 diabetes. The deficiency has many long term implications and
the symptoms like fatigue and muscle pain should not be slighted off.

It can affect your children too

"A few days back, some males and females approached me complaining of generalised body pain. After assessment and some
tests, we got to know they were deficient in vitamin D. Surprisingly, a few of them told me about their children having same
deficiency," said Dr Ankita. It is a fact. When a pregnant woman is vitamin D deficient, chances are high that it can get passed
on to your child. In case you have had vitamin D deficiency in your pregnancy, your child must be fed milk that is fortified with
vitamin D.

There are optimum sources of vitamin D

Vitamin D isn't very hard to get. There are many sources in our diet that are abundant with the vitamin. "Why is that majority
population getting this deficiency? It's not that vitamin D sources are less. In fact, we could get it from many things provided by
nature like fish, fish liver oil, egg yolk, sunlight etc. Also, it could be taken in form of medicinal supplement," said the doctor.

Wrong lifestyle at fault?

The millennials are shying away too much from sunlight, thinks Dr Ankita. "I think we still are not aware of our wrong eating
habits and lifestyles. Some researchers suggest that 5 - 30 minutes of sun exposure between 10 am to 3 pm at least twice a
week to face, arms, legs and back without sunscreen usually leads to sufficient vitamin D synthesis in body," she tells. "Are we
not able to take even half hour of sunlight just twice a week out of 172 hours (7*24 hrs)? We must act accordingly lest we make
the movie's scene a reality," she warned.