Vitamin D: Benefits, Deficiency, Sources and Dosage

2021-05-28
7 pages
1882 words
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Carnegie Mellon University
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Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that occurs naturally in few foods, can be manufactured as medicine, but is mainly obtained through exposure to sunlight.Vitamin D has been studied to determine if it is beneficial in the treatment of various diseases or conditions including bone growth, osteoporosis, immune function, cognition, and neuromuscular function. However, this research is not conclusive in many areas and is not extensive enough in others. The area neuromuscular function is one that is of interest because I experienced the effects of vitamin D about physical performance. Upon moving to the Netherlands from Florida in the United States, I noticed that I felt more fatigued after physical exertion and had a lower overall energy level. In speaking to a friend of my fathers who is a pharmacist, he offered the opinion that this may be due to the lower level of vitamin D. In Florida, I was continuously outside and obtains adequate vitamin D through my exposure to the natural sunshine. In the Netherlands, the climate is different as it is often overcast, cloudy, or raining. This makes it difficult to obtain the same natural level of vitamin D even though my time spent outside was similar to that in Florida. The idea was simple but required some validation. A cursory review of the literature seemed to provide this. There are articles that suggest that your geographic location, availability of sunlight, and time exposed to natural sunlight all affect the level of vitamin D in your body. A prime example of this type of research was conducted in Britain and determined that at least 20% of the population had low levels of vitamin D due to variances and available sunlight based on latitude, time of year and amount of skin exposed to sunlight; the study was conducted in part because of a link between vitamin D and several health issues including musculoskeletal health. Since the Netherlands is at a similar latitude to Great Britain, it seems the findings from that study would be applicable in the Netherlands as well. Additionally, it appears that more people are spending more time indoors due to the increased popularity of social media and video games.

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This trend toward a more sedentary lifestyle or at least spending more time indoors is important because it limits a persons exposure to natural sunlight. As stated earlier, the majority of vitamin D comes from sunlight, and it is found in very few foods naturally. This would indicate that more people are going to have low levels of vitamin D or even become vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D deficiency is related to several health issues including cardiovascular disease and hypertension, cognitive decline in the elderly, cancer, and type I and types II diabetes. A deficiency in vitamin D is also related to rickets and osteomalacia which can result in weak bones. Bone pain and muscle weakness can also be symptoms of low levels of vitamin D. to prevent these conditions from occurring a person would need to replace the amount of vitamin D lost by an adequate exposure to sunlight. Since vitamin D is only found naturally and in small doses in certain foods like cod liver oil, eggs, and fatty fish like salmon and tuna it is tough to replace the lost vitamin D by diet alone. This means that vitamin supplements are the main way to change the vitamin D that your body requires.

The expansion in solicitations for vitamin D examinations has set weight on clinical research facilities to offer testing techniques equipped for giving outcomes to vast quantities of tests in a suitable manner. Different in vitro demonstrative organizations have along these lines been spurred to provide a vitamin D test on their robotized immunoassay stages. Therefore, there has been a flood of new vitamin D examines the market and clinical research centers can now choose from a scope of conceivable measures. Be that as it may, because of the exceedingly lipophilic nature of vitamin D, high proclivity for vitamin D restricting protein (DBP) and also nearness of different vitamin D metabolites in the flow, vitamin D is a challenging analyte to quantify precisely. These difficulties are most effortlessly met in pro-research centers utilizing tedious techniques and makers have experienced issues in delivering high-throughput examines fit for creating aftereffects of agreeable exactness. Truth be told, various computerized immunoassays have been pulled back from the market on account of poor scientific precision. Significantly higher-arrange techniques, for example, fluid chromatography-couple mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) have had very much advertised issues with accuracy in the standard setting [10]. Moreover, numerous different examines have been re-defined as producers try to enhance the execution of imperfect measures.

If vitamin D deficiency can lead to decreased performance and health issues and supplements are the best way to increase vitamin D levels, it seems that ensuring the potency level of vitamin D supplements is important. The supplement must provide the amount of vitamin D it claims present in the pill for an individual to receive the benefits of taking the supplement. A review of the literature suggests that there are not many studies addressing this issue, and even those studies appear to be inconclusive regarding potency levels or the benefits of using vitamin D supplements. One study that was conducted to determine vitamin D levels about poor physical performance found that higher concentrations of vitamin D did not result in improved lower extremity function. However, another study found that vitamin D helped produce a 22% reduction in falls while a third study found a 46% reduction in falls for women but no effect for men. In regards to potency levels in the supplements, one study found that only one-third of the samples tested met the requirements of containing 90% to 110% of the stated ingredient (vitamin D). A different study found that the adult samples had 17% more vitamin D than stated and the children samples had 34% more vitamin D than stated. Due to the limited and varied findings of studies on vitamin D supplement potency levels, this study was conducted to add to the available findings of this topic.

The structures of Vitamin D can be represented by the following figure:

Figure: Structures of Vitamin D.

Research Question

Are vitamin D supplements potent enough to replace natural vitamin D from sunlight?

Can vitamin D supplements be tested to ensure they are providing the needed amount of vitamin D?

Are supplements supplying the amount of vitamin D that is stated on the label?

Can vitamin D supplements be measured to ensure they provide beneficial levels of the active ingredient?

Why is an accurate measurement of vitamin D supplement potency necessary?

Is there a way to accurately measure vitamin D levels in supplements?

Can taking supplemental vitamin D help with physical performance?

Experiment Plan

This research will be conducted by analyzing the vitamin D levels from 10 random supplement manufacturers through the use of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). To begin, we will randomly obtain two bottles of vitamin D supplements from 10 different manufacturers; optimally the bottles will be from different lot samples. Next three pills shall be randomly selected from each bottle to provide a sample size of 60 total capsules.

The potency level of each pill was then calculated by using high-performance liquid chromatography. To help validate the measurement the second round of testing was done using HPLC on another random selection of 60 capsules. The accuracy of pill potency was determined by calculating the found influence as a percentage of the strength listed on each bottle. We then averaged the measurements from each group of three pills to determine the standard deviation. Lastly, the doses from each bottle were calculated using the coefficient of variation which is the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean.

Experiment design

The experiment was set up to analyze the potency level of vitamin D in various supplements. Supplements were obtained from stores in Arnhem, Netherlands and were chosen at random. 10 different brands chosen and two bottles of each brand were used with an effort to get bottles of various lots. Three pills were then randomly selected from the bottle and formed the first sample of 60 pills; another three pills were randomly chosen from each bottle to provide the second sample of 60 pills. Every effort was made to ensure the integrity of the capsules until they were able to be evaluated by high-performance liquid chromatography. Each pill was tested individually and reported as a percentage of the level stated on each bottle it came from. Then the results were calculated for each group of three pills from each bottle to determine the standard deviation. Finally, the 20 groups of pills were measured with the coefficient of variation to allow for comparison among the groups. The results were analyzed to determine if the supplements contain a stated dose of vitamin D on the bottle.

This test may have also been done using a UV meter or a color meter, but the results may not have been as accurate or replicable. Also, a larger sample size may have produced more reliable results, but this was not feasible in the economic scope of this study.

Materials

- 4 One a day men tablets

- Mortar and pestle

- Burette and stand

- 100 mL conical flask

- 2x 100mL volumetric flask

- 500mL volumetric flask

- 10mL pipette

- 100mL measuring cylinder

- 2x 100mL beaker

- Paper filter

- Safety goggles

- Lab coat

Method

1. Crush the 4 tablets using a mortar and pestle

2. Prepare Vitamin C solution

i. Add 100mL of H2O to a 100mL beaker

ii. Dissolve the crushed tablet into the 100mL H2O in the beaker

iii. Filter the solution into a 100mL volumetric flask

iv. Extract 10mL of the Vitamin C solution with a 10mL pipette

v. Add the 10mL of Vitamin C solution to a 100mL volumetric flask

vi. Dilute the solution 10 times

3. Prepare DCPIP solution

i. Dissolve 0.268 g of DCPIP in 100mL beaker containing 100mL of H2O

ii. Add DCPIP solution into a 500mL volumetric flask

iii. Dilute the DCPIP solution 5 times

4. Use the pipette to add 10mL of the vitamin C solution to 100mL conical flask

5. Place conical flask under burette stand

6. Prepare the burette with 50mL of DCPIP solution

7. Perform a trial titration with DCPIP. Record the initial DCPIP volume and then slowly add DCPIP to the vitamin C solution. Swirling the flask simultaneously. Eventually, the color change will persist for about 30 seconds. Add DCPIP drop-wise until the solution changes color. Record the final volume.

8. Repeat 2 more times with the same procedure taking from the 100mL stock solution

Physiology of Vitamin D

The essential wellspring of vitamin D in people is using creation in the skin. This is accomplished through the activity of UV light on 7-dehydrocholesterol, a middle of the road in the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway, additionally alluded to as 'provitamin D.' Cholesterol is a crucial part of the lipid boundary of the skin, and the epidermis is a dynamic site of cholesterol combination. Nearby blend along these lines gives a prepared wellspring of provitamin D where it is consolidated into the plasma film lipid bilayers of cells in the dermis and epidermis. 7-Dehydrocholesterol is available in most noteworthy focus in the stratum basale and stratum spinosum layers of the skin.

7-Dehydrocholesterol assimilates UVB radiation...

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