By Jennie Nadel, Sophie Biber, and Zoe Lee-Mcdermott

1. Health Benefits from Vitamin D? By, Sophie Biber, Jennie Nadel, and Zoe Lee-McDermott

2. What is Vitamin D? Vitamin D is a vitamin that is believed to help lower the risks of diabetes, heart and kidney disease, high blood pressure, and cancer Vitamin D is found in many different things: Sunlight, salmon, fortified milk, fatty omega 3 acids, and fish oil

3. What is Vitamin D used for? Vitamin D is used in the body as a mechanism to turn cells on and off

4. How do you know how much vitamin D you have? The amount of Vitamin D is influenced by your skin color Where you live How much time you spend outdoors And fish and mil consumption

5. How to raise the amount of Vitamin D you have Increase the time you stay out in the sun If you are older and have diabetes, kidney disease, or spend most of your time indoors you have a larger chance of vitamin D deficiency

6. Recommended Consumption The recommended amount of Vitamin D is about 400 international units a day Many scientists believe that this isn’t enough But it varies from person to person

7. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2008 did a poll It said that 10% of children are severely deficient of Vitamin D

8. Doctors and Vitamin D Many doctors check their patients to make sure they are getting enough vitamin D If not, they prescribe medicine and help make suggestions

9. Testing Vitamin D Some scientists are skeptical about using vitamin D Every person varies in how much vitamin D their body needs Scientists would need humans to test how vitamin D should be consumed but they are afraid this could be morally wrong since vitamin D could possible bad side effects

10. Dr. Manson’s Studies Dr. Manson is a scientist who believes that people can have a healthier way of achieving higher levels of vitamin D by exercising, eating healthy, and not smoking

11. Doctor Manson’s Experiment He is taking 2,000 older adults Men over the age of 60 Women over the age of 65 He is testing to see if high doses and amounts of vitamin D and omega 3 fatty acids can help lower the probability of heart diseases and cancer

12. He is taking the participants and dividing them into four categories 1 will take vitamin D and fish oil pills 1 will take just vitamin D 1 will take just fish oil pills 1 will take placebo pills The vitamin D they will be taking is D3 and they will use one-gram supplements of omega 3 fish oil They will take 5-10 times of the average daily intake

13. Women’s Health Initiative Study Tracked 400 women taking 400 units of Vitamin D and 100 units of calcium Not many benefits except a lower risk of hip fracture Scientists believe 400 units isn’t enough

14. More Studies Took 1,200 women Women took 1,500 milligrams of calcium and 1,000 units of vitamin D They showed a lower risk for breast cancer

15. Vitamin D health risks? Scientists believe that although vitamin D might be beneficial it can also cause severe problems Heart problems Diabetes and cancer Scientists say that every person is different so it would be hard to tell the outcome for a particular person

17. Acknowledgements We got all of our information from: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/the-miracle-of-vitamin-d-sound-science-or-hype/?pagemode=print And www.wilsonsbiologylab.com Also the picture came from http://www.healingtherapies.info/VitDmetabolism.jpg