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In colder countries with poor or erratic sunshine, half the population is likely to be low in the ‘sunshine vitamin’.

The vitamin is vital for calcium absorption and bone health and may help to prevent Alzheimer’s, reports the Daily Mail.

Vitamin D-rich foods include oily fish and eggs but with 90 percent coming from the action of sunlight on the skin there are concerns that advice on abstaining from sunbathing is unnecessarily restrictive.

Recent research has shown that vitamin D supplements are as good as some drugs at keeping prostate cancer under control.

It is also being said that taking vitamin D supplements in pregnancy and childhood could wipe out 80 percent of cases of multiple sclerosis.

Susan Lanham-New, the member of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition and Surrey University nutritionist, said a study of 14,000 pregnant women in Bristol during the 1990s found that more than 90 percent of them were not getting enough of the vitamin.

She said: “Vitamin D is known to be vital for a wide range of body functions. A lot of us are very worried about (deficiencies) and think it needs looking at.”

Adding vitamin D to milk could go a long way in reducing the risk of heart disease and cancer, a new report carried out by British researchers reveals.

Researchers from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) observed more than 14,000 pregnant women in the country during the 1990s and found that a majority of them were deficient in vitamin D.Research has shown that Vitamin D may be an effective therapeutic agent to treat or prevent allergy to a common mould that can complicate asthma and frequently affects patients with Cystic Fibrosis.Dr. Jay Kolls, Professor and Chair of Genetics at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, and colleagues wanted to identify the factors that determine why only some develop the allergy and what factors regulate tolerance or sensitisation to the mould resulting in the development of ABPA (Allergic Bronchopulmonary Aspergillosis).

The environmental mould is one of the most prevalent fungal organisms inhaled by people. In asthmatics and in patients with Cystic Fibrosis (CF), it can cause significant allergic symptoms.

CF causes the body to produce thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs, leads to infection, and blocks the pancreas, which stops digestive enzymes from reaching the intestine where they are required in order to digest food.

The researchers discovered that heightened Th2 (the hormonal messengers of T-helper cells that produce an allergic response) reactivity in the ABPA group correlated with a lower average blood level of vitamin D.

“We found that adding vitamin D not only substantially reduced the production of the protein driving an allergic response, but it also increased production of the proteins that promote tolerance,” notes Kolls.

“The next step in our research is to conduct a clinical trial to see if vitamin D can be used to treat or prevent this complication of asthma and Cystic Fibrosis,” Kolls said.

The work will be published in September 2010 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

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This post was submitted by rishi maurya.