BEING SCIENTIST

“Ever heard of vitamin D , most of us believe we acquire this precious vitamin from the sun I thought so too but turns out we do so from the ray’s of the sun. In my family there are about 3 people taking regular supplement tablets for vitamin D , and I wondered how is it even possible to package the sun’s rays into tablets and store them for use in our body? How is it possible to harness the sun’s rays into tablets , To answer this question let’s dive deep into the synthesis of vitamin D”

On an average our ancestors spent 8-10 hours exposed to sun while today’s genz and millenials spend on average 2-4 hours exposed to sunlight for many of us even this might seem to much considering our lifestyles to too much too blame on us, but the primary source of vitamin D for human beings is the sun so how do we reach that target just like our daily step or water or social media target ? Well we take supplements so now let’s see what naturally happened to our grandparent and how vitamin D was synthesized in them versus what’s happening to us. Sunlight hits on the skin and and UVB which in too much exposure can cause sunburns and redness(hence the sunscreen!) but the ability for our gen to adapt to these rays and be more resistant has also come down which is a topic for another day , Now these rays penetrate the outermost epidermis of the skin and is absorbed by 7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC) in skin cell membranes, opening its B-ring to form previtamin D3 , now in this stage the body’s heat primarily the huge amount of infrared radiation we emit (which is enough to power a torchlight) is used to isomerize this previtamin D3 to D3 (cholecalciferol) basically change its structure while not adding or removing any element , so what about people in cold countries, well though their enviroment and habitat is cold they produce the same amount of heat like humans in tropical climate. the conversion of previtamin to vitamin takes hours preventing excess buildup as further UVB converts leftovers into inert compounds like lumisterol.

Now this D3 enters the bloodstream bound to a vitamin D binding protein present in our blood and voyages to the liver ,In the Liver a enzyme CYP2R1 adds a hydroxyl group, producing 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D, calcidiol), the main circulating form used to assess vitamin D status. This basically is like the vitamin D made by the skin is all nice and fresh but it can’t work yet the enzyme is like a stamp machine and it adds a hydroxyl group so that the vitamin D is now stamped with a specific identification and so we call this new compound 25-hydroxyvitamin D also called calcidiol but again even this is not active to use but it is safe stable and lasts for many days in the blood so if your diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency then its probably this compound that was found by the doctor to be less.

Now the liver has prepared the the compound but how decides how much to use it and where to use it that’s where the kidney comes in, inside of the kidney another enzyme 1-alpha-hydroxylase (CYP27B1) adds yet another hydroxyl group to the molecule created by the liver and it is now called 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (also called calcitriol) and viola now the vitamin D is fully active and can be used by bones , helps the intestines in absorbing calcium , helps in immunity and helps muscles work properly .

Every time Calcium levels in our body goes down an hormone called PTH is released from the parathyroid glands that send a loud signal yelling we need more calcium and so more vitamin D is activated by the kidney and it is from here it is transported through again remember the old dude vitamin D binding factor we came across earlier so that guy does his job again transporting the vitamin , this is the entire mechanism in most of us that sustains life in human kind

So how does supplement work , most importantly how are they made we can’t package sunlight (yet!) Sunlight does NOT give vitamin D directly
 Sunlight only changes a chemical already in our skin which is called 7-dehydrocholesterol like we came across earlier the UVB rays , so scientists copy this mechanism by using Lanolin from sheep or algae/ lichen (algae+fungi) as lanolin contains the exact same compound 7-dehydrocholesterol just like our skin!!!! there is something common after all between humans and sheep but here’s the interesting part

In the labs scientists shine the very same UVB rays onto these lanolin derived from sheep so that the reaction that we earlier saw taking place in the skin takes places and vitamin D3 is synthesized which is the previtamin so these are then made into tablets and we eat them so they enter the bloodstream meet out old guy the vitamin D binding factor and bon voyage!! to the liver and kidney to synthesize vitamin D like how we saw taking place earlier.

while the sheep don’t die while extracting Lanolin it does cause significant harm to the creature that’s supposed to bask around in the warm sunlight eating fresh grass and playing with its kids but again who cares I need to get my vitamin count in , even if it means

Instead of just spending some little time walking or cycling every evening under the sun or projecting that flawless skin under the warm rays of the sun , no I will not instead what I will do is find another animal which contains the exact same compound in my skin forcefully extract that compound because it will obviously be too painful to extract it from myself or from my friends and family right so extract it and then I will make sure that since myself can’t move this particular part of sheep gets enough exposure to sunlight and then once It’s made sure that it has got enough sunlight then I will eat it so that I can make sure to reach my Vitamin needs. To me this seemed baffling but on further introspection I realized in the pretext of increasing our lifespans and making people more healthy we have made or brought about a norm that is not just unsustainable but practically unnecessary

There is a difference between when our body can’t actively synthesizes a particular compound like in the case of diabetes mellitus and when our body can very well synthesize something very effectively yet we don’t use that at all and exploit something totally unnecessary . This cycle of taking supplements I believe can make a whole generation use this amazing process of our body to synthesize vitamin D very much less effective as right now in almost 70 % of us it is already dormant .

In the need to cure our problems in front of us right now we lose sight of the future I am not against taking supplements but after learning the process behind it it made me wonder why do we have to complicate such a simple process into such messy pattern, All it takes is standing in the sun for merely an hour basking in its glory connecting to our past as it was this very same sunlight that bathed our forefathers and making sure that , that one extra factor that human beings have got let’s not let that factor go to waste and depend on another creature for the marvellous factor of vitamin D.