VitamIn D and Your Brain

Vitamin D and Your Brain

I recently read an article in the medical and scientific literature that discussed the role of Vitamin D in the human brain. The article correlated the low levels of Vitamin D in the bloodstream with high levels of anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and oppositional-defiant disorder. The most important discussions, however, were about the role of Vitamin D in two plagues: autism and Alzheimer's disease.

Autism
The number of people diagnosed with autism is increasing at an epidemic rate. Greater than 1 in 150 children born today will have autism. The gender rate is also alarming: Boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls.

No one can agree as to the cause of autism. This may be because there is more than one cause. In fact, the last time I counted there were 11 suspected causes. However, two things that nearly all children have in common are poor methylation (inability to use Vitamin B-12 to create whole proteins) and poor hydroxylation (inability to convert inactive Vitamin D into its active form).

The most common cause for these defects is toxicity: environmental toxins and/or geno-toxins (poisons created by abnormal genes).

Alzheimer's disease
There are three characteristics of Alzheimer's disease in the human brain: neurofibrillary tangles, beta-amyloid plaques and glial cell inflammation. Interestingly, some people with plaques and tangles - but no inflammation - appear to function normally into their advanced years. It is brain inflammation that seems to be the spark which lights the fire of Alzheimer's disease.

Vitamin D may help reduce inflammation in the brain. A notable attribute of Alzheimer's disease victims is low levels of Vitamin D.

The same two problems that exist in children with autism also afflict adults with Alzheimer's disease: poor methylation (inability to use Vitamin B-12 to create whole proteins) and poor hydroxylation (inability to convert inactive vitamin D into its active form). Methylation is measured by a blood test for homocysteine. And one of the ways to measure hydroxylation is with a blood test for Vitamin D.

Are autism and Alzheimer's disease related? At this point it is hard to say; perhaps it is even impossible to say that they are connected conditions. But they share remarkably similar imbalances in biochemistry and they share at least two common deficiencies: Vitamin B-12 and Vitamin D.

Certainly, it would be an amazing coincidence if they were not somehow linked, don't you think?

Conclusion
In the 1990s I was overwhelmed by the mountains of evidence linking homocysteine to the increase in autism and Alzheimer's disease. This was eventually linked back to a methylation defect that led to poor protein formation and Vitamin B-12 metabolism. Now, we are seeing new mountains of evidence emerging about hydroxylation defects leading to poor hormone formation and Vitamin D metabolism.

We can say with greater certainty than ever before that these imbalances are caused by toxicity, deficiency, injury and stress. Let's increase our efforts to combat these "causes" and reduce the chance of being victimized by the effects!

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