The news has been loaded with a plethora of articles touting the benefits of vitamin D reported in nutrition journals. Based on research of the past few years it appears that Vitamin D plays a large role in regulating the immune system. Most recently the American Academy of Pediatrics have doubled its recommended daily dosage of Vitamin D for kids. Now recent paper looking at vitamin D’s effect in a petri dish on placenta cells concluded: “…improvement of vitamin D status through dietary supplementation may act to potentiate placental innate immune responses during pregnancy.” What the authors are saying is that it appears Vitamin D may induce beneficial innate immunity of the placenta against bacterial infection and more importantly uterine infection during pregnancy.
It is important that women who wish to get pregnant or are sexually active and fertile be replete in nutrients. One way is to always take a good multivitamin/multimineral. Also there are many tests that can be done to assess nutrient status, but one that should be done is Vitamin D levels. 25-HydroxyVitamin D test or 25(OH)D. It should be at least 40-60 ng/ml as the reference ranges used by Quest and LabQuest are both probably too low.
So make sure to get a 25(OH)D panel done for the benefit of your offspring and if necessary supplement accordingly.
In Health,
George Mandler
Licensed Acupuncturist
Licensed Dietitian / Nutritionist
Maynard, MA & Cambridge, MA
