Vitamin D for Your Brain
About Kelly Brogan
KELLY BROGAN, MD, is a holistic psychiatrist, author of the New York Times Bestselling book, A Mind of Your Own, Own Your Self, the children’s book, A Time For Rain, and co-editor of the landmark textbook Integrative Therapies for Depression.
Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin that influences T regulatory cells, critical for immune modulation. Consistent with inflammatory models of mental illness, vitamin D deficiency has been associated with major psychiatric diagnoses and now animal studies may be shedding light on mechanistic drivers.
- In this UK study, rats fed low vitamin D diets were found to have free radical damage in their brains related to oxidative stress.
- This finding was correlated with diminished performance on cognitive tasks
Some clinicians, including myself, question the cause of epidemic levels of vitamin D deficiency and suggest that toxic exposures such as pesticides and chronic infection as well as suppressed cholesterol may all be contributing to the association of low vitamin D with chronic illness. Resolving the root cause of these impacts is important, and monitored supplementation has proven to be an effective interim measure.Read the study here.
