High vitamin-D bread could help solve widespread insufficiency problem
Connie Weaver and colleagues cite studies suggesting that up to 7 in 10 people in the United States may not get enough vitamin D, which enables the body to absorb calcium. Far from just contributing to healthy bones, however, vitamin D seems to have body-wide beneficial effects.
Vitamin D insufficiency has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, cancer, allergy in children, and other conditions. With few good natural sources of vitamin D, milk producers long have added it to milk. Weaver explains, however, that dairy products do not provide enough. The body makes its own vitamin D when the skin is exposed to sunlight. But people are not exposed to sun in winter and are avoiding the sun and using sun blocks in summer. Scientists thus have been looking for new ways to add vitamin D to the diet.
Weaver's group did experiments with laboratory rats, a stand-in for humans in such research, that ease doubts over whether bread baked with high vitamin D yeast could be a solution. The doubts originated because yeast produces one form of the vitamin, termed vitamin D2, which has been thought to be not as biologically active as the form produced by sun, vitamin D3. They showed bread made with vitamin D2-rich yeast, fed to the laboratory rats, had effects that seemed just as beneficial as vitamin D3. “Our results suggest that bread made with high vitamin D yeast could be a valuable new source of vitamin D in the diet,” they concluded.
The authors acknowledge support from Lallemand/American Yeast.
ARTICLE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE “Bioavailability and Efficacy of Vitamin D2 from UV-Irradiated Yeast in Growing, Vitamin D-Deficient Rats”
DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ARTICLE http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/jf104679c
CONTACT:
Connie Weaver, Ph.D.
Department of Foods & Nutrition
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Ind. 47907
Phone: (765) 494-8237
Fax: (765) 494-0674
Email: weavercm@purdue.edu
Media Contact
More Information:
http://www.acs.orgAll latest news from the category: Health and Medicine
This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.
Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.
Newest articles
The Sound of the Perfect Coating
Fraunhofer IWS Transfers Laser-based Sound Analysis of Surfaces into Industrial Practice with “LAwave”. Sound waves can reveal surface properties. Parameters such as surface or coating quality of components can be…
Customized silicon chips
…from Saxony for material characterization of printed electronics. How efficient are new materials? Does changing the properties lead to better conductivity? The Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS develops and…
Acetylation: a Time-Keeper of glucocorticoid Sensitivity
Understanding the regulatory mechanism paves the way to enhance the effectiveness of anti-inflammatory therapies and to develop strategies to counteract the negative effects of stress- and age-related cortisol excess. The…