Vitamin D is different from other essential vitamins because our own bodies can manufacture it with sunlight exposure. The main function of vitamin D is to regulate the absorption of calcium and phosphorus in our bones and aid in cell to cell communication throughout the body.
People today are aware of the importance of maintaining optimal blood levels of vitamin D for their overall health and well being. What many people do not know is that vitamin D is also indispensable to the health, beauty, and longevity of the largest organ in the body.
The problem is that while the body uses sunlight to make vitamin D, sun exposure itself accelerates skin aging. Over time, ultraviolet light damages the skin, leading to wrinkles, sun spots, and higher risk of skin cancer. In addition, much of the vitamin D produced in the skin is taken up and used by other systems of the body.
"Vitamin D is a key ingredient for beautiful looking skin," says Dennis Gross, M.D., a dermatologist in New York City and creator of his namesake skincare line. "Skin, like all organs, needs vital vitamins to function properly and vitamin D is one of them."
Dr. Gross has spent the last few years researching the D-skin connection, really one of the only experts to do so in the dermatology community, making him a lone ranger of sorts. And the benefits he's uncovered from poring over the existing vitamin D research and observing his own patients' experiences are expansive. Having sufficient vitamin D in the skin helps minimize acne, boost elasticity, stimulate collagen production, enhance radiance, and lessen lines and the appearance of dark spots, he says. It's this laundry list, plus anecdotal evidence from seeing patients day in and day out at his NYC office, that led him to create skincare with D right in the bottle. "Many of my patients have vitamin D deficiencies as a result of avoiding the sun and wearing a daily sunscreen in fear of premature aging and cancer," he says. "Together, we noticed that their skin had a sallow and dull appearance, which I believed to be an adverse effect from low levels of vitamin D."
Sunlight exposure is the primary source of vitamin D for most people. Solar ultraviolet-B radiation stimulates the production of vitamin D3 from 7-dehydrocholesterol in the epidermis of the skin. Hence, vitamin D is actually more like a hormone than a vitamin, a substance that is required from the diet.
Too much sun damages the skin, creating wrinkles and fine lines, while increasing skin cancer risk. Still, your skin's ability to synthesize a portion of its daily requirement directly from sunlight3makes vitamin D unique among all other nutrients.
vitamin D more closely resembles a hormone than a vitamin. Hormones are chemical messengers produced by certain glands and cells in your body that bind to specific receptors in order to produce a targeted biological response. The active form of vitamin D,calcitriol, is one of the most powerful hormones in the human body, endowed with the ability to activate over 2,000 genes. In order to become calcitriol, however, vitamin D must first undergo a complex series of biochemical reactions that begin in your epidermis, the outermost layer of your skin and the key to its youthful appearance.
This is where vitamin D comes in rates of cell division and differentiation are triggered by growth factors and other molecules that are controlled by the presence of vitamin D. If adequate amounts of vitamin D are not available, your epidermal cells won't differentiate optimally. As a result, the outer layer of your skin may become thinner and more fragile. It begins to sag from lack of adequate support. Dryness and wrinkles set in as moisture is gradually lost to the outside. This is one of the main reasons why vitamin D is absolutely essential to the maintenance of healthy-looking skin.
