Research suggests

vitamin D could affect

brain function

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JAN STURMANN FOR THE GLOBE

Rhonda P. Patrick, a postdoctoral fellow at Childrens Hospital Oakland Research

Institute, is studying what role vitamin D has in serotonin production.

By Jeremy C. FoxGLOBE CORRESPONDENT

JANUARY 05, 2015
When you think of vitamin D, you may think of bone health.
For years, doctors have recommended vitamin D and calcium
supplements to guard against fractures and osteoporosis.

But in recent years, the efficacy of those supplements has

been widely questioned, while other research has explored
possible connections between vitamin D and heart health,
cancer prevention, and other health benefits.
Those connections have not yet been proved, but now studies
on the relationship between vitamin D and serotonin
production are taking researchers down a new path.
A growing body of evidence suggests that vitamin D present
in some foods and produced naturally when skin is exposed to
sunlight regulates the enzyme that converts the amino acid
tryptophan into serotonin, a neurotransmitter believed to
help regulate moods and direct brain development while in
the womb.
It is very important for guiding [where] neurons . . . go in the
brain and how they shape the structure and the wiring of the
brain, said researcher Rhonda P. Patrick. Without adequate
serotonin in that developing fetus, the brain . . . doesnt
develop normally.
Patrick, a postdoctoral fellow at Childrens Hospital Oakland
Research Institute in Oakland, Calif., said the degree to which
vitamin D regulates serotonin isnt yet clear. But psychologists
and neuroscientists have established the effects of low
serotonin by restricting tryptophan entering the brains of
human test subjects, she said.
What happens is their long-term decision making shuts
down, she said. They become impulsive and aggressive,
angry, unhappy. They have difficult time interpreting peoples
facial expressions.

Why do we feel better when we go out in the sun? Sun makes

vitamin D in your skin.

Vitamin D is naturally present in some foods, including fatty

fish such as mackerel, salmon, and tuna, and in small
amounts in cheese, egg yolks, and beef liver, according to the
National Institutes of Health. But most vitamin D in the
human diet comes from its addition to foods such as milk,
orange juice, and breakfast cereals.
Because vitamin D regulates about 1,000 different types of
genes in the body roughly 5 percent of the human genome
Patrick and her mentor, Bruce N. Ames, a senior scientist at
Childrens Hospital Oakland Research Institute, believes the
nutrient may play a much larger role in our health than
previously realized.
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Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at
the Harvard School of Public Health, said that the hypothesis
suggests many avenues for further research.
This work by Ames and Patrick is significant because it
describes a potential pathway linking vitamin D with serious
mental conditions, and may explain some of the features of
these diseases, Willett said in an e-mail.
Researchers are working to confirm Ames and Patricks
hypothesis in the lab. Mark R. Haussler, a professor at the
University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix, and
Peter Jurutka, an associate professor at Arizona State
University, have conducted experiments that support the
hypothesis, Haussler said.
In successive experiments using synthesized DNA, then cells
from human kidneys, then cells from the brains of rats and of
humans, Haussler and Jurutka established that vitamin D
produced effects consistent with Patrick and Amess
hypothesis: It enhanced the ability of the brain cells to

produce serotonin by anywhere from double to 30 times as

much, Haussler said.
Haussler said a better understanding of how to regulate
serotonin production could have a huge impact, and all the
way across the life span. Haussler speculated that regulating
serotonin in developing brains could potentially affect the
development of autism or attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder.
Some benefits of vitamin D have been known for generations,
Haussler said, though they might have been described in
different terms.
When I was young, my mother would say, Mark, go out in
the sun; youll feel better, Haussler said. Well, you know, I
usually did, and thats a common-sense-type thing, but why?
Why do we feel better when we go out in the sun? Sun makes
vitamin D in your skin.
But too much sun can also lead to skin cancer, he cautioned,
and not all sun exposure will help produce vitamin D. In New
England during the winter, the sun is too low on the horizon
to help generate the production of vitamin D.
Doctors and researchers said that in this region and many
others, it is beneficial to take a vitamin D supplement, at least
during winter months, but controversies have arisen in recent
years about the use of vitamin supplements and the tools for
measuring vitamin D deficiency.
Late last year, a widely discussed editorial in the Annals of
Internal Medicine encouraged the public to stop wasting
money on vitamin and mineral supplements that had not
been proved to prevent or slow the development of chronic
diseases.
That editorial included a caveat that vitamin D
supplementation remained an open area of investigation,

particularly in deficient persons but nevertheless concluded

that current widespread use [of vitamin D supplements] is
not based on solid evidence that benefits outweigh harms.
Also last year, a study from Massachusetts General Hospital
found that many of the 70 percent to 90 percent of AfricanAmericans diagnosed as vitamin D deficient may actually have
healthy levels of the vitamin and are not deficient
because they are genetically disposed to carry more of the
free form of the nutrient.
Willett, of the Harvard School of Public Health, said the antisupplement editorial was unhelpful as it lumped together a
very wide range of doses and conditions.
Willett said many Americans do not get enough vitamin D
from diet and sun exposure and should take a supplement.
His recommendation included African-American adults
because, he said, science has not yet determined which forms
of vitamin D benefit specific organs, and the free form may
not be helpful in all instances.
There is no universal agreement about the proper dosage, but
Willett recommends 1,000 international units per day for
most adults. Patrick said that before taking a supplement,
people should get tested and consult their physicians.

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Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jeremycfox.