Slimming down may affect your vitamin D levels

A Johns Hopkins study involving more than 930,000
patients found that people in the northern United
States who have weight-loss surgery during winter
face more complications than patients in the South.
"Sun exposure is critical in the synthesis of vitamin
D, so the notion that people living in less sunny
northern states may suffer from vitamin D deficiency
is not surprising," study leader Leigh Peterson, a
nutritionist and postdoctoral research fellow at the
Johns Hopkins Centre for Bariatric Surgery, said in a
hospital news release.
"What is remarkable is how closely sun exposure,
vitamin D and surgical outcomes were linked,"
Peterson said.
A review of medical records of patients who had the
surgery between 2001 and 2010 found that 71
percent of the 300,000 operations that resulted in
an extended hospital stay involved patients living
north of South Carolina.
In addition, more than twice as many patients
experienced delayed healing in winter than in
summer, according to the study published online
Dec. 14 in Obesity Science and Practice .
Nutritional deficiencies can trigger inflammatio,
increase infection risk and slow wound healing, but
the researchers said more research is needed to
determine if routine use of vitamin D supplements
could help prevent these complications after weight-
loss surgery.
Excessive vitamin D intake, while rare, can cause
nausea, constipation, confusion and an abnormal
heart beat. Most people can get enough vitamin D
from routine sun exposure. The researchers added,
however, that obesity is a known risk factor for low
levels of vitamin D and said people planning to
have weight-loss surgery should be screened for
this deficiency.