Vitamin D Benefits

Cod liver oil has been used in the treatment of rickets for more than 100 years but it was not till 1918. Sir Edward Mellanby made things clear by his studies that rickets is the nutritional disease responding to a fat soluble vitamin in cod liver oil. This vitamin D was finally prepared in a pure form in 1931.

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Vitamin D otherwise described as calciferol. It is further divided in to two compounds i.e. cholecalciferol (D3) and another one is ergocalciferol (D2). Both are essential to prevent rickets (anti –rachitic).

These are all sterols chemically related to cholesterol and to the hormones of the adrenal cortex and sex glands. Certain sterols on exposure to ultraviolet irradiation undergo a small structural change which makes them antirachitic.

Among all sterols only two activated sterols are of importance in nutrition and therapeutics.  These were first described as vitamin D2 and D3 and are still known by these labels. The material originally described as vitamin D1 was subsequently shown to be an impure mixture of sterols.

Vitamin D2 differs chemically in having a double bond and a methyl group in the side chain. It is manufactured by the action of ultra violet light on ergo sterol, a sterol found in fungi and yeast. Although used in therapeutics, it occurs very rarely in nature.