{"id":6899,"date":"2013-11-06T09:49:41","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T14:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/busm\/?p=4513"},"modified":"2015-07-09T10:47:38","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T14:47:38","slug":"vitamin-d-guru-to-deliver-university-lecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/2013\/11\/06\/vitamin-d-guru-to-deliver-university-lecture\/","title":{"rendered":"Vitamin D Guru to Deliver University Lecture"},"content":{"rendered":"

MED\u2019s Holick will discuss the sunshine nutrient and why we need it<\/h3>\n
\"MED
MED Professor Michael Holick, a vitamin D expert, will deliver tonight’s \u201cD-Lightful\u201d University Lecture. Photo by Vernon Doucette<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cVitamin D chose me,\u201d says Michael Holick, who has been an outspoken advocate worldwide for awareness of the ravages of vitamin D deficiency. As tonight\u2019s 2013 University Lecturer<\/a>, the School of Medicine professor of medicine, physiology, and biophysics will speak about his long career studying what he dubs the \u201cD-Lightful\u201d nutrient and share the story of how he became consumed by a subject he once considered boring.<\/p>\n

Director of Boston Medical Center\u2019s Bone Health Care Clinic and of MED\u2019s Vitamin D, Skin and Bone Research Laboratory<\/a>, Holick is a winner of the Linus Pauling Institute\u2019s Linus Pauling Prize<\/a> for health research and the author of The Vitamin D Solution: A 3-Step Strategy to Cure Our Most Common Health Problem<\/i> (Plume, 2011). He believes the world is in the throes of a vitamin D defiency pandemic, which is causing bone disease and osteoporosis in adults as well as increasing the risk of a range of diseases, including some cancers, tuberculosis, influenza, diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and schizophrenia. About a third of all Americans are at risk for vitamin D deficiency, he says, and that the risk is higher for young children. It\u2019s estimated that vitamin D deficiency affects nearly two billion people worldwide, making it, he says, one of the world\u2019s leading medical problems.<\/p>\n

Vitamin D regulates insulin production in the pancreas as well as in genes that control cell growth, and it helps the immune system, says Holick, who has been studying how skin makes vitamin D for more than 30 years. \u201cEvery tissue and cell has a vitamin D receptor. We estimate that as many as 2,000 genes\u2014up to one-sixth of the total human genome\u2014are directly or indirectly regulated by vitamin D.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holick\u2019s zeal for the \u201csunshine vitamin,\u201d which has earned him some detractors, has its roots in his early research as a resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, which shed light, so to speak, on the elegant way that our bodies synthesize the vitamin in our skin during sun exposure. His research resulted in what he calls \u201cthe concept of sensible sun exposure\u201d coexisting with protection from skin cancers and other damage. Recently he worked with a California-based software engineer to develop an app that he says \u201cnot only tells you how much Vitamin D you are producing anywhere at any time of the year, but also provides a warning when you\u2019ve made enough Vitamin D and that further sun exposure can increase the risk of skin damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe major cause of the vitamin D deficiency epidemic is the lack of appreciation that sun exposure has been, and continues to be, the major source of the vitamin worldwide,\u201d says Holick, who in his lecture will elaborate on his three-step strategy to treat and prevent vitamin D deficiency.<\/p>\n

The University Lecture was established in 1950 to honor faculty engaged in outstanding research and to offer an opportunity to hear a distinguished scholar discuss a favorite topic. All faculty members are invited each spring to nominate the subsequent year\u2019s lecturer. University Lecturers from the previous five years act as the selection committee.<\/p>\n

Michael Holick will give the 2013 University Lecture, titled The D-Lightful Vitamin D for Health, tonight, Wednesday, November 6, at 7 p.m. at the Tsai Performance Center, 685 Commonwealth Ave. Admission is free and open to the public.<\/i><\/p>\n

This BU Today<\/i> story was written by Susan Seligson. She can be reached at sueselig@bu.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MED\u2019s Holick will discuss the sunshine nutrient and why we need it \u201cVitamin D chose me,\u201d says Michael Holick, who has been an outspoken advocate worldwide for awareness of the ravages of vitamin D deficiency. As tonight\u2019s 2013 University Lecturer, the School of Medicine professor of medicine, physiology, and biophysics will speak about his long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20648,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6899\/revisions\/20648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}