New Topics In Vitamin D Research

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble steroid hormone precursor that contributes to the maintenance of normal levels of calcium and phosphorus in the bloodstream. Strictly speaking, it is not a vitamin since human skin can manufacture it, but it is referred to as one for historical reasons. It is often known as calciferol. The major biologic function of vitamin D is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus. Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium, helping to form and maintain strong bones. It promotes bone mineralisation in concert with a number of other vitamins, minerals and hormones. Without vitamin D, bones can become thin, brittle, soft or misshapen. Vitamin D prevents rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults -- skeletal diseases that result in defects that weaken bones. This book gathers international research on the leading-edge of the scientific front.

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble steroid hormone precursor that contributes to the maintenance of normal levels of calcium and phosphorus in the bloodstream. Strictly speaking, it is not a vitamin since human skin can manufacture it, but it is referred to as one for historical reasons. It is often known as calciferol. The major biologic function of vitamin D is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phophorus. Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium, helping to form and maintain strong bones. It promotes bone mineralisation in concert with a number of other vitamins, minerals and hormones. Without vitamin D, bones can become thin, brittle, soft or misshapen. Vitamin D prevents rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults -- skeletal diseases that result in defects that weaken bones. This book gathers international research on the leading-edge of the scientific front.

Vitamin D deficiency is prevalent today not only among the elderly but pervasively throughout all ages of life.This is due, in part, to systemic diseases that affect vitamin D metabolism, to changes in lifestyle, such as insufficient exposure to sunlight, and to increased use of sunscreen. Apart from the obvious effects of vitamin D deficiency on skeletal metabolism, the problem is assuming even greater significance because observational and interventional studies have linked vitamin D deficiency to cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. This book addresses a variety of important issues that have emerged from this fast-moving area of clinical medicine. The topics include assays of vitamin D and its binding protein, effects on aging and associated complications, primary and secondary states of altered parathyroid hormone secretion, vitamin D in the growing years of children and adolescents, nutritional requirements, and vitamin D as it relates to systemic disorders such as diabetes mellitus. Vitamin D in Clinical Medicine aims to offer new insights, in an evidence-based way, on important issues related to vitamin D. It is written for general practitioners and internists, as well as for endocrinologists, nutritionists, pulmonologists, cardiologists, and oncologists.

Because diseases of the bone are often less acute and less lifethreatening than dis eases of the circulatory system, gastrointestinal tract, kidney, liver, and the nervous system, they have received a disproportionately smaller amount of attention in the medical world. With the average increasing life span of man as a result of improve ments in modern medicine, espe~ially in the pediatric field, the seriousness of many metabolic bone diseases has indeed become more obvious. In addition, other improvements in medicine, such as hemodialysis for the preservation of renal failure patients, have permitted the development of other consequences of diseased kidneys, one of which is the appearance of renal osteodystrophy. Finally, the appearance of several genetic disorders in the area of metabolic bone disease has been underscored by the solution of other pediatric diseas~s of much more serious consequences. These emerging problems all suggest that much remains to be learned concerning the sys temic control of bone, both as a structural organ and as a reservoir for the important elements of calcium and phosphorus so essential for the support of life in complex multicellular organisms of which man is the most important. As will be demonstrated in the historical portion of this manuscript, the existence of the three most important humoral factors regulating bone metabolism and func tion are now known.

The Nutrition and Health series of books has as an overriding mission to provide health professionals with texts that are considered essential because each includes: a synthesis of the state of the science; timely, in-depth reviews by the leading researchers in their respective fields; extensive, up-to-date fully annotated reference lists; a detailed index; relevant tables and figures; identification of paradigm shifts and the consequences; of information between chapters, but targeted, inter-chapter refer virtually no overlap rals, suggestions of areas for future research; and balanced, data-driven answers to patient questions that are based on the totality of evidence rather than the findings of any single study. The series volumes are not the outcome of a symposium. Rather, each editor has the potential to examine a chosen area with a broad perspective, both in subject matter as well as in the choice of chapter authors. The international perspective, especially with regard to public health initiatives, is emphasized where appropriate. The editors, whose training is both research and practice oriented, have the opportunity to develop a primary objective for their book, define the scope and focus, and then invite the leading authori ties from around the world to be part of their initiative. The authors are encouraged to provide an overview of the field, discuss their own research, and relate the research de findings to potential human health consequences.

Vitamin D: Volume 2: Health, Disease and Therapeutics, Fourth Edition, authoritatively covers the evidence for new roles for vitamin D, ranging from cardiovascular disease, to cancer, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis and renal disease. This collection represents a who’s who of vitamin D research and the coverage is appropriately broad, drawing in internal medicine, orthopedics, oncology and immunology. Clinical researchers will gain a strong understanding of the molecular basis for a particular area of focus. Offers a comprehensive reference, ranging from basic bone biology, to biochemistry, to the clinical diagnostic and management implications of vitamin D Saves researchers and clinicians time in quickly accessing the very latest details on the diverse scientific and clinical aspects of Vitamin D, as opposed to searching through thousands of journal articles Chapter authors include the most prominent and well-published names in the field Targets chemistry, metabolism and circulation, mechanisms of action, mineral and bone homeostasis and vitamin D deficiency Presents a clinical focus on disorders, analogs, cancer, immunity, inflammation, disease and therapeutic applications

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Vitamin D is the topic for many discussions in the scientific community. Nowadays, a different interpretation of this secosteroid hormone is needed. Today the term "vitamin" may be considered outdated. This compound may be correctly be called a vitamin only when it is administered to humans or animals that suffer from its deficiency. This book attempts to clarify the role of Vitamin D deficiency in many pathological processes in the whole organism. Chapters in this book cover such issues as the earliest clinical and preclinical investigations of the consequences of Vitamin D deficiency for cognitive, cardiovascular, metabolic, immune, and renal disorders.