Turning Sunshine into Performance?
by ilene - November 7th, 2009 9:03 pm
Turning Sunshine into Performance
By Ilene
Does vitamin D have anything to do with investing and stock and options trading? Maybe. Preliminary research suggests that lack of vitamin D is associated with impaired mental abilities. And this may indicate that obtaining sufficient levels of vitamin D may improve cognitive performance.
Researchers stopped short of advising more sunshine, or fruit-flavored gummy D supplements (yum!), to improve one’s cognitive function. But further research is warranted.
In addition, and perhaps most importantly, many children appear to be deficient in vitamin D (see below) so it may be worth investing in some of those gummy Ds.
Does Vitamin D Improve Brain Function?
New studies show low vitamin D levels may impair cognitive function
By Diane Welland, in Scientific American
The push to prevent skin cancer may have come with unintended consequences—impaired brain function because of a deficiency of vitamin D…
“We know there are receptors for vitamin D throughout the central nervous system and in the hippocampus,” said Robert J. Przybelski,… “We also know vitamin D activates and deactivates enzymes in the brain and the cerebrospinal fluid that are involved in neurotransmitter synthesis and nerve growth.” In addition, animal and laboratory studies suggest vitamin D protects neurons and reduces inflammation.
Two new European studies looking at vitamin D and cognitive function have taken us one step further…
The scientists found that the lower the subjects’ vitamin D levels, the more negatively impacted was their performance on a battery of mental tests…
A second study, led by scientists at the University of Manchester in England… looked at vitamin D levels and cognitive performance in more than 3,100 men aged 40 to 79 in eight different countries across Europe. The data show that those people with lower vitamin D levels exhibited slower information-processing speed…
Although we now know that low levels of vitamin D are associated with cognitive impairment, we do not know if high or optimum levels will lessen cognitive losses. It is also unclear if giving vitamin D to those who lack it will help them regain some of these high-level functions…
See Also:
Vitamin D for Quicker Thinking?
Men With Low Blood Levels of Vitamin D Fare Worse on Test Requiring Speedy Thinking