The Role of Vitamin D in Modulating Gestation Diabetes - Essay Example

Vitamin D is one of the important organic compounds necessary for a wide array of functions in the body. Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble secosteroids responsible for enhancing the intestinal absorption of calcium and phosphate ions (Wikipedia). According to health practitioners and researchers, Vitamin D is one of the top listed important nutrients necessary to the body with impeccable health benefits. Its uniqueness in how it’s obtained makes it a nutrient of its own. Vitamin D biosynthesis commences with one’s skin being exposed to sunlight with a limit of the wavelength of 290-320nm for a much more effective synthesis of vitamin D. This is usually transported to the liver through the bloodstream where it is then converted through a series of biological reactions into 25-hydroxy-vitamin D. However, the rate at which ultraviolet B synthesizes vitamin D, ultimately depends on the thickness of melanin pigment of the person’s skin. The 25-hydroxy-vitamin D is thereafter enzymatically converted to the active Vitamin D hormone 1, 25- dihydroxy vitamin D, also known as calcitriol. Although it's only a handful number of foods do we find to be vitamin D, but these are also considered to be Vitamin D suppliants to the body (Watson, 2013).

Vitamin D has definitely gone beyond its well-established role in reducing cancer, stroke, autoimmune diseases, bone health and is now known to be a major significant organic compound necessary in fighting the common diabetes disease. Diabetes which is a disease that seems to have taken root worldwide has become one of the most common but fatal diseases that has created undoubtedly great concern among medical practitioners. Diabetes which is a metabolic disease concerned with the uncontrollable increase in blood sugar has tremendously affected a large part of society. It has more so become a disease to worry about especially for pregnant women who are more prone and susceptible to the disease. However, the role of Vitamin D in the pathogenesis and prevention of diabetes has greatly sparked widespread interest.

In pregnant women, Vitamin D is an important organic nutrient that takes part in aiding the beta cells of the pancreas to keep on regulating the insulin hormone in relation to its demand in the body. Vitamin D also acts as a buffer in the production of calcitonin from the parathyroid glands. The calcitonin hormone is responsible for the supply of calcium ions to the necessary demanding tissues (Watson, 2013). The greater demand for insulin by the mother and the developing fetus can only be kept in check with the sufficient availability of Vitamin D that triggers the release of insulin hormone from the beta cells of the pancreas tissue. Gestation diabetes which is also known as glucose intolerance during pregnancy is one of the diseases that have proved to be fatal to future mothers. The main cause for this type of disease is the rise in blood sugar level which in turn leads to the development of endothelial dysfunction in diabetes mellitus. Pathogenic effectors for type 2 diabetes in pregnant women include inflammatory factors and autoimmune reactions. In most cases that diabetes germinates itself during the early gestation period where it leads to alterations in the placental development and ultimately the normal fetal growth. However, in the later stages of gestation, the germination of diabetes disease would only lead to short-term alterations such as in gene expression and the key functional molecules (Watson, 2013).