Rattlesnakes, bears, and vitamin D....Oh, my!

     "How did it get so late so soon?  It's night before it's afternoon.  December is here before it's June.  My goodness how the time has flewn.  How did it get so late so soon?"  Dr. Seuss

      I recently noticed that autumn is upon us and that I have not experienced the joys of summer as much as I should, so I decided to run/walk in the county open space park near our home today.  This is how I encountered a rattlesnake.  It was sunning smack in the middle of the trail and like every other rattlesnake I have ever encountered, would not move for anything.  This one didn't coil or rattle, just watched me wherever I moved.  I have heard they are more afraid of us than we are of them, but I sincerely doubt it.  They are kings of the trail, and they know it. Maybe it was just sluggish as it was morning or because it had just eaten....it did look pretty fat.  Luckily, this year the county has mowed down the tall grass beside the narrow single-track trail so I felt safe venturing off  trail and making a wide berth around said snake.  I'm sorry I didn't remember my camera (or my cell phone for that matter, don't tell Dean, but I did have I.D. so at least they could have identified the body, right?).  There are some red rock formations in this park where thousands of rattlesnakes den up over the winter, thus there are a lot of them to encounter during the warm seasons.
     After returning home while watering flowers, I noticed my birdfeeder was ripped apart and lying on the ground.  The steel shepherd's crook we hang it on was bent over double.  THE BEARS ARE BACK!  I guess that's it for feeding birds this season.
     You have probably read the research headlines lately that 3/4 of American teens and adults are deficient in vitamin D.   I have been really curious and suspicious about why this is.  Granted, we all wear more sunscreen than previous generations, but they wore long sleeves, long pants, and big hats year round to avoid the sun....at least my ancestors from the Mid-West did.  According to the Institute of Medicine, it only takes ten minutes of sunshine on your skin a day to trigger adequate vitamin D production.  Surely, most of us get at least that.
     A new study done at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center showed that overweight/obese women losing 15% of their body weight had significantly increased vitamin D levels in their blood.  Vitamin D is stored in the fat deposits of the body.  They theorize that trapped vitamin D is released with weight loss.  Could it be that vitamin D levels are deficient in Americans because 65% of us are obese or overweight and have trapped our vitamin D in our fat cells?
     Another thing affecting vitamin D levels is our diet. (refer to "The China Study" by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.)  Vitamin D made by our skin or from the food we eat travels to the liver where it is converted to a storage form metabolite....it is stored in the liver and in body fat.  When the body needs vitamin D, some of the storage form travels to the kidney where it is converted to the active form of vitamin D.  Diet can affect how much of this active form of vitamin D is produced.  Animal protein foods and excess dietary calcium significantly lower the amount of active vitamin D made by the kidney.   
     Some wonder if vitamin D deficiency causes obesity, others wonder if obesity causes vitamin D deficiency....it is a chicken or the egg, which came first, kind of koan.  It seems simple to me that it doesn't matter.  We, as Americans, are too fat and eat too much meat and dairy.  We need to work on those problems by eating a plant-based diet and exercising instead of treating the symptoms with increased vitamin D supplementation.
     I don't mean to sound preachy.  When I say that we Americans are too fat, I do mean we.  I fall into the overweight category on the BMI (body mass index) table, as does Dean, although he is closer to normal than I.  We continue to work on it.
     Enjoy the rest of your summer...my how the time has flewn.