Vitamin D: Why It's Important in Your Skin Care Business

By: Celeste Hilling

Posted: February 28, 2013, from the March 2013 issue of Skin Inc. magazine.

Mushrooms are an excellent source of vitamin D.

aVitamin D is being proclaimed by many physicians and skin care experts as an impactful way to build your skin care business while making a profound difference in your clients’ health. It is a hormone manufactured in the body when skin is exposed to sunlight. During the past decade, vitamin D has gone from being recognized primarily for its role in bone health to being investigated for its possible role in a wide range of body functions and in the prevention of diseases ranging from cancer and diabetes to multiple sclerosis and depression.

Vitamin D deficiency

Michael F. Holick, PhD, MD, author of The Vitamin D Solution (Plume, 2011) claims, “If I had to give you a single secret ingredient that could apply to the prevention—and treatment, in many cases—of heart disease, common cancers, stroke, infectious diseases from influenza to tuberculosis, type 1 and 2 diabetes, dementia, depression, insomnia, muscle weakness, joint pain, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis and hypertension, it would be this: vitamin D.”

An understanding of the power of vitamin D is important to you as a skin care professional because it impacts a majority of the clients you work with every day.

One billion people worldwide—a figure that grows during the winter—are estimated to be vitamin D-deficient¹, including:

• Three out of every four Americans;²
• 76% percent of pregnant women, causing many of their unborn children to be;3
• 42% percent of African-American and Latina women of childbearing age;3
• Almost half (48%) of girls ages 9–11;³
• People who live in Northern latitudes;⁴
• People who are rarely outdoors;⁴ and
• Those who are aging, because the skin’s ability to manufacture vitamin D from sunlight is reduced over time.⁴

How many of your clients fit into one or more of the above categories?

Only made in the skin