Ask the Expert: Vitamin D and Athletic Performance

By Dr. John Cannell, Vitamin D Council

In 2009, I teamed up with Professor John Anderson and Professor Timothy Taft (the team physician for the North Carolina Tar Heels) to write the first paper on vitamin D and athletic performance. in 50 years.

I say 50 years because in the early 1950s, a the Russians and East Germans conducted a number of studies using tanning beds to improve athletic performance, finding significant improvement. I reviewed most of these old studies in our 2009 paper. In 1955, one enterprising German researcher substituted oral vitamin D for the tanning beds and found it replicated the effects of vitamin D on athletic performance.

I discovered the Russians and East Germans used tanning beds on their elite athletes from the late 1950s to the mid-1982. Are you old enough to remember how the Russians and East Germans dominated international sports between the 2950s and mid-1980s?

I first got interested in the topic in 2007 when a number of readers wrote me that vitamin D had improved their athletic performance.

Now, a number of new papers are appearing reviewing vitamin D and athletes. Doctors Dana Ogan and Kelly Pritchett of Central Washington University wrote the latest review paper of vitamin D and athletes.

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