Integrating Isotope Analysis with Empirical Measures of Vitamin D Status: New Directions in the Study of Diet and Deficiency

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Integrating Isotope Analyses: The State of Play and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Stable isotope analytical techniques are increasingly employed alongside other innovative methods to gain a fuller understanding of past life-histories. Recent developments in biomedical sciences have offered non-invasive means of quantifying vitamin D status in individuals through the determination of 25(OH)D3 content in hair. Vitamin D deficiency is linked to a wide range of adverse health effects, the risk of which is increased at latitudinal extremes where limitations are placed on the dermal synthesis of vitamin D3 due to insufficient sunlight, particularly during winter. The consumption of food sources with high vitamin D content can mediate this risk, including salmon, marine fish and marine mammals. Where hair is preserved in the archaeological record, these novel methodologies may not only allow an empirical indication of vitamin D status but also reveal the relationship between diet and vitamin D health. Here, we present novel intra-strand 25(OH)D3 data from modern individuals and the first archaeological applications. The detection of seasonal variability (d18O) of 25(OH)D3 content in incremental samples of hair, in tandem with the analysis of dietary (d13C, d15N) indicators, provides evidence of the links between ancient (seasonal) diet and vitamin D status for the first time.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Integrating Isotope Analyses: The State of Play and Future Directions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40131.0