Image via WikipediaThe other day, I was going through one of the many news emails that I get at work. The emails usually involve the food and retail industries. There was one particular in one of the food science emails that I received that immediately caught my attention.The headline read,"Deficiency in D major: Did vitamin deficiency led to Mozart’s untimely death?" Having just been diagnosed as having a Vitamin D deficiency myself, I was very interested to read about this new hypothesis on the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Without a doubt, Mozart was one of the greatest and most prolific composers of the classical era. I have gone through phases where I listed to classical music, and I have several CDs of Mozart's music. Sadly, he died at the relatively young age of 35.
The study says that Mozart suffered from a variety of illnesses during his life, including pneumonia, sepsis, heart disease, and kidney disease. All of these maladies have been linked to vitamin D deficiency. It also states that with relatively low sunlight in Austria for six months of the year make it difficult for a person to produce vitamin D naturally from sunlight. Combine that with the fact that Mozart did most of his composing at night, and slept during the day and you see the potential for the lack of vitamin D.
It is a hypothesis, so we don't know if a vitamin D deficiency did lead to the early death of Mozart, but it is an interesting hypothesis. If nothing else, it helps to show the importance of vitamin D supplementation if one does not get enough exposure to the sun to produce sufficient vitamin D. Plus it is kind of interesting to think that I might have something in common with one of, if not the, greatest composers of all time, even if it is just a vitamin D deficiency. Now off to take my vitamin D supplements.
