Technically not a "vitamin," vitamin D is in a class by itself. Its metabolic product, calcitriol, is actually a secosteroid hormone that targets over 2000 genes (about 10% of the human genome) in the human body. Current research has implicated vitamin D deficiency as a major factor in the pathology of at least 17 varieties of cancer as well as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, muscle wasting, birth defects, periodontal disease, and more.
Vitamin D's influence on key biological functions vital to one's health and well-being mandates that vitamin D no longer be ignored by the health care industry nor by individuals striving to achieve and maintain a greater state of health.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Death rates surge with inadequate vitamin D
Insufficient levels of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) appear to be a major contributor to deaths in older adults, as shown in a study showing vitamin D levels to be inversely proportional to mortality risk in these individuals (J Am Geriatr Soc. 2009;57:1595-1603).
“The association was strong (two times greater odds of mortality for 25[OH]D level <25.0 nmol/L) and appeared linear within the range of the data and independent of common CVD [cardiovascular disease] and mortality risk factors,” researchers note.
The team looked at the vitamin D levels of 3,408 men and women aged 65 years and older upon their enrollment in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III). After a median 7.3 years of follow-up, 1,493 (44%) of the cohort had died. Slightly more half the deaths (767) were CVD-related.
Compared with participants who had optimal vitamin D status, those who had low vitamin D levels were three times more likely to die from heart disease and 2.5 times more likely to die from any cause. Individuals with baseline 25(OH)D levels <50.0 nmol/L seemed to be at highest risk for mortality, “but levels of 100.0 nmol/L or greater may be necessary for better survival,” researchers observe.”
Monday, January 4, 2010
232 Toxins Found In Babies
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Laboratory tests commissioned by the Environmental Working Group have detected bisphenol A (BPA), a plastic component and synthetic estrogen, in umbilical cord blood of American infants.
Nine of 10 randomly selected samples of cord blood tested positive for BPA, an industrial petrochemical.
BPA has been implicated in a lengthening list of serious chronic disorders, including cancer, cognitive and behavioral impairments, endocrine system disruption, reproductive and cardiovascular system abnormalities, diabetes, asthma and obesity.
In all, the tests found as many as 232 chemicals in the 10 newborns, all of minority descent. The cord blood study has produced hard new evidence that American children are being exposed, beginning in the womb, to complex mixtures of dangerous substances that may have lifelong consequences.
And in a separate study, researchers found that complications of pregnancy, such as preterm labor, preterm birth, and infection were lowest in women with the highest vitamin D levels.
Click HERE to read rest of this article.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Vitamin D may help in the battle with diabetes
Discussion
By SUZY COHEN - For the Herald & Review | Posted: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 10:00 pm
Dear Suzy: I read your Facebook post about vitamin D and how it works better than diabetic medications. I have diabetes, and no one has ever told me this. Would you share more information?
- L.N. Denver, Colo.
A: Diabetes is an inflammatory condition; it is not just about high blood sugar, as most people think. If left to run its devastating course, diabetes could steal your vision, destroy your kidneys and cause nerve pain, heart attack, stroke or amputation. So we have to take diabetes seriously and do all that we can to reduce blood sugar (glucose) and make our cells happier to see insulin (improve insulin sensitivity).
Doctors have many medications at their disposal to reduce blood glucose. I think natural vitamin D can help, too, so I posted that comment on Facebook and Twitter. I was trying to help people with diabetes because they may not know that it's an inexpensive, over-the-counter dietary supplement.
My comment was based in clinical science - more specifically, on a 2004 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that found that raising a person's blood levels of vitamin D (from 25 to 75 nmol/l) could improve insulin sensitivity by a whopping 60 percent. Compare that to metformin, one of our pharmaceutical gold standards, which can dispose of blood sugar by a meager 13 percent according to the New England Journal of Medicine.
Click HERE to read the rest of this article.
Autism Therapy: Vitamin D and Autism
I’ve notice lately that Vitamin D seems to be the “latest” thing people are buzzing about in the autism community. Vitamin D as an autism therapy. Seems reasonable. Children with autism present with muscular weakness, which is a symptom of Vitamin D deficiency. Children with autism also have intestinal absorption issues, which makes it difficult for them to properly digest their food. Making it nearly impossible to get the proper nutrients and vitamins from their food. Vitamin D as autism therapy? Plausible. Let’s explore what the experts are saying.
Click HERE to read the rest of this article.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Reduce breast cancer risk with Vitamin D
Summary of Findings in Breast Cancer.
Breast cancer patients with low levels of vitamin D and followed for up to eleven years had a 70% greater chance of dying and twice the rate of developing metastasis than did patients with high levels of vitamin D
Click HERE to read abstract of this research.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Vitamin D Dramatically Cuts Cancer Risk: Study
CTV.ca News Staff
Jun. 7 2007
A landmark new study is raising the tantalizing spectre that a simple and cheap vitamin supplement may offer a highly effective way of preventing cancer.
The research, published in the online edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, finds that a combination of vitamin D3 and calcium has a substantially marked effect on reducing cancer incidence.
The four-year study out of Creighton University in Nebraska found that women who regularly took vitamin D3 had a 60 percent reduction in cancer infections compared to a group taking placebos.
The study followed 1,179 healthy, women 55 years and older from rural eastern Nebraska between 2000 and 2005. Participants were randomly assigned to receive 1400-1500 mg of calcium alone, or supplemental calcium plus 1,100 IU vitamin D3, or placebo.
Among the 288 women taking placebo, 20 developed breast, colon, lung or another form of cancer. Among the 445 women taking just calcium, 17 developed cancer. But among the largest group -- the 446 women taking vitamin D daily -- just 13 developed cancer.
"What we found is that a vitamin D supplement decreased the cancer incidence in postmenopausal women by about 60 percent," lead investigator Joan Lappe, an associate professor of both medicine and nursing at Creighton University, told CTV News.
Click HERE to read the rest of this article.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Why Governments Are Selling Vitamin D Short
Reinhold Vieth is frustrated. A thin, bald professor at the University of Toronto's Department of Laboratory Medicine and Patho-biology, Vieth is among the most knowledgeable people in the world on the subject of vitamin D...So why is Dr Vieth so frustrated? You might think he'd have cause for celebration. But for him and other vitamin D researchers around the world, the good news comes with a bitter aftertaste. They believe they can prove vitamin D could help millions live longer and be healthier and yet they have not been able to convince their own governments.
Click HERE to read the rest of this article.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Eradicate Breast Cancer With Vitamin D?
Breast cancer risk 'virtually eradicated' by elevated vitamin D levels, researchers suggest.
Reprinted with permission from CNW Group
TORONTO, Nov. 4 /CNW/ - Breast cancer is a disease so directly related to vitamin D deficiency that a woman's risk of contracting the disease can be 'virtually eradicated' by elevating her vitamin D status to what vitamin D scientists consider to be natural blood levels.
That's the message vitamin D pioneer Dr. Cedric Garland delivered in Toronto Tuesday as part of the University of Toronto School of Medicine's "Diagnosis and Treatment of Vitamin D Deficiency" conference - the largest gathering of vitamin D researchers in North America this year. More than 170 researchers, public health officials and health practitioners gathered at the UT Faculty club for the landmark event.
Garland's presentation headlined a conference that reviewed many aspects of the emerging vitamin D research field - a booming discipline that has seen more than 3,000 academic papers this calendar year alone, conference organizers said. That makes vitamin D by far the most prolific topic in medicine this year, with work connecting it with risk reduction in two dozen forms of cancer, heart disease, multiple scleroses and many other disorders.
Click HERE to read the rest of this article.
