Vitamin D may benefit breast cancer patients
Those with lower levels more likely to die of the disease, study found
Breast cancer patients with low levels of vitamin D were much more likely to die of the disease or have it spread than patients getting enough of the nutrient, a study found — adding to evidence the “sunshine vitamin” has anti-cancer benefits. read more
Doctor Davis has a timely post about tanning over on his Heart Scan Blog. As summer time approaches, don’t just assume being outside working on a tan will give you your dose of vitamin D. As Davis points out, there are other variables that can get in the way of your natural vitamin D production such as aging and body weight.
As I’ve mentioned on this blog in previous posts, you can’t base vitamin D levels on being out in the sun a lot. We’ve had full-time gardeners, football coaches, and outdoor enthusiasts all with low vitamin D levels! You’ve got to actually test your vitamin D with a blood test 25(OH) to know where you’re at!
Health Canada says it will launch a study by this fall investigating dramatic claims that a lack of vitamin D could be linked to ailments such as cancer, heart disease and multiple sclerosis.
Keep it up Canada! Soon (if not already) you will be recognized by the world as the leading Country supporting vitamin D deficiency awareness.
Taking vitamin D may cut the risk of premature death by one fourth in patients with moderate-to-severe chronic kidney disease, a new study finds.
Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle tracked 1,418 patients who had moderately to severely reduced kidney function. All of them had high levels of parathyroid hormone, which rises when calcium levels fall in a person’s bloodstream due to kidney disease. It can lead to bone loss.
One group of patients received the drug calcitriol, a form of vitamin D, to lower the levels of parathyroid hormone. The other group did not receive the drug.
Over the two-year study period, taking calcitriol reduced mortality by 26 per cent. Those participants who took calcitriol also were less likely to develop end-stage kidney disease requiring dialysis.
As a result, taking calcitriol reduced the need for dialysis and reduced mortality by 20 per cent cumulatively.
“Oral calcitriol use is associated with lower mortality in non-dialysis patients with chronic kidney disease,” write the authors. They believe that vitamin D decreases inflammation and improves glucose tolerance of kidney patients, meaning their insulin production is stabilized.
They suggest randomized trails be undertaken to further evaluate the health consequences of vitamin D supplementation.
Two million Canadians have or are at risk of kidney disease, according to the Kidney Foundation of Canada.
The study was published online Wednesday in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Here’s the original source link for this article: Vitamin D improves outcomes in chronic kidney disease cases: study
Most of us have a senior citizen in our lives whom we care about, here’s just one more reason to make sure they have their vitamin D evaluated and properly treated.
Low vitamin D levels linked to depression in older people
Older people who have low levels of Vitamin D may be at a higher risk of depression, a new study has found.
The new research shows that people deficient in vitamin D have high levels of parathyroid hormone, which has been linked to depression.
The researchers estimate that 13 per cent of all people over 65 are depressed.
Dutch scientists measured the blood levels of vitamin D and parathyroid hormones in 1,282 study participants between the ages of 65 and 95.
They found that 26 of them were suffering from a major depressive disorder, 169 had minor depression and 1,087 did not suffer from depression.
The study found that 38.8 per cent of men and 56.9 per cent of women had insufficient vitamin D levels.
In those people who had both major and minor depression, vitamin D levels were 14 per cent lower than in people who did not suffer from depression.
Parathyroid hormone levels were five per cent higher in those people who were minorly depressed and 33 per cent higher in those who were severely depressed, compared with those who had no depressive symptoms.
The good news, researchers say, is that low vitamin D levels in the blood and elevated parathyroid hormone levels can be easily modified through an increased intake of vitamin D and more sun exposure.
Despite the findings, researchers aren’t sure whether the depression leads to the reduced vitamin D levels and elevated parathyroid hormone or vice-versa.
“Underlying causes of vitamin D deficiency such as less sun exposure as a result of decreased outdoor activity, different housing or clothing habits and decreased vitamin intake may be secondary to depression, but depression may also be the consequence of poor vitamin D status,” the authors write.
They suggest more studies be undertaken to determine this relationship.
The study is published in the May issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.
Here’s the source link for this article: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/05/05/vitamind-study.html?ref=rss&loomia_si=t0:a16:g12:r2:c0.0552821
Here’s a recent video news story to share with your friends and family about vitamin D deficiency. A few quotes from the video:
“Half of the nations adolescents are vitamin D deficient”
“It’s estimated that a billion people worldwide have Vitamin-D deficiency.”
And one patient pleads….”Please get your vitamin D level checked”
FYI - It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s more than 1 billion people who are deficient worldwide. When you figure about 90% (or 5.4 billion) of the world population lives in the northern hemisphere (north of the equator) - 1 billion seems low.
I’m just going over the new vitamin D Council Newsletter. Here are a few of the highlights that caught my eye.
1. 15 cancers are associated with lower UVB light! (colon, esophageal, gallbladder, gastric, pancreatic, rectal, small intestinal, bladder, kidney, prostate, breast, endometrial, ovarian, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma). (I still say we must not get much uvb where I live)
2. 257,000 cancer deaths in 2007 in the USA were accounted for by inadequate vitamin D levels.
3. Latitude is a strong determining factor in childhood diabetes and the disease almost doesn’t even exist near the equator!
4. 50 ng/ml should be considered the lower limit of adequate 25(OH)D levels.
5. Breast milk is a poor source of vitamin D because nursing mothers are vitamin D deficient!
I have several friends who know that I write this blog but have yet to get their D levels evaluated. Health is aways kind of a tricky subject when you’re dealing with friends (and boundaries) and you run a health care clinic. I usually try to avoid health discussions with my friends, but this whole vitamin D issue is so important - come on guys, you know who you are!
It’s always a good day when The Vitamin D Council’s newsletter comes out!
The newsletter is a wealth of information! If you’ve not yet subscribed to it be sure that you do. Wish we’d known about the Vitamin D symposium in San Diego, that would have been fun! (plus pretty good D exposure 
The next one is in Germany May 17th and 18th.
As mention in the newsletter….For those of you who don’t have insurance to cover your vitamin D testing, Life Extensions Foundation is running a special for the next month. You can have your vitamin D checked (25(OH)D), including the blood drawing fee for $32.25. You do have to pay for a Life Extensions membership which is $75 for a year, so unless you plan to do more testing it may not be worth it. To order the test, call Life Extension at 800 208-3444
I’ve decided that I want to purchase some sort of UVB meter and starting researching my options. Interestingly, there’s a lot of good UVB info out there thanks to reptile owners. UVB rays are critical to reptile health, and their owners must make sure they’re getting enough via the lamps that they use.
There’s even a reptile group who’s done some interesting UVB measurements worldwide and come up with some cool graphs showing the varying levels across the globe. I also found a pretty good chunk of information from a guy down in Oregon, he’s done a fair amount of his own testing and has come up with some useful UVB information.
I think I’m going to go with a D3 meter from Solartech. The D3 meter calculates the amount of vitmain D3 you’ll get per minute at the particular location you’re at. It’s not cheap at $189, but I think it will be cool to have:
I was thinking it would be fun to just track the D3 where I live over the year. I may just take the meter up to the local tanning parlor and test the tanning beds in comparision to the outdoors.
Vitamin D, calcium combo may cut exercise-related stress fractures
Daily supplements of calcium and vitamin D, long linked to improving bone health, may also reduce the risk of stress fractures during exercise, scientists have reported.
Female arm recruits receiving the daily supplements experienced 20 per cent fewer stress fractures than their un-supplemented counterparts, according to research published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.
