Women Who Avoid Sunshine Have Double the Mortality Rate from All Causes vs. Women Who Sunbathe
May 7th, 2014Warning: Nothing that appears on Cryptogon should be considered medical advice.
Vitamin D3 supplementation has made an incredibly positive impact on my life. I used to get absolutely shocking hay fever-like symptoms. I write “hay fever-like” because the symptoms would be exactly like hay fever, but during times when pollen counts have been low. A doctor told me that mold was probably the problem. In the wet environment of the Far North of NZ, mold is inescapable.
Rather than spend the rest of my life snorting prescription steroids, which is what was prescribed for this, I started taking 10,000 units of Vitamin D3 per day. I have absolutely no “hay fever” problems as long as I take 10,000 IU of D3 per day.
The correlation between taking the Vitamin D3 and relief from my condition is remarkable. If I stop taking the Vitamin D3, the “hay fever” comes back within about five days. I tried cutting down to 5,000 units per day and the symptoms came back, but not as intense as usual.
Since having children, Becky started getting some sort of hay fever-like thing and large amounts of Vitamin D3 do nothing for her. She’s from this area and this never happened to her before she had children. So, like a lot of situations in alternative health, a population sample size of one is valid, if that one person is you. As such, your results may vary, batteries not included, etc.
I told this story about how Vitamin D3 works for me not because I think that it will help a lot of people with hay fever, but because hay fever is so horrible that if there’s a chance that it works for even one person out there, the effort will have been worth it.
Via: Telegraph:
Women who never sunbathe during the summer are twice as likely to die than those who sunbathe everyday, a major study has shown.
Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden claim guidelines which advise people to stay out of the sun unless wearing sunscreen may be harming the population, particularly in countries like Britain.
Exposure to ultraviolet radiation from sunlight is often cited as a cause of skin melanoma. The NHS currently recommends avoiding overexposure to the sun to prevent all types of skin cancer.
But the new research, which followed nearly 30,000 women over 20 years, suggests that women who stay out of the sun are at increased risk of skin melanomas and are twice as likely to die from any cause, including cancer.
“The results of this study clearly showed that mortality was about double in women who avoided sun exposure compared to the highest exposure group,” said lead author Dr Pelle Lindqvist.
“Sun exposure advice which is very restrictive in countries with low solar intensity might in fact be harmful for women’s health.
“The mortality rate was increased two-fold among avoiders of sun exposure as compared to those with the highest sun exposure habits.”
It is thought that a lack of vitamin D may to be blame. Vitamin D is created in the body through exposure to sunshine and a deficiency is known to increase the risk of diabetes, tuberculosis, multiple sclerosis and rickets.
Cases of rickets have risen fourfold in the last 15 years as sunscreen has increased in popularity.
Previous studies have shown that vitamin D can increase survival rates for women with breast cancer while deficiencies can signal prostate cancer in men. Low levels of vitamin D have also been linked to more aggressive forms of skin cancer.
I read a health related mailing list where the latest nutrition and health related publications are discussed, and the posters modify their personal approaches to life based on which are based upon good science.
My anecdotally relayed understanding from this list is that the consensus is that most of us would benefit from vitamin D supplementation, hay fever or not. I do not recall the amounts which are considered safe for people to take on a daily basis offhand, but it has been discussed their in detail.
I like MegaFood the best, I take their vitamin D3, their process uses only whole foods and no fillers. Higher end prices, but I rather take the natural stuff.
What worked for me getting rid of hay fever was Hulda Clarke’s liver cleanses. Her protocol is available many places online, I got her book The Cure for All Diseases which gives the procedure.I wasn’t aware of the D3 connection. Try both, see what works for you.
I had similar results last year after supplementing 10,000-15,000 IU per day. I happen to live in one of the few places (Seattle) where most everyone would benefit by supplementing 5000 IU a day.
My doctor was concerned that my D levels were too high and requested that I stop the supplementation for a while. Rather than argue about what a safe level of D is I decide it would be fine to take a break from supplementing for awhile. Anyone considering D3 supplementation should keep in mind that what are considered to be dangerous levels are based on studies done with D before D3 was available so no one actually knows what a safe level is.
Before reading about your experience today I hadn’t made the connection between the return of my hay fever this year and not supplementing. Hay fever sucks so it looks like I’ll be experimenting with this some more.
Kevin, that is so great that D3 fixed you up. I’ve never heard that thus was a cure for hay fever.
Vitamin D3 is an important topic for me as my holistic doctor diagnosed me with vitamin D3 deficiency. I have since joined a five year study ge grassroots health and have my D3 tested every six months. I also just had a regular doctor visit and had my D3 tested. In my knowledge, it was the highest level in my lifetime, 80! I’ve been taking Nutrigold 10k per day plus K2.
I stopped taking the D3 and K2 thinking that I was Overdosing on the D3. So I cut back to nil. Now I am having severe tendon pains in the places where my trusted chiropractor used a cold laser.
I think I am harming myself by cutting off my D3 cold turkey. Why else all of a sudden would I have burning pains?
I live at latitude 41.16 and we don’t get enough light.
I’d love to know what the D3 level is in a human who lives on the beach on the equator all year. For me, I have read enough to know that low vitamin D3 is a hazard to health.
But being at the high end of the spectrum I don’t know so much. If my joint pain doesn’t go away in the next few days, I’m going back to taking 5k plus k2 every day.