Vitamin D and Cancer
June 9th, 2007Many of us have known this for years, but as with everything, the Vitamin D issue is much more complex than it appears at first glance. Before reading the Globe and Mail article below, and running out to get a bottle of vitamins, please read these articles:
and…
Vitamin A, Vitamin D and Cod Liver Oil: Some Clarifications
Via: Globe and Mail:
The Canadian Cancer Society plans to announce Friday that all adults should start taking vitamin D, coinciding with the release of a groundbreaking U.S. study indicating the supplement cuts the risk of cancer by an astounding 60 per cent.
The move is believed to be the first time a major public-health organization has endorsed daily use of the sunshine vitamin as a cancer-prevention therapy for an entire population.
It follows a flurry of research suggesting the low-cost vitamin confers a high degree of protection against a wide variety of cancers. There are also striking study results suggesting that people who develop the disease often have low blood levels of vitamin D.
Although it is not known how many of the approximately 160,000 cancer cases diagnosed annually in Canada might be avoided by regular popping of a vitamin D pill, the cancer society said these findings are so compelling it felt it had to start urging people to act on them.
Related to Cancer: DCA
Related to Cancer: Soft Drink and Cell Damage
Not so fast, you must be regulated says Big Pharma:
“FDA Attempting to Regulate Dietary Supplementsâ€
http://www.nowpublic.com/fda_attempting_to_regulate_dietary_supplements
I’ve been reading about this for some time now. Anything, and I mean anything, that pokes big pharmaceuticals in the eye makes me smile.
HA! Thanks for the links on vitamin D. I’ve always believed the current craze towards “low fat” foods was bullshit, and it turns out pork lard has the 2nd highest level of naturally occurring vitamin D after cod liver oil. So I’m to conclude the Mexican diet is the way to go? Chiles and gorditas for everyone!
A genuinely traditional Mexican diet would be excellent. It’s the recent sugar, fizzy drink and transfat nonsense that wrongly gets Mexican food associated with making people fat.
Re: fats and what actually makes people fat, see:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0452285666/ref=nosim/cryptogoncom-20
Eat Fat, Lose Fat: The Healthy Alternative to Trans Fats by Mary Enig, Sally Fallon
A person may have problems digesting D, and no amount of increased supplimentation will change it if that is the case. You can test your D levels and determine if you might benefit from supplimentation. If a person has symptoms that are linked to D deficiency, it would probably be the best way to do it. If we just saturate the population with D suppliments there are people who are going to be consuming some really high doses, and there are problems with too much D.
No one should blindly consume suppliments without knowing what the risks are, and how they work.
Maps of UV Sunlight exposure correlate with incidence of Cancer and Multiple Sclerosis.
If you take NASA space satellite photos of North America and color code the UV sunlight exposure as Dr. Grant has done on his web site, http://www.Sunarc.com, you will see a pattern remarkably similar to the incidence of cancer and multiple sclerosis. This is thought to be due to differences in Vitamin D levels. The farther north with less sun exposure and lower Vitamin D levels, there is an increased incidence of cancer and multiple sclerosis.
Diseases Caused By, or Associated With Vitamin D Deficiency:
Again here is the list: Osteoporosis, Hypertension, Cardiovascular disease, Cancer, Depression, Epilepsy, Type One Diabetes, Insulin resistance, Autoimmune Diseases, Migraine Headache, PolyCystic Ovary Disease (PCOS), Musculoskeletal and bone pain, Psoriasis, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)(
Vitamin D deficiency has been reported in 57% of 290 medical inpatients in Massachusetts, 93% of 150 patients with overt musculoskeletal pain in Minnesota, 48% of patients with Multiple Sclerosis, 50% of patients with lupus and fibromyalgia, 42% of healthy adolescents, 40% of African American Women, and 62 % of the morbidly obese, 83% of 360 patients with low back pain in Saudi Arabia, 73% of Austrian patients with Ankylosisng Spondylitis, 58% of Japanese girls with Graves’s Disease, 40% of Chinese adolescent girls, 40-70% of all Finnish medical patients.
For more info, please see my newsletter at:
http://jeffreydach.com/2007/06/10/vitamin-d-deficiency–by-jeffrey-dach-md.aspx
Regards from Jeffrey Dach MD
http://www.drdach.com/