GrassrootsHealth | Vitamin D Action - GrassrootsHealth | Vitamin D Action. Taking Oral Vitamin D? Avoid Making This Serious Mistake. By Dr. Mercola Did you know there are two types of vitamin D, and they are NOT interchangeable? In fact, taking the wrong one could do you more harm than good...Drisdol is a synthetic form of vitamin D2—made by irradiating fungus and plant matter—and is the form of vitamin D typically prescribed by doctors.
This is not the type produced by your body in response to sun or safe tanning bed exposure, which is vitamin D3. A recent meta-analysis by the Cochrane Databasei looked at mortality rates for people who supplemented their diets with D2 versus those who did so with D3, the form naturally produced by your body, highlighting the significant differences between the two. "You would think a paper that took a look at tens of thousands of subjects and analyzed the efficacy of prescription vitamin D (D2) and over-the-counter vitamin D (D3) would warrant a news story or two. The Difference Between Supplemental Vitamin D2 and D3 What about Dietary Sources? How Much Vitamin D Should You Take? Are You Taking the Right Type of Oral Vitamin D? November 30, 2011 | 307,530 views Share By Dr.
Mercola Drisdol is the synthetic form of vitamin D2; the form of vitamin D typically prescribed by doctors. But this is not the type produced by your body in response to sun or safe tanning bed exposure. "Amazingly, this study somehow slipped under the radar... The Two Types of Vitamin D Supplemental vitamin D comes in two forms: Ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) Cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) They have long been regarded as equivalent and interchangeable+ especially since a recognized vitamin D expert, Dr. "While there may be explanations for D3's superiority other than improved efficacy, for the time being, these papers send doctors a message: use D3, not D2. " The Incredible Health Benefits of Vitamin D Optimizing your vitamin D levels may be one of the most important steps you can take in support of your long-term health.
What's Better than a Vitamin D3 Supplement? Guidelines for Naturally Optimizing Your Vitamin D Levels. Vitamin D could lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, study suggests. Scientists at the Helmholtz Zentrum München have shown that people with a good vitamin D supply are at lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes mellitus. The study, which was conducted in cooperation with the German Diabetes Center and the University of Ulm, will be published in the October edition of the scientific journal Diabetes Care.
New tests performed on participants of the KORA study have shown that people with a good supply of vitamin D have a lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes mellitus, while individuals with lower concentrations of vitamin D in their blood have a higher risk. This effect could be attributable, amongst other things, to the anti-inflammatory effect of vitamin D. The result of the study, which was conducted at the Helmholtz Zentrum München in cooperation with Dr. Christian Herder of the German Diabetes Center in Düsseldorf and Dr. "Vitamin D deficiency is relatively widespread due to our modern way of life and the geographical latitude of Germany. Vitamins and minerals - Vitamin D. Vitamin D has several important functions.
For example, it helps regulate the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body. These nutrients are needed to keep bones and teeth healthy. A lack of vitamin D can lead to bone deformities such as rickets in children, and bone pain and tenderness as a result of a condition called osteomalacia in adults. Good sources of vitamin D We get most of our vitamin D from sunlight on our skin.
The vitamin is made by our body under the skin in reaction to summer sunlight. However, if you are out in the sun, take care to cover up or protect your skin with sunscreen before you turn red or get burnt. Vitamin D is also found in a small number of foods. Oily fish, such as salmon, sardines and mackerel eggs fortified fat spreads fortified breakfast cereals powdered milk How much vitamin D do I need? Most people should be able to get all the vitamin D they need by eating a healthy balanced diet and by getting some summer sun. The Department of Health recommends: Vitamin D Deficiency Study Raises New Questions About Disease And Supplements. Low blood levels of vitamin D have long been associated with disease, and the assumption has been that vitamin D supplements may protect against disease. However, this new research demonstrates that ingested vitamin D is immunosuppressive and that low blood levels of vitamin D may be actually a result of the disease process. Supplementation may make the disease worse.
In a new report Trevor Marshall, Ph.D., professor at Australia’s Murdoch University School of Biological Medicine and Biotechnology, explains how increased vitamin D intake affects much more than just nutrition or bone health. The paper explains how the Vitamin D Nuclear Receptor (VDR) acts in the repression or transcription of hundreds of genes, including genes associated with diseases ranging from cancers to multiple sclerosis. "The VDR is at the heart of innate immunity, being responsible for expression of most of the antimicrobial peptides, which are the body’s ultimate response to infection," Marshall said.
Vitamin D Council > Information on Vitamin D, Vitamin D Deficiency and Vitamin D Toxicity. Vitamin D eases pain in some breast cancer patients. Vitamin D is better than ANY vaccine and increases the immune system by 3-5 times. 5 Ways Vitamin D Could Save Your Life. Vitamin D is known as the sunshine vitamin, and it has a lot of sunny benefits, but most Americans aren't getting them because they aren't getting enough of it. Between 50 percent and 75 percent of Americans get suboptimal levels of vitamin D, according to a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Now a committee at the Institute of Medicine is meeting to determine whether the recommended daily intake of vitamin D should be increased. ABC medical contributor Dr.
Marie Savard came on "Good Morning America" today to offer five ways vitamin D can aid your health and tell you how to get more of it. Why People Are Vitamin D Deficient Nature gave us only one good source of vitamin D, and that is the sun. We are meant to absorb vitamin D from the sun through our skin. When we lived closer to the equator and worked outdoors, we were OK. Five Ways Vitamin D Can Save Your Life Promotes Weight Loss You need vitamin D to effectively lose weight. Doctors Double Vitamin D Recommendations for Kids - Children's Health - FOXNews.com. The nation's leading pediatricians group says children from newborns to teens should get double the usually recommended amount of vitamin D because of evidence that it may help prevent serious diseases. To meet the new recommendation of 400 units daily, millions of children will need to take daily vitamin D supplements, the American Academy of Pediatrics said. That includes breast-fed infants — even those who get some formula, too, and many teens who drink little or no milk.
Baby formula contains vitamin D, so infants on formula only generally don't need supplements. However, the academy recommends breast-feeding for at least the first year of life and breast milk is sometimes deficient. Most commercially available milk is fortified with vitamin D, but most children and teens don't drink enough of it — four cups daily would be needed — to meet the new requirement, said Dr. The new advice replaces a 2003 academy recommendation for 200 units daily. Could vitamin D save us from radiation? Radiological health expert Daniel Hayes, Ph.D., of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene suggests that a form of vitamin D could be one of our body's main protections against damage from low levels of radiation.
Writing in the International Journal of Low Radiation, Hayes explains that calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D, may protect us from background radiation and could be used as a safe protective agent before or after a low-level nuclear incident. Biologists and pharmacologists who specialize in radiation and health are keen to find an effective agent that could be given by mouth, have few side effects and would protect us against a suspected or impending nuclear event, whether an accident, terrorist attack, or other incident. In terms of protecting people from the long-term effects of radiation, cancer formation would be the main focus.
Source: Inderscience Publishers. Reversing Tooth Decay. In the last post, I discussed the research of Drs. Edward and May Mellanby on the nutritional factors affecting tooth formation. Dr. Mellanby is the man who discovered vitamin D and identified the cause of rickets. Nutrition has a profound effect on tooth structure, and well-formed teeth are inherently resistant to decay. Teeth are able to heal themselves. Teeth are made of four layers. When enamel is poorly formed and/or the diet isn't adequate, enamel demineralizes and decay sets in. Since the days of John Hunter it has been known that when the enamel and dentine are injured by attrition or caries, teeth do not remain passive but respond to the injury by producing a reaction of the odontoblasts in the dental pulp in an area generally corresponding to the damaged tissue and resulting in a laying down of what is known as secondary dentine. In group 1, oatmeal prevented healing and encouraged new cavities, presumably due to its ability to prevent mineral absorption.
Dr. Dr. Dr. Vitamin D fights pancreatic cancer. By David Liu A new study published in the July 21 2009 issue of World Journal of Gastroenterology says that the most active form of vitamin D may be used to treat pancreatic cancer. Chian KC and Chen TC, authors of the study, from the Chang Gung University in Tainwan, China reported that a recent trial had demonstrated that a vitamin D analog known as 19-nor-1alpha,25(OH)(2)D(2) effectively inhibits pancreatic tumor growth in vitro and in vivo via up-regulation of p21 and p27 tumor suppressor genes. Probably hundreds of even thousands of vitamin D analogs have been synthesized, which can help fight cancer, but lead to less side effects than the most active form of vitamin D called 1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3).
Vitamin D has been known to prevent 17 types of malignancies, according to Dr. John Cannell at vitaminDcouncil.org. High doses of vitamin D are needed to achieve a therapeutic effect against cancers. Dr. Vitamin D Council > News Archive > 2009 > H1N1 Flu and Vitamin D. I have received hundreds of emails from readers, asking what they should do about the possibility of an H1N1 flu pandemic. Dr. Cannell: 1. Should I take Vitamin D to prevent the H1N1 flu? If so, how much? 2. The Public, USA Dear public: First, read what I have written about influenza.
. • On the epidemiology of influenza • Epidemic influenza and vitamin D My short executive answers: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Detailed answers: Again, for me to fully answer your questions, and for you to understand my reasoning, the first thing you need to do is to read the articles I have written about influenza (if you haven’t already).
Next is to read additional papers on our website’s Influenza Vitamin D Research page. “H1N1 appears to be more contagious than seasonal influenza. “In the two largest and best documented outbreaks to date, in Mexico and the United States, a younger age group has been affected than seen during seasonal epidemics of influenza. How does Vitamin D work in the immune system? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Could vitamin D work better than influenza vaccine? News on viruses and viral diseases The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its flu message on its website on Oct 19 to promote use of influenza vaccine and get ready for the 2010-2011 flu season. In the meantime, some medical researchers suggest people should take high doses of vitamin D in winter to have additional protection because flu vaccine is not as effective as thought.
The CDC said right now flu activity is low, but everyone 6 months and older should get vaccinated even if they received a seasonal or 2009 H1N1 vaccine last year. According to the agency, the influenza vaccine for 2010 to 2011 season has been updated to include three flu viruses including H1N1, which media reports have said will not be a pandemic in the near future to say the least. Children, pregnant women, elderly people and those whose immunity such as HIV, cancer patients has been compromised are considered at high risk for flu complications.
To respond to Lapinsky's findings, Dr. Dr. Drs. Getting enough 'sunshine vitamin' may not just be about catching rays, new blood test reveals. Printer friendly version Share 29 June 2011 Kingston University Researchers from London’s Kingston University have developed a new highly-accurate blood test which can detect how much a patient’s diet could be responsible for a lack of the so-called ‘sunshine vitamin’. Vitamin D deficiencies can weaken the immune system and increase the risk of cancer and osteoporosis. A team headed by Professor Declan Naughton spent five months developing the new test. For the first time, the different forms of vitamin D the body absorbs from diet and sunlight, known as vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 respectively, can be individually distinguished from closely related compounds.
“Many people know that the main source of vitamin D is from exposure to sunlight because humans produce a type of vitamin D naturally from the action of sun on the skin,” Professor Naughton said. Vitamin D plays a key role in forming and maintaining strong teeth and bones. Attached files. Vitamin D relieves joint, muscle pain for breast cancer patients.
Related images(click to enlarge) Michael C. Purdy High-dose vitamin D relieves joint and muscle pain for many breast cancer patients taking estrogen-lowering drugs, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The drugs, known as aromatase inhibitors, are commonly prescribed to shrink breast tumors fueled by the hormone estrogen and help prevent cancer recurrence. They are less toxic than chemotherapy, but for many patients, the drugs may cause severe musculoskeletal discomfort, including pain and stiffness in the hands, wrists, knees, hips, lower back, shoulders and feet. "About half of patients can experience these symptoms," says Antonella L. Because the drugs reduce cancer recurrence, finding a way to help patients stay on them is important for long-term, relapse-free survival, according to Rastelli.
It was Rastelli's colleague, Marie E. Patients in the study reported any pain they experienced through three different questionnaires. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with subclinical c... [Stroke. 2011. Vitamin D found in fish boosts brain power. Eating fish -- long considered 'brain food' -- may really be good for the old grey matter, as is a healthy dose of sunshine, new research suggests. University of Manchester scientists in collaboration with colleagues from other European centres have shown that higher levels of vitamin D - primarily synthesised in the skin following sun exposure but also found in certain foods such as oily fish - are associated with improved cognitive function in middle-aged and older men.
The study, published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, compared the cognitive performance of more than 3,000 men aged 40 to 79 years at eight test centres across Europe. The researchers found that men with higher levels of vitamin D performed consistently better in a simple and sensitive neuropsychological test that assesses an individual’s attention and speed of information processing. Source: University of Manchester (news : web) Vitamin D Status Linked to Cognitive Function in Older Men. Vitamin D Benefits.