Vitamin D for health

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April 11, 2007

Special Report:

The public isn't waiting for modern medicine any longer; embarks upon self-guided vitamin D regimens and finds many maladies vanquished by a 25-cent pill

By Bill Sardi

Researchers confirm vitamin D pills about to usher in a new era of health.

• Invalids stepping out of their wheelchairs, never to return to them.

• Cancer patients walking out of hospice and into prolonged periods of remission from advanced stage tumors.

• Autistic children suddenly exhibiting normal behavior.

• Diabetic patients who no longer need their insulin.

• Women living with the painful effects of fibromyalgia find their symptoms have disappeared.

• Chronically depressed patients find a lasting remedy to their gloom.

• Young children stop developing cavities in their teeth.

• A simple remedy quells the first symptoms of the common cold in minutes.

• Mothers find this remedy rapidly quells a fever in their small children.

These are the anecdotal reports recorded among vitamin D supplement users which continue to add to the growing body of scientific evidence that vitamin D is about to change the world if the public can begin supplementation regimens en masse and/or doctors will finally begin to prescribe this inexpensive vitamin.

More than eight decades after its discovery by Sir Edward Mellanby, vitamin D is poised to become a "first line" agent in the maintenance of human health, said researchers at a recent vitamin D symposium sponsored by GrassrootsHealth at the University of California San Diego.

All that is needed to unleash vitamin D from its closet is for the public to overcome their concerns about overdosage or for doctors to begin routine testing for vitamin D levels among their patients. Then, says John Cannell MD, founder of The Vitamin D Council, there will be a significant downsizing of American medicine. The era of more doctoring will be over.

Heretofore, health care has been fashioned to wait till disease occurs and then treat its symptoms rather than causes. Preventive medicine is currently designed to screen for more disease to treat rather than prevent it from occurring in the first place. Vitamin D is poised to break that model.

It is difficult to fathom vitamin D can exert such a widespread effect upon human health when it is produced from sun exposure and because it is a nutrient that has been widely available for decades. How could modern medicine miss such a significant development for so long?

Furthermore the public has grown accustomed to prescription drugs that are intended to be used for single diseases rather than exerting such a broad effect upon health, as produced by vitamin D.

It appears the plagues of modern man, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, bone loss, autoimmune disease, mental depression, obesity and infectious disease are about to be quelled by a 25-cent vitamin pill.

While public interest for vitamin therapy swelled in the 1970s with the publication of two books about vitamin C and vitamin E (1969: Vitamin E For Ailing and Healthy Hearts by Wilfrid Shute MD, and 1970: Vitamin C and The Common Cold by Linus Pauling), a far more potent vitamin went overlooked. This time, the frenzy over vitamin therapy is not about to fizzle out, says researchers, no more than the sun has a chance of fading anytime soon.

The misdirection of modern medicine was highlighted at the vitamin D symposium by William D. Grant PhD of Sunlight, Nutrition and Health Research Center in San Francisco, who stunned an audience of doctors, nurses and other health professionals by saying the employment of sunscreen lotion to prevent skin cancer has resulted in more, not less, disease. People who develop skin cancer have far lower rates of other cancers.

Many Americans who live in sunnier southern climates falsely assume their vitamin D levels are adequate. But a doctor attending the symposium from Guam, which is located near the equator where high vitamin D levels would be expected, says 3/4ths of his patients are vitamin D deficient.

Dr. Grant estimates 336,000 fewer deaths per year in the U.S. if the population becomes vitamin D sufficient, either through sun exposure, food fortification or dietary supplementation. Compare the above figure with the two largest declines in the death rate of Americans over the past sixty years - nearly 50,000 fewer deaths from 2003 to 2004, a decline that made worldwide news headlines, and 48,000 fewer deaths from 1943 to 1944 as WWII came to a close. Such a decline in mortality would be unprecedented.

Vitamin D could significantly reduce the economic burden of caring for a growing population of senior Americans who develop age-related health problems. Dr. Grant explains that people over age 60 produce natural vitamin D from sun exposure with one fourth the efficiency of those under age 20, which may explain, in part, why health declines with advancing age.

Dr. Grant says the cost of providing Americans with vitamin D would far outweigh the savings in healthcare costs, which he estimates to be around $600 billion in savings annually if every American were to consume about 2000 IU of vitamin D per day. The economic savings of vitamin D therapy are jaw dropping. It would only cost ~$6 billion a year for Americans to buy vitamin D pills.

Because misdirected public health efforts have urged Americans to avoid the sun and use sunscreen lotion, and because many Americans mistakenly believe they get enough vitamin D from foods, such as fortified milk, or supplements, such as cod liver oil, the citizenry is unmindful to the widespread deficiency that only outdoor workers like lifeguards or high-dose supplement users avoid.

Cedric F. Garland PhD, the University of California San Diego professor who first reported rates of cancer, multiple sclerosis and diabetes are higher in less sunny areas of the world, where vitamin D levels are notoriously low, says there is data to show that 75 percent of cancer can be prevented if blood levels of vitamin D are above 55 nanograms per milliliter of blood serum. This vitamin D level would only be achieved throughout the year by Americans who take supplements. Lifeguards typically have vitamin D levels ranging from 40-60 nanograms per milliliter.

Bruce Hollis PhD, another leading vitamin D researcher from the Medical University of South Carolina, points out that vitamin D3, the natural form of vitamin D, should be preferred over vitamin D2, a synthetic form used in some dietary supplements and all prescription vitamin D.

All of the vitamin D researchers who spoke at the symposium noted the tremendous widespread deficiency of vitamin D among dark-skinned individuals. Dr. Hollis says
42.4% of African American women versus only 4.2% of Caucasian women are deficient. All African American pregnant women are deficient. He notes that it takes 120 minutes for a black person to make the amount of vitamin D a Caucasian makes in 20 minutes.

Robert P. Heaney MD of Creighton University in Nebraska said the target goal is for every American to consistently exhibit blood levels in the 50-80 nanomole per liter blood concentration range, which is the optimal range for dietary calcium absorption. For comparison, the 80 nanomole target (32 nanograms per milliliter) is the blood concentration of vitamin D exhibited by most old world monkeys in the wild. (There are two ways laboratories measure vitamin D levels, in nanomoles per Liter or nanograms per milliliter.)

However, until 80-125 nanomole is reached, there is no vitamin D stored for future use in the liver, such as in winter months when sun exposure produces little vitamin D, particularly in northern climates. Dr. Heaney notes that the half life (time it takes for 50% to degrade) of vitamin D is 15 to 30 days in the human body. This means body stores must be regularly replenished.

Dr. Heaney indicates 1000 IU of supplemental vitamin D3 barely maintains your current level of vitamin D, whereas 5000 IU of daily vitamin D3 will build your blood level over time.

To ensure no more than 2.5% of the population falls below the target 80 nanomole level, 2000 IU (international units) more than the public already gets from their diet plus sunlight exposure is needed, and nobody gets close to the toxic range of 500 nanomole per liter.

Concerns over toxicity associated with over-dosage may be unfounded. Dr. Heaney says no cases of vitamin D intoxication have ever been reported from sun exposure, which can produce 10,000 IU in a single hour of total body midday summer sun exposure, which is 5 times higher than the obviously outdated upper safe limit established by the National Research Council, and 25 times greater than the typical amount of vitamin D in most multivitamins (400 IU).

Dr. Heaney also notes that no toxicity has been observed for blood levels below the 200 nanomole level, which is rarely ever achieved by humans.

Carole Baggerly, the cheerleader-styled organizer of the symposium on diagnosis and treatment of vitamin D deficiency for health professionals and founder of GrassrootsHealth, started the seminar by sharing her personal experience. Actually it was an ordeal --- breast cancer. Appalled at the care she received for her cancer, and encouraged at the promising discoveries involving vitamin D and cancer, Carole began to take a leadership role in a vitamin revolution. Baggerly says while more research needs to be done and more knowledge needs to be gained, the public needs to know about the rapid discoveries being made about vitamin D now, not later. ####

Added note: A drawback of higher-dose vitamin D supplementation is muscle cramping which occurs because vitamin D increases calcium and magnesium utilization. Since most Americans consume about three times more calcium than magnesium, and calcium is muscle constricting and magnesium muscle relaxing, high calcium intake plus vitamin D can produce muscle cramps, heart flutters, migraines and constipation. 30-Minutes of Sunshine™ is a mineral balanced vitamin D supplement providing natural vitamin D3 with magnesium, vitamin B6 (which enhances magnesium utilization) and rice bran ferulate to enhance the effect of vitamin D upon cells. Visit Lifespannutrition.com to order 30-Minutes of Sunshine.

Copyright 2008 Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc.

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