60% Cancer Drop From Vitamin D Supplements

Vitamin D - the new Vitamin C?

60% Cancer Drop From Vitamin D Supplements

A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking the vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn't take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error.

One of the researchers who made the discovery, professor of medicine Robert Heaney of Creighton University in Nebraska, says vitamin D deficiency is showing up in so many illnesses besides cancer that nearly all disease figures in Canada and the U.S. will need to be re-evaluated. "We don't really know what the status of chronic disease is in the North American population," he said, "until we normalize vitamin D status."

'By Easter, 90 per cent of the population are seriously depleted in the amount of vitamin D they have in their bodies,' says author of the study Dr Elina Hypponnen, of the Institute of Child Health in London.

As we get older and our skin ages it becomes less efficient at using light to catalyze the synthesis of vitamin D. So part of the rise in incidence of vitamin D with age is probably caused by worsening vitamin D deficiency.

Vitamin D might do what Linus Pauling claimed vitamin C could do: reduce the incidence of infections.

The malign consequences have been revealed by in a study from the United States which shows that boosting vitamin D may be the most effective way of warding off infections that cause winter colds.

The authors, from Winthrop University Hospital, Mineola, New York, who publish their findings in the journal Epidemiology and Infection, say vitamin D stimulates "innate immunity" by activating peptides in the body that attack bacteria, fungi and viruses.

"Vitamin D supplementation, particularly with higher doses, may protect against the typical winter cold and flu ... Since there is an epidemic of vitamin D insufficiency in the US, the public health impact of this observation could be great," they write.

Vitamin D deficiency is also linked to a higher incidence of auto-immune diseases. For example, multiple sclerosis occurs at higher rates in the more northern regions of North America where people get less sun in the winter due to both cold and shorter days.

The current max recommended limit of 2000 IU per day might be too low.

A recent review of the science reported that the tolerable upper intake level for oral vitamin D3 should be increased five-fold, from the current tolerable upper intake level (UL) in Europe and the US of 2000 International Units (IU), equivalent to 50 micrograms per day, to 10,000 IU (250 micrograms per day).