Tonight we’re chatting about a couple of topics we’ve seen lots of in the clinic lately:
Topic # 1 – Vitamin D deficiency and winter depression. I’ve taken the following article from Dr Mercola.com Vitamin D is incredible – it affects all of our hormonal and immune functions, is involved in mental health and leaky gut. It improves our genes and is something to definitiely take into consideration for cancer prevention – all cancers!
Vitamin D deficiency is one of those things that many Aussies have and is becoming more prevalent worldwide.
Vitamin D influences over 10 percent of your genes. Vitamin D deficiency is epidemic across the world and could be contributing to hundreds of common health problems. There are 33,800 medical papers on vitamin D, and this veritable mountain of research shows that vitamin D has far-reaching benefits to your physical and mental health.
Recent research found significant interaction between vitamin D levels and inflammatory bowel disease
Vitamin D supplementation has also been found to reduce both depression and pain in diabetic women
Studies show that vitamin D has tremendous protective effects against a variety of different cancers, including pancreatic, lung, ovarian, breast, prostate, and skin cancers
Vitamin D Might Be Able to Slash Your Breast Cancer Risk by 90 Percent
Vitamin D research continues to impress upon us the importance of appropriate sun exposure as the ideal way to optimize your vitamin D levels.
Winter limits sun exposure for many up to six months of the year. Even in states such as Queensland there is a massive vitamin D deficiency.
It has become abundantly clear that vitamin D deficiency is a growing epidemic across the world and could be contributing to hundreds of common health problems. In fact, correcting your vitamin D deficiency may cut your risk of dying from any cause by 50 percent, according to one analysis.
If this sounds too incredible to be true, consider that vitamin D influences nearly 3,000 of your 24,000 genes. This occurs via vitamin D receptors, which can be found throughout your body, and should come as no great surprise given that humans evolved in the sun.
Vitamin D Beneficially Affects Gene Activity
Just one example of an important gene that vitamin D up-regulates is your ability to fight infections and chronic inflammation. It also produces over 200 anti-microbial peptides, the most important of which is cathelicidin, a naturally-occurring broad-spectrum antibiotic.
This is one of the explanations for why vitamin D is so effective against colds and influenza.
According to a January 2013 press release by Orthomolecular Medicine, there are now 33,800 medical papers with vitamin D in the title or abstract, and this veritable mountain of research shows that vitamin D has far-reaching benefits to your physical and mental health. Such research has shown that vitamin D can improve:
•Pregnancy outcomes (reduced risk of Cesarean section and pre-eclampsia)
•Type 1 and 2 diabetes
•Heart disease and stroke
•Autism, Alzheimer’s, and other brain dysfunction
•Bacterial and viral infections
Some of the most recently published studies, which I’ll review here, demonstrate how boosting your vitamin D levels can improve depression and pain in diabetics, Crohn’s disease, and breast cancer.
Relevance of Vitamin D in Crohn’s Disease
While previous research has associated low vitamin D levels with an increased risk of Crohn’s disease and shown that correcting your vitamin D deficiency can improve symptoms of the disease, one of the most recent studies found a “significant interaction between vitamin D levels and Crohn’s disease susceptibility, as well as a significant association between vitamin D levels and genotype.”
Serum vitamin D levels were found to be significantly lower in patients with Crohn’s disease. Of the seven DNA sequence variations examined for effects, two variants showed a significant association with vitamin D levels in those with Crohn’s, and four variants were associated with vitamin D levels among controls.
In short, it shows that vitamin D can affect genetic expression associated with Crohn’s disease, and make matters either better or worse, depending on whether you have enough of it or not.
Vitamin D May Reduce Depression and Pain
In related news, vitamin D supplementation has been found to reduce both depression and pain in diabetic women. As reported by PsychCentral:
“The investigators set out to determine how vitamin D supplementation might affect women with type 2 diabetes who were also suffering from depression.
At the beginning of the study, 61 percent of women reported neuropathic pain, such as shooting or burning pain in their legs and feet, and 74 percent had sensory pain, such as numbness and tingling in their hands, fingers and legs.
During the course of the study, the participants took a 50,000 IU vitamin D2 supplement every week for 6 months (7,000 iu daily). By the end of the study, the women’s depression levels had significantly improved following the supplementation.
Furthermore, participants who suffered from neuropathic and/or sensory pain at the beginning of the study reported that these symptoms decreased at 3 and 6 months following vitamin D2 supplementation.”
Additional support for the theory that vitamin D can be beneficial in the fight against type 2 diabetes was published in last year. Here, the researchers found “a strong additive interaction between abdominal obesity and insufficient 25(OH)D in regard to insulin resistance.” They also claim 47 percent of the increased odds of insulin resistance can be explained by the interaction between insufficient vitamin D levels and a high body mass index (BMI).
Yet another study published in Diabetes Care also suggests vitamin D supplements may help prevent type 2 diabetes mellitus in people with pre-diabetes. While the study is only an observational one and cannot establish causality, the researchers report that the participants who had the highest vitamin D levels were 30 percent less likely to develop diabetes during the three-year evaluation period, compared to those with the lowest levels.
Cut Your Breast Cancer Risk with Vitamin D, Cancer Surgeon Suggests
Meanwhile, a recent Science World Report highlighted the recommendation by British breast cancer surgeon, Professor Kefah Mokbel, who urges women to take daily vitamin D supplements to cut their risk of breast cancer. According to the featured article:
“Prof. Mokbel has also requested Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, to make [vitamin D] pills freely available as this would result in saving about a 1,000 lives annually. ‘I am calling for all women from the age of 20 to be given free vitamin D supplements on the NHS because it is effective in protecting against breast cancer,’ Prof. Mokbel said.
Vitamin D Is Critical for Cancer Prevention
Indeed, an ever growing number of studies show that vitamin D has tremendous protective effects against a variety of different cancers, including pancreatic, lung, ovarian, breast, prostate, and skin cancers. Theories linking vitamin D deficiency to cancer have been tested and confirmed in more than 200 epidemiological studies, and understanding of its physiological basis stems from more than 2,500 laboratory trials.
For example, a 2007 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine concluded that a serum 25(OH)D level of more than 33 ng/mL was associated with a 50 percent lower risk of colorectal cancer. And research published in the International Journal of Cancer two years ago found that a mere 10 ng/ml increase in serum vitamin D levels was associated with a 15 percent reduction in colorectal cancer incidence and 11 percent reduction in breast cancer incidence.
Another 2007 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that after four years of follow up, cancer-free survival was 77 percent higher in women who received 1,100 IU vitamin D and 1,450 mg calcium per day, compared to those who received either a placebo or calcium by itself. According to Carole Baggerly, founder of GrassrootsHealth, as much as 90 percent of ordinary breast cancer may in fact be related to vitamin D deficiency. Breast cancer has even been described as a “vitamin D deficiency syndrome,” much like the commoncold and seasonal flu.
Most Important—Maintaining Optimal Vitamin D Serum Levels
Of utmost importance is the maintenance of a therapeutically beneficial serum level year-round. Here, studies indicate that the bare minimum for cancer prevention is around 40 ng/ml. Research suggests an ideal level might be around 60-80 ng/ml. A 2009 review article15 titled: “Vitamin D for Cancer Prevention: Global Perspective,” published in Annals of Epidemiology states that:
“Higher serum levels of the main circulating form of vitamin D, 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), are associated with substantially lower incidence rates of colon, breast, ovarian, renal, pancreatic, aggressive prostate and other cancers. Epidemiological findings combined with newly discovered mechanisms suggest a new model of cancer etiology that accounts for these actions of 25(OH)D and calcium. Its seven phases are disjunction, initiation, natural selection, overgrowth, metastasis, involution, and transition (abbreviated DINOMIT). Vitamin D metabolites prevent disjunction of cells and are beneficial in other phases.
It is projected that raising the minimum year-around serum 25(OH)D level to 40 to 60 ng/mL (100–150 nmol/L) would prevent approximately 58,000 new cases of breast cancer and 49,000 new cases of colorectal cancer each year, and three fourths of deaths from these diseases in the United States and Canada, based on observational studies combined with a randomized trial.
Such intakes also are expected to reduce case-fatality rates of patients who have breast, colorectal, or prostate cancer by half… The time has arrived for nationally coordinated action to substantially increase intake of vitamin D and calcium.” [Emphasis mine]
Buy PROVEN vitamin D which is cleansed, which works, which doesn’t add toxins to your body. Call us on 3348 6098 to discuss your nutritional needs.
Madonna Guy ND
New Leaf Natural Therapies
3348 6098
94 Edith Street, Wynnum 4179