Study links vitamin D to colon cancer survival

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My One Hour FREE Vitamin D Lecture to Clear Up All Your Confusion on this Vital Nutrient - Articles

The Video offered on this page gets very detailed in the effects of Vitamin D on cancer growth.


Dr. Mercola's Comments:
This past fall I was invited to give a lecture in Las Vegas to one of the progressive alternative medical groups, the American College for the Advancement of Medicine. Unfortunately they had some technical problems and were not able to record the video.

I felt this information was so valuable that I represented the material in my office and recorded it in a high-quality HD video format so I could share it with you. I honestly believe that this is one of the MOST important videos I have ever created and I have done hundreds of them.

For those of you who prefer to read your information, rather than watch it, I’ve summed up some of the most important points below. But, again, please do take the time to watch the video lecture, as it has all the highly valuable details you need to know about vitamin D.

The Role of Vitamin D in Your Body

There are only 30,000 genes in your body and vitamin D has been shown to influence over 2,000 of them. That is one of the primary reasons it influences so many diseases, from cancer and autism to heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

A study by Dr. William Grant, Ph.D., internationally recognized research scientist and vitamin D expert, found that about 30 percent of cancer deaths -- which amounts to 2 million worldwide and 200,000 in the United States -- could be prevented each year with higher levels of vitamin D.

Vitamin D has a protective effect against cancer in several ways, including:

• Increasing the self-destruction of mutated cells (which, if allowed to replicate, could lead to cancer)
• Reducing the spread and reproduction of cancer cells
• Causing cells to become differentiated (cancer cells often lack differentiation)
• Reducing the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones, which is a step in the transition of dormant tumors turning cancerous

Beyond cancer, the researchers pointed out that increasing levels of vitamin D3 could prevent diseases that claim nearly 1 million lives throughout the world each year! And other studies showed that you can decrease your risk of cancer by MORE THAN HALF simply by optimizing your vitamin D levels with sun exposure.

Vitamin D even fights colds and the flu, as it regulates the expression of genes that influence your immune system to attack and destroy bacteria and viruses. In fact, it is very rare for someone with optimized vitamin D levels to come down with the flu.

Many are Deficient

In the United States, the late winter average vitamin D is only about 15-18 ng/ml, which is considered a very serious deficiency state. Meanwhile, it’s thought that over 95 percent of U.S. senior citizens may be deficient, along with 85 percent of the American public. Further:

• Vitamin D deficiency is epidemic in adults of all ages who have increased skin pigmentation, such as those whose ancestors are from Africa, the Middle East, or India, who always wear sun protection, or who limit their outdoor activities.

• African Americans and other dark-skinned people and those living in northern latitudes make significantly less vitamin D than other groups.

• 60 percent of people with type 2 diabetes have vitamin D deficiency.

• Studies showed very low levels of vitamin D among children, the elderly, and women.

• One U.S. study of women revealed that almost half of African American women of childbearing age might be vitamin-D deficient.

How to Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels

The ideal way to get vitamin D is by exposing your skin to appropriate sunlight. Unfortunately for most of us there simply isn’t enough sun exposure for nearly half of the year. However, even in the sun many of us are modern day cavemen and we spend the majority of the time the sun is out shining inside at work or in our home. Not many of us are regularly out in the sun.

Sun exposure (without sunscreen) of about 10 to 15 minutes a day, with at least 40 percent of your skin exposed, is a general guide of how much you need, although people with dark skin will need to stay out significantly longer.

Again, most of us struggle with seasonal vitamin D winters in which we may not be able to get enough sun exposure during certain parts of the year. In that case, I also advise using a safe tanning bed (one that has the harmful emissions shielded) to have your own body produce vitamin D naturally.

It is important to understand that in the summertime, when you put on your bathing suit and sunbathe for 30 minutes, your body produces about 20,000 IUs of vitamin D -- as much as exists in 200 glasses of milk, or the equivalent of about 50 typical multivitamins!

This is not all multivitamins, however, as the one I formulated and sell on the site has no vitamin D. You might think that is odd since I am promoting how valuable it is. The reason I made it that way is that the dose of vitamin D is simply too variable to be accurate for a large group of people. Some may need 10,000 units of vitamin D a day and even up to 50,000 units a day for short periods, while others may do fine on none if they have adequate sun exposure.

So rather than risk seriously overdosing or underdosing people on this crucial nutrient there is no vitamin D in it. As far as I know it is the only multivitamin on the market with no vitamin D.

Crucial Information About Vitamin D Testing that You NEED to Know

A third option is taking a high-quality vitamin D supplement. The most important thing to keep in mind if you opt for oral supplementation is that you only want to supplement with natural vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), which is human vitamin D. Do NOT use the synthetic and highly inferior vitamin D2.

This is typically prescribed by many well intentioned doctors who seek to take advantage of a patient’s prescription coverage. Unfortunately this form is FAR more expensive than the real vitamin D3, which is one of the least expensive vitamins we have. But more importantly it does not work nearly as well as D3 and can actually block the real D3 from working properly.

Bottom line: ONLY use vitamin D3 when supplementing.

For those in the winter with no or very limited exposure to sunshine, 4,000-5,000 units per day is appropriate for most adults. If you are very heavy you may need to double that dose, and for children the dose can be half that.

The key, though, is to make sure you monitor your vitamin D levels by blood testing, to make sure your levels are therapeutic and not toxic.

I advocate getting your vitamin D levels tested regularly, but as I reported recently, you now need to beware of where you’re getting your test done. For an in-depth explanation of what you MUST know before you get tested, please read my updated article Test Values and Treatment for Vitamin D Deficiency.

If you are in the U.S. the primary lab you want to use is Lab Corp. As I’ve mentioned previously, Quest Labs has shown some violations in their Vitamin D testing – and therefore I no longer recommend them.

__________________
"The nurse should be cheerful, orderly, punctual, patient, full of faith, - receptive to Truth and Love" Mary Baker Eddy
Visit www.HealthSalon.org

Heart helper: Inspired by studies, doctors prescribing higher doses of vitamin D
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

12-23-08

Dec. 22--It could be a couple of years before formal recommendations are established for taking higher doses of vitamin D as a way to help prevent or treat heart disease, but some doctors aren't waiting.

This month, doctors at Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee began giving a mega-dose of 100,000 international units of vitamin D to all patients with chest pains. After that, they are advised to take 2,000 IU a day, said John Whitcomb, an emergency room physician with the hospital.

Other Aurora hospitals are considering doing the same thing, he said.

Given that the current recommendation for adults is 600 IU a day, that's a considerable departure from the norm, although 2,000 IU a day is considered to be safe for adults.

More and more studies are linking vitamin D deficiency, which is common in large segments of the U.S. population, especially in the winter, to increased risk of heart disease and other ailments.

This month, a review article in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology came to a similar conclusion.

It said heart patients who have insufficient vitamin D levels should be treated with one dose of 50,000 IU a week for eight weeks. Pills of 50,000 IU generally are available only as a prescription. After eight weeks, patients can take 50,000 IU every two weeks, or 1,000 to 2,000 IU a day.

The authors recommended vitamin D3, which can be found over the counter at drugstores.

"Vitamin D supplementation is simple, safe and inexpensive," the authors wrote.

Outdated guidelines?

James O'Keefe, co-author of the study and a cardiologist at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo., said the recommended amounts of vitamin D were established decades ago, when people spent more time outdoors.

Vitamin D is made in the skin when it is exposed to ultraviolet light. It is difficult to get adequate levels from food sources.

"There is a growing chorus from around the world that the (recommended daily allowance) is way too low," said O'Keefe, who also is a professor of medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

An inexpensive blood test measures vitamin D levels. Many experts say levels between 21 and 29 nanograms per deciliter are insufficient, and levels less than 21 are deficient.

In Wisconsin, wintertime vitamin D levels appear to be low, according to a research article this year.

The study involved a sample of 71 women ages 70 and older whose vitamin D levels were measured between the winter of 2005 and the spring of 2006 in Madison.

The study found that 59% of the women had vitamin D levels of less than 30 ng/dl.

Several observational studies this year have focused on low levels of the vitamin and increased risk of heart disease:

--In a study involving 3,258 German heart patients, those in the lowest quarter for vitamin D blood levels had twice the risk of dying, especially from cardiovascular disease, compared with those in the top quarter.

--Harvard researchers studying 18,225 men found that those with vitamin D levels below 15 ng/dl were 2.4 times more likely to have a heart attack than those with levels above 30 ng/dl.

--Researchers followed 1,739 members of the Framingham Offspring Study for more than five years and found the rate of cardiovascular disease "events" such as heart attacks, strokes and heart failure was 53% to 80% higher in people with low levels of vitamin D in their blood.

All those studies were observational. What's needed, experts say, are clinical trials.

'Cheapest medicine'

In the meantime, Whitcomb, of Aurora Sinai, said many doctors in the Aurora health care system will be recommending vitamin D.

He noted that vitamin D is made in the cells of most living organisms. The vitamin is a hormone that can act on as many as 200 genes.

"This is life's most fundamental hormone," Whitcomb said. "It's the cheapest medicine on the planet."

Indeed, more cardiologists say they are becoming aware of the growing amount of vitamin D research.

One problem, though, is that, while studies consistently link low vitamin D levels to heart disease, there is no consensus on the best way to restore a person's vitamin D levels, said Richard Staudacher, a cardiologist with ProHealth Care Medical Associates Cardiology in Waukesha.

However, because there is little danger from taking vitamin D, Staudacher said he will be testing his patients, and those with low levels probably will be offered doses similar to those recommended in the cardiology journal article.

That would include an initial prescription dose of 50,000 IU and a maintenance dose of about 2,000 IU a day, he said.

A person's vitamin D level "is something all cardiologists should be aware of," Staudacher said.

The Vitamin D Newsletter
December 28, 2008

The Vitamin D Council is happy to announce that we have partnered with ZRT Laboratory to provide an inexpensive, $65.00, in-home, accurate, vitamin D [25(OH)D] test. The usual cost for this test is between $100.00 and $200.00.

If you read this newsletter, you know about our interest in accurate vitamin D testing. In the next few weeks, you may read about the Vitamin D Council's quest for accurate vitamin D blood tests in the national media. Before we partnered with ZRT, we verified, repeatedly, that ZRT provides accurate and reliable vitamin D tests and that their method corresponds very well to the gold standard of vitamin D blood tests, the DiaSorin RIA.

Our ZRT service is not just inexpensive, it means no more worrying about your doctor ordering the right test or interpreting it correctly. You buy the test kit on the internet or by phone, a few days later the kit comes in the mail, you or a nurse friend do a finger stick, collect a few drops of blood, and send the blotter paper back to ZRT in the postage paid envelope provided with the kit. A week later you get results back in the mail and know accurate 25-hydroxy-vitamin D levels of you and your family.

For every test you order, ZRT will donate $10.00 to the Vitamin D Council. Please read the new page hyperlinked below on our website as it both explains the procedure and how to order the test.

Am I Vitamin D Deficient?

Executive summary: keep your family's 25-hydroxy-vitamin D blood test above 50 ng/ml, year around. Most adults need at least 5,000 IU per day, especially this time of year. Most children need at least 1,000 IU per day per every 25 pounds of body weight. Bio Tech Pharmacal provides high quality and inexpensive vitamin D. Currently Bio Tech Pharmacal is providing vitamin D for numerous scientific studies. To see their prices and for ordering, click the hyperlink below.

Bio-Tech Pharmacal, Inc.

As a gift to our readers for the New Year, Thorne publications have provided a free download to a basic paper about vitamin D. I wrote it earlier this year for educated lay people as well as health care practitioners. Please read this paper carefully, your family's well-being, even lives, may depend on you understanding it.

https://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/.fulltext/13/1/6.pdf

Seasons Greetings
John Cannell, MD
vitamindcouncil.org

Thank you for subscribing to the Vitamin D Newsletter from the Vitamin D Council. The Vitamin D Council is a non-profit trying to end the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency. Please reproduce this newsletter and post it on Internet sites. Remember, we are a non-profit and rely on donations to publish our newsletter and maintain our website. Send your tax-deductible contributions to:

The Vitamin D Council
9100 San Gregorio Road
Atascadero, CA 93422

__________________
"The nurse should be cheerful, orderly, punctual, patient, full of faith, - receptive to Truth and Love" Mary Baker Eddy
Visit www.HealthSalon.org

The first video is from Cedric Garland who has been researching Vitamin D cancer for over 30yrs. Allow around 45minutes. You may find going to Grassrootshealth and downloading the slides for this presentation helpful.
Vitamin D and Cancer Prevention

Connection with Vitamin D and Cancer

Possible 75% cancer mortality reduction with Vitamin D


Disease Incidence prevention by Serum 25(OH)D level

Excellent videos Tom. Thanks.
Working through them. Very technical.
Think I'll go and take a vitamin D.
Wonder how long it will be before they try to take it away from us?

And welcome to the forum!

__________________
"The nurse should be cheerful, orderly, punctual, patient, full of faith, - receptive to Truth and Love" Mary Baker Eddy
Visit www.HealthSalon.org

Vitamin D and Prevention of Chronic Diseases
You may find Holick easier to get on with for starters as he gives a more overall view of the subject.

I think you will find there is a huge reluctance on the part of health professionals to accept that the primitive 25(OH)D status our DNA evolved to thrive best with and that our body's now achieve if we live naked outdoors and at which breast milk flows replete with vitamin D3, we achieve peak physical, mental performance and least chronic illness.

We all take it for granted that pale white skins provided an evolutionary advantage for those early humans who migrated away from the equator.
Surely the advantage white skins provide away from the equator is an increased ability to make and store D3?

Our bodies only build large stores of D3 above 125nmol/l 50ng.
So now you know why they want us to accept half that amount 75nmol/l as an adequate D3 status.?
They wouldn't want us the attain and maintain the kind of status that allowed primitive man to live through the winter and remain fertile would they.
God forbid we have stores of D3 to rely on that may prevent us having to rely on big pharma.

Why on earth do you think health professionals use the least effective form of D3? There is method in their madness. FOLLOW THE MONEY.

It is very difficult to see the truth if your income, livelihood, mortgage and security all depend on you not seeing the obvious.

Bill Sardi evaluates how much the lack of vitamin D is costing individuals and countries. (A word of warning, dont ever copy and paste any of his articles just provide a link. I was castigated last week for infringing his copyright. )

A Decade Of Vitamin D Supplementation Would Save $4.4 Trillion Over A Decade; Would Save $1346 Per Person Per Annum by Bill Sardi

Interesting to see he is suggesting 3000iu/d This is a more realistic figure than the 1000iu/d and 2000iu/d many others are suggesting.
As we know 10,000iu/d is safe it's common sense to aim somewhat higher than may be actually needed then 25(OH)D test regularly to ensure you've not underachieved. The consequences of being 20ng under 55ng are far worse that being 20ng over (in fact 80ng is a normal level those living outdoors naked would regularly achieve at the end of summer)

Ya, they got a big big problem with folks being naked out of doors.

__________________
"The nurse should be cheerful, orderly, punctual, patient, full of faith, - receptive to Truth and Love" Mary Baker Eddy
Visit www.HealthSalon.org

I know most people, with eye sight, would have a problem with me being naked outdoors.

There are certain places I really do not want a sun burn.

Dan

but there are others for whom direct sunlight and improved vitamin D status in areas the sun doesn't normally shine on may solve a previously ongoing problem. It is surprisingly easy to find areas that aren't overlooked and you only need to get 20~30 minutes around midday regularly. The point about exposing those areas least tanned is that the tan slows vitamin D synthesis so those areas least tanned make the most D3.

Now just how old were those biblical characters when they bore children?! Do we really want to go there?! 600 years old?! Yikes! I'll keep my clothes on!

Not everyone believes everything they read.
I can't see the point in posting to a natural medicine talk forum if you are not interested in prolonging the number of active non disabled life expectancy.
Living naturally in the wild does not mean animals life for ever. They just don't suffer the unnecessary diseases of civilization.

I am not interested in prolonging the years of living in a nursing care home with Alzheimer's or Cancer or other physical or mentally disabling condition. The idea here is to delay the onset of chronic disabling conditions. Attacking inflammation at source by improving Vitamin D status seems basic common sense to me but it isn't going to make you live forever.

I'm sorry if I offended you Ted. I was only joking and rolling with the flow. I've been around this forum and the old HSI one for several years and I think most everyone here knows me well enough to find me very serious about health and natural medicine. I've contributed quite a few bits of news here to better the cause. But I think humor, laughter, love and happiness are also important in healing, so if I can add a little of that to someone's day I feel pretty good about it.

If I could start today with a healthy body, knowing what I know now about keeping it that way, sure I'd like to have 600 years...but I'm in the late stages of COPD and all of the medical experts in this whole wide world can't figure out how to fix it, or even stop it's progression. A lot of the other members here are in the same boat...but we never give up. Most of us are way ahead of the allopathic doctors because we do our homework.

nightowl