Vitamin D

I just read an important article (in a very reputable cancer magazine) about Vitamin D that I wanted to share, since the info pertains to everyone...Here are excerpts from the article:

Vitamin D isn't technically a vitamin, since it's produced in the body as a result of exposure to sunlight ("vitamins" are essential to life, but by definition can be obtained only outside of the body, through diet or supplements). It's only when we don't get enough sun that our bodies don't make enough vitamin D and we need to get it from other sources. But while one of the main dietary sources of vitamin D, milk, is fortified with enough vitamin D to prevent the bone disease rickets in children, milk and other dietary sources alone -- even multivitamins -- don't provide enough vitamin D to help prevent cancer. And new findings are showing that vitamin D actually does play a very important role in the prevention of cancer by acting as a sentinel to help regulate cell growth and prevent a cell from becoming malignant. According to Boston University Medical Center researcher Michael Holick, PhD, MD "You need adequate vitamin D level throughout your entire life...Any time you become vitamin-D deficient, you put yourself at increased risk of potentially developing a malignancy later in life because you've lost the policing ability of vitamin D to help keep cell growth in check."

The prescription? Sensible sun exposure for your skin type, plus vitamin D supplements. The payback? Greatly reduced risk of colon, breast, prostate and other cancers. Furthermore, other studies have implicated vitamin D in improving the survival rates for colon, breast, endometrial and lung cancers, among others. In a study of health professionals published last year by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, men with the highest blood levels of vitamin D had about two-thirds the risk of dying from cancer -- and even more dramatic protection from cancers of the digestive system.

So how much vitamin D should we each be getting? Relying on dietary sources alone probably won't work to get your vitamin D levels high enough. There is essentially no vitamin D naturally occurring in our diet and very few foods are fortified with vitamin D. For example, milk or orange juice fortified with vitamin D have only about 100 International Units in a glass. By comparison, Holick recommends that each person get 1000-2000 units per day. Sun exposure is the most effective way to make vitamin D, although it's important to keep in mind that sunscreen blocks the same wavelengths of light that help synthesize vitamin D. And so, it's a bit challenging to balance sun exposure for the sake of vitamin D against the use of sunscreen to avoid skin cancer. Therefore, the researchers in the article recommend modest amounts of sunscreen-free sun exposure each day coupled with taking a high-dose vitamin D supplement each day (1000-2000 units). The good news is that taking high doses of vitamin D in the form of a supplement will never be too much -- even if you get outside a lot in the summertime, the body knows how much you're making in your skin and it destroys any excess.

Out of curiosity after reading this article, I went to the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of Vitamin D supplements that my nutritionist, Sharon, has had me on since my diagnosis. They contain 2000 IU per tablet. Hmmmmm...I knew she was good!!! So get yourself to your nearest health food store and buy the best quality D vitamins that you can find. And take them religiously!!!