Swedish women studied for antioxidant-rich diet
Swedish women who ate an antioxidant-rich diet had fewer strokes regardless of whether they had a previous history of cardiovascular disease, in a study reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.Antioxidant foods inhibit oxidative stress and inflammation

“Eating antioxidant-rich foods may reduce your risk of stroke by inhibiting oxidative stress and inflammation,” said Susanne Rautiainen, M.Sc., the study’s first author and Ph.D. student at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. “This means people should eat more foods such as fruits and vegetables that contribute to total antioxidant capacity.” 

Oxidative stress is an imbalance between the production of cell-damaging free radicals and the body’s ability to neutralize them. It leads to inflammation, blood vessel damage and stiffening.Real foods contain vital nutrients

Antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, carotenoids and flavonoids can inhibit oxidative stress and inflammation by scavenging the free radicals. Antioxidants, especially flavonoids, may also help improve endothelial function and reduce blood clotting, blood pressure and inflammation. 

“In this study, we took into account all the antioxidants present in the diet, including thousands of compounds, in doses obtained from a usual diet,” Rautiainen said.Researchers collected dietary data through a food-frequency questionnaire.

They used a standard database to determine participants’ total antioxidant capacity (TAC), which measures the free radical reducing capacity of all antioxidants in the diet and considers synergistic effects between substances.Researchers categorized the women according to their TAC levels — five groups without a history of cardiovascular disease and four with previous cardiovascular disease.

For women with no history of cardiovascular disease who had the highest TAC, fruits and vegetables contributed about 50 percent of TAC.Other contributors were whole grains (18 percent), tea (16 percent) and chocolate (5 percent).

The study found:
•    Higher TAC was related to lower stroke rates in women without cardiovascular disease.
•    Women without cardiovascular disease with the highest levels of dietary TAC had a statistically significant 17 percent lower risk of total stroke compared to those in the lowest quintile.
•    Women with history of cardiovascular disease in the highest three quartiles of dietary TAC had a statistically significant 46 percent to 57 percent lower risk of hemorrhagic stroke compared with those in the lowest quartile.
“Women with a high antioxidant intake may be more health conscious and have the sort of healthy behaviors that may have influenced our results,” Rautiainen said. “However, the observed inverse association between dietary TAC and stroke persisted after adjustments for potential confounders related to healthy behavior such as smoking, physical activity and education.”

For the study, researchers used the Swedish Mammography Cohort to identify 31,035 heart disease-free women and 5,680 women with a history of heart disease in two counties. The women were 49-83 years old. 

Researchers tracked the cardiovascular disease-free women an average 11.5 years and the women with cardiovascular disease 9.6 years, from September 1997 through the date of first stroke, death or Dec. 31, 2009, whichever came first. 

Researchers identified 1,322 strokes among cardiovascular disease-free women and 1,007 strokes among women with a history of cardiovascular disease from the Swedish Hospital Discharge Registry. 

“To the best of our knowledge, no study has assessed the relation between dietary TAC and stroke risk in participants with a previous history of cardiovascular disease,” Rautiainen said. “Further studies are needed to assess the link between dietary TAC and stroke risk in men and in people in other countries, but we think our results are applicable.” 

Co-authors are Susanna Larsson, Ph.D.; Jarmo Virtamo, M.D.; and Alicja Wolk, Dr.Med.Sci. Authors’ disclosures are on the manuscript. The Swedish Research Council for Infrastructure and the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research funded the study. 

photo credit: Tarter Time Photography

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by Vic Shayne, PhD

Psychology and physiology are merging in some areas, and it’s proving to be a good marriage. Leading edge doctors of both disciplines are now recognizing that the mind and body are one organism. And nutrition helps.

Modern medicine is a new enterprise. While drug companies, physicians and hospitals may love to brag about how they are the best thing going, the reality is that they are the new kids on the block and have a lot to learn in order to fully address most of the health issues of the modern world.

Mindbody medicine is as old as the eastern hills

In the ancient world, in places such as China, Tibet and India the idea that the mind and body enjoy a symbiotic relationship and affect one another is a foregone conclusion. Traditional eastern healing disciplines have recognized for thousands of years that the emotions, stress and thoughts affect specific parts of the body depending on the type of mental state.

But modern thinkers are going beyond these ancient systems and have begun to understand that the mind is not to be confused with the brain. The brain is in the head, but the mind is literally everywhere because its impressions, trauma and feelings are stored throughout billions of cells in the body. In addition, thoughts and emotions are apt to create physiological effects such as restricting blood flow and oxygen to various parts of the body.

The mindbody connection is a deep, interesting and inspiring subject. Doctors are studying not only how pain and disability such as headaches, backaches and urogenitary conditions can result from mental states, but they’re also looking into how to use thoughts to reverse illnesses.

Feeding your mind and body with nutrients

For the moment, however, without going into detail on the fascinating topic of mindbody health care, what’s worth considering is that when you feed your brain, you are also feeding your body.

Many problems with emotions, stress, anxiety and the inability to concentrate can be addressed with specific nutrition. Chief among this nutritional approach are vitamin B complex and essential fatty acids. These nutrients play an important role in nervous transaction, brain activity and more.

You can begin with BFood and Fish Oils

If you are involved in psychological counseling or have stress and anxiety, or even aches and pains, these nutrients will offer both your mind and body with support.

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by Vic Shayne, PhD

Nutrition Research Center

Natural health care is a wonderful thing, and a lot of pregnant moms want to avoid drugs to protect their babies. But before you reach for herbs, thinking they are a safer choice, take a look at the list I compiled over the last several years. You’ll want to avoid these herbs during your term and during nursing.

HERBS TO AVOID DURING PREGNANCY

Many herbs contain steroids that can affect the baby’s development during pregnancy and/or nursing. Others may be of a mild toxic type, and others may be strong uterine stimulants. Please read this section carefully and take heed.

• Angelica – stimulates suppressed menstruation
• Black Cohosh – uterine stimulant – mostly used during labor
• Blue Cohosh – a stronger uterine stimulant
• Borage oil – a uterine stimulant – use only during the last few days of pregnancy
• Comfrey – can cause liver problems in mother and fetus – use only briefly, externally only, for treating sprains and strains -
• Dong Quai – may stimulate bleeding
• Elder – do not use during pregnancy or lactation
• Fenugreek – uterine relaxant
• Goldenseal – too powerful an antibiotic for the developing fetus, also should not be used if nursing
• Henbane – highly toxic
• Horsetail – too high in silica for the developing fetus
• Licorice Root – can create water retention and/or elevated blood pressure
• Motherwort – stimulates suppressed menstruation
• Mugwort – can be a uterine stimulant
• Nutmeg – can cause miscarriage in large doses
• Pennyroyal Leaf – stimulates uterine contractions (NOTE: Pennyroyal essential oil should not be used by pregnant women at any time!) – do not handle if pregnant or nursing
• Rue – strong expellant Saffron – can cause miscarriage and other problems Shepherd’s Purse – used only for hemmorhaging during/after childbirth Uva
• Ursi – removes too much blood sugar during pregnancy and nursing Yarrow – uterine stimulant

These are good to use to build your health and the health of your baby.

There ARE a few good whole food supplements to use during pregnancy that provide important vitamins, minerals, amino acids, bioflavonoids, carotenoids and chlorophyll. These include:

Green Nutrients: provides organically grown alkaline mineral-rich green vegetable foods.

Fish Oils: supports brain development and provides an excellent source of essential fatty acids

Whole Food: offers a well rounded multiple source of general nutrition

SOURCES: Copyright © 1996-2002 Rev. Dr. Lisa Waltz, ND, DD, CNC

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Most people can recall a time when their arm went numb in the middle of the night. You roll over and it’s as if your arm is a heavy log, dead to the world. You have to rub it, slap it and talk to it to get it to wake up.

What’s going on here?

Since the body is a complex mechanism, we can’t say for sure why an arm can go numb, fingers can tingle and toes can get pins and needles sensations. However, we can give it our best guess based on what we know about nerves and circulation.

What to do about it
The first thing you can do is try to think about what you have consumed (eaten and drunk) over the past 24 hours. This may provide a clue to what’s going on. Coffee is one example.

Feed your body nutrients that support increased blood circulation and nutrients that aid in supporting nerve transmission to your extremities.

The two products we offer are VasCor and BFood to accomplish the above. Green Nutrients is an excellent third supplement, providing natural minerals that are known electrical conductors.

BFood contains important B vitamins, which are known to play a role in keeping the “pins and needles” sensation from happening. Stress, coffee, refined foods and drugs deplete B vitamins, so you need to continually replenish your supply of these vitamin B complex-containing foods.

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by Vic Shayne, PhD

Flavonoids are good for your brain, mood and thinking processes.

We’ve all heard of brain food, but for some reason, when people think of nutrition, they tend to think more of what nutrients do for the body than the mind.

Rule number 1: don’t overlook the value of good food in helping you think better and balancing your emotions.

While there are many types of foods and a wide array of nutrients, let’s talk about flavonoids.

What’s a flavonoid?

A flavonoid is a group of organic compounds that occur as pigments in fruit and flowers. Some of the more popular foods that contain flavonoids are apples, chocolate, red wine, and pomegranates. Flavonoids are in citrus fruits, cherries, berries, ginkgo leaves and veggies. And tea, especially green tea.

One of the best supplemental sources is FlavoC. Since flavonoids are not found in vitamin pills, FlavoC provides the actual foods that contain the flavonoids, which only makes sense because flavonoids exist within foods along with helper nutrients (cofactors). But there are other NutriPlex whole food supplements that contain an array of flavonoids as well (listed at the end of this article).

There are five subclasses of flavonoids:

• FLAVONOLS: Quercetin, Kaempferol, Myricetin, Isorhamnetin
• FLAVONES: Luteolin, Apigenin
• FLAVANONES: Hesperetin, Naringenin, Eriodictyol
• FLAVAN-3-OLS: (+)-Catechin, (+)-Gallocatechin, (-)-Epicatechin, (-)-Epigallocatechin, (-)-Epicatechin 3-gallate, (-)-Epigallocatechin 3-gallate, Theaflavin, Theaflavin 3-gallate, Theaflavin 3′-gallate, Theaflavin 3,3′ digallate, Thearubigins
• ANTHOCYANIDINS: Cyanidin, Delphinidin, Malvidin, Pelargonidin, Peonidin, Petunidin

And now here’s how flavonoids in food help you think and feel (emotionally) much, much better

Psychology Today reports, “Scientists already have some proof that antioxidants protect against and even reverse the cognitive declines seen from aging. The brain is especially subject to attack from free radicals of oxygen, as it is extremely metabolically active and the body’s largest consumer of oxygen. Yet, it is deficient in free radicals to start with. Cumulative damage from free radicals occurs across the board but is especially implicated in memory decline, slowing of body movements and the fatigue, irritability, and mood disturbance that mark depression.

Not Rocky Balboa, but rather Gingko Biloba.

One of the more studied plants that contain flavonoids is gingko biloba. Ginkgo biloba is the oldest living tree species. Chinese herbal medicine has used both the ginkgo leaf and seed for thousands of years.

As of recent researchers have shown that ginkgo is useful in cases of dementia and Alzheimers Disease.

Ginkgo is widely used in Europe for treating dementia. It was used originally because it improves blood flow to the brain. Studies also suggest it may work directly to protect nerve cells that are damaged in Alzheimer’s disease. Gingko has a positive effect on memory and thinking in people with Alzheimer’s or vascular dementia. (University of Maryland Med Center)

Get your flavonoids in these whole food supplements

Flavonoids are not contained in vitamin or multivitamin supplements within the food complex. Here are the best supplement sources for flavonoids:

FlavoC, Super Greens, CaroC, VasCor

Vitamin B Deficiency Symptoms

Before delving into the problems of vitamin B complex deficiency and its symptoms, it is first important to understand the difference between vitamins that are in pill form versus vitamins that are contained within nature’s foods. There is a world of difference — a difference between sickness and health. Vitamins just do not work like foods, and foods are what our bodies were designed to use for healing, prevention and energy. There is no substitute, and no matter how you look at it, vitamin pills are an invention of scientists, so they are prone to cause side effects, be incomplete and lack what we need to overcome our health problems.

Vitamins have been sold and marketed as the “magic bullet” for all health problems, yet food science researchers are bringing out the truth about vitamins, minerals, multivitamins and antioxidants— and it’s not an easy pill to swallow. The problem is that vitamins, when not still contained in their original food (oranges, bananas, spinach, broccoli, etc.) are merely chemicals. Our bodies do not recognize vitamins as nutrients, because they don’t work the same way as whole foods for these simple reasons:

• Foods contain not just vitamins, but the co-workers (synergists) and helper nutrients that allow vitamins to work
• Foods are never found in high potency, so you won’t suffer any toxic side effects that have been proven to exist with ALL vitamin pills. As one expert stated, “Foods never deliver toxic doses [of vitamins]. (Hamilton, p.205)
• Vitamins are just a small part of what our bodies require for health and healing. It is very often that it is the other food properties that help us while the vitamins are secondary.
• Vitamin pills need other nutrients in order to work.

For these reasons, and more, vitamin pills, despite their use and overuse, are not turning people’s health around. They are lacking the properties of real nutrition which can only come from eating nature’s real, whole, raw foods. The only supplement that someone should take, therefore, is a whole food formula WITHOUT any isolated (singular vitamin). This is an important point, because most supplements called “whole food” are combinations of real foods and isolated vitamins. You have to carefully read the labels to see. Look for these words to identify vitamin chemicals on a label:

• Pyridoxine
• Thiamine or thiamin
• Niacin or niacinamide
• Palmitate
• ascorbic acid
• Riboflavin
• Mixed tocopherols
• B12
• cyanocobalamin
• more

Vitamins are not foods, so instead of vitamins and minerals on a label, you should be looking for the names of foods and herbs on the label. Don’t be fooled by high milligrams, high potency, standardization or any other such terms that just do not apply to real foods from nature.

VITAMIN B COMPLEX DEFICIENCY:

MAJOR CAUSES

Vitamin B complex comprises a number of vitamins that exist as a family. They should not be taken individually. In this modern era, millions of people suffer from a deficiency of vitamin B for several reasons, chief among which are:

• Stress: Emotional, physical and spiritual
• Processed foods in the diet: these are not real foods and so they tax the body
• Refined sugar: The average person consumes at least 140 pounds of sugar a year which robs the body of its vitamin B stores
• Drugs: Both recreational and prescription drugs deplete vitamin B
• Toxins: Poisons in the environment and personal care products deplete vitamin B complex
• Malnutrition: Most people are malnourished because they are not eating the right kinds of foods
• Cooking: Most people do not eat enough real, raw foods, so vitamin B is killed or so depleted that people are not getting enough of it in the diet

DO YOU HAVE ANY OF THESE SYMPTOMS?

Once your body has been deprived of the vitamin B complex due to reasons stated above, it begins to show symptoms (signs) of altered, diminished or poor health. This is because the vitamin B complex (within foods, not vitamin pills) is responsible for such a wide variety of activities, including cellular differentiation, transmission of nerve electricity, health of nerve cells, heart pulse rate, muscular contraction, digestion, brain function, thought processes and energy production. Without adequate vitamin B complex from foods, you can experience one or more of any one of these symptoms:

• mental problems
• heart palpitations
• heart arrythmias
• fibrillation
• indigestion
• chronic fatigue
• chronic exhaustion
• paranoia, vague fears, fear that something dreadful is about to happen
• nervousness
• ADD (attention deficiency), inability to concentrate, irritability
• feeling of uneasiness
• thoughts of dying
• easy agitation, frustration
• inability to sleep (insomnia)
• restlessness
• tingling in hands
• tingling fingers and toes
• rashes
• crying spells, inability to cope
• soreness all over
• and so much more.

CHRONIC VITAMIN B DEFICIENCY

Vitamin B deficiency can sneak up on you, because it doesn’t have to create serious health problems right away. In fact, medical researchers have discovered that very often there can be no detectable signs according to scientific instrumentation, that you are experiencing a deficiency.

For example, “memory impairment due to vitamin B12 deficiency can precede blood symptoms of deficiency by years. Evidence that vitamin B12 deficiency accounts for some cognition deficits in older people comes from a study that revealed abnormal short-term memory in more than two-thirds of clients with pernicious anemia…The researchers recommend that a diagnosis of senile dementia should not be made, even in the absence of anemia, until vitamin B12 status is determined biochemically.” (Hamilton, p. 476)

This means that it is possible that certain mental disorders can be directly attributable to vitamin B complex deficiency, and it is easier to first start replenishing stores of vitamin B complex than to begin treating difficult mental illnesses with drugs, therapy or psychological counseling.

When vitamin B deficiency becomes chronic (long-lasting), other problems can occur, including troubles with your adrenal system. The adrenal glands serve many purposes, but in relation to this topic, they are the back up system for making energy. When there is a chronic lack of vitamin B complex then the adrenal glands are called upon to produce quick energy by injecting certain hormones like adrenaline into your system so that you can cope with life. If this goes on for a long time, then the adrenal glands become impaired or worn out, leading to even more health problems.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP YOURSELF

There are a number of things you can do to prevent and overcome vitamin B complex deficiency:

1. Stop taking vitamin pills and switch over to NutriPlex Whole Food Formulas products. The three most recommended to support you are: BFood Complex, AdrenaPlex and SuperGreens PhytoFood. These products are made only of foods and not parts of foods or isolated vitamins. They won’t add to your problems the way vitamin pills can, and they are not toxic the way vitamin pills can be.
2. Stop eating refined sugar.
3. Stop eating artificial ingredients. Read all labels on your foods and if there are names of chemicals, don’t eat them. (Read the author’s book, Illness Isn’t Caused by a Drug Deficiency. Switch to organic foods.
4. Reduce stress through a regular exercise program, meditation, counseling and/or hobbies
5. Stop drinking coffee; switch to organic decaffeinated coffee or organic green tea
6. Eat more vitamin B-containing foods — oats, barley, wheat bran, avocado, salmon, Brazil nuts and others.
7. Be patient. It took a while to create a vitamin B deficiency, so it takes a while to reverse the problem; with severe cases it can take a year or so, with milder cases it can take just a few days.
8. If you have a friend or relative with a mental or emotional disorder, think of the possibility of a vitamin B complex deficiency and then make suggestions for adjustments in their diet and take appropriate whole food formulas.
9. Always coordinate all of your health and treatment plans with all of your practitioners.
10. Avoid toxins in your life. This is a serious issue that causes more health problems than people commonly realize. (See the author’s book, Evil Genius in the Garden of Eden — how toxins make us sick and corporations profit from our illness).

BUY THE SUPPLEMENTS YOU NEED

NutriPlex BFood Complex

Order the supplements mentioned in this article here:

Buy BFood Complex – click here.

Buy AdrenaPlex – click here.

Buy SuperGreens Phytofood – click here.

Sources:

Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA); “Vitamins for Chronic Disease Prevention in Adults,” Clinical Applications, Robert H. Fletcher, MD,MSc; Kathleen M. Fairfield, MD,DrPH

JAMA. 2002;287:3127-3129.

Shayne, PhD, Vic, Man Cannot Live on Vitamins Alone, 2004

Shayne, PhD, Vic, Illness Isn’t Caused by a Drug Deficiency!, 2001

Hamilton, et.al, Nutrition Concepts & Controversies, 5th Ed., West Publishing, St. Paul, 1991

Stryer, PhD. Lubert, Biochemistry, 2nd Ed., Stanford University, WH Freeman & Co., San Francisco, 1981

About the Author

Dr. Vic Shayne is a doctor-consultant and food science researcher and author whose website is www.nutritionresearchcenter.org.

©2005 Dr. Vic Shayne. This article may not be used in conjunction with the promotion or sale of any product unless authorized in writing by the author.

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True or false? Medications are what the body needs to build bones. If you answered “false,” then you’re off to a good start.

What is less known is that calcium isn’t the whole answer either. But if you are bent on taking the drugs, consider this piece of research from the University of Illinois that advises: “Before you start bone-building meds, try dietary calcium and supplements.”

As you read this information about calcium, stay aware that it takes more than calcium to build bones. It also takes vitamins such as K, C and D, minerals such as phosphorus, and amino acids. And these are only examples of the multiplicity of nutrients required for bone building and health.

Beginning with Calcium and Vitamin D

The University of Illinois study found that an effective first course of action is increasing dietary calcium and vitamin D or taking calcium and vitamin D supplements.

“For many people, prescription bone-building medicines should be a last resort,” said Karen Chapman-Novakofski, the university’s professor of nutrition and co-author of a literature review published in a recent issue of Nutrients.

The study reported that adults who increase their intake of calcium and vitamin D usually increase bone mineral density and reduce the risk for hip fracture significantly. These results were often accomplished through supplements, but food is also a good source of these nutrients, she said.

Chapman-Novakofski said that prescription bone-building medications are expensive, and many have side effects, including ironically an increase in hip fractures and jaw necrosis. They should be used only if diet and supplements don’t do the trick.

“Bisphosphonates, for instance, disrupt normal bone remodeling by shutting down the osteoclasts–the cells that break down old bone to make new bone. When that happens, new bone is built on top of old bone. Yes, your bone density is higher, but the bone’s not always structurally sound,” she said.

Avoid the bad salt and get your nutrients from foods

Karen Plawecki, director of the U of I’s dietetics program, recommends a “portfolio diet” that contains a number of nutrients, not just extra calcium and vitamin D. For bone health, the researchers also encourage consuming adequate protein, less sodium, and more magnesium and potassium.

“That can be done by following a diet that’s high in fruits and vegetables, has adequate calcium and protein, and is light on salt,” she said.

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Volumes have been written about cholesterol. The medical community insists that high cholesterol is the cause of most heart disease. Natural health doctors and independent researchers disagree.

Is cholesterol a killer?

First of all, cholesterol is not a killer. Without cholesterol we would all cease to exist. It’s a necessary substance created in our livers to create hormones, allow our brains to function, and enable nerve transmission, to name a few benefits.

Here’s what the American Heart Association says, “Cholesterol comes from two sources: your body and food. Your liver and other cells in your body make about 75 percent of blood cholesterol. The other 25 percent comes from the foods you eat. Cholesterol is only found in animal products.”

Then why do they insist that people with high cholesterol are likely to suffer from heart disease?

The answer is money. Sure, it’s easy to say that pharmaceutical companies make billions and medical doctors make millions on the treatment of high cholesterol, but that’s the fact. And that much money is simply too hard to give up, and the truth would just ruin a good thing.

Luckily for the medical community, they have more money than anybody interested in giving the public the real scoop on the cholesterol issue.

If you’d like some good information, read Gary Taubes’ well researched book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. It’s been an eye-opener for many. And it’s helpful to have good information when it comes to making your own decisions instead of being influenced to take a dangerous drug because your uninformed doctor has taken the word of the pharmaceutical industry before he gave you his advice.

If you’re worried about high cholesterol, change your diet. You don’t have high cholesterol due to a drug deficiency.

And do some research from independent sources to see what the truth is. Here are the products we use: DigestPlex and VitaLiv with every meal, and avoid all fats other than good ones such as coconut butter, organic butter and dairy products, organic olive oil and oils such as evening primrose, wheat germ, flax, borage, cod liver and fish oils.

Avoiding sugar, artificial ingredients, bad fats and fried foods is important. So is daily exercise. High cholesterol is a matter of opinion, as far as the research shows.

Normally, exposure to sunshine creates vitamin D in our skin, but most of us do not get enough sunlight every day. This means we can’t create the levels of vitamin D needed for all kinds of biochemical processes, including those that protect us from cancer.

WHAT RESEARCHERS HAVE DISCOVERED

Researchers at Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha and University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine have reported that a lot higher amounts of vitamin D are needed for cancer prevention.

The amount needed to reach blood levels that can prevent or significantly cut the incidence of breast cancer and several other major diseases were reported in findings  published in the journal Anticancer Research.

While these levels are higher than traditional intakes, they are largely in a range deemed safe for daily use in a December 2010 report from the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine.

HOW MUCH VITAMIN D IS REQUIRED?

“We found that daily intakes of vitamin D by adults in the range of 4,000-8,000 IU are needed to maintain blood levels of vitamin D metabolites in the range needed to reduce by about half the risk of several diseases – breast cancer, colon cancer, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes,” said Cedric Garland, Dr. P.H., professor of family and preventive medicine at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center.

“I was surprised to find that the intakes required to maintain vitamin D status for disease prevention were so high – much higher than the minimal intake of vitamin D of 400 IU/day that was needed to defeat rickets in the 20th century.”

RESEARCHER NOT SURPRISED

“I was not surprised by this” said Robert P. Heaney, M.D., John A. Creighton University Professor, a distinguished biomedical scientist who has studied vitamin D need for several decades. “This result was what our dose-response studies predicted, but it took a study such as this, of people leading their everyday lives, to confirm it.”

The study reports on a survey of several thousand volunteers who were taking vitamin D supplements in the dosage range from 1,000 to 10,000 IU/day. Blood studies were conducted to determine the level of 25-vitamin D – the form in which almost all vitamin D circulates in the blood.

OLDER ESTIMATES ARE RIDICULOUSLY UNDERSTATED

“Most scientists who are actively working with vitamin D now believe that 40 to 60 ng/ml is the appropriate target concentration of 25-vitamin D in the blood for preventing the major vitamin D-deficiency related diseases, and have joined in a letter on this topic,” said Garland. “Unfortunately, according a recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, only 10 percent of the U.S. population has levels in this range, mainly people who work outdoors.”

Interest in larger doses was spurred in December of last year, when a National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine committee identified 4,000 IU/day of vitamin D as safe for every day use by adults and children nine years and older, with intakes in the range of 1,000-3,000 IU/day for infants and children through age eight years old.

While the IOM committee states that 4,000 IU/day is a safe dosage, the recommended minimum daily intake is only 600 IU/day.

“Now that the results of this study are in, it will become common for almost every adult to take 4,000 IU/day,” Garland said. ”This is comfortably under the 10,000 IU/day that the IOM Committee Report considers as the lower limit of risk, and the benefits are substantial.”

He added that people who may have contraindications should discuss their vitamin D needs with their family doctor.

“Now is the time for virtually everyone to take more vitamin D to help prevent some major types of cancer, several other serious illnesses, and fractures,” said Heaney.

Other co-authors of the article were Leo Baggerly, Ph.D., and Christine French.

Where to Get Natural Vitamin D3

Try our Online Store. For a Natural Vitamin D3 Supplement — CLICK HERE.

photo © 2010 Mislav Marohnić