But the benefits of vitamin D are no longer restricted to cancer prevention: Studies have linked a shortage of the compound to such serious, chronic ailments as multiple sclerosis, diabetes, heart disease, influenza and schizophrenia.
Vitamin D's most profound gene-influenced activity appears to be in keeping healthy the broad category of cells known as epithelium, which line the outsides of our organs and the surfaces of the structures in our body.
Even though these lining tissues amount to only about 2 per cent of the weight of our bodies, they are the source of about 85 per cent of cancers, those known as carcinomas.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
More on Vitamin D
Not everyone is convinced that D is a miracle pill; but there's no harm in taking 1000 IU a day while we wait for the evidence to get sorted out. I'll print a couple excerpts, but I encourage you to read the whole thing.
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5 comments:
Why stop at 1000 IU? After all, "Canada's leading vitamin D researcher, the University of Toronto's Reinhold Vieth, says he has been knocking back 8,000 units a day - four times the maximum - for years." While we're at it, let's double that just to hedge our bets.
In the end, at the sweet bye and bye, it won't make any difference how many IUs of Vitamin D we had in our bodies.
True, but I'd rather spend my last three years allotted to the here and now somewhere other than in a cancer ward. God may have other plans for me, but I like to do my little part now and then.
Or are you just trying to justify your DMD habit? :-)
I am sooo transparent! If only I could find something to cancel out all that brominated vegetable oil, I would take MANY IUs (and not mock them). Or I could just quit the Diet Dew.
My not-so-subtle point was this, actually: as soon as we hear that some vitamin, herb, spore, or fungus MAY prevent this or enhance that, many thousands will start taking megadoses of said substance. If any health benefits are then reported, they are more likely the result of other activities such as a healthly diet and exercise (plus, possibly, a placebo effect), rather than gorging on Vitamin D (or whatever).
The jury is still out on D, but of all the natural supplements and such being touted, the ones that I see the most real researchers and scientists taking themselves are fish oil and vitamin D.
Right now I take fish oil, a daily vitamin, and a baby aspirin but I think I'll pick up some D next time I'm at Costco, (though I already get more sun than most folk).
One last thing, honest. I kind of view these various claims about certain supplements, diets, etc. like this: if you've ever heard the children's story, "Stone Soup," well, in many cases, these supplements are the stone.
Having said that, I may be somewhat of a hypocrite, as I take lots of stones myself. Really. Enough that they need to be held in a bowl. But I don't even know what most of them are, since Darcie is the one who fills my bowl for me. I think I've developed a mental addiction: now if I miss my daily bowl, I think my health is going to suffer.
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