CANCER
Now let’s talk about the big kahuna, the “Big C.“ As early as 1941 researchers drew a conclusive relationship between sunlight exposure and cancer mortality. In fact, vitamin D has anti-cancer effects due to its ability to reduce cancer cell proliferation and also to enhance more normal cancer cell death. One researcher demonstrated that reduced sunlight exposure, and by virtue of this reduced vitamin D, was associated with increased rick of cancer mortality. This finding was found to be the case specifically for the following forms of cancer: breast, colon, ovarian, prostate, bladder, esophageal, kidney, lung, pancreas, rectal, stomach, uterine, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
This same researcher states that adequate sun or other UV light exposure and or supplementation with vitamin D could save more than 23,000 lives per year from cancer mortality alone.
Let’s move on for now though to a few other conditions and see how your vitamin D deficiency may be initiating or aggravating the onset and progression of not only the above but some other conditions.
OTHER TROUBLES
How about the effects of vitamin D deficiency on PCOS, or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome? This disorder is seen only in humans. The concurrent signs and symptoms seen in this condition include insulin resistance and resultant obesity, irregular menstrual cycles, facial hair growth, and of course as the name implies multiple cysts on the ovaries. Early studies demonstrate that calcium is necessary for ovarian egg production. As we have demonstrated in our earlier discussion, calcium and vitamin D are tied closely together. Studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency is common in women with PCOS. One particular study demonstrated that supplementation with 1,500 mg of calcium daily with 50,000 IU of vitamin D2 per week normalized menstruation and fertility in women with PCOS-related menstrual irregularities within 3 months.
Even musculoskeletal pain syndromes have shown promising results relative to vitamin D supplementation. A direct relationship to vitamin D deficiency and musculoskeletal pain has been shown. Studies have demonstrated a nearly 100% reduction in patients symptoms who suffer from lower back pain who supplemented with 5,000-10,000 IU of vitamin D. Relief of limb pain was also demonstrated with children supplementing with vitamin D.
Auto-immune conditions also responded to vitamin D supplementation. Virtually all auto-immune conditions have a common link. That link is inflammation.
As I mentioned in Part II of this series, patients diagnosed with MS or multiple sclerosis share in a concurrent deficiency of vitamin D. Equally the following auto-immune conditions share in the lack of sufficient vitamin D levels: Grave’s disease, ankylosing spondylitis, systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus), and rheumatoid arthritis. The positive effects of vitamin D supplementation with these and some other prolonged critical illnesses appears to be due to the anti-inflammatory effects of vitamin D.
Coming Up....
The primary issue to remember when using vitamin D supplementation to aid in the treatment of these and other conditions that I have outlined is that you need to be taking the properly prescribed dose for the appropriate time frame.
In my next and final installment to this series I will discuss how to determine the appropriate dosage level and duration of vitamin D based on your current blood levels.
Until then, If you have not had your vitamin D levels tested recently, I would strongly recommend that you do so. If you find that your treating physician is unwilling to run the test—perhaps because he or she doesn’t think that it is necessary—you should, at a minimum, share these articles with him or her. If you find that the unwillingness is due to concerns that your insurance company will not reimburse for the test, we can certainly run the test for you.
We have developed a special arrangement with LabCorp to do this and other blood tests for a significantly reduced fee. I will go one further and give you a further discount on that price as well. I am willing to do this so that you can have this essential lab test run. You see, I think that you can understand why I am adamant about the fact that everyone should have at least a baseline vitamin D test run at a minimum annually.
