Longer lives, less disease, less misery – it’s as easy as a-b-c…D
Double up
“Um…don’t we already have too many people around as it is? Have you seen the traffic out there!”
That was my friend’s rather dark, tongue-in-cheek take on a news item she sent me with this headline: “Doubling vitamin D levels most cost effective way to reduce global mortality rates.”
Trust me, I hate the evening rush hour as much as anyone, but even if it means putting up with a few more cars here and there, I’m all for increasing vitamin D levels and reducing mortality rates.
What’s hidden in that mortality estimate is a quality of life factor. Not only would mortality rates go down, but rates of cancer and other chronic diseases would drop as well.
Less disease? Less misery? Bring on the D!
The question is: To double the world’s D level, how much do we need to bring?
It would be hard to bring too much
Earlier this year, in his Nutrition & Healing newsletter, Dr. Jonathan Wright wondered if members of the Institute of Medicine might also be members of the Flat Earth Society.
The IOM stated that most Americans and Canadians under the age of 70 need no more than 600 IU of vitamin D per day.
Of course, that’s preposterous!
For adults, Dr. Wright recommends a MINIMUM of 5,000 IU daily. And he adds that many of us need between 5,000 and 10,000 IU daily to reach what he calls the “tropical optimum” — or rather the amount you’d naturally get every day if you lived in Ecuador.
And a new study shows that Dr. Wright is, as usual, right on track.
For five years, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, measured blood levels of vitamin D every six months in more than 3,600 adults. Also, twice a year, subjects completed a questionnaire about their dietary and supplement intake, as well as their sun exposure and general health status.
Results showed that adults need 4,000 to 8,000 IU of vitamin D daily to cut their risk of certain cancers and other diseases by half.
Now, there are a lot of mainstreamers out there who will tell you that 8,000 IU of D every day might actually be dangerous. But if anyone DOES tell you that, here’s your comeback: It’s inconceivable that 8,000 IUs would be at all dangerous.
With just 30 minutes of full body exposure to sunlight, your body produces at least 10,000 units of vitamin D. So if 8,000 were harmful, we’d see lifeguards, gardeners, and baseball players being raced to the ER with D overdoses.
Unfortunately, the only group of people who consistently get several thousand IUs from daily sun exposure are those who work outdoors.
So you might wonder why supplement makers don’t put more D in multivitamins and other formulations that contain D.
In fact, I wondered that myself. So I checked with Becky Jacob of NorthStar Nutritionals.
Becky explained that supplement makers like NorthStar often avoid loading up any supplement formulation with too much vitamin D (or any other component) to give customers who take multiple supplements more flexible control over their dosage.
So the best way to get your full measure of D (after some daily direct sunlight exposure, of course) is to take a good quality supplement of D3 — that’s the same form of the vitamin that’s produced in your skin after exposure to sunlight.
Dr. Wright also recommends a consistent intake of dietary sources that contain vitamin D3, including salmon, sardines, and cod liver oil.
Sources:
“Doubling vitamin D levels most cost effective way to reduce global mortality rates, study” Elaine Watson, NutraIngredients-USA, 7/26/11, nutraingredients-usa.com
“New daily recommendation for vitamin D is off by THOUSANDS” Jonathan V. Wright, M.D., Nutrition & Healing, 2/25/11, wrightnewsletter.com
“Vitamin D Supplement Doses and Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D in the Range Associated with Cancer Prevention” Anticancer Research, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2011, iiar-anticancer.org
“Taking Vitamin D with the Largest Meal Improves Absorption and Results in Higher Serum Levels of 25-Hydroxyvitamin D” Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, Published online ahead of print 2/8/10, jbmr.org
