Many
people low on Vitamin D!!
We all know about needing
Vitamin D to fix Ricketts in children.
But that is all fixed these days isn’t it - isn’t it? Or is it!
Maybe the slip-slop-slap
campaign has been too successful for everyone.
(And latest research is saying that skin cancer is caused by a
virus! And a vaccine is being developed,
similar to that for cervical cancer!)
Schools, Kindy and Child
Care places are very strict on sunscreens these days but recent studies have
shown that low Vit D levels during childhood does increase the risk
of later development of type 1 diabetes!
New research into what
Vit D actually does is revealing some surprising results. Your GP might even suggest you have a blood
test to see how your levels of Vit D are these days.
Vitamin D May Cut Elders' Falls - Fewer Falls Seen in Elderly Taking
High Vitamin D Dose
A study that appears in
the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society reviewed by Louise Chang,
MD Feb. 23, 2007 -- shows that residents who took a daily dose of 800
international units (IU) of vitamin D for five months were less likely to fall
than those who took either lower doses or no vitamin D.
"Ensuring that
nursing home residents are receiving adequate daily supplemental vitamin D may
reduce the number of falls in elderly nursing home residents and could
potentially reduce the risk of fracture in this high-risk group," write
the researchers.
About Vitamin D
Vitamin D acts in the
body as a hormone. Its tasks include keeping bones strong by boosting their
calcium absorption.
Vitamin D
may also help muscle function. The
body makes vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. But that ability fades with age,
leaving older adults at risk of vitamin D deficiency.
Vitamin D is also found
in some foods, including cod liver oil, salmon, tuna, and eggs.
Participants in the study
were 89 years old, on average. Most were white women. All lived at a long-term
care facility run by Hebrew SeniorLife.
Sixty-two percent of the group had fallen in the year before the study.
When the study started,
63% of participants were taking a multivitamin. But 57% of the entire group -
and 54% of those taking a multivitamin - had low blood levels of vitamin D.
Vitamin D
and Type 2 Diabetes
From a large
cross-sectional study in
Vitamin D
reverses diabetic neuropathy
by Dr Linda Calabresi 15 April 2008
Vitamin D supplementation
is an effective treatment of neuropathic pain in Type 2 diabetes patients, new
Australian research suggests. The
researchers suggest that vitamin D insufficiency may potentiate diabetic
nerve damage.
Vitamin D is
known to have a role in the prevention of osteoporosis. It is also increasingly being recognised for
its ability to improve glycaemic control, the endocrinologist
researchers said. In addition, taking
more vitamin D is free of adverse effects.
Therefore, the researchers said they would advocate a trial of
vitamin supplementation in vitamin D-deficient patients with neuropathic pain.
Vitamin D linked
with blood pressure reduction
Another Study reported on
26 March 2007 says -
In recent years evidence
has been amassing which has linked vitamin D with protection from a
variety of ills including osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, low mood and
several forms of cancer. Recently,
US-based researchers have produced research which suggests that this nutrient
has the capacity to ward off high blood pressure too.
The signs are that vitamin
D does have a genuine blood-pressure lowering effect. If this is the case, then this should help
explain why individuals living in the ‘Mediterranean’ region are
found to have a generally reduced risk of heart disease. While the ‘Mediterranean
diet’ has been much used to explain this phenomenon, perhaps sunlight is
playing a yet unsung role here too.
TESSA’s
COMMENTS: Many of us took Cod Liver Oil
in some form as kids. It may pay all of
us to take this up again now. Available
in easy, better tasting capsule form in shops - (we probably need the Vit A in
it as well.) Take a couple of capsules -
(helps with eyesight too.) But to make
sure we ARE getting enough Vit D, get your GP to do a blood test as you may
need some extra Vitamin D tablets as well as the cod liver oil capsules.