Vitamin D and Health a Paper by Dr Cannell (MD)

In this paper Dr Cannell discusses the following:

1. Why the flu predictably occurs in the months following the winter solstice, when vitamin D levels are at their lowest,

2. Why it disappears in the months following the summer solstice,

3. Why influenza is more common in the tropics during the rainy season,

4. Why the cold and rainy weather associated with El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which drives people indoors and lowers vitamin D blood levels, is associated with influenza,

5. Why the incidence of influenza is inversely correlated with outdoor temperatures,

6. Why children exposed to sunlight are less likely to get colds,

7. Why cod liver oil (which contains vitamin D) reduces the incidence of viral respiratory infections,

8. Why Russian scientists found that vitamin D-producing UVB lamps reduced colds and flu in schoolchildren and factory workers,

9. Why Russian scientists found that volunteers, deliberately infected with a weakened flu virus - first in the summer and then again in the winter - show significantly different clinical courses in the different seasons,

10. Why the elderly who live in countries with high vitamin D consumption, like Norway, are less likely to die in the winter,

11. Why children with vitamin D deficiency and rickets suffer from frequent respiratory infections,

12. Why an observant physician (Rehman), who gave high doses of vitamin D to children who were constantly sick from colds and the flu, found the treated children were suddenly free from infection,

13. Why the elderly are so much more likely to die from heart attacks in the winter rather than in the summer,

14. Why African Americans, with their low vitamin D blood levels, are more likely to die from influenza and pneumonia than Whites are.

Here is the link to Dr Cannell's must read article

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Gary:

I have been following the career of Dr Cannell for several years now and have sought his advice now and then about issues surrounding the use of vitamin D supplements.

To date I have not had a single person, including myself, produce a blood test result that is optimum for vitamin D levels.  Mine was 57nmols ("Healthy" Range 50-160nmol: Optimum 120-160nmol).

Here is the link for your vitamin D supplement to take on days that you get no sunlight on your naked body.

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New study finds most people are vitamin D deficient

Auckland University researchers are calling for compulsory addition of vitamin D to the food supply, following a new study showing large daily doses of supplements would be needed to overcome New Zealanders' chronic deficiency of the vital nutrient.
Fortification of margarine, fats and dairy foods with vitamin D is already permitted in New Zealand, but Australia has gone further and made its addition to margarine compulsory.
Vitamin D is needed for the body to absorb calcium. A deficiency can cause bone weakness, including the disease rickets. Having the optimum level of vitamin D is associated with a reduced risk of a range of conditions, including bowel cancer, high blood pressure and infectious diseases.
The Health Ministry's 2003 Food and Nutrition Guidelines say most adults, except those living in institutions, can get enough vitamin D from 15 to 30 minutes' exposure to the sun each day, but skin cancer groups warn against unprotected sun exposure.
The new study, published online in today's New Zealand Medical Journal, found that even if people significantly increased their sun exposure, their bodies would still not be producing enough vitamin D.
In summer, 88 per cent of the 201 healthy adults in the study had insufficient vitamin D in their blood, while in winter all of them had too little.
"Most Christchurch people are vitamin D deficient most of the time," the study concludes, "and a daily supplement of 2600 IU [international units] ... would correct this."
This dose is larger than that recommended on pharmacy-sold bottles and for the doctor-only prescription version, but the study says no adverse effects have been found at the much higher dosage of 10,000 IU a day.
In an editorial in the journal, Auckland University epidemiologist Associate Professor Robert Scragg and Auckland City Hospital specialist Dr Jim Bartley say mandatory fortification of foods such as margarine and milk should be considered.
"Ideally we should implement that," Professor Scragg told the Herald. "It's definitely a public health strategy we should be looking at."
International research evidence was mounting in favour of recommending supplements, particularly in winter, in the elderly and people at risk of low vitamin D, such as Maori, Pacific Islanders and south Asians.
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Gary Moller comments:
This is hardly new news: really it is more of the same. If you do a search of this site with the term "vitamin D" or "sunlight" you will see that I have been running a campaign for several years about this health issue which is at odds with hysterical sun-avoidance policies like the Sun Smart one. These silly policies may be causing more ill health than they prevent and certainly more cancer. That's for sure.

This new study also exposes the lie that incidental exposure to the sun is enough. I have rubbished this official claim in the past.

You will note that a person can safely supplement with up to 10,000iu's per day of vitamin D. About 2-3,000 per day is just right, it would appear.

Quality Vitamin D supplements are cheap and they can be pruchased online from http://www.myotec.co.nz/

Sunlight and Vitamin D and Health News

Sunlight and the vitamin D that is produced by it are essential for health. This is one of the most exciting developing areas of human health that is not without controversy because the need for more sunlight to stay healthy - free from all manner of ailments, including many cancers, osteoporosis, heart disease, obsesity, depression and diabetes - runs head-long into the Sun Smart campoaign that preaches fear of sunlight.

Read these news feeders regularly and you can become and stay informed of the latest developments as they happen. Sunlight and vitamin D are essential for health and well-being.

Vitamin D deficiency found in alarming percentage of teenage girls

A new study published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood has found that more than 70 percent of British teenage girls are deficient in vitamin D -- an essential nutrient for proper growth and development.

The researchers noted that the white girls in the study had higher levels of vitamin D than non-white girls, likely because of increased skin exposure and lighter skin pigmentation. Experts recommend that people with darker skin get more sunlight than light-skinned people, because it takes longer for dark skin to develop vitamin D.

"This finding is alarming not only because it shows such a high percentage of teenage girls are deficient in this essential nutrient," explained Mike Adams, a consumer health advocate and holistic nutritionist, "but also because health authorities like the American Cancer Society continue to scare people away from sunlight exposure with fear-mongering public service announcements that claim sunlight may kill you. In reality, sunlight exposure could save hundreds of millions of people from suffering the well-documented effects of vitamin D deficiency, which include osteoporosis, cancer, depression and calcium deficiency."

"Today, we are raising a generation of vitamin D deficient children and teenagers," Adams added. "And the future health care costs of such short-sighted public health policies are incalculable."

http://www.NewsTarget.com/019908.html

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Gary Moller comments:

I have been saying it for years and I will continue to say it for as long as is necessary to bring some sense to what can only be described as hysterical public health policies that run contrary to the growing body of research that confirms that we cannot live without sunshine.

Thanks to sunshine fear-mongering by public health experts, school officials, parent organisations, dermatologists, cancer groups and sunscreen manufacturers, we're raising an entire generation of children with virtually no exposure to sunlight and, hence, almost no vitamin D. This is especially so for our darker-skinned kids, including mine unless they go against the rules.

The only beneficiaries of the consequent epidemic of horrlble health consequences are the drugs companies who get to supply the expensive drugs to treat the consequences. After all, why should they promote sunshine for health? There's no money in that!

Why do we mostly get ill with flus and colds in winter?

Dr. Liu and colleagues at UCLA, publishing in this March's edition of the prestigious journal Science, showed that vitamin D might be, in effect, a potent antibiotic. Vitamin D increases the body's production of naturally occurring antibiotics: antimicrobial peptides. Antimicrobial peptides are produced in numerous cells in the human body where they directly and rapidly destroy the cell walls of viruses and bacteria, including tuberculosis. Furthermore, Liu showed that adding vitamin D to African American serum (African Americans have higher rates of TB) dramatically increased production of these naturally occurring antibiotics.
Science. 2006 Mar 24;311(5768):1770-3.

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Gary Moller comments:

Why is it that dark-skinned populations tend to be less healthy when:

• They shift further North or South?
• They move into cities?

If we get colds and flu due to getting cold, then why is it that people who work the skifields, including pro skiers always seem to be very healthy?

Why is it that flus and colds are worst during winter, despite the fact that these bugs are present in populations year round?

Why is it that flu outbreaks in the tropics are worst during the rainy season?

The answer may be due to my pet topic for some years now: Vitmain D deficiency which is present in populations and worst during winter. We are learning all the time just why the body produces massive amounts of this vitamin when the skin is exposed to sunlight. The latest finding is that it may exert a powerful antibiotic effect on both bacteria and viruses.

When people move North or South and into cities, they tend to get much less year-round sunlight and dark-skinned people are poorly adapted for low sunlight. During the rainy season in the tropics, there may be no sunlight for weeks on end. This is exacerbated nowadays in many lands by air pollution that blocks UV. People who work on skifields get constant exposure to high levels of UV radiation, thus producing vitamin D despite the cold.

Commonsense tells us that the human body must be making Vitamin D for very good reasons. The list of good reasons grows longer by the day.