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Canada Examines Vitamin D for Swine Flu Protection
August 10, 2009 Nutraingredients-usa.com
The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has confirmed that it will be investigating the role of vitamin D in protection against swine. The agency started a study last year on the role of vitamin D in severe seasonal influenza, which it said it will now adapt to the H1N1 swine flu virus.
Dr. Eisenstein's Comments:
"No More Vitamin D Deficiency "
Canada May be getting it. The 35 year campaign by doctors to keep people out of the sun, the use of sunscreens, the contamination of our fish with toxic heavy metals, and the inadequate recommendation for vitamin D supplementation (400IU per day) has led to this serious condition.
...millions and millions of American Children and Adults are deficient in Vitamin D
Recent scientific studies have found that the level of Vitamin D in most people, while adequate to protect against rickets, is not high enough to lower the probability of pain, cancer, autism, heart disease, osteoporosis, colds, flu and many more medical conditions that may be caused by insufficient amounts of Vitamin D.
Traditionally, specific nutrient intake recommendations have been based on preventing a particular "index" disease--for instance, calcium to prevent osteoporosis or vitamin D to prevent rickets. However, researchers are now finding that nutrients are needed to prevent not only short-term disease but also many of the chronic, long-term diseases that are now facing the nation.
The "normal" ranges for many nutrients reflect their ability to ward off short-term disease only and may not be adequate to protect the body from long-term diseases such as cancer, heart disease and central nervous system degeneration.
Since these chronic diseases often show up much later in life, they are commonly attributed to non-nutritional causes. But, evidence suggests that nutrient deficiencies--even deficiencies that are viewed as slight by modern medicine standards--may be the cause of many chronic diseases.
One such nutrient deficiency is vitamin D. It was traditionally thought that a person had enough vitamin D as long as they didn’t have rickets or osteomalacia. Nutritional scientists have referred to 25(OH)D, the functional indicator for vitamin D, values of <20>
According to the author of the paper in the link below, Robert P Heaney, "Discerning the extent to which nutrition may play a role in such disorders [chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease and central nervous system degeneration], positive or negative, is probably the principal challenge facing nutritional science today.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition November, 2003;78(5):912-919
Get Tested First
Before considering supplementation with vitamin D, it would be wise to have your vitamin D level tested. This is best done from a nutritionally oriented physician. It is very important that they order the correct test. The advantage of having your medical doctor perform the test is that it will usually be covered by your medical insurance.
Don't Be Fooled -- Order the Correct Test
There are two vitamin D tests -- 1,25(OH)D and 25(OH)D.
25(OH)D is the better marker of overall D status. It is this marker that is most strongly associated with overall health.
The correct test is 25(OH)D, also called 25-hydroxyvitamin D
Please note the difference between normal and optimal. You don't want to be average here; you want to be optimally healthy.
Read full article here. It's long but its well worth it! (Also, to see the article you may need to sign up for the newsletter. It's free and it's loaded with helpful information so it's worth doing.)
Here is a link to LabCorp, a service that is recommended for testing. I have just written them to find out more about how you go about getting tested and am awaiting a response. I'll report back here if I hear from them.
