Vitamin D is a powerful cancer preventive
agent. It has been known for more than 60 years that people
who get a lot of sun exposure are also likely to have fewer cancer deaths
and the UV ray penetrating the skin creates Vitamin-D in our body. It is now
rare for us to spend a lot of time in full strength sunlight, without
clothes or sun protection getting in the way.
The same UV and
sunlight that makes vitamin D3, if you get too much of this sunlight also
causes skin cancer. Although vitamin D
is a powerful cancer preventive agent, it does not prevent the
development of squamous cell carcinoma
in the skin. So sun should be in moderation, preferably in the early
morning, before it gets the hottest.
Vitamin D
tablets are metabolized by the liver and kidneys to form something called
25-hydroxy-vitamin D (25(OH)D,
for short). It is now clear that vitamin D influences many organs including
the intestines, bone, kidneys, pancreas, B cells, pituitary gland, breast
tissue, placenta, lymphocytes, keratinocytes, colon, prostate and a few
more.
One of the downsides of not having enough Vitamin D in
the system, is the increased risk of many types of cancer, a
situation that can be easily corrected with our Vitamin D supplements.
Increasing
blood concentrations of vitamin-D improves calcium absorption efficiency by
nearly two-thirds and reduces osteoporotic fracture risk by one-third. We
are conditioned to think of osteoporosis as a problem faced by
post-menopausal women. It is not quite that simple. Both men and women are
at risk of thinning and brittle bones as we age, especially if we lead
sedentary lives without weight bearing exercise. If on top of that we
add the risk, the medical sickness industry factor of chemotherapy,
especially with corticosteroid drugs such as prednisone, justly famous for
their side-effect of leaching calcium out of bones, you can see why this is
an important issue for chronic lymphocytic leukemia
or “CLL” patients.
Since sun can
be both the solution and the problem, it is
possible to eat your cake and have it too. The answer to getting enough vitamin D without getting too much sun (and
thereby running the risk of skin cancer) is swallowing two capsules of Vitamin “D”, our for
example that have the right level and right type of vitamin D.
With a few
exceptions, there is little or no vitamin-“D” in the kind of foods that
humans normally eat, unless they are artificially supplemented with the
proper “D”. Adult Recommended
Daily Allowance (RDA)
for vitamin D has been set in this country and elsewhere by half the amount
in a teaspoon of cod-liver oil. Our modern day RDA is based pretty much on
that 19th-century folk remedy. American adult RDA for vitamin D has remained
unchanged since the 1960s, it has been newly revised for people older than
70 years — it is now 3-times higher than the standard RDA. Why not load
everyone to the gills with Vitamin D? In simple terms, mega doses of Vitamin
D can cause hypercalcemia, which in layperson
terms means there is too much free calcium (Ca2+) in the blood.
The calcium ion
(Ca2+) concentration is controlled by two hormones, parathyroid
hormone (PTH) and vitamin D.
PTH keeps tabs on calcium concentration on a minute-by-minute basis. When
the concentration drops, this hormone triggers the release of calcium from
the stored reserves in your kidneys as well as your bones. It also converts
vitamin D to its active form, which helps your gut absorb more calcium from
the food you eat. Hypercalcemia is not something to take lightly.
Left untreated, severe hypercalcemia quickly leads to
coma and death. However, while hypercalcemia is clearly of concern if
one is taking too much Vitamin D, published cases of vitamin D toxicity with
hypercalcemia typically involve the intake of more than 40,000 international
units (IU’s) per day.
Most
nutritionists and researchers appear to agree that supplementation of
Vitamin D with 1,000 IU’s daily, poses little risk of hypercalcemia. It is
unfortunate this level of supplementation has been avoided even though the
weight of evidence shows that this is a safe level, likely to provide some
protection against cancers of many kinds.
Vitamin “D” is
more powerful in our formula called our D-3 formula;
vitamin D3 has been shown to have cytotoxic and antiproliferative properties
in a variety of malignant cells. However, its potential as a
treatment for B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) has not been
evaluated.
Make sure you
do not try to get an extra helping of Vitamin D
by taking more of your usual multi-vitamin tablet. You may need to increase
your Vitamin D intake, but you surely do not want to get more of everything
else that the multi-vitamin tablet has. Several of the other vitamins are
toxic at levels that are significantly higher than those in your daily
multi-vitamin tablet and you do not want to go over the limit of these other
vitamins.
Much has been
learned, since a 1998 study, when it seemed like we were reinventing the
wheel, trying to help those persons heal prostate disease as well as all the
other diseases. That study in 1998 was the latest finding that showed this
close correlation of Vitamin D deficiency to prostate cancer, and there were
some suggesting, that vitamin D testing may replace the discredited PSA test
of the blood, for prostate cancer.
According to
the study, men with higher levels of vitamin D in their blood (typically
transformed through early morning sunshine exposure) were half as likely to
develop aggressive forms of prostate cancer, than those with less early
morning sun exposure. Experiments also suggested vitamin D inhibits abnormal
cell growth.
We are constantly getting our clients to
take or Vitamin D, a
powerful cancer preventive agent and to
walk in the early morning sunlight to transform Vitamin “D” into “D-3” for
strong bones and to allow the sun, just as it comes up in the morning-- to
penetrate the retina and the backs of the knees to help balance cortisol and
regulate sleep.
