Scientists have reported that markedly higher intake of vitamin D is needed to reach blood levels that can prevent or markedly cut the incidence of breast cancer and several other major diseases than had been originally thought.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha conducted a study to reach that conclusion.
“We found that daily intakes of vitamin D by adults in the range of 4000-8000 IU are needed to maintain blood levels of vitamin D metabolites in the range needed to reduce by about half the risk of several diseases – breast cancer, colon cancer, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes,” said Cedric Garland, professor of family and preventive medicine at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center.
“I was surprised to find that the intakes required to maintain vitamin D status for disease prevention were so high – much higher than the minimal intake of vitamin D of 400 IU/day that was needed to defeat rickets in the 20th century.”
“I was not surprised by this,” said Robert P. Heaney, of Creighton University, a distinguished biomedical scientist who has studied vitamin D need for several decades.
Vitamin D
“This result was what our dose-response studies predicted, but it took a study such as this, of people leading their everyday lives, to confirm it.”
The study reports on a survey of several thousand volunteers who were taking vitamin D supplements in the dosage range from 1000 to 10,000 IU/day. Blood studies were conducted to determine the level of 25-vitamin D – the form in which almost all vitamin D circulates in the blood.
“Most scientists who are actively working with vitamin D now believe that 40 to 60 ng/ml is the appropriate target concentration of 25-vitamin D in the blood for preventing the major vitamin D-deficiency related diseases, and have joined in a letter on this topic,” said Garland.
“Unfortunately, according a recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, only 10 percent of the US population has levels in this range, mainly people who work outdoors.”
Interest in larger doses was spurred in December of last year, when a National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine committee identified 4000 IU/day of vitamin D as safe for every day use by adults and children nine years and older, with intakes in the range of 1000-3000 IU/day for infants and children through age eight years old.
While the IOM committee states that 4000 IU/day is a safe dosage, the recommended minimum daily intake is only 600 IU/day.
“Now that the results of this study are in, it will become common for almost every adult to take 4000 IU/day,” Garland said. “This is comfortably under the 10,000 IU/day that the IOM Committee Report considers as the lower limit of risk, and the benefits are substantial.” He added that people who may have contraindications should discuss their vitamin D needs with their family doctor.
“Now is the time for virtually everyone to take more vitamin D to help prevent some major types of cancer, several other serious illnesses, and fractures,” said Heaney.
The findings are published February 21 in the journal Anticancer Research.
- Similar posts
- E.coli infection link to colon cancer (18.3%)
- Cherry juice may cure insomnia (18%)
- HRT linked to breast cancer (18%)
- Heart protein may treat prostate cancer (13.2%)
- Natural Protein may fight colon cancer (12.3%)
A new study has shown that low vitamin D levels are associated with increased likelihood that children will develop allergies.
Researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, which headed the study, reached the conclusion by studying more than 3,000 children.
They looked at the serum vitamin D levels in blood collected in 2005-2006 from the samples derived from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) of more than 3,100 children and adolescents and 3,400 adults. One of the blood tests assessed was sensitivity to 17 different allergens by measuring levels of Immunoglobulin E (IgE), a protein made when the immune system responds to allergens.
When the resulting data was analyzed by Einstein researchers, no association between vitamin D levels and allergies was observed in adults. But for children and adolescents, low vitamin D levels correlated with sensitivity to 11 of the 17 allergens tested, including both environmental allergens (e.g., ragweed, oak, dog, cockroach) and food allergens (e.g., peanuts).
For example, children who had vitamin D deficiency (defined as less than 15 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood), were 2.4 times as likely to have a peanut allergy than were children with sufficient levels of vitamin D (more than 30 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood).
The research shows only an association and does not prove that vitamin D deficiency causes allergies in children, cautioned Michal Melamed, assistant professor of medicine and of epidemiology and population health at Einstein and senior author of the study. Nevertheless, she said, children should certainly consume adequate amounts of the vitamin.
“The latest dietary recommendations calling for children to take in 600 IU of vitamin D daily should keep them from becoming vitamin-D deficient,” she said.
The study has been published in the online edition of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.