Almost all of my patients with Crohns disease have vitamin D deficiency. In addition, they are low in essential fatty acids, zinc, Vitamin B12, etc. Here is a great article from Science Daily. (www.ScienceDaily.com)
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ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2010) — A new study has found that Vitamin D, readily available in supplements or cod liver oil, can counter the effects of Crohn’s disease. John White, an endocrinologist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, led a team of scientists from McGill University and the Université de Montréal who present their findings about the inflammatory bowel disease in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
“Our data suggests, for the first time, that Vitamin D deficiency can contribute to Crohn’s disease,” says Dr. White, a professor in McGill’s Department of Physiology, noting that people from northern countries, which receive less sunlight that is necessary for the fabrication of Vitamin D by the human body, are particularly vulnerable to Crohn’s disease.
Vitamin D, in its active form (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D), is a hormone that binds to receptors in the body’s cells. Dr. White’s interest in Vitamin D was originally in its effects in mitigating cancer. Because his results kept pointing to Vitamin D’s effects on the immune system, specifically the innate immune system that acts as the body’s first defense against microbial invaders, he investigated Crohn’s disease. “It’s a defect in innate immune handling of intestinal bacteria that leads to an inflammatory response that may lead to an autoimmune condition,” stresses Dr. White.
Vitamin D Prescription: The Healing Power of the Sun & How It Can Save Your Life
What Vitamin D does
Dr. White and his team found that Vitamin D acts directly on the beta defensin 2 gene, which encodes an antimicrobial peptide, and the NOD2 gene that alerts cells to the presence of invading microbes. Both Beta-defensin and NOD2 have been linked to Crohn’s disease. If NOD2 is deficient or defective, it cannot combat invaders in the intestinal tract.
What’s most promising about this genetic discovery, says Dr. White, is how it can be quickly put to the test. “Siblings of patients with Crohn’s disease that haven’t yet developed the disease might be well advised to make sure they’re vitamin D sufficient. It’s something that’s easy to do, because they can simply go to a pharmacy and buy Vitamin D supplements. The vast majority of people would be candidates for Vitamin D treatment.”
“This discovery is exciting, since it shows how an over-the-counter supplement such as Vitamin D could help people defend themselves against Crohn’s disease,” says Marc J. Servant, a professor at the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Pharmacy and study collaborator. “We have identified a new treatment avenue for people with Crohn’s disease or other inflammatory bowel diseases.”
This study was funded by a grant from McGill University.
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Adapted from materials provided by McGill University Health Centre, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Journal Reference:
- Tian-Tian Wang, Basel Dabbas, Ari J. Bitton, Hafid Soualhine, Luz E. Tavera-Mendoza, Serge Dionne, Alain Bitton, Ernest G. Seidman, Marcel A. Behr, John H. White, Marc J. Servant, David Laperriere and Sylvie Mader. Direct and indirect induction by 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 of theNOD2/CARD15-beta defensin 2 innate immune pathway defective in Crohn’s disease. The Journal of Biological Chemistry, (in press)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: crohns, vitamin D
In my Book, Vitamin D Prescription, I summarize many of the best articles out there on the connection between low levels of vitamin D and colon cancer. Dr. Garland from UCSD showed that blood levels above 50 ng/ml can reduce colon cancer by 50%. For a cancer that affects 1 in 18 people, a 50% reduction is incredible. While critics claim we need double blind randomized control studies before we can “prove this”, let me remind you that there is no such double blind study showing a link between lung cancer and heart disease’s connection to cigarette studies. As a matter of fact, because of all the retrospective evidence of the connection, doing the study would not be very ethical.
Retrospective studies provide a lot of evidence. With the virtually absent side effects to vitamin D supplementation, not taking sufficient quantities is absurd in my opinion and outright dangerous. Other studies cited show how higher vitamin D leads to more apoptosis of malignant cells, thereby presenting the mechanism by which vitamin D prevents colon cancer.
To read more about this and the vitamin D connection to Breast cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease, kidney disease and more, I encourage you to pick up a copy on amazon.com of Vitamin D Prescription: The Healing Power of the Sun & How It Can Save Your Life
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REUTERS HEALTH
Among more than 1200 people who developed colorectal cancer and an equal number who did not, researchers found that those with the highest levels of vitamin D in their blood had a nearly 40 percent reduced risk of developing colorectal cancer compared to those with the lowest levels.
The findings from the EPIC study – short for European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition — confirm previous findings from smaller studies conducted largely among North American populations.
The EPIC findings “support a role for vitamin D” in the causes of colorectal cancer, EPIC investigator Dr. Mazda Jenab of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, told Reuters Health.
“But this has to be balanced with caution regarding the potential toxic effects of too much vitamin D and the fact that very little is known about the association of vitamin D with either increased or reduced risk of other cancers,” Jenab said.
EPIC coordinator Dr. Elio Riboli of Imperial College, London, added: “There is consistent scientific evidence that low circulating vitamin D concentration is a marker of increased risk for developing colon cancer.”..read more here….
Categories: Colon cancer
Tagged: Colon cancer, vitamin D
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 6 (HealthDay News) — New research indicates that the darker skin of blacks may increase their risk of heart disease and stroke because it reduces production of vitamin D, which is made during exposure to sunlight.
Several studies have associated low levels of vitamin D with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and “the biggest source of vitamin D levels is sunlight,” said Dr. Kevin Fiscella, a professor of family medicine and community and preventive medicine at the University of Rochester, and co-author of a paper in the January/February issue of the Annals of Family Medicine. “People with dark skin who live at higher latitudes, where the intensity of sunlight is less, may be at greater risk.”
But the issue abounds with unanswered questions, starting with whether there is a real cause-and-effect relationship of vitamin D levels and cardiovascular risk, and ending with whether supplements that increase blood levels of the vitamin lower that risk, Fiscella said.
“We don’t truly know the answer,” Fiscella said. “That is the really pivotal question, what happens to cardiovascular risk if you correct blood levels of vitamin D. We do know that small supplements for middle-aged people don’t seem to have any effect.”
In the study, Fiscella and Dr. Peter Franks of the University of California, Davis, looked at data on more than 15,000 U.S. adults in a national nutritional study. They found that overall, the 25 percent of adults with the lowest levels of vitamin D had a 40 percent higher risk of cardiovascular death. When they singled out blacks, the report found a 38 percent higher incidence of such deaths than among whites. Most of that difference was related to lower levels of vitamin D...read more here
Categories: Heart Disease
Tagged: blacks, heart attacks, Heart Disease, news, vitamin D
SYDNEY, Jan. 15 (UPI) — Falls, a leading cause of death and disability in the elderly, may be reduced by vitamin D supplementation in nursing homes, Australian researchers say.
Lead researcher Ian Cameron of the Sydney Medical School said older people living in nursing facilities or admitted to a hospital are at higher risk for falls than those living at home. Hip fractures, which can be deadly, occur in nursing facilities at a rate 10 times greater than elsewhere.
Cameron and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 41 studies involving 25,422 olderpeople, mostly women. Five studies tested the effects of giving vitamin D to patients in nursing facilities, where it was found to be an effective measure for preventing falls, although researchers are not sure why.
The researchers found multifactorial interventions — which often incorporated exercise, medication or environmental factors including appropriate equipment — reduced the risk of falls in hospitals. In nursing homes, the effects of multifactorial interventions were not significant overall.
However, the researchers concluded multifactorial interventions provided by multidisciplinary teams in these facilities may reduce the rate and risk of falls.
“In our review, we saw limited evidence that these combined interventions work, but we could more confidently recommend them if they were delivered by a multidisciplinary team,” Cameron said.
read more…
Categories: Muscle Stregnth
Tagged: falls
Martin Mittelstaedt Environment Reporter
From Friday’s Globe and MailPublished on Thursday, Nov. 05, 2009 6:12PM EST
Responding to research indicating that vitamin D may slow the progression of breast, colon and other common cancers, some doctors have begun adding the supplement to their tool kit of cancer therapies alongside more conventional treatments such as radiation, surgery and chemotherapy.
While not all physicians are convinced the evidence is strong enough to warrant taking an extra dollop of the sunshine vitamin, those recommending the course say popping the pills is a simple health strategy that has few, if any, risks and has the added benefit of also improving bone health in those with cancer.
“There is emerging data on breast cancer
recurrence rates and vitamin D levels that are quite compelling,” says Tracey O’Connor, an oncologist at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo who treats breast cancer and is having her patients take the vitamin.
Giving vitamin D as part of a treatment program for cancer is still relatively new in the medical community, and Roswell Park is one of the first major cancer institutions in North America to have a number of doctors investigating whether wider use of the nutrient may make a difference in the outcome of the disease.
Speaking at a conference this week in Toronto, Dr. O’Connor outlined a protocol she is using for vitamin D in breast-cancer treatment. It involves giving high doses of the supplement to the most deficient patients immediately after they are diagnosed to quickly raise blood levels of the nutrient.
Dr. O’Connor says that having a low level of vitamin D “is quite common” among women with breast cancer, and most patients, typically about 80 per cent, are either deficient or have insufficient amounts.
Current Health Canada dietary recommendations for vitamin D range from 200 to 600 international units a day, depending on age, and were designed to promote bone health and not the far larger amounts being explored for therapeutic possibilities in cancer treatments.
Dr. O’Connor says some breast-cancer patients have such low stores of the nutrient that they need to embark on a crash course of taking up to 50,000 IU a week for several months to bring up their levels. Other patients whose starting levels aren’t so poor take a few thousand IU a day. She also monitors blood levels to make sure people don’t get too much...read more…
Categories: Breast Cancer · Cancer
Tagged: Cancer, health, news, vitamin, vitamin D
The official death toll from h1n1 flu and its complications among pregnant women as of Oct 10 is at least 28, Washington Post reported citing official data.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention never says whether these women had had any underlying health conditions. Because this information has never been released, it’s safe to assume that at least most pregnant women had medical conditions. If that is not the case, the CDC would be every happy to tell everyone that at least most of the victims were healthy. This can help promote the national vaccination campaign.
Anyway, there is very tiny risk for CERTAIN pregnant women. But I do not believe that every woman is at the same risk. Logically those who have health conditions that compromise their immunity should be at higher risk. Medical experts would love to tell you that pregnant women at higher risk because their immune systems are slow in responding to h1n1 virus and other types of flu and therefore they are more likely than others to have severe complications. That may be true, but still cannot explain why one pregnant woman died while another one didn’t.
The CDC says that getting vaccinated is the best way to prevent h1n1. But a few things that the health agency does not tell you is that no trial has been completed just yet that involved pregnant women. In other words, the safety and efficacy of any of the four approved h1n1 vaccines in pregnant women remains unknown. The government and its officials only say h1n1 vaccines are made in the same way as the seasonal flu vaccine is and they expect that the h1n1 vaccine is as safe and effective.
To say the least, the efficacy of seasonal flu vaccine is not that great and seldom exceeds 45 percent because often times the dead or live yet attenuated virus used in the vaccine does not match the circulating strain well. That is why many people who get vaccinated against seasonal flu still get it anyway.
Pregnant women may have another reason to worry about vaccination. There is no hard evidence to demonstrate that the h1n1 vaccine is safe for fetuses. One thing that potentially affects neurological development in the fetus and deserves pregnant women’s attention is that mercury is present in the h1n1 vaccine that comes from the 10-dose pack. Of course, it’s always official that mercury in vaccines is safe even though many are not convinced…read more here..
Categories: Pregnancy · Suppplements · Women's Health
Tagged: health, news, Pregnancy, swine flu, vitamin D
WASHINGTON – Millions of U.S. children have disturbingly low Vitamin D levels, possibly increasing their risk for bone problems, heart disease, diabetes and other ailments (CANCER), according to two new studies that provide the first national assessment of the crucial nutrient in young Americans.
About 9 percent of those ages 1 through 21 — about 7.6 million children, adolescents and young adults — have Vitamin D levels so low they could be considered deficient, while an additional 61 percent — 50.8 million — have higher levels, but still low enough to be insufficient, according to the analysis of federal data being released Monday.
“It’s astounding,” said Michal L. Melamed of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who helped conduct one of the studies published online by the journal Pediatrics. “At first, we couldn’t believe the numbers. I think it’s very worrisome.”..read more here..
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Children, family, health, kids, vitamin D
In Vitamin D Prescription: The Healing Power of the Sun and How it Can Save Your Life, Eric Madrid touts the benefits of vitamin D
MENIFEE, Calif. (MMD Newswire) August 4, 2009 — Dr. Eric Madrid’s Vitamin D Prescription: The Healing Power of the Sun and How it Can Save Your Life explores how a lack of vitamin D can lead to increased cancers, osteoporosis, heart disease and more.
More than 80 percent of people are affected by a vitamin D deficiency, says doctor and author Madrid in his provocative new book, Vitamin D Prescription. Vitamin D, says Madrid is the key to health and longevity. He believes the deficiency of this vitamin is a public health hazard and thousands of lives and billions of dollars could be saved if physicians checked their patients’ vitamin D levels and supplemented with vitamin pills.
Relying on research from more than 300 scientific articles, Madrid also warns about the dangers of sunscreen, which may increase cancer risk by decreasing vitamin D blood levels. Getting adequate vitamin D is easy, Madrid claims, and he means for his book to help optimize any individual’s health.
Vitamin D Prescription: The Healing Power of the Sun and how it Can Save Your Life is available for sale online at Amazon.com, BookSurge.com and through additional wholesale and retail channels worldwide.
About the Author
Eric Madrid graduated from the Ohio State University School of Medicine in 2002 and has an active practice at Rancho Family Medical Group in Temecula, Calif. Board-certified in family medicine, he served as chairperson for the Relay for Life in Menifee, sponsored by the American Cancer Society.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Eric Madrid
Email: dremadrid@gmail.com
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http://www.mmdnewswire.com/eric-madrid-5514.html
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: disease, health, illness, vitamin D, vitamin D deficient, vitamins, wellness
Martin Mittelstaedt
From Monday’s Globe and MailLast updated on Sunday, Jul. 26, 2009 09:32PM EDT
In an effort to discover new ways to fight the swine flu, the Public Health Agency of Canada intends to test the blood of people contracting the ailment to check their vitamin D levels.
The agency is taking the unconventional action to try to find out whether those with mild cases of the flu have more of the sunshine vitamin circulating in their bodies than those who develop severe or even deadly reactions to the H1N1 virus.
If researchers determine that the vitamin protects against the swine flu, it will give health authorities another line of attack against the pandemic, besides such common-sense approaches as large-scale vaccinations and hand-washing campaigns.
A finding of a link to the vitamin would mean that people could reduce the odds of being harmed by the new flu bug by simply popping a low-cost supplement that is widely available at almost every drugstore.
Scientists have long been wondering about a possible connection between vitamin D and influenza because of the striking observations in both the northern and southern hemispheres that flu is mostly a wintertime ailment. This is the period each year when sunshine isn’t intense enough to allow people to make the vitamin the natural way – in naked skin exposed to ultraviolet light – causing levels of the nutrient to plunge among those not taking supplements...read more here..
Categories: Colds/Flu · Infections
Tagged: flu, influenza, swine flu, vitamin D
By David Liu
A new study published in the July 21 2009 issue of World Journal of Gastroenterology says that the most active form of vitamin D may be used to treat pancreatic cancer.
Chian KC and Chen TC, authors of the study, from the Chang Gung University in Tainwan, China reported that a recent trial had demonstrated that a vitamin D analog known as 19-nor-1alpha,25(OH)(2)D(2) effectively inhibits pancreatic tumor growth in vitro and in vivo via up-regulation of p21 and p27 tumor suppressor genes.
Probably hundreds of even thousands of vitamin D analogs have been synthesized, which can help fight cancer, but lead to less side effects than the most active form of vitamin D called 1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3).
Vitamin D has been known to prevent 17 types of malignancies, according to Dr. John Cannell at vitaminDcouncil.org…read more here….
Categories: Pancreas
Tagged: Cancer, health, news, Pancreas, vitamin, vitamin D
