Vitamin D, calcium combo may cut exercise-related stress fractures
Daily supplements of calcium and vitamin D, long linked to improving bone health, may also reduce the risk of stress fractures during exercise, scientists have reported.
Female arm recruits receiving the daily supplements experienced 20 per cent fewer stress fractures than their un-supplemented counterparts, according to research published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.
I’ve pointed to William Davis’s (he’s a cardiologist) Heart Scan blog on a few occasions. He’s a big fan of proper vitamin D treatment. So much so, that he’s putting together a new booklet called Vitamin D and Heart Health. He announced his new booklet in his blog post entitled “Fatal underdose” referring to vitamin D. Buy a copy for your doctor today 
He’s also anti wheat and sugar (carbs), gotta love him!
Low levels of vitamin D were associated with an increased risk for peripheral arterial disease (PAD) in a large, cross-sectional study.
Women with a very low blood level of 25(OH)D have a considerably increased breast cancer risk. The effect was found to be strongest in women who were not taking hormones for relief of menopausal symptoms.
In the past 10 years a stream of reports has announced the return of rickets. Although small in number, these cases foreshadow a larger problem of vitamin D-deficient children.
Vitamin D reverses diabetic neuropathy
Vitamin D supplementation is an effective treatment of neuropathic pain in Type 2 diabetes patients, new Australian research suggests.
Vitamin D in brain function
Vitamin D supplementation for high risk groups may be warranted. McCann & Ames point out that evidence for vitamin D’s involvement in brain function includes the wide distribution of vitamin D receptors throughout the brain. They also discuss vitamin D’s ability to affect proteins in the brain known to be directly involved in learning and memory, motor control, and possibly even maternal and social behavior.
It’s turning out to be a pretty busy Vitamin D news day.
Here a few headlines:
1. Taking vitamin D supplements in early childhood could dramatically cut the chance of developing Type 1 diabetes later in life, medical experts claim.
2. Volunteers sought to test vitamin D memory effect. This is one I’ve been wondering about lately. I’ve not done any Internet research on this topic yet, but I’m curious about a connection between Alzheimer’s and low vitamin D. Not sure if there’s a geographic pattern to Alzheimer’s, wouldn’t that be interesting…
3. Vitamin D and calcium influence cell death in the colon, researchers find
That’s all for now, happy reading!
I just found this at-home test for vitamin D deficiency.
I have a couple of initial thoughts about it. At first I was very excited to see it! I guess my enthusiasm was quickly tempered by the skeptic in me. I’ve done some at-home tests before for things like blood sugar and cholesterol and have had conflicting results when compared with regular lab testing. With this particular test, you basically collect a spot of blood on a special piece of paper and then mail it off to the lab for processing. Could this really be as accurate as the mainstream testing? I admit that I don’t know anything about the science behind the testing. The other reason for my hesitancy is that the test costs $112.00, it seems too expensive. I’ve reported that you can now get regular vitamin D testing done by one of our local labs for $70.00. Granted, that doesn’t include the doctors visit fee that most people would have to pay. It just seems to me that for an at-home test to have a good impact, it’s going to have to be substantially less expensive.
I guess the thing to do is to try one of these at-home tests out and compare it to the standard D testing to see how the results match up. If this test is accurate it could be a very cool way for people to do the critical re-checking of their vitamin D levels if their physicians are unwilling to. (You’ll remember that I’ve mentioned that although more doctors are willing to do the initial D testing they often fail to follow-up with re-checking levels to see if the treatment dose is doing the job.)
If anyone out there does one of these please let me know how it goes - ideally you’d have a standard test done at the same time.
I’m a big fan of vitaminDcouncil.com and love all of the information that they provide!
I must say however that I’m NOT crazy about their commercials.
I’m sure that their message can be delivered in a more captivating way. The audio on these Youtube versions isn’t even synchronized with the video.
In the April newsletter Dr Cannell mentions needing $200,000 to help get these commercials on the TV airways around the country. I think there’s a better way. It’s a mistake to underestimate the power of using the Internet and Youtube instead of traditional media.
Here’s my suggestion to the Vitamindcouncil.com. Your web site is earning a well deserved amount of respect in the medical community, many doctors and other health care providers are now aware of you and visiting your site for news and information. You need to come up with more contemporary (engaging) Youtube video and place it right on your home page. You then need to tell the visitors to your site to help spread the word. Ask them to tell everyone that they know, colleagues, patients, family, friends, etc, to view your new commercial. Get the whole “viral marketing” thing working in your favor. This topic is starting to explode and your positioned to do something really special. You have some serious momentum on your side, all you need is a better video to help spread the word.
What do you think? Any aspiring youtube video makers want to see if they can come up with a vitamin D video that will take the Internet by storm?? What an amazing opportunity to make a difference. You’d be doing the world a big favor!
Can vitamin D make you a bigger, faster, stronger athlete?? This is a cool subject and it might just help spread the word about the importance of knowing your vitamin D level.
I’ve always been a fitness nut and sports fan. I’ve coached a ton of baseball in the past 8 years, so I’m always curious about ways to help my players become better athletes and or heal from their injuries. I also specialize in treating sports injuries with acupuncture, so I guess you could say it’s “my thing” (or at least one of them). read on………
Let’s take a look at a piece of the Q and A from the new issue of the Vitamin D councils April newsletter…
Dear Dr. Cannell:
After reading your previous newsletter, I looked for and found a definite correlation between the average UV radiation in a state and the number of quality athletes the state produces per million population. Hawaii is way in front and the southern states way ahead of northern states. I’ve also found a correlation of multiple super bowl appearances/wins with team geographic UV radiation. I’ve also found a correlation between the per capita number of PGA golfers (with most annual wins) and UV radiation (not published yet). Thought you might find my website of interest: Sunshine and Peak Performance.
Tonis, Greensboro, NC
Dear Tonis:
Good work. And once again, the first reference in the world’s literature that vitamin D will help athletes was published by this newsletter. Can you imagine what will happen in professional sports when athletes realize that vitamin D improves their speed, strength, timing and quickness?
John Jacob Cannell MD
That’s the end of the piece from the April news letter, so I went to dig up more info that Dr. Cannell refers to. It’s from the Vitamin D Council’s March 2007 newsletter. you can read the whole thing here, but I’ve pasted the summary below.
In Summary (John Jacob Cannell MD)
Five converging—but totally separate—lines of scientific evidence leave little doubt that vitamin D improves athletic performance. There is actually a sixth line of evidence that i left out due to its complexity: the two studies I found on muscle strength and vitamin D receptor polymorphisms (genetic variations), both were positive. Anyway, the scientific evidence that UVB radiation, either from the sun or a sunbed, will improve athletic performance is overwhelming and the mechanism is almost certainly vitamin D production. Peak athletic performance will probably occur with 25OHD levels of about 50 ng/mL, a level that can be obtained through the use of supplements as well.
All that is missing is a big time professional or college team identifying, and then treating, their elite athletes who are vitamin D deficient. Can you imagine what such performance enhancing effects would do for basketball players, the majority of which are black and practice and play indoors all winter? Or gymnasts? Weight lifters? Can you imagine what it might do for those chronic neuromuscular injuries which are so common in sports medicine?
A word of caution, though. The above studies suggest that taking too much vitamin D (more than 5,000 IU/day) may actually worsen athletic performance. So take the right amount, not all you can swallow. Take enough to keep your 25 hydroxyvitamin D levels around 50 ng/mL, year round. Easier yet, regularly use the sun in the summer and a sun bed (once a week should be about right) in the winter—with care not to burn.
When you think about it, none of this should surprise anyone. Every bodybuilder knows that steroid hormones can improve athletic performance and they certainly increase muscle mass. Barry Bonds knows they increase timing and power. Activated vitamin D is as potent a steroid hormone as exists in the human body. However, unlike other steroids, levels of activated vitamin D in muscle and nerve tissue are primarily regulated by sun exposure. That’s right, the rate limiting step for the autocrine function of activated vitamin D is under your control and depends on how much daily vitamin D you receive. It’s ironic that many athletes now avoid the sun. Organized baseball is even promoting sun avoidance and sunblocks. The ancient Greeks knew better; they had their elite athletes train on the beach and in the nude.
So the level of vitamin D (50 ng/mL) associated with peak athletic performance is the very same level that recent studies show also helps to prevent cancer, diabetes, hypertension, influenza, multiple sclerosis, major depression, cognitive decline, etc. But who cares about all that disease stuff old people get! We’re talking about important stuff here: speed, balance, reaction time, muscle mass and strength, squats, reps. As for my young basketball player, guess who’s now taking 4,000 IU vitamin D a day? That’s right! And his 25?hydroxyvitamin D level is now 54 ng/mL. Has this improved his game? Well…he said to me he feels his timing is better, can jump a little higher, run faster and…oh yeah! and that the ball feels “sweeter”—whatever that means.
John Jacob Cannell MD Executive Director
So there you have it. Pretty interesting stuff wouldn’t you say? Based on this information, evaluating your vitamin D level and maintaining it in the 50-65 ng/mL part of the range seems like a reasonable thing to do if you’re an athlete trying to improve your game. I’d be curious to know if anyone hears any buzz about this in sports circles out there!
1. Here’s the April issue of the Vitamin D Council’s Newsletter. It’s in a Q and A format with John Cannell MD. You should subscribe to their newsletter so you don’t miss any future issues. Really good reading!
2. April 2nd, 2008….Here’s a news video from King5 news out of Seattle Washington. It’s not earth shattering information if you’ve been following the vitamin D news, but always great to see it making the headlines - Vitamin D deficiency linked to cancer
Keep your eye out for new sunscreen labels!
Dr James Dowd’s recent post about sun screen caught my eye. This topic tends to be a little confusing, so I had to read the official fda page over a couple of times to start to understand this. I have to admit, I had forgotten that SPF stands for Sunburn Protection Factor. What I hadn’t pieced together until now is that SPF refers to UVB protection. Remember, we get our D from UVB, so a very strong SPF is going to block you from getting your D. With this new star rating, you’ll now know how much UVB and UVA protection you’re getting. You’re going to have to do a bit of a balancing act with this new rating system. If you’re opting to primarily get your vitamin D from regular sun exposure, you want a good UVA protection combined with decent (but not complete) UVB protection. Dr. Dowd gives the example of a SPF 8 combined with a 3 star UVA as sunscreen that fits the bill. Personally I’m thinking I’ll go with the 4 star UVA and a little higher SPF since I tend to burn. Then again, I’m still not convinced we get any UVB to speak of where I live so I’ll likely stick with minimal sun exposure combined with oral vitamin D and limited tanning bed use.
By the way, the only thing I’ve seen that’s new at my drug store is a “broad spectrum” UVA and UVB sun block. Have you seen any of these new sunscreen labels in your area?
It’s important to be very careful with sunscreens that only have SPF since you won’t be protected from UVA rays when you use those products! If a sunscreen has no UVA protection it will have a warning statement near the SPF rating.
You can few the FDA’s frequently asked questions about sun screen.
Dr Dowd also mentions a recent study about various types of skin cancer, you can see that study here. The article discusses the various types of skin cancer and their correlation to UV exposure. I don’t know about you, but when I hear “skin cancer” I always think melanoma. Interestingly, Squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma appear more UV related than melanoma!
It’s a bright and sunny day today, but lots of long shadows so probably not much D out there! Either way, it sure makes me feel better when it’s sunny - so it’ certainly not all about the D!
