A new study has come out about kids and vitamin D deficiency that will soon be published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Here’s the headline from this important research:

Raising current vitamin D levels from 200 International Units (IU) to 2,000 IU could boost bone health amongst children and have long-term health benefits, says new research.

Now that is exciting stuff!!

New research shows a connection between low vitamin D and back pain in older women.

Here’s a quote from the study:

“Given that low vitamin D status is fairly prevalent in older adults and that there are significant functional consequences to untreated chronic pain, these findings argue strongly for querying adults about their pain and potentially screening older women with significant back pain for vitamin D deficiency,” Dr. Gregory E. Hicks of the University of Delaware in Newark and his colleagues write.

There’s more information coming out with regard to vitamin D being connected to various pain problems. There was a recent pilot study completed at a Multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation center. The study was call - Prevalence and Clinical Correlates of Vitamin D Inadequacy among Patients with Chronic Pain

Here’s the conclusion of that study:

Conclusion: The prevalence and clinical correlates identified in this pilot study provide the basis for the assertion that vitamin D inadequacy may represent an under-recognized source of nociception [feeling pain] and impaired neuromuscular functioning among patients with chronic pain.

How about you? Have you noticed any reduction in pain by taking vitamin D?

This is sort of a follow-up post to the previous one about Asian women hiding from the sun for cosmetic purposes. There’s quite a body of work studying veiled women and vitamin D deficiency. I get so focused on the parts of the world that are naturally deprived of vitamin D due to latitude I guess I sometimes forget about those deprived of vitamin D due to cultural circumstances.

Vitamin D deficiency in veiled or dark-skinned pregnant women

Vitamin D deficiency in mothers of infants with rickets

A study of Arab women in Denmark (Calcif Tissue Int 2000; 66: 419-424) by researchers Glerup, Mikkelsen, Poulsen and others found that a group of Arab women suffering from muscle pain and weakness were suffering from a deficiency of vitamin D, which improved after three months of vitamin D therapy.
High prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among pregnant women and their newborns in northern India

“Almost every woman I see has osteomalacia,” Samar says. “Their bones are softening due to a lack of Vitamin D. They survive on a diet of tea and naan because they can’t afford eggs and milk and, to complicate matters, their burqas and veils deprive them of sunshine.

So I’m getting my hair cut from this nice woman from Thailand the other day. I can’t remember how it came up, but I started talking about vitamin D. She proceeds to tell me how so many of her friends back home in Thailand avoid the sun like the plague in order to have pale skin. A pale complexion has been quite the fashion trend in much of Asia for some time now.

I pulled this quote from a message board about various Asian topics:

“its freaking crazy in Asia, hong kong , vietnam…it gets so hot and humid there but women still wear long sleeves, long pants and that crazy face shield to block the sun so that they don’t tan…”

Until now, I hadn’t thought about this topic in relationship to vitamin D deficiency. I’ve seen many Asian women over the years hiding themselves from the sunlight (here in the United States).

There are some historical cultural reasons for this phenomena; being tan use to mean you were a lower class laborer working in the fields, having a more pale complexion meant you were more well-off. I’m guessing that there are those who use an umbrella or other similar sun-shade to get relief from the extreme heat that Asia is prone to who are not just buying into a fashion trend?

I would hope that there are some good vitamin D proponent types in Asia who warn these women about possible vitamin D deficiency. It would be interesting to get some D blood levels on these ladies. It sure seems a little strange to be so close to the equator (Thailand is at 15 degrees north of it) and still be vulnerable to deficiency of this vital nutrient.

Link between low vitamin D and prostate cancer found in a recent study.

This quote certainly caught my eye:

“Our findings reflect what we see in those studies and demonstrate that vitamin D not only can be used as a therapy for prostate cancer, it can prevent prostate cancer from happening.”

You can read the full article here

Health Canada says it will launch a study by this fall investigating dramatic claims that a lack of vitamin D could be linked to ailments such as cancer, heart disease and multiple sclerosis.

Keep it up Canada! Soon (if not already) you will be recognized by the world as the leading Country supporting vitamin D deficiency awareness.

I’m just going over the new vitamin D Council Newsletter. Here are a few of the highlights that caught my eye.

1. 15 cancers are associated with lower UVB light! (colon, esophageal, gallbladder, gastric, pancreatic, rectal, small intestinal, bladder, kidney, prostate, breast, endometrial, ovarian, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma). (I still say we must not get much uvb where I live)

2. 257,000 cancer deaths in 2007 in the USA were accounted for by inadequate vitamin D levels.

3. Latitude is a strong determining factor in childhood diabetes and the disease almost doesn’t even exist near the equator!

4. 50 ng/ml should be considered the lower limit of adequate 25(OH)D levels.

5. Breast milk is a poor source of vitamin D because nursing mothers are vitamin D deficient!

I have several friends who know that I write this blog but have yet to get their D levels evaluated. Health is aways kind of a tricky subject when you’re dealing with friends (and boundaries) and you run a health care clinic. I usually try to avoid health discussions with my friends, but this whole vitamin D issue is so important - come on guys, you know who you are!

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!

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.