Vitamin D keeps your brain quick….

Today's Post, Thursday, 5-21-2009

The news on getting adequate vitamin D is beginning to be unbelievably good.

A recent news article quotes a study that found that in 3,000 European men from 40 to 79 years old, the men that had low levels of vitamin D got low scores on a test of mental agility.

(That’s scary because many people now get little sun exposure and even people who take vitamins only get 400 iu of vitamin D while the new studies show the real minimum requirement for vitamin D is closer to 2,000 to 3,000 iu. So a majority of people that age today are low or deficient in vitamin D.)

The much better news is that the men who had high levels of vitamin D, tested much higher on mental agility.

And the news article pointed out that other recent studies found that getting enough vitamin D3, the active form, has been found to: “protect against cancer, artery disease and tuberculosis.”

A bottle of 1,000 iu capsules of vitamin D3 costs less than $7 at the health food store. But the health benefits of taking two or three of them a day may be closer to $7,000 a bottle. That’s more valuable per ounce than gold!

So, if keeping your brain sharp and keeping up your productivity at work are important to you, you might want to consider taking 2,000 to 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D3.

(And, as we’ve pointed out before, doing regular exercise each week is another proven way to keep your brain sharp & your mental performance high.)

Prevent cancer, diabetes, & heart disease with this....

Today's post: Friday, 4-10-2009

You may already know that eating right, particularly eating raw or lightly cooked organic vegetables instead of junky fast carbs that are made with refined grain and high fructose corn syrup or sugar, will do that. You may even be doing you best to eat that way already.

You may also know that getting regular exercise, particularly vigorous exercises such as progressive strength training and interval cardio also protects against all 3 of these, especially if you also get enough antioxidants in your food & supplements. You may even be doing this to the best of your ability already.

But what do you do if you want to increase your protection even more? Or you haven’t yet done these other two things very well yet and want some protection anyway if you can get it somehow?

Believe it or not, for about 12 to 15 cents a day, you can have it. And, this very inexpensive method protects against all three of these dangerous diseases AND makes osteoporosis less likely.

How?

If you aren’t already, take 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 in addition to your daily multivitamin, which still likely has 400 iu a day of vitamin D but may have the less effective form.

It’s been known for quite a while that vitamin D helps your body keep your bones strong.

But there are a long list of things about vitamin D that are new & were not known until just the last few years.

People used to be outside enough to get vitamin D from sun exposure except for in the worst winter weather. (You can easily make 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D or even more in summer sunshine.) And we now know your body will use up to 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D if it is available. But until recently, since most people still were outside a lot, most people didn’t need to get a lot more vitamin D except in the winter.

Now, 75 % of people are vitamin D deficient because they are no longer outside a lot, many who are wear extra clothes and put on a kind of sunscreen that prevents vitamin D production, and we now know 400 iu a day is far less than our bodies really need as a minimum, so even people taking that much are deficient.

That’s important since we now know that enough vitamin D strengthens our immune systems enough to help prevent colds and flu AND most cancers.

We also know that due in part to its role in proper use of Calcium in our bodies, getting enough vitamin D both helps prevent osteoporosis and things like hip fractures AND it helps prevent calcified plaque that increases blood pressure and also helps trigger heart attacks from forming or from getting nearly as bad as it does without vitamin D.

Now, today, I find that getting enough vitamin D also helps prevent insulin resistance, high blood sugar, and type 2 diabetes!

That means getting at least 2400 iu or at the very least 2,000 iu of vitamin D may be as important by itself as either doing a perfect job of eating right or doing an optimum amount of exercise each week.

Are you getting that much now?

If not, you can for between less than 12 cents a day to 15 cents a day.

(Carlson sells a bottle of 100 capsules with 1,000 iu of vitamin D3 each which most health food stores carry. Depending on whether you buy from a shop that discounts or prices low or not, this bottle of 100 costs between $5 & $6 a bottle plus you may or may not have sales tax as I do where I live.)

Here’s the article where I found the information that vitamin D also helps prevent insulin resistance, high blood sugar, and type 2 diabetes.:

"This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com."


“Let a Little Sunshine Into Your Life

By James B. LaValle, RPh, MS, ND, CCN

When our eyes don't take in enough sunlight, we can "experience a serious mood change... sleep too much... have little energy... crave sweets and starchy foods... [and] feel depressed," according to the National Library of Medicine. Studies link those symptoms to low levels of brain chemicals like serotonin and melatonin. Not only do we need sunlight in our eyes to produce those neurotransmitters, we need sunlight on our skin to produce vitamin D.

We've long known that vitamin D is critical for building and maintaining strong bones. But a big surprise in recent years has been that vitamin D also plays a critical role in insulin regulation, making it important for the prevention of diabetes and heart disease. It's also important for the regulation of your immune system, with studies linking low vitamin D levels to an increased risk of breast, prostate, and colon cancers, as well as to multiple sclerosis (an autoimmune condition).

It's hard to get enough sunshine during the winter months. And in summer, many avoid exposure to direct sunlight because they're concerned about skin cancer.

In addition, drugs used to treat heartburn, acid indigestion, and ulcers can deplete the body's stores of vitamin D.

What this means is that you have a good chance of being deficient in this critical vitamin.

It's easy to restore the vitamin D your body needs. You can get it by spending a few minutes in the sun each day. You can also get it from food sources, especially eggs, fatty fish, and fish liver oils. And if you don't like fish, there are supplements.

When taking supplements, avoid the old form of vitamin D (ergocalciferol). Vitamin D 3 (cholecalciferol) is the best form to use. Experts are now recommending that we get at least 1,000 IUs per day.

[Ed. Note: It truly is possible to improve your health just by making wise choices when it comes to diet and lifestyle. James B. LaValle, RPh, ND, CCN - founder of the LaValle Metabolic Institute and a nationally recognized expert on natural therapies - can give you easy-to-understand directions for living the healthy life you've always wanted…..]”

X* X* X* X* X*

Two other quick points.:

1. If you take drugs used to “treat heartburn, acid indigestion,” or “ulcers,” it goes from very important to critical to take vitamin D supplements as you’ll extract less of it from your food.

2. Note which cancers enough vitamin D known to help prevent.:

“studies link…. low vitamin D levels to an increased risk of breast, prostate, and colon cancers.”

No cancer is a good idea; but these 3 can often ruin the quality of life for even those who survive them. And they can be outrageously expensive to treat.

Outdated vitamin & mineral guidelines....

Today's post: Monday, 3-9-2009

I happened upon a news article with these statements.:

“Vitamins Can Be Dangerous In High Amounts” &
“Government Sets Tolerable Upper Limits”

The information in the article had several flaws.

1. Where several vitamins are listed on vitamin and supplement bottles in iu or “international units” each of these vitamins were listed in milligrams or micrograms.

That means that without knowing the conversion factors, the information, even if accurate, is useless. In addition, these conversion factors seem NOT to be online !!

As you’ll see below, I did manage to get the conversions. But it took some research.

2. Some of the information presented was accurate for some vitamins and slightly off for others; and one for one vitamin, vitamin D3, we now know that the Tolerable Upper Limit they list is about what the minimum daily requirement is while the optimum daily intake or allowance is about 50 % MORE than their Tolerable Upper Limit!

Since my time is limited as is yours to read this, here are the important items.

1. Vitamin A has two forms, retinol which comes from animal sources, and beta carotene, which is one of the many carotenes found in plants.

The daily value or RDA is 3,000 iu and 900 mg of retinol while the Tolerable Upper Limit of 3,000 mg is equal to 10,000 iu. Since you get some retinol in foods and you can begin to get bad side effects over 20,000 iu a day of retinol, staying at or under 10,000 iu of retinol from supplements is about right.

Since retinol does have toxicity in high doses and can build up over time as it is fat soluble, taking 5,000 iu or at most 10,000 iu as a supplement is about right; & 3,000 or 5,000 iu in supplement form plus getting more vitamin A by eating carotene containing vegetables is likely better for you.

Since beta carotene is water soluble the www.supernutitrionusa.com info sheet I got shows that you can take up to 40,000 iu a day of it. BUT, 5,000 or 10,000 iu a day in supplements and eating lots of different carotene containing foods does a dramatically better job of supporting your health and preventing disease than taking that much beta carotene. And taking more than 10,000 iu of it without eating the vegetables with the carotenoids may cause unbalanced nutrition and bad results. This did happen in one study that gave high doses of beta carotene only and not more vegetables with mixed carotenes also to smokers.

2. Vitamin D3 is listed as having a Tolerable Upper Limit of 50 mcg a day. That turns out to be 2,000 iu. Oops! We now know that our bodies will use 2,000 to 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 and, while your body can make up to 15,000 iu a day in abundant sunshine, our economy no longer has most of us outside everyday working as hunter-gatherers or farmers. In addition to the exercise we no longer get, most of us no longer get much vitamin D3 from sunshine. We work indoors and often spend our time off indoors`.

That means that 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 is the minimum daily requirement most people need and that the optimum daily intake or allowance is about 3,000 iu.

In addition, although 20,000 to 50,000 iu of vitamin D3 or more may cause some problems if anyone not badly deficient in it takes it for several weeks or more, there are no studies of which I’ve heard that find that 10,000 iu or more is a problem. So, I’ve been suggesting people take at least 2,000 iu and, unless they have had a blood test, showing deficiency of vitamin D3, less than 5,000 iu to be extra conservative. But clearly for something labeled the Tolerable Upper Limit, 10,000 iu is about right. Unfortunately, that is FIVE times what this report says the government set it at.

The evidence I’ve seen suggests this 2,000 iu Tolerable Upper Limit for vitamin D3 is so inaccurately low as to be incompetent. It might not be in small children. But in adults it’s a joke.

3. For Vitamin B6 they have the Tolerable Upper Limit about right from what I’ve read at 100 mg a day.

The www.supernutitrionusa.com info sheet I got says that 200 mg a day is safe and up to 450 might be; but I read that at levels of 150 to 300 mg many people begin to develop numbness from nerve damage in various parts of their bodies that wasn’t always reversible by discontinuing the excess B6. To put it mildly, nerve damage is NOT good. So, to be sure people avoid that, 100 mg a day is safe for everyone. To be fair, 200 mg is likely safe for most people. But the Tolerable Upper Limit SHOULD be set at the limit that is safe for everyone.

4. For folic acid, the synthetic form of the folacin that is in plants, they have a Tolerable Upper Limit of 1,000 mcg a day. 1,000 mcg a day plus 6 to 9 servings of foods high in the folacin form of folic acid is likely better for you than 2,000 mcg of folic acid.

But people who need to lower their homocysteine levels and should do so for avoiding the things that high homocysteine tends to cause, may need up to 2500 mcg of folic acid. So for this one, I think 2500 or 3,000 mcg is a better Tolerable Upper Limit than 1,000 while the www.supernutitrionusa.com info sheet has no reported problems up to nearly 400,000.

5. I’ve not seen the Tolerable Upper Limit for iron. But there is evidence that the RDA or daily value of 18 mg a day is likely to be about right for a Tolerable Upper Limit. And that is safer for people who are deficient or anemic and women who are menstruating and for people who take abundant antioxidants and eat abundant antioxidant containing fruits and vegetables. Excess iron in normal people can help cause heart disease and speed aging as it is an oxidant.

Further, some people have a condition where their bodies don’t remove excess iron and can build up dangerous levels of it.

So, 18 mg a day is likely the Tolerable Upper Limit for iron. And some people should simply not take any other iron than what they get in foods.

6. Copper is another oxidant mineral I’ve not seen a Tolerable Upper Limit for. But 3 mg a day may be about right. Like iron, some people find taking any copper at all toxic. That is unfortunate however since the body need copper to balance your zinc intake. AND, copper deficiency causes heart disease while adequate copper tends to prevent dangerous aneurisms where your arteries balloon in size and can split and rupture causing rapid death. So for most people 2 or 3 mg a day of copper is important. But also taking abundant antioxidants and eating abundant antioxidant containing fruits and vegetables is a good idea to combat copper’s oxidant effect.

7. Zinc has a listed Tolerable Upper Limit of 60 mg a day I think. That is about right. Up to 45 mg a day regularly plus 3 mg a day of copper to balance it, tends to keep your immune system strong, your body healthy including good sexual function, and keep your HDL high.

But, while taking about 30 to 60 mg extra zinc when you first come down sick can help, a daily intake of MORE than 60 mg a day of zinc on a regular basis WEAKENS your immune system. Plus it means to balance it you need more copper than is likely a good idea. So 30 to 45 mg a day is good while 60 mg a day might be OK and more than 60 is not.

8. Niacin, nicotinic acid, sometimes called vitamin B3, can cause liver problems in amounts of 1,000 mg a day or more. But there is good evidence that even though 300 to 600 mg a day in 300 mg doses is safe and is very effective in preventing heart disease and cardiovascular disease it does cause a “flushing” effect which feels like a mild but all over temporary sunburn if you take it on an empty stomach.

The 35 mg Tolerable Upper Limit listed is one that avoids this flushing sensation. But healthwise, it is nearly 30 times too low. If you know the flushing is harmless and may even be beneficial due to the stretching and expanding it gives your capillaries, 900 or 1,000 mg a day is the Tolerable Upper Limit for niacin that I think makes more sense. I suggest taking 300 mg once a day or twice a day after meals plus whatever you get in your multivitamin or B-complex of niacin or its nonflushing cousin niacinimide. And, 300 three times a day is likely safe for most people as liver problems tend to show up at 1,000 mg a day or more.

So this one they also got far wrong.

But niacin DOES have a real Tolerable Upper Limit at 1,000. If your HDL and LDL and triglyceride levels are all horribly bad, it may well pay you to take 1,000 mg a day or more of niacin. But it is only safe to do so if you get regular liver function tests and your doctor monitors you. (Note that while niacinimide has some real health benefits, it has none of the heart protective actions niacin has on LDL, triglycerides, and HDL. So, since I think most of us need those, I recommend taking both niacin AND niacinimide.)


Some of the other Tolerable Upper Limits I saw were a bit off. But these are 8 of nine that I think have real limits. And in two cases the stated Tolerable Upper Limit is way too low.

(The ninth one is vitamin E. But that one is a bit complex and less well tested. Plus I’m out of time. So, I’ll just say that 200 iu of natural vitamin E plus 30 or 50 iu of the man made alpha tocopherol acetate is likely safe while more than that may not be for everyone. It is also a good idea to eat some of the foods high in the whole vitamin E complex such as avocado, nuts, -- and wheat germ if your body processes wheat and gluten OK.)

Vitamin D prevents cognitive decline too....….

Today's post: Thursday, 2-5-2009

There still is a book called SuperFoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life by Steven G. Pratt. MD et al.

Other than the soy foods section which is likely quite wrong according to many sources, this is otherwise a great book with superb advice. There are also other legitimate SuperFood candidates he leaves out.

But these foods either support your health so well OR in so many important ways all at once, it’s clear they deserve to be called SuperFoods.

It now looks as if vitamin D3 not only deserves the title of SuperNutrient, it may even qualify to be Number ONE in that category!

Yesterday, Weds, 2-4-2009, in the Early to Rise email, for its health article of the day, they had an article that listed just a few of the documented benefits we now know an intake of 2,000 iu a day or a bit more of vitamin D3 each day has and then added the incredibly good news that this intake of Vitamin D3 help prevent mental decline too!

Here’s the article.: (I’ll add my comments after it as I often do.)

“This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com .”

“Keep Your Brain Young with This Vitamin

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS

If you've been reading ETR for any length of time, you probably already know at least a half-dozen reasons why you should be taking a vitamin D supplement. Bone health. Mood improvement. Physical performance. Vitamin D's demonstrated anti-cancer effects. And if all that weren't enough, a new study adds another benefit: cognitive performance.

In the study, to be published in the Journal of Geriatric Psychology and Neurology, researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Michigan report an association between the risk of cognitive impairment in older folks and low levels of vitamin D.

More than 1,750 men and women 65 years or older were given neurocognitive tests. The testing revealed that 212 of the participants had cognitive impairment. The researchers then compared the vitamin D levels of those without cognitive impairment to those with cognitive impairment - and found that the risk of impairment significantly increased as vitamin D levels declined.

In fact, participants whose vitamin D levels were in the lowest 25 percent of the group had a whopping 2.28 times greater risk of cognitive impairment than those whose levels were in the top 25 percent. Since cognitive impairment is a major risk factor for developing dementia, anything you can do to lower your risk can help protect your brain for the long haul.

The best way to get adequate levels of vitamin D is through sun exposure. That means getting outside for about 10 to 20 minutes a day, three times a week - more often in the winter. I also personally recommend vitamin D supplements, about 1,000 to 2,000 IU daily. You can find vitamin D supplements at any health food store, even at Walmart.

[Ed. Note: For more information about natural methods that can improve your health - and help keep your weight down - check out nutrition expert Jonny Bowden's website, JonnyBowden.com.

Sunshine and vitamin D not only contribute to keeping your brain young, they can have a positive effect on everything from cancer and diabetes to athletic performance and neonatal health…..]”

X* X* X* X* X* X* X*

I found that www.JonnyBowden.com did get to his website OK.

I’ve only a few points to add.

1. In case you didn’t know it already, the mood improvement of taking vitamin D3 (or taking even 20 minute walks near Noon time if you have time and a safe place to walk) in the winter is to combat the lack of vitamin D from sun exposure during the rest of the day. Taking 2,000 iu or 3,000 iu or a bit more vitamin D3 daily seems to help prevent or nearly eliminate SAD, a kind of depression cause by this lack of sunlight. So taking vitamin D3 for mood improvement works best during the darker days in Winter.

2. Second, since the old RDA for vitamin D was 400 iu, if that’s all you knew, you’d think that 2,000 to 3,000 or even 5,000 iu of vitamin D3 is a lot. So it’s extremely important to know that it’s been found that your body will use 2,000 to 3,000 iu of vitamin D each day if it’s available and that your body will make something like 15,000 to 20,000 iu a day from sun exposure during the summer if you are outside much at all. That means that 2,000 to 5,000 iu of vitamin D3 daily as a supplement, particularly in the 2,000 to 3,600 iu range is actually quite reasonable. In addition, you might well wonder if your body prefers to use 2,000 to 3,000 iu vitamin D each day if it’s available if your body might not be a bit short on less. The research is in fact beginning to show that for best health, on multiple factors, your body very probably DOES need 2,000 to 3,000 iu of D3 a day. To put it bluntly, that means any RDA, for vitamin D of less than 2,000 iu a day is too low and based on outdated information.

3. Third, the same immune system boost from vitamin D that is thought to be responsible for it helping to prevent ALL cancers also will help you avoid getting colds and flu in the winter and from getting worse things such as pneumonia, secondary chest infections from colds or flu, and, even according to one study I saw, tuberculosis if you are exposed to it.

So to me that means that anyone who knows the current info on vitamin D and who wants to be and to stay in good health should be taking at least 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D3. When a bottle of 100 capsules of 1,000 iu of vitamin D3 only costs about $6, it is easily affordable.

4. Lastly, it IS possible that some of the good effects attributed to vitamin D are from the fact that being outside in pleasant natural surroundings or exercising regularly while outside.

So, don’t stop at just taking vitamin D. Regular exercise has an even longer and overlapping health benefits list than vitamin D. As we’ve posted on not that long ago, regular exercise prevents mental and cognitive decline too and in multiple ways. By all means do regular exercise too – even if it’s inside.

Lastly, there was a study that found that even in less affluent neighborhoods, people who live near parks live longer and have better health than people who don’t. So if you live near a park that is safe to visit, go walk around it occasionally. You’ll get some exercise, may relive some stress, and if you do it in daylight, you’ll get some extra vitamin D too.

Vitamin D may protect your heart better than statins....

Today's post: Monday, 11-17-2008

Earlier today, Reuters online health news posted a story about research done showing a huge risk increase for sudden cardiac death and heart failure among people who were low in blood levels of vitamin D when compared to people who had closer to optimal blood levels of vitamin D, titled “Low vitamin D linked to sudden cardiac death”.

The low vitamin D group had “….a three-fold increased risk of death from heart failure and about a five-fold increased risk of sudden cardiac death.”

That’s significant for four reasons.

1. We now know that most people can be at or near optimum blood levels by taking 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D3. And doing this costs less than $10 a month.

2. Heart failure now accounts for 37 percent of Medicare spending in the United States! So, if spending a few dollars a month for vitamin D can come close to removing two thirds of that amount as this study suggests might be possible, this action would save millions of dollars a year. Heart failure also prevents some older people from working, so the potential net savings are extremely large. And, the human disability and suffering it might prevent each year would also be quite valuable.

3. You may be able to put your affairs in order after a nonfatal heart attack. But if you die of sudden cardiac death, you should hope you already have put your affairs in order.

4. This research suggests it may be likely that having people take 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 would prevent much more serious heart disease than statins AND at dramatically lower cost and with no serious or quality of life side effects compared with statin drugs which do have such side effects in some people.

Advanced breast cancer prevention....

Today's post: Tuesday, 11-4-2008

Yesterday we posted on vigorous exercise and eating right in a way that promotes fat loss or keeping off excess fat and several other actions can help prevent breast cancer.

So it was delightful to get today’s email from Total Health Breakthroughs. It had two articles on advanced breast cancer protection.

The information in these 2 article helps explain why vigorous exercise and eating right in a way that promotes fat loss or keeping off excess fat is effective in preventing breast cancer. And, it confirms some of our other methods besides.

But, of more importance, it shows how to get tested to see what your current risk level is; how to improve bad readings on these tests; AND gives some important supplement ideas that clearly can help prevent breast cancer. Many of those supplement ideas were NOT in my post yesterday.

I’ll add some supplements that do what these 2 articles suggest is protective to those in their 2 articles in my comments after the 2 articles.

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"

“Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Breast Cancer -- Real Prevention

By James LaValle, R.Ph, ND, CCN

October was Breast Cancer Prevention month, and as always, fund raising and education initiatives were everywhere. There are many advances in our understanding of how breast cancer develops, yet out of all the articles I saw in the mainstream media, none of them explained the most important factors influencing breast health.

Most breast cancer is the type that is called hormone sensitive. That means it is cancer that forms in response to estrogen. It is usually implied that it is solely a matter of having too much estrogen (and/or other compounds that have estrogen-like structure) in the body. However if you dig deeper, you learn that it is not so much the estrogen itself, but how it is being metabolized in the body and whether it is balanced by adequate progesterone that are the primary problems.1-2

Estrogen/Progesterone Balance
The balance between estrogen and progesterone is very important for breast health and is almost never mentioned in popular literature on hormone sensitive breast cancer. There is a big misunderstanding among some people in the medical community that progesterone increases breast cancer risk. This was due to studies that found that synthetic progestins formerly used in women on hormone replacement therapy did increase breast cancer risk. However, further study has clarified that natural progesterones do not.3

Natural (bio-identical) progesterone actually reduces the production of certain growth factors, and increases a process called apoptosis (cell death) in proliferating breast cells. Several studies have shown that women with progesterone deficiency have anywhere from 4 to 6 times the risk of developing breast cancer.4

Estrogen Metabolism
As estrogen breaks down in the body from the primary estrogen in the body, estradiol, it can convert to a form called 2OH estrone, the good metabolite, or to 16OH and 4OH estrones, forms that cause tissue proliferation. 16OH contributes to endometriosis for instance, the over-proliferation of uterine lining tissue that causes painful menstrual cramps and can reduce a woman's ability to conceive. These metabolites also increase the risk of breast cancer. On the other hand, women with a higher 2OH to 16OH ratio have a 40% less chance of developing breast cancer.

There is a second step in the breakdown of estrogen called methylation. This step takes 4OH and makes it less active in tissues and actually makes a form of estrone (called 2-methoxyestrone) which inhibits breast cancer. So if your methylation pathways are purring along wonderfully you can break estrogen down into beneficial metabolites. Key nutrients to support methylation are the B vitamins, folate, B6 and B12, and dietary sulfur (found in onions, garlic, cabbage family vegetables and in foods like whey and eggs).

The final step for estrogen breakdown is glucuronidation, a metabolic process in which the different estrogens bind with glucuronic acid in the liver and from there get excreted in the GI tract. At least that's what should happen. Magnesium is needed for glucuronic acid to bind with estrogen. If you aren't taking in enough, the estrogen will not be bound and will just continue circulating in the body.

Gut flora also influences glucuronidation. Pathogenic (harmful) bacteria in the intestines can cause estrogen to get uncoupled from the glucuronic acid. So instead of being carried out of the body, the estrogen re-enters circulation, and the woman will accumulate too much in her system. This pathogenic bacteria called beta-glucuronidase is associated with increased cancer risk.

Diets high in fiber and beneficial flora reduce beta-glucuronidase levels, and so promote good estrogen metabolism. A form of calcium called D-glucarate inhibits beta-glucuronidase and so is also a very helpful nutrient.

There are a couple of substances in foods that help healthy estrogen metabolism and have significant and strong evidence of being cancer protective. (See Laura's article for more information on that.) This is where most of the articles in popular women's magazines focus -- eating a diet that is high in these cancer protective substances; and while it is important to eat this way, unless you measure your estrogen metabolites with urine or saliva testing, you have no way of knowing if your diet is directing your metabolism to more of the healthy and fewer of the bad estrogen metabolites. (My new e-book explains estrogen testing in detail. Look for The Keys to Healthy Aging: Making Hormone Replacement Work for You, available from Total Health Breakthroughs in a few weeks.)

Other Influences: Thyroid and Insulin
The other two influences on breast cancer you rarely read anything about are thyroid health and high insulin levels. Laura's article discusses the diet and insulin connection to breast health, but medicine has known for some time that women with breast cancer have a higher than average degree of thyroid problems, including autoimmune thyroid disease and hypothyroidism.

We know now that any disease of autoimmunity raises cancer risk.5 Since it is known that people with autoimmunity have a suppression of natural killer cells, the cells that can fight and overcome cancer cells, this shouldn't be surprising. You may think that autoimmune thyroiditis and hypothyroidism are not that common, but they in fact are second only to diabetes as the most common endocrine disorders -- and they occur in anywhere from 10 to 30% of the population.6-7

To really get proactive against breast cancer, all women can and should get tested for the following:

Estradiol, estrone, progesterone, and estrogen metabolites.
Low thyroid and thyroid antibodies if you have any reason to suspect your thyroid is under-active.

Post-prandial glucose and insulin levels to ensure you are not developing insulin resistance.

Once you have an accurate reading on these vital hormone levels, an appropriate supplementation and dietary plan can be applied as needed.

References

1 Kabat GC, et al. Epidemiology. 2006;17(1):80-8.
2 Adly L, et al. Int J Cancer. 2006;119(10):2402-7.
3 Campagnoll D, et al. J of Steroid Biochem and Mol Biol. 97(5): 441-450.
4 Oldenburg H, et al. Critical Reviews in Oncology/Hematology. 200763(2);125-149.
5 Landgren O. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2006 Sep 20;98(18):1321-30; and Eur J Gastroenterol
Hepatol. 2000:12: 645-48.
6 Maruchi N, et al. Mayo Clin Proc. 1976;51: 263-5.
7 E-medicine from webMD. Hashimoto Thyroiditis, May 30, 2006.

[Ed. Note: James LaValle is the founding Director of the LaValle Metabolic Institute, one of the largest integrative medicine practices in the country. Dr. LaValle is the author of the bestselling book Cracking the Metabolic Code: 9 Keys to Optimal Health and is the Executive Editor of THB's The Healing Prescription…..]”

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"

“Healthy Nutrition:

Eating a Breast Cancer Preventive Diet

By Laura LaValle, RD, LD

If you have read any breast cancer prevention articles over the last month, you probably saw several articles on making sure your diet includes plenty of omega-3 fats as well as high antioxidant-containing foods like berries, colorful vegetables, beans/legumes, and green tea -- all to help your body keep damage from free radicals to a minimum. This is all good advice, but it does not adequately address the other side of the equation -- avoiding foods that promote inflammation in the body.

Prevent Insulin Resistance

Not controlling your intake of refined sugars, white breads, pastas, soft drinks and fast foods can lead to insulin resistance, which is a known contributor of inflammation and oxidative stress in the body1. Inflammation caused by poor dietary habits not only greatly increases risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease, but also increases risk of cancer, including breast cancer.2

Several large human studies have found that diet plays a large role in increasing inflammation and the risk of type 2 diabetes -- and that leads to an increased risk of cancer. The worst diets appear to be those high in fructose-sweetened soft drinks, refined grains, diet soft drinks, and processed meat and low in red wine, coffee, cruciferous vegetables, and colored vegetables.

One study found that insulin resistance even without the women being diabetic significantly increased breast cancer risk -- and this effect was even independent of body weight or body fat distribution.3 Another study of 60,000 women followed over 20 years found that being insulin resistant not only increased breast cancer risk, but increased the risk of being diagnosed with more advanced stages of cancer.4

So clearly, controlling insulin resistance is one of the most powerful ways we can reduce our breast cancer risk. For most people, this will mean eating diets that limit high glycemic index and high glycemic load foods.

Increase Levels of Protective Estrogen
As my husband Jim wrote, cabbage family vegetables which are high in sulfur compounds improve methylation in the body that helps prevent the buildup of unhealthy estrogen metabolites called 16OH. In addition to that, broccoli in particular, contains two substances, diindolyl methane (DIM) and indole-3-carbinol (I3C) that help the liver make enzymes that neutralize 16OH production.5-6

However, to achieve levels that significantly impact 16OH production, it's necessary to take it in a concentrated supplement form. Several clinical trials have demonstrated the ability of a DIM supplement to significantly increase the ratio of good to bad estrogen metabolites in as little as four weeks.7-8

Decrease Levels of Harmful Estrogen
Phytoestrogens are substances in plants that in effect, block bad estrogen metabolites from being able to exert their harmful effects. Phytoestrogens are found in many plant foods; soybeans, peas, beans, and pomegranates are foods that are particularly high in beneficial phytoestrogens. (Soybeans are a two-edged sword however, because with excessive intake they can inhibit thyroid hormone synthesis.)

Plant lignans are a type of dietary fiber found in high amounts in flaxseeds. Lignans increase something called sex hormone binding globulin, which can bind to estrogens and carry them out of the body. They also reduce levels of beta-glucuronidase, the pathogenic intestinal bacteria that prevents harmful estrogen metabolites from being eliminated. Regular inclusion of lignan-containing ground flaxseeds or flaxseed oils may help prevent breast cancer by aiding the body's elimination of excessive estrogen.

And finally, reducing your exposure to environmental estrogens (xenoestrogens) is important because they may trigger tissue proliferation much like excessive natural estrogens.9 Many pesticides are xenoestrogens, and this is the reason we recommend eating organically raised foods as much as possible. Phthalates in plastics are also xenoestrogenic, so avoid eating or drinking out of plastic containers or microwaving with plastic wraps.

References

1 Sies H, Stahl W, Sevanian A. J Nutr. 2005;135(5):969-72.
2 Schulze MB, et al. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005;82(3):675-84; quiz 714-5.
3 Bruning P et al. International J of Cancer 52 (4): 511-16.
4 Cust A, et al. J Breast Cancer Res and Treatment, July 2008.
5 Bradlow HL et al. Ann NY Acad Sci. 1996;768:180-200.
6 Bell MC, et al. Gynecol Oncol. 2000;78(2):123-129.
7 Dalessandri KM, et al. Journal of Nutrition and Cancer. 2004;50(2):161-7.
8 Wang Z, et al. Mol Cancer Ther. 2008 Feb;7(2):341-9.
9 Watson C, et al. Steroids. Feb. 2007; 72(2):124-134.

[Ed. Note: Laura B. LaValle, RD, LD is presently the director of dietetics nutrition at LaValle Metabolic Institute (formerly part of Living Longer Institute). She offers personal nutritional counseling at LMI for clients who need help with their diet in relation to illness or disease. Laura also provides educational services in the areas of health promotion, wellness, and disease prevention…..]”

X* X* X* X* X* X* X*

One of the aspects of their information and the information I posted on yesterday I find exciting is that following a health protective lifestyle protects your health in many other ways AND helps to prevent breast cancer as well.

1. Foods and supplements that support methylation are also known to slow aging, protect your heart and brain, and lower excess levels of homocysteine. These supplements include; NAC, n-acetyl cysteine, which also contains sulfur; DMG and TMG, di- and trimethly glycine; and the methyl version of B12, methylcobalamin, sold as "Brain B12." Also the supplement MSM, Methylsulfonylmethane, that is in many joint and arthritis pain supplements contains sulfur, as can be seen from its name and looks to be a methyl donor as well from the methyl in its name.

2. These 2 articles may also partly explain WHY taking 2,000 to 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 prevents cancer and breast cancer. Adequate vitamin D in your body tends to optimize your immune system responses and has been found to largely prevent autoimmune disorders. Since these articles say immune diseases suppress the production of your natural killer cells which kill off cancer cells, this means that taking vitamin D3 is critically important. Oddly, they don’t mention taking vitamin D3 in the article.

3. Vigorous exercise and eating lots of vegetables AND eating an adequate supply of lean protein every day and very rarely eating much of anything else and NEVER eating junk food or drinking soft drinks also tends to prevent breast cancer --as we posted about yesterday. And, since insulin resistance and high blood levels of insulin apparently help cause breast cancer; and these two actions specifically prevent or help reverse insulin resistance and reduce high insulin levels, that largely explains why these two actions help prevent breast cancer.

Taking the supplements alpha lipoic acid, chromium polynicotinate, and either eating cinnamon in your food daily or taking cinnamon supplements also tend to help your body manage insulin and blood sugars in a desirable way and may well also help.

It may also be worthwhile to eat foods that are spiced with red pepper or other hot peppers once a day. These spices have been found to reduce insulin increase after you eat.

4. Their research apparently confirms that taking the supplement DIM in addition to eating the cruciferous vegetables that contain it helps to prevent breast cancer.

5. Taking magnesium supplements or eating foods high in it so that you get at least 400 mg a day of magnesium; and taking probiotic supplements or eating yogurt with no sugar or artificial sweeteners added that contain live cultures of probiotic bacteria -- to compete with or eliminate harmful bacteria; all apparently help in allowing the healthy breakdown of estrogen which helps prevent breast cancer.

Adding the information in yesterday’s post and in today’s post, there are a LOT of things you can do that help prevent breast cancer. Many of them will also prevent other cancers or help protect your heart, brain, and overall health in other ways as well.

Advanced breast cancer prevention....

Today's post: Tuesday, 11-4-2008

Yesterday we posted on vigorous exercise and eating right in a way that promotes fat loss or keeping off excess fat and several other actions can help prevent breast cancer.

So it was delightful to get today’s email from Total Health Breakthroughs. It had two articles on advanced breast cancer protection.

The information in these 2 article helps explain why vigorous exercise and eating right in a way that promotes fat loss or keeping off excess fat is effective in preventing breast cancer. And, it confirms some of our other methods besides.

But, of more importance, it shows how to get tested to see what your current risk level is; how to improve bad readings on these tests; AND gives some important supplement ideas that clearly can help prevent breast cancer. Many of those supplement ideas were NOT in my post yesterday.

I’ll add some supplements that do what these 2 articles suggest is protective to those in their 2 articles in my comments after the 2 articles.

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"

“Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Breast Cancer -- Real Prevention

By James LaValle, R.Ph, ND, CCN

October was Breast Cancer Prevention month, and as always, fund raising and education initiatives were everywhere. There are many advances in our understanding of how breast cancer develops, yet out of all the articles I saw in the mainstream media, none of them explained the most important factors influencing breast health.

Most breast cancer is the type that is called hormone sensitive. That means it is cancer that forms in response to estrogen. It is usually implied that it is solely a matter of having too much estrogen (and/or other compounds that have estrogen-like structure) in the body. However if you dig deeper, you learn that it is not so much the estrogen itself, but how it is being metabolized in the body and whether it is balanced by adequate progesterone that are the primary problems.1-2

Estrogen/Progesterone Balance
The balance between estrogen and progesterone is very important for breast health and is almost never mentioned in popular literature on hormone sensitive breast cancer. There is a big misunderstanding among some people in the medical community that progesterone increases breast cancer risk. This was due to studies that found that synthetic progestins formerly used in women on hormone replacement therapy did increase breast cancer risk. However, further study has clarified that natural progesterones do not.3

Natural (bio-identical) progesterone actually reduces the production of certain growth factors, and increases a process called apoptosis (cell death) in proliferating breast cells. Several studies have shown that women with progesterone deficiency have anywhere from 4 to 6 times the risk of developing breast cancer.4

Estrogen Metabolism
As estrogen breaks down in the body from the primary estrogen in the body, estradiol, it can convert to a form called 2OH estrone, the good metabolite, or to 16OH and 4OH estrones, forms that cause tissue proliferation. 16OH contributes to endometriosis for instance, the over-proliferation of uterine lining tissue that causes painful menstrual cramps and can reduce a woman's ability to conceive. These metabolites also increase the risk of breast cancer. On the other hand, women with a higher 2OH to 16OH ratio have a 40% less chance of developing breast cancer.

There is a second step in the breakdown of estrogen called methylation. This step takes 4OH and makes it less active in tissues and actually makes a form of estrone (called 2-methoxyestrone) which inhibits breast cancer. So if your methylation pathways are purring along wonderfully you can break estrogen down into beneficial metabolites. Key nutrients to support methylation are the B vitamins, folate, B6 and B12, and dietary sulfur (found in onions, garlic, cabbage family vegetables and in foods like whey and eggs).

The final step for estrogen breakdown is glucuronidation, a metabolic process in which the different estrogens bind with glucuronic acid in the liver and from there get excreted in the GI tract. At least that's what should happen. Magnesium is needed for glucuronic acid to bind with estrogen. If you aren't taking in enough, the estrogen will not be bound and will just continue circulating in the body.

Gut flora also influences glucuronidation. Pathogenic (harmful) bacteria in the intestines can cause estrogen to get uncoupled from the glucuronic acid. So instead of being carried out of the body, the estrogen re-enters circulation, and the woman will accumulate too much in her system. This pathogenic bacteria called beta-glucuronidase is associated with increased cancer risk.

Diets high in fiber and beneficial flora reduce beta-glucuronidase levels, and so promote good estrogen metabolism. A form of calcium called D-glucarate inhibits beta-glucuronidase and so is also a very helpful nutrient.

There are a couple of substances in foods that help healthy estrogen metabolism and have significant and strong evidence of being cancer protective. (See Laura's article for more information on that.) This is where most of the articles in popular women's magazines focus -- eating a diet that is high in these cancer protective substances; and while it is important to eat this way, unless you measure your estrogen metabolites with urine or saliva testing, you have no way of knowing if your diet is directing your metabolism to more of the healthy and fewer of the bad estrogen metabolites. (My new e-book explains estrogen testing in detail. Look for The Keys to Healthy Aging: Making Hormone Replacement Work for You, available from Total Health Breakthroughs in a few weeks.)

Other Influences: Thyroid and Insulin
The other two influences on breast cancer you rarely read anything about are thyroid health and high insulin levels. Laura's article discusses the diet and insulin connection to breast health, but medicine has known for some time that women with breast cancer have a higher than average degree of thyroid problems, including autoimmune thyroid disease and hypothyroidism.

We know now that any disease of autoimmunity raises cancer risk.5 Since it is known that people with autoimmunity have a suppression of natural killer cells, the cells that can fight and overcome cancer cells, this shouldn't be surprising. You may think that autoimmune thyroiditis and hypothyroidism are not that common, but they in fact are second only to diabetes as the most common endocrine disorders -- and they occur in anywhere from 10 to 30% of the population.6-7

To really get proactive against breast cancer, all women can and should get tested for the following:

Estradiol, estrone, progesterone, and estrogen metabolites.
Low thyroid and thyroid antibodies if you have any reason to suspect your thyroid is under-active.

Post-prandial glucose and insulin levels to ensure you are not developing insulin resistance.

Once you have an accurate reading on these vital hormone levels, an appropriate supplementation and dietary plan can be applied as needed.

References

1 Kabat GC, et al. Epidemiology. 2006;17(1):80-8.
2 Adly L, et al. Int J Cancer. 2006;119(10):2402-7.
3 Campagnoll D, et al. J of Steroid Biochem and Mol Biol. 97(5): 441-450.
4 Oldenburg H, et al. Critical Reviews in Oncology/Hematology. 200763(2);125-149.
5 Landgren O. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2006 Sep 20;98(18):1321-30; and Eur J Gastroenterol
Hepatol. 2000:12: 645-48.
6 Maruchi N, et al. Mayo Clin Proc. 1976;51: 263-5.
7 E-medicine from webMD. Hashimoto Thyroiditis, May 30, 2006.

[Ed. Note: James LaValle is the founding Director of the LaValle Metabolic Institute, one of the largest integrative medicine practices in the country. Dr. LaValle is the author of the bestselling book Cracking the Metabolic Code: 9 Keys to Optimal Health and is the Executive Editor of THB's The Healing Prescription…..]”

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"

“Healthy Nutrition:

Eating a Breast Cancer Preventive Diet

By Laura LaValle, RD, LD

If you have read any breast cancer prevention articles over the last month, you probably saw several articles on making sure your diet includes plenty of omega-3 fats as well as high antioxidant-containing foods like berries, colorful vegetables, beans/legumes, and green tea -- all to help your body keep damage from free radicals to a minimum. This is all good advice, but it does not adequately address the other side of the equation -- avoiding foods that promote inflammation in the body.

Prevent Insulin Resistance

Not controlling your intake of refined sugars, white breads, pastas, soft drinks and fast foods can lead to insulin resistance, which is a known contributor of inflammation and oxidative stress in the body1. Inflammation caused by poor dietary habits not only greatly increases risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease, but also increases risk of cancer, including breast cancer.2

Several large human studies have found that diet plays a large role in increasing inflammation and the risk of type 2 diabetes -- and that leads to an increased risk of cancer. The worst diets appear to be those high in fructose-sweetened soft drinks, refined grains, diet soft drinks, and processed meat and low in red wine, coffee, cruciferous vegetables, and colored vegetables.

One study found that insulin resistance even without the women being diabetic significantly increased breast cancer risk -- and this effect was even independent of body weight or body fat distribution.3 Another study of 60,000 women followed over 20 years found that being insulin resistant not only increased breast cancer risk, but increased the risk of being diagnosed with more advanced stages of cancer.4

So clearly, controlling insulin resistance is one of the most powerful ways we can reduce our breast cancer risk. For most people, this will mean eating diets that limit high glycemic index and high glycemic load foods.

Increase Levels of Protective Estrogen
As my husband Jim wrote, cabbage family vegetables which are high in sulfur compounds improve methylation in the body that helps prevent the buildup of unhealthy estrogen metabolites called 16OH. In addition to that, broccoli in particular, contains two substances, diindolyl methane (DIM) and indole-3-carbinol (I3C) that help the liver make enzymes that neutralize 16OH production.5-6

However, to achieve levels that significantly impact 16OH production, it's necessary to take it in a concentrated supplement form. Several clinical trials have demonstrated the ability of a DIM supplement to significantly increase the ratio of good to bad estrogen metabolites in as little as four weeks.7-8

Decrease Levels of Harmful Estrogen
Phytoestrogens are substances in plants that in effect, block bad estrogen metabolites from being able to exert their harmful effects. Phytoestrogens are found in many plant foods; soybeans, peas, beans, and pomegranates are foods that are particularly high in beneficial phytoestrogens. (Soybeans are a two-edged sword however, because with excessive intake they can inhibit thyroid hormone synthesis.)

Plant lignans are a type of dietary fiber found in high amounts in flaxseeds. Lignans increase something called sex hormone binding globulin, which can bind to estrogens and carry them out of the body. They also reduce levels of beta-glucuronidase, the pathogenic intestinal bacteria that prevents harmful estrogen metabolites from being eliminated. Regular inclusion of lignan-containing ground flaxseeds or flaxseed oils may help prevent breast cancer by aiding the body's elimination of excessive estrogen.

And finally, reducing your exposure to environmental estrogens (xenoestrogens) is important because they may trigger tissue proliferation much like excessive natural estrogens.9 Many pesticides are xenoestrogens, and this is the reason we recommend eating organically raised foods as much as possible. Phthalates in plastics are also xenoestrogenic, so avoid eating or drinking out of plastic containers or microwaving with plastic wraps.

References

1 Sies H, Stahl W, Sevanian A. J Nutr. 2005;135(5):969-72.
2 Schulze MB, et al. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005;82(3):675-84; quiz 714-5.
3 Bruning P et al. International J of Cancer 52 (4): 511-16.
4 Cust A, et al. J Breast Cancer Res and Treatment, July 2008.
5 Bradlow HL et al. Ann NY Acad Sci. 1996;768:180-200.
6 Bell MC, et al. Gynecol Oncol. 2000;78(2):123-129.
7 Dalessandri KM, et al. Journal of Nutrition and Cancer. 2004;50(2):161-7.
8 Wang Z, et al. Mol Cancer Ther. 2008 Feb;7(2):341-9.
9 Watson C, et al. Steroids. Feb. 2007; 72(2):124-134.

[Ed. Note: Laura B. LaValle, RD, LD is presently the director of dietetics nutrition at LaValle Metabolic Institute (formerly part of Living Longer Institute). She offers personal nutritional counseling at LMI for clients who need help with their diet in relation to illness or disease. Laura also provides educational services in the areas of health promotion, wellness, and disease prevention…..]”

X* X* X* X* X* X* X*

One of the aspects of their information and the information I posted on yesterday I find exciting is that following a health protective lifestyle protects your health in many other ways AND helps to prevent breast cancer as well.

1. Foods and supplements that support methylation are also known to slow aging, protect your heart and brain, and lower excess levels of homocysteine. These supplements include; NAC, n-acetyl cysteine, which also contains sulfur; DMG and TMG, di- and trimethly glycine; and the methyl version of B12, methylcobalamin, sold as "Brain B12." Also the supplement MSM, Methylsulfonylmethane, that is in many joint and arthritis pain supplements contains sulfur, as can be seen from its name and looks to be a methyl donor as well from the methyl in its name.

2. These 2 articles may also partly explain WHY taking 2,000 to 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 prevents cancer and breast cancer. Adequate vitamin D in your body tends to optimize your immune system responses and has been found to largely prevent autoimmune disorders. Since these articles say immune diseases suppress the production of your natural killer cells which kill off cancer cells, this means that taking vitamin D3 is critically important. Oddly, they don’t mention taking vitamin D3 in the article.

3. Vigorous exercise and eating lots of vegetables AND eating an adequate supply of lean protein every day and very rarely eating much of anything else and NEVER eating junk food or drinking soft drinks also tends to prevent breast cancer --as we posted about yesterday. And, since insulin resistance and high blood levels of insulin apparently help cause breast cancer; and these two actions specifically prevent or help reverse insulin resistance and reduce high insulin levels, that largely explains why these two actions help prevent breast cancer.

Taking the supplements alpha lipoic acid, chromium polynicotinate, and either eating cinnamon in your food daily or taking cinnamon supplements also tend to help your body manage insulin and blood sugars in a desirable way and may well also help.

It may also be worthwhile to eat foods that are spiced with red pepper or other hot peppers once a day. These spices have been found to reduce insulin increase after you eat.

4. Their research apparently confirms that taking the supplement DIM in addition to eating the cruciferous vegetables that contain it helps to prevent breast cancer.

5. Taking magnesium supplements or eating foods high in it so that you get at least 400 mg a day of magnesium; and taking probiotic supplements or eating yogurt with no sugar or artificial sweeteners added that contain live cultures of probiotic bacteria -- to compete with or eliminate harmful bacteria; all apparently help in allowing the healthy breakdown of estrogen which helps prevent breast cancer.

Adding the information in yesterday’s post and in today’s post, there are a LOT of things you can do that help prevent breast cancer. Many of them will also prevent other cancers or help protect your heart, brain, and overall health in other ways as well.

Get enough vitamin D but not too much....

Today's post: Tuesday, 9-9-2008

Recent studies have come out showing that vitamin D has very large health benefits of several kinds. If you take in enough vitamin D from sun exposure, food, & supplements you are less likely to get virtually all cancers or autoimmune diseases; you’ll be less depressed, particularly in the winter, and you may even get less hardening of the arteries & calcium loaded plaque in your blood vessels. That last benefit is significant as the evidence is doing that helps prevent high blood pressure, strokes, & heart attacks.

But, since many people in the United States, Canada, & Europe live far enough North to not get much vitamin D from sunshine for about half the year & increasingly people work indoors all day, the number of people who do not get enough vitamin D today from sun exposure is extremely large. And many of the most educated people have avoided going in the sun or always use sun block to attempt to prevent skin cancer in addition to where they live and work giving them less sun exposure.

Third, the original RDA for vitamin D of 400 iu is less than a fifth of the amount most people use or need to use each day from what I’ve read. And, in the summer, people who spend time outdoors during the day can get 10,000 to 15,000 iu a day of vitamin D from sun exposure.

From this set of information it seems clear to me that taking a total of 2,000 to 3500 iu a day of vitamin D3, the active form, is likely to be enough vitamin D to be beneficial but not too much. And, getting less than 2,000 iu a day may not be enough to protect your health.

However, when the benefits of retinol, the animal sourced kind of vitamin A were first understood, many people decided if 5,000 or 10,000 iu was good, 25,000 to 50,000 or more would be better & took too much for safety and good health.

So, I have wondered for quite a while what for sure was enough vitamin D & how much would you have to take to be unsafe & how, in your individual case, could you be sure you were taking enough for optimum health & health protection.

Read that exact information below. Today it was in an article on today’s Total Health Breakthroughs email.

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"

“Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Catch Some Healthy Rays

By Jon Herring

Have you ever noticed how you feel happier when you have a chance to sit or walk in the warm sun? Doesn't just going outside on a sunny day calm your nerves and lift your spirits?

By contrast, consider what happens and how you feel during the cold and dreary winter months. Many of us experience darker moods. We are more likely to become sick with colds and flu. We often gain weight and crave carbohydrates.

Then, come spring and summer, these symptoms magically disappear without treatment. Well, there is a reason for this.

Your body needs sunlight just like it needs nutrients. In many ways, your physiology is as closely linked to the sun as that of plants. Plants use sunlight to photosynthesize chlorophyll. By a comparable process your body uses sunlight to photosynthesize vitamin D -- a molecule that is vitally essential to almost every aspect of your biochemistry and physiology.

Decades of scientific research prove the importance of vitamin D. In addition to the noticeable lift it gives your mood, it also helps lower blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar; improves your immunity; regulates your weight; increases muscle strength; normalizes sleep cycles; and boosts brain function.

It has also been shown to prevent many chronic diseases, including the three biggest killers of our generation -- heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.

On the other side of the coin, a deficiency of vitamin D is clearly associated with increased risk of a long list of health conditions, including everything from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and autism, to bone and muscle pain, behavior disorders, depression, gluten intolerance, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, infertility and tooth decay... just to name a few.

And here's why this should matter to you:

It is estimated that more than 90% of the population is deficient in this vital nutrient (technically, it is a hormone), at least part of the year. That means there is a good chance that YOU are deficient, putting your health at risk, including potentially doubling your risk of cancer. With fall and winter weather coming soon, this is something you should address right away.

There are several risk factors for vitamin D deficiency. The most obvious is your lifestyle and the amount of sunlight you are exposed to. If you work indoors, spend most of your time indoors, and get very little sunlight on your skin, you are almost certainly deficient.

Three to five days per week, you should aim for at least 15 to 20 minutes in the sunlight (with as much of your skin exposed as possible).

Where you live is also a factor. In the mid to higher latitudes, UV-B radiation is extremely limited during the fall, winter and spring. In his book, The UV Advantage, Dr. Michael Holick shows that any area north of 35° latitude (or south of the corresponding latitude in the southern hemisphere) will not receive enough UV radiation to trigger adequate vitamin D production for approximately six months out of the year. In the US, this is anywhere above Atlanta, Georgia.

That means even if you spend a significant amount of time outside, about half the year the sun is too low in the sky for your body to produce vitamin D. Likewise, if you usually wear sunscreen when you are exposed to the sun, you are likely to be deficient. A sunscreen with an SPF of 8 reduces vitamin D production by 95%!

Other risk factors for vitamin D deficiency include your age (as you age, you need more sun to produce vitamin D), your skin type (darker skin types need more sun to produce vitamin D), and even your weight (vitamin D becomes trapped in body fat and cannot exert its effects).

In any case, the only way to really know if you are deficient is to have your blood tested for levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, also called 25(OH)D. It's best to measure twice a year -- once at the end of winter when your levels are lowest, and once at the end of summer when your levels are highest. At the very least, you should get an annual measurement. The gold standard vitamin D test is from the company DiaSorin.

To get an idea of what "normal" is, let's look at populations living near the equator where we all evolved from. At or near the equator, the average person has vitamin D levels around 50 ng/mL. This is considered optimal.

Here are the generally accepted graduated levels of vitamin D deficiency:

Extreme deficiency: 20 ng/mL (high risk of various conditions)
Clinically deficient: below 32 ng/mL (increased risk of various conditions)
Borderline deficient: below 35 ng/mL
Acceptable: 35-45 ng/mL
Healthy: 45-55 ng/mL, or
Optimal: 55 ng/mL
Excess: greater than 100 ng/mL
Intoxication: greater than 150 ng/mL
Ideally, you want to maintain a healthy year-round level around 50 ng/mL. The question now is, how much vitamin D do you need... and how can you get optimal levels when the sun is low in the sky?

The government says if you are a male or female between 1 and 50 years of age, you need only 200 IU of vitamin D per day. But according to current research, the government is dead wrong on this point. The recommended daily allowance will only serve to prevent the most serious deficiency.

In one study performed at Creighton University in Omaha, researchers found that adults will use 3,000 to 5,000 units of vitamin D per day, if it is available to the body.1 In other words, the amount your body actually uses on a daily basis is 20 times more than the government says you need!

Also consider how much vitamin D your body makes when exposed to sunlight. During the summer months, if you expose most of your body to direct sunlight until your skin turns very slightly pink, your body will produce approximately 20,000 IU of vitamin D. This is 100 times greater than the recommended daily allowance (RDA).

After a review of numerous studies, it appears that 4,000 IU of vitamin D per day, from all sources, is about optimal. If you get some (but not a lot) of sun exposure, then you probably only need to consume about 2,000 IU per day from food and supplements.

Finally, let's address how to get enough vitamin D when you cannot get it from sunlight.

It is important to recognize that very few foods naturally contain vitamin D. Those that do, provide only a small amount. For example, a 3.5 ounce portion of salmon (one of the richest food sources) contains just 360 IU. The same amount of sardines contains 270 IU. One egg delivers just 25 IU. You should definitely be consuming these foods, but don't expect them to affect your vitamin D status very much.

Cod liver oil is the most concentrated natural food source of vitamin D. But cod liver oil also contains a significant amount of vitamin A. And too much vitamin A can be harmful. To get the vitamin D you need from cod liver oil, could mean that you are consuming too much vitamin A. That's why I strongly suggest taking fish oil for the omega-3s (fish oil has no vitamin D), and getting your vitamin D from sunlight and dedicated supplements.

Most people should supplement with vitamin D in the late fall, winter, and early spring. You should also consider supplementing year round if you have darkly pigmented skin, are over 65, if you're overweight, or if you just can't bring yourself to go into the sun without sunscreen.

You can start by adding a good quality multivitamin to your daily routine. But most multivitamins are only a start. The average multi contains 400 IU of vitamin D -- only about 10 to 20% of what you need.

There are two companies that make dedicated vitamin D supplements I would recommend -- Carlson's and Bio-Tech Pharmacal. Carlson's brand is carried in many health food stores and they have products that contain 2,000 or 4,000 IU in small, easy to take gel caps.

For larger amounts, consider Bio-Tech Pharmacal, a federally licensed, FDA approved manufacturer that produces pharmacological doses of vitamin D in 1,000, 5,000, and 5,0000 IU strengths.

However, please note: you should never take more than 5000 IU of vitamin D on a regular basis without consulting a physician and having your blood levels tested. You want to measure your vitamin D levels periodically to make sure that you bring your levels into a healthy range, without overdoing it.

Don't wait. Arrange today, to have your vitamin D levels checked. If they're low, it's easy to fix. By taking these steps in the wintertime, you can boost your vitamin D to a healthy level year-round and dramatically reduce your risks of many chronic diseases.

Reference

Heany RP, et al. Am J Clin Nutr 2003; 77(1): 204-10.
[Ed. Note: Dramatically reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes... by spending just a few minutes each day in the sun? Yes you can! Achieving optimal vitamin D levels is one of the most important (not to mention one of the cheapest and easiest) ways to ensure great health. And Jon Herring and Dr. Al Sears tell you everything you need to know in their groundbreaking new book, Your Best Health Under the Sun.]”

X*X*X*X*X*

In the paragraph above, "For larger amounts, consider Bio-Tech Pharmacal, a federally licensed, FDA approved manufacturer that produces pharmacological doses of vitamin D in 1,000, 5,000, and 5,0000 IU strengths.", I believe that the last strength number is a typo because 5 with 5 0's after it is correctly written as 50,000. And, I think that is what was meant.

In my case, I decided to take two capsules a day of a 400 iu vitamin D3 supplement from fish oil that does have about the same amount of vitamin A as retinol since my multi has beta carotene only for A. And, twice a day, I take 1,000 iu of D3 using the Carlson brand Jon Herring recommends in his article. So I’ve added 2800 iu a day of D3 to the 400 iu I get in the multi I take. So, even on a day when I get less vitamin A & D fortified milk than usual and little or no sun exposure, I get at least that 3200 iu of vitamin D3 every day.

Since both kinds of vitamin D I take cost about $6 for 100 capsules, buying both costs abut $12 including sales tax. That means the 2800 iu of vitamin D3 I started taking in addition to my multi vitamin costs me about 24 cents a day or $7.20 a month.

And, now that I know my blood level can be measured and what I’d like it to be from this article, I’m curious to find out if the vitamin D I’m getting puts me closer to 30, which is a bit too low, or closer to the 50 to 55 this article says is the optimum level.

Since I don’t get outside a lot, I may find that my level is 28. If that happened, I’d certainly try taking another 1,000 iu of vitamin D. But since I’ve been taking what looks close to the correct amount of vitamin D for several months, it may be in the 42 to 56 range already. If I measured there, I think I’d not take more.

However, it may be that amounts in the 50 to 60 range have therapeutic effects. If I find that is the case & test at 28 I might add 2 or 3,000 iu; and I’d add 1 or 2,000 iu at the 42 level.

Between what I ate growing up and as a young man, my family history, and accumulated stress effects, I likely have some calcified plaques in my blood vessels to get rid of even though my HDL & triglycerides are close to optimum now. So, if getting my blood levels to the 50 to 60 range would help get rid of some of those calcified plaques in my blood vessels I may want to take more vitamin D than I would otherwise.

Similarly, if I were diagnosed as having slow growing prostate cancer or any fast growing kind of cancer, I might well want to boost my blood level of vitamin D to the 50 to 60 range.

Even more good news about vitamin D....

Today's post: Thursday, 9-4-2008

Unusually high levels of calcium in the blood may help cause increased calcium deposits in the plaque that is deposited on the walls of your arteries.
And, increased calcium deposits in arteries is both very predictive of future heart attacks and tends to create hard to treat or reverse high blood pressure from decreasing blood vessel flexibility caused by the hard calcium deposits.

A recent health news article also reported that unusually high levels of calcium in the blood was predictive of prostate cancer.

However, that same article noted that one of the methods available to effectively lower such excessively high blood levels of calcium is to take vitamin D.

Apparently, as we are all descended from people who spent most of their lives outdoors which gave our ancestors ample vitamin D from sun exposure, we evolved to process calcium properly to go into bone growth and repair instead of building up in our blood by having the use of thousand of iu’s daily of vitamin D from that sun exposure. In other words, abundant vitamin D became a necessary part of the normal processing of calcium in our bodies.

In the case of prostate cancer, the higher levels of blood calcium might help the growth of cancers cells in some way. But, there have been so many studies now showing that vitamin D helps prevent cancer, my bet is that both the increase in prostate cancer and the high blood levels of calcium are caused by insufficient vitamin D.
But if it is the calcium being high that causes the increase in prostate cancer, since taking enough vitamin D will bring it down, this study strongly suggests anyone wishing to avoid or slow prostate cancer should be sure to get enough vitamin D.
In fact, regardless of which way the causation goes, this study strongly suggests anyone wishing to avoid or slow prostate cancer should be sure to get enough vitamin D.

The wonderful news that taking enough vitamin D also looks to be strongly protective for your heart from this action to prevent excessively high levels of calcium.
Similarly, it also looks as if it will lower high blood pressure in some people and be quite likely to keep it from getting worse for people who take enough vitamin D.

Some people today still get a lot of sun exposure even in the winter to some degree because they spend all day outside as a part of their work every day. Mail carriers are one example.

For those people who still work outside the 400 iu a day in a multivitamin may be enough vitamin D because they get several thousand iu a day from sun exposure.

But for almost everyone else today who likely works inside most days, it looks as if the desirable intake of vitamin D3 is at least 2,000 iu a day in addition to the 400 iu from a multivitamin.
And, since sun exposure can help generate 10,000 iu a day or more of vitamin D, the optimum level of vitamin D intake may be closer to 10,000 iu a day.
The good news is that 1,000 iu capsules of vitamin D are quite inexpensive with 100 going for about $5 or $6 now. 5,000 iu capsules are not much more costly.

A doctor local to me who specializes in treating heart disease is using higher doses of vitamin D with his patients. I hope to get some input from him on his rationale and results from giving his patients as much as 50,000 iu of vitamin D. If I am able to do so, I’ll post that information here.

Meanwhile I now take 2400 iu a day of vitamin D in addition to the 400 from the multivitamin I take & any I get in foods or from sun exposure.

After reading this information on vitamin D’s likely ability to help prevent heart disease, high blood pressure, and prostate cancer, I’m very glad I no longer take less.

Optimism, happiness, & vitamin D protect your health....

Today's post: Tuesday, 7-1-2008

Suppose you eat right and get exercise every week.

And, you take many supplements to protect your health already.

Can you get healthier, and protect yourself from heart attack, stroke, & death in other proven & powerful ways?

Two very powerful ways were in the news I read today.

One came in my health email & the other was on Yahoo news.

1. Vitamin D turns out to be undersupplied to many people today who work inside all week & then watch TV inside during a lot of their weekends.

This means that most people no longer get enough sunshine produced vitamin D. So to have enough vitamin D in your body supplements are essential. And, in study after study, we are finding that people need more like 3,000 to 4,000 iu a day of vitamin D than the 400 once thought to be enough. (In the 1930’s when people walked more & spent a LOT more time outside it may have been. For most people today, that is no longer true.)

We’ve posted already on the value of taking at least 1,000 to 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D in its D3 form. It helps prevent depression & bad moods. And, it helps prevent all cancers. It also helps prevent osteoporosis as it helps the calcium you eat build your bones. There is even some evidence it prevents MS & other autoimmune diseases.

The email I got today reported a study that found that compared to people who didn’t get enough vitamin D, people who did were less much likely to die each year than the people who did not – of ALL causes. And, this was even true in people with existing heart disease. Wow.

Vitamin D3 in 1,000 iu capsules is very inexpensive. They run something like $6 including tax for 100 capsules.

So, in addition to any multivitamin you take, it might really pay you to add 1,000 or 2,000 iu of vitamin D each day.

2. And, it turns out optimism & doing the things that maximize your happiness produce positive effects on your health that may be even more powerful in protecting your health than taking vitamin D.

Here’s my excerpt of the article I found today on Yahoo in its news headline display.:

“The Keys to Happiness, and Why We Don't Use Them
By Robin Lloyd, Special to LiveScience posted: 27 February 2006”

(& Found on Yahoo News page on Tues, 7-1-2008)

“The Keys to Happiness….”

“What works, and what doesn't

Happiness does not come via prescription drugs, although 10 percent of women 18 and older and 4 percent of men take antidepressants, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Anti-depressants benefit those with mental illness but are no happiness guarantee, researchers say.

Nor will money or prosperity buy happiness for many of us.

Money that lifts people out of poverty increases happiness,
but after that, the better paychecks stop paying off sense-of-well-being dividends, research shows.

One route to more happiness is called "flow," an engrossing state that comes during creative or playful activity, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has found. Athletes, musicians, writers, gamers, and religious adherents know the feeling. It comes less from what you're doing than from how you do it.

Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California at Riverside has discovered that the road toward a more satisfying and meaningful life involves a recipe repeated in schools, churches and synagogues. Make lists of things for which you're grateful in your life, practice random acts of kindness, forgive your enemies, notice life's small pleasures, take care of your health, practice positive thinking, and invest time and energy into friendships and family.

The happiest people have strong friendships, says Ed Diener, a psychologist University of Illinois. Interestingly his research finds that most people are slightly to moderately happy, not unhappy.

"There are selfish reasons to behave in altruistic ways," says Gregg Easterbrook, author of "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse" (Random House, 2004).

"Research shows that people who are grateful, optimistic and forgiving have better experiences with their lives, more happiness, fewer strokes, and higher incomes," according to Easterbrook. "If it makes world a better place at same time, this is a real bonus."

Diener has collected specific details on this. People who positively evaluate their well-being on average have stronger immune systems, are better citizens at work, earn more income, have better marriages, are more sociable, and cope better with difficulties.”

X* X* X* X* X* X*

(I added the bolding to the points in this article that struck me as significant. They were NOT in the original.)

University of Pennsylvania’s Martin Seligman studied what aspects of optimistic thinking produced these effects. He found two very different factors.

a) He found that people who think bad things are temporary, specific in their bad effects, & have specific causes – and often can be changed, were more optimistic.

Since these things are often true, in this aspect optimistic people tended to be much MORE realistic than the pessimistic people who tended to think that bad things are permanent, incomprehensible, & likely ruin everything.

This factor makes them dramatically more able to withstand bad events & to recover from them.

In their relationships with other people, this aspect of optimism is incredibly powerful & effective.

This makes optimistic people more likely to believe people who are acting badly are in a bad mood or having problems temporarily instead of believing such people are bad & will always act badly. This makes optimistic people more forgiving & understanding & easy to live with. It’s why their marriages & friendships last and tend to go at least moderately well.

b) He also found that optimistic people tended to think good things are permanent & that the actions they take are likely to make things better & be effective than people who are pessimistic.

(I think it likely that the reason that regularly remembering things you are grateful for & doing small acts of kindness make people happier and less depressed is that they strengthen the belief of the person doing them that good things are permanently in their lives & that they are effective in doing things successfully.)

The bad news is optimists often believed in their own effectiveness more than the facts indicated & were sometimes less accurate & realistic about their chances of success than the pessimists.

The good news is that if they were also prudent about how they took risky actions, they would take actions to make things better & continue to do the things that worked & continue to try new things when their attempts did not work.

They visualized a successful outcome & took action.

By contrast, the pessimists would tend to fail to act or would give up easily if their first attempts failed.

Bottom line, the pessimists were perceptually more accurate. But the optimists were dramatically more effective in almost every area of their lives.

For this reason, optimists are much more likely to exercise, stop smoking or never start, believe that eating right will protect their health & do it, and to take supplements.

They also tend to have more social support and make more money from both of these factors.

It’s hardly any wonder that they have better health than the pessimists.

New way to prevent & overcome colds...

Today's post: Thursday, 2-14-2008

A news article today that I found online on in the Health section of Yahoo News reveals that taking probiotics may sharply reduce the number of colds you get & make the ones you do get about 40 % less severe. Not bad !!

And, after it, I’ll list another supplement that recently has been discovered to have a similar effect.

1. Here’s the article.:

"Friendly" bugs cut respiratory illness in runners Wed Feb 13, 7:12 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - A type of probiotic -- the term for bacteria supplements deemed to be good for health -- boosted the immune system of long-distance runners, according to an Australian study published on Thursday.

Twenty elite male athletes, competing in events ranging from 800m to the marathon, were enrolled in an experiment that coincided with intensive winter training.

The volunteers were given the probiotic Lactobacillus fermentum, in the form of freeze-dried powder in gelatin capsules, or a dummy lookalike capsule called a placebo that contained harmless starch. Neither they nor the researchers knew what the individual capsules contained.

Each runner took the probiotics daily for a four-week stretch, followed by a four-week "washout period" in which they took nothing. They then followed this with the placebo for four weeks, followed by another "washout."

The bug did not change athletic performance but did reduce respiratory illness, according to the researchers, led by David Pyne of the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.

Seven of the runners reported having respiratory problems, such as a sore throat, a cough, runny nose, chest congestion and sneezing on days when they took the placebo.

These problems were recorded on a total of 72 days and rated on average 1.7 on a scale of severity, where three was the highest mark.

But when they took the probiotics, only three of the runners reported respiratory problems. The symptoms occurred on only 30 days and rated 1.0 for severity.

In addition, blood samples showed that levels of interferon gamma -- an immune-system molecule that is a key player in fighting viral infection -- doubled during the "probiotic" period.

Lactobacillus fermentum is a lactic acid bacterium that is well established as a treatment for (diarrhea) and other gut infections.

Probiotics are increasingly showing up in food products, led by Lactobacilli -- the germ that provides the sour taste in yoghurt and other fermented dairy foods.”

********

(I added the bold emphasis of the good results myself.)

JarroDophilus from the Jarrow company, is the one I take. It has Lactobacillus acidophilus & two other of the lactobacillus family & two other probiotics. One a day is effective; & it’s not expensive to take that much.

(Probiotics are safe for almost everyone. However, there is a serious inflammatory condition called pancreatitis in which probiotics are harmful.)

2. It’s been known for some time that a daily multiple vitamin & mineral that includes vitamin C, zinc, & magnesium helps keep your immune system strong.

It’s main benefit is not so much that your immune system will be unusually powerful but that taking the daily multiple vitamin & mineral will prevent your immune system from being weak. That helps prevent pneumonia & other secondary infections when you do get a cold.

However, one of the vitamins that is in a daily multiple vitamin & mineral has been recently discovered to be at only about a fifth or a seventh the desirable dose.

It seems that our bodies need to use about 2,000 to 3,000 iu of vitamin D a day. And, with mostly inside jobs, particularly during the winter, few people get enough sun exposure to produce that much.

And, when people take 2,000 to 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D, it strongly boosts the immune system.

This not only helps prevent colds & help speed recovery from them, it appears to help prevent all cancers as well.

Even better, vitamin D is cheap. 100 caps of 1,000 iu of vitamin D3 (the biologically active version) cost only $5 or $6.

So, the JarroDophilus may help prevent or speed recovery from colds & flu based on the news story.

But vitamin D is proven to from what I’ve read.

(By the way, the reason I think the probiotics may be as strong as vitamin D or stronger is that I take both & my wife only takes the vitamin D.

She got a moderate case of the current really bad cold while I got an extremely mild one day bout.)

I hope these two supplements work as well for you as they seem to have been doing for me in escaping being sick this cold & flu season.

PS: If you do get a cold or flu, in addition to taking these two supplements, get as much extra rest as you possibly can AND, drink a LOT of extra water.

Doctors say to drink extra water. But very few explain how much it actually does for you. It helps keep you from fainting or getting pneumonia & other secondary infections.

But of greater short term value to you, it changes your feeling when you are sick from feeling debilitated, weak, nonfunctional & HORRIBLE to just feeling a bit sick.

Stop the winter blues (aka SAD)…..

Today's post: Thursday, 12-27-2007

1. In an earlier post, I wrote that a surprisingly effective way to stop the winter blues or turn down the winter blues is to take as little as a 10 minute walk at lunch time – or near Solar Noon.

The physical cause is lack of sunlight. And, even though our eyes may make cloudy or rainy, overcast weather look like there’s very little sun since they adjust to the light levels, light meters show there is many times more light outside on such days than it looks like they could possibly have to offer.

One man the writer Dale Carnegie wrote about went on a cruise where it rained every day. He took a short lunchtime walk anyway every day he was on the cruise. Everyone else got depressed. He did NOT.

The readings on the light meter show why it worked for him.

Walking has also been shown to turn down depression & bad moods even in the summertime as well. So you get a double effect.

So, if it’s safe for you to take such a walk where you live, give it a try.

2. But if it’s so cold or icy on the pavement it wouldn’t be safe – or – for even stronger protection, there’s a newly known & astoundingly easy thing you can add !!

Simply taking enough vitamin D not only works better to turn off the winter blues than the light box therapy that doctors have been prescribing, it offers many other health benefits.

One study estimates that taking 2,000 to 5,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 will prevent
77 % of all cancers. And, the immune system boost that likely does that for you also makes it less likely you’ll get colds, cases of the flu, & pneumonia. Not bad !!

It also helps that 1,000 iu supplements of D3 are quite inexpensive. Each capsule will cost you less than 6 or 7 cents.

Here’s an article on the subject that I wanted to pass along to you.:

Here’s a direct quote.: “In clinical trials, vitamin D has been shown to relieve depression more effectively than broad-spectrum light exposure.”

“ Got the Winter Blues? The Sun Will Make You Shine!

By Jon Herring

Do you get a little sadder in the winter, when darkness falls early and the sun is hidden in the clouds? If so, you're not alone. Seasonal changes cause more than 25 percent of the population to get the "winter blues" - technically known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

The symptoms include increased cravings for sweets and carbohydrates, longer sleep patterns, lethargy, fatigue, irritability, weight gain, insomnia, lowered motivation, and decreased sociability. In some cases, the long dark winter can even bring on full-blown clinical depression.

But there are several ways to prevent and treat this common condition:

• The best way to conquer SAD is to spend time outside in bright, natural sunlight. It's especially good to go out and play in the snow. There is a lower incidence of SAD in regions that get regular amounts of snow, probably because the snow reflects light.

• Phototherapy can also help lift your spirits in the winter. It involves exposing yourself to a light box that approximates the spectrum of daylight for 30 minutes to two hours a day.

• Most important, be sure to take a vitamin D supplement during the winter months. In clinical trials, vitamin D has been shown to relieve depression more effectively than broad-spectrum light exposure. In fact, in one study that compared vitamin D supplementation with the daily use of a light box for two hours, the symptoms of depression in the vitamin D group were resolved completely. Meanwhile, the phototherapy group saw no significant improvement.

If you're not able to spend time in the sun during the winter, you will need a good bit more vitamin D than the government's recommended daily allowance of 400 IU. Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council suggests 5,000 IU per day for adults during the winter months, and 1,000 to 2,000 IU per day for children. I don't know of any multivitamins that contain this much vitamin D, but Carlson's makes a convenient 2,000 IU soft gel that you can find …”

“By being proactive, you can fight back against seasonal depression and enjoy winter... and the holidays... just like you did when you were young.

[Ed. Note: Jon Herring, a copywriter for Early to Rise, is co-author, with Dr. Al Sears, of the book Your Best Health Under the Sun. ….]”

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

Slash your pneumonia risk 6 ways….

Today's post: Thursday, 12-20-2007

1. Start by cutting your risk over 60 percent by getting by getting the pneumonia vaccine.

This one is the most important since, it cuts your risk so much. In addition, by adding the other five steps to getting the pneumonia vaccine, you begin to approach 100 percent protection.

If your body reacts properly to it, you actually get closer to 85 to 90 percent protection from the vaccine alone. But some of the people over 60 who need the protection most have less response to it.

The clear implication is that the younger you are when you get your first shot, the better your protection is likely to be.

So, if you haven’t gotten yours yet, our suggestion is to get it soon !!

If your holiday schedule gives you some extra time off, get it before the end of the year. And, if your holiday schedule is already over-filled, get it by mid-January for sure.

Since it takes 2 or 3 weeks after you get it to protect you, you want to have that protection BEFORE you get the flu or are exposed to pneumonia. So, again, soon is best.

2. You tend to get fewer infections of all kinds if you get enough vitamin C. It apparently acts as an immune system booster. So if you get between 500 mg & 2,000 mg a day, your pneumonia vaccine is more likely to work. And, your chances of getting a strain of pneumonia that the vaccine doesn’t cover, also drop.

Oranges, bananas, berries, kiwi fruit, & other fruits also have many other valuable micronutrients besides vitamin C, so eating many whole fruits or drinking some real fruit juice each week is protective. They also have fiber which has many other health benefits. Lastly, they taste good !!

I personally eat two or three servings of fruit a day & drink grape juice. AND I take 1,050 mg of vitamin C each day. (My vitamin C supplement has 500; my B Complex Plus C Stress Formula from Solgar has 500; & my multivitamin- mineral tablet has 50.)

Since my vitamin C from what I eat & drink is less than 500 mg a day, I think taking this extra vitamin C is important.

3. Take 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D. Recent studies show that getting enough vitamin D is even more effective at boosting your immune system than almost anything else you can do. There is even some evidence enough vitamin D boosts your immune system so well it prevents many cancers.

It’s also been shown to help prevent getting tuberculosis, another very nasty lung disease.

Because most of us no longer work outside all day; & it’s now winter time, very few of us get enough vitamin D from sun exposure this time of year. Many of us work inside all day even in the summer now as well.

So recent research has shown that taking this much vitamin D is quite important.

The even better news is that vitamin D in the 1,000 iu per capsule size is really
inexpensive.

Since I learned this, I’ve taken more than 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D myself.

So if you get take 2,000 iu of vitamin D a day, your pneumonia vaccine is much more likely to work. And, your chances of getting a strain of pneumonia that the vaccine doesn’t cover, also drop dramatically.

4. And, there’s even more protection from pneumonia available.

Thanks to an email from Dr Al Sears that I got today, I found out that people who take enough of the mineral zinc, about 30 to 50 mg a day total, are both much less likely to get pneumonia AND to recover from it easily if they do still get it.

To put it mildly, very few of the people who get enough zinc die from getting pneumonia. The data Dr Sears found had that info also.

Even better, taking that amount of zinc also tends to raise your blood level of the protective HDL cholesterol. Does it work? Yes, the data do show a lower rate of heart attack in people who get enough zinc.

This effect may also be in part because getting that much zinc each day helps your body process sugars properly instead of you getting type II diabetes which sharply increases your heart attack risk.

Because taking that much zinc tends to lower high blood pressure, that may also help create the heart attack protection it provides.

And, there’s even more benefits to taking that much zinc. It helps prevent prostate problems & prostate cancer. (I suspect it may also help prevent breast & ovarian cancers in women as well.)

Important Notes: Unless you react badly to copper, it’s important in order to not have too little to take 2 or 3 mg a day of copper when you take this much zinc. Also, more zinc is NOT better, taking much more than 50 mg a day for more than a couple of days tends to REVERSE the effect. So do NOT do that.

5 & 6. Pneumonia is often a secondary infection that you get after coming down with a bad cold or the flu.

So, # 5. is to always get your flu shot.

That way you don’t get cases of the flu that might have triggered pneumonia. And, if you do get the flu, the chances are it will be mild enough, it won’t be able to trigger pneumonia.

But what if you do get the flu or a bad cold anyway?

That’s where # 6. comes in to protect you.

6. If you do get the flu or a bad cold, eat spicy hot foods or add some red cayenne pepper to your chicken soup every day that you are sick. Studies show this prevents bronchitis & excessive chest congestion.

When you eat the Chinese dishes like, Mongolian Beef or Kung Pao Chicken or you eat a spicy hot Mexican food or salsa, you break into a bit of a sweat on your forehead & your nose runs slightly.

That effect also happens in your lungs so you don’t get the build up of excess mucus to get infected.

You feel better when you prevent that. But even better, since you prevent it, there’s often not enough build up for bacterial pneumonia to grow well. So you are much less likely to get it.

Drinking a few extra glasses of water each day you are sick also helps to do this. It’s one of the reasons doctors say to do that. But few doctors explain how incredibly important & protective it is to do that.

Bottom line, if you take all these 6 steps, your chances of getting pneumonia approach zero. And, your chances of dying from it drop even more.

Most of them are pretty easy. Why not do them all?