Vitamin D Related Illnesses
Vitamin D related illnesses are becoming apparent with the new research that is being done on a regular basis these days.
What are these Vitamin D related illnesses and how do they know they are related to Vitamin D deficiency?
Overweight and Obesity
Vitamin D helps calcium absorption. When the diet lacks calcium there is an increase in fatty acid synthase, which is an enzyme that converts calories into fat. Higher levels of calcium with adequate Vitamin D inhibit fatty acid synthase while diets low in calcium increase fatty acid synthase.
In the past few years it has been found that high Leptin levels may be responsible for weight gain. Vitamin D lowers leptin secretion. Leptin is a hormone produced by fat cells and is involved in weight regulation. It is thought that the hormone signals the brain when fat cells are full, but exactly how the hormone controls weight is not entirely clear. Research is being done on a continual basis to find how it all works so we can have answers to controlling our weight.
Cancer
A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking Vitamin D had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn’t take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error.
One of the researchers who made the discovery, professor of medicine Robert Heaney of Creighton University in Nebraska, says Vitamin D deficiency is showing up in so many illnesses besides cancer that nearly all disease figures in Canada and the U.S. will need to be re-evaluated. “We don’t really know what the status of chronic disease is in the North American population,” he said, “until we normalize Vitamin D status.”
In the body, Vitamin D is converted into a steroid hormone, and genes responding to it play a crucial role in fixing damaged cells and maintaining good cell health. “There is no better anti-cancer agent than activated Vitamin D. I mean, it does everything you’d want,” said Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D Council.
Some may view the sunshine-vitamin story as too good to be true, particularly given that the number of previous claims of vitamin cure-alls that subsequently flopped. “The floor of modern medicine is littered with the claims of vitamins that didn’t turn out,” Dr. Cannell allowed.
But the big difference is that Vitamin D, unlike other vitamins, is turned into a hormone, making it far more biologically active. As well, it is “operating independently in hundreds of tissues in your body,” Dr. Cannell said.
Referring to Linus Pauling, the famous U.S. advocate of Vitamin C use as a cure for many illnesses, he said: “Basically, Linus Pauling was right, but he was off by one letter.”
There is so much new research going on in the Vitamin D and cancer prevention area, it is hard to keep up with it. It is very exciting that we may be able to prevent or at least lower the incidence of cancer in coming years. They are on the verge of saying, “Cancer is a Vitamin D related illness.”
Bones
Vitamin D related illnesses of the bone include rickets, osteomalacia and osteoporosis.
Rickets is a childhood disease where a Vitamin D deficiency causes soft malformed bones, osteomalacia is the adult form of rickets. Osteoporosis is porous bone. The disease reduces quality of bone in the body and often there are no symptoms until the bone fractures because it is so porous.
To prevent these diseases Vitamin D is essential. Vitamin D increases the absorption of calcium and regulates parathyroid hormone levels and serum calcium levels.
If Vitamin D levels are low and parathyroid hormone levels are high, calcium will be taken from the bones and may end up in the arterial walls, causing heart disease.
A Vitamin D dose of 700 to 800 IU in one study, reduced the risk of hip fracture by 26% and nonvertebral fractures by 23% vs using calcium alone.
Studies have found the following may also be Vitamin D related illnesses:
- Arthritis
- Diabetes
- Fibromyalgia
- Autoimmune diseases
There is a lot of information on Vitamin D Related Illnesses and it would take many hours of research to put it altogether. We have done that for you and in the following articles you will most likely find the information you are looking for. Click on any of the following articles:
