Posted on 11/30/2010 4:19:27 AM PST by decimon
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Vitamin D and calcium have been hailed as a possible antidote for cancer, heart disease and more, but a panel of US and Canadian doctors said Tuesday that the duo's only sure benefit is bone health.
After reviewing about 1,000 studies on the supposed links between low vitamin D levels and higher risk of serious diseases, the panel concluded that they showed inconsistent results, sometimes due to shoddy research methods.
The experts also issued new guidelines -- the first since 1997 -- for North Americans, saying people should take between 700 and 1,300 milligrams of calcium and anywhere from 600 to 800 international units of vitamin D each day.
Most people "probably don't have vitamin D deficiency, that is the first message," said Glenville Jones, a Canadian doctor who was on the 14-member committee for the US-based Institute of Medicine.
"We think there has been an exaggeration of the public's interest in vitamin D deficiency. (People) should be reassured that vitamin D deficiency is quite rare in North Americans at this point in time."
Just by eating a balanced diet and possibly taking a vitamin supplement in the winter, because sun exposure boosts vitamin D levels, most North Americans would have no difficulty meeting the recommended allotment, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Vitamin D from fish may not be a good idea if you take large doses!
It contains too much vitamin A, which is dangerous in large amounts.
As always, the correct analytical path is “FOLLOW THE MONEY!”
The medical scammers always run their “studies” with useless synthetic vitamins, even though they know better.
A healthy population will bankrupt the scammers.
I accidentally found that Vit C helps with pain. I shouldn't have been surprised as I once cured rheumatoid arthritis using Vit C.
Where do you get YOUR research?
LOL You need research to tell you people near the equator are darker?
Uh, we’re talking cancer, not skin color...do you think more melanin means less cancer? How do they get that melanin? Who has higher cancer rates? Lite or dark skinned people? (as a percent)
Yesterday's front page news in my local newspaper (Mobile Press-Register) was about a local doctor who said that 80% of her patients who she tested for vitaman 'D' had levels that were to low.
So....
And you're in Alabama. You're at a latitude where it's at least possible to make vitamin D from sunlight, year round.
I'm in New York. I supplement with vitamin D and I've posted quite a few articles favoring supplementation. But there are other opinions so I posted this.
Fair and balanced. ;-)
I avoid hospitals...they're full of sick people!
Ditto...I can't remember the last time I had a cold, and I live in New England...
Interesting. That one I hadn't heard. I truly believe that once all the science is settled that all those dermatologists who scared people into avoiding sunlight are going to have a lot to answer for.
BTW, I take 4,000 IU of vitamin 'D' a Day. I haven't been sick once in three years.
I've seen some of yours as well. I think what clinched it for me was what's on the NIH website. According to what's there, at my latitude, I can't make any vitamin D from sunlight for about a third of the year. That should mean, as a practical matter, that I'll make virtually none for two thirds of the year. And thinking about it, I probably don't make that much in the best third of the year.
Our culture gives us access to a huge variety of foods that people didn't have access to 75 years ago. And while some people may have spent more time outdoors back then, they tended to cover themselves head to toe with clothing. From reading the Little House on the Prairie books, I happen to know that it was not considered attractive to get tans back in the 1800s. What all of this means is that there is no reason to think that people ate a wonderfully nutritious diet, or had perfect nutrition back then: we're far better off today.
My whole point is that, if you identify a bona fide nutrient shortage in your diet, you are far better off making up for it by adjusting your diet than by taking pills. Few, if any pills, are actual supplements--they contain several times the RDA, whereas a true supplement would not even contain a full RDA, since the idea would be to make up the shortfall in your diet. Unfortunately, people think that if, you need 20 mg of nutrient X to be healthy, it must be 1000 times as healthy to take 20,000 mg of it. That is simply not true. Aside from acute toxicity issues, there aren't a lot of studies on the long-term health effects of taking mega dosage supplements. That doesn't mean they're safe--just that those studies aren't being done yet. The few done so far indicate that mega-doses can, in fact, have very deleterious effects long-term.
And you know that 10,000 years is enough to correct the Vitamin D deficiency?? I don't think so.
In 10,000 years, some quite noticeable changes in human physiology have occurred. Teeth, for example, have been shrinking. People are larger. With strong selective pressures, it does not take long at all to observe evolutionary changes. I doubt it took anywhere near 10,000 years, in fact, to adapt to the lower sunlight levels reaching northern latitudes--where the native people are paper-white.
My training is in biochemistry, specializing in toxicology.
So?? Completely irrelevant.
"And while some people may have spent more time outdoors back then, they tended to cover themselves head to toe with clothing. From reading the Little House on the Prairie books, I happen to know that it was not considered attractive to get tans back in the 1800s.
You don't have to "get tan" to photosynthesize Vitamin D. And I hardly consider the "Little House on the Prairie" to be scientific.
"My whole point is that, if you identify a bona fide nutrient shortage in your diet, you are far better off making up for it by adjusting your diet than by taking pills.
Sorry, but for Vitamin D, it can't be done. Photosynthesis, as I recall, generates the equivalent of 20,000 IU/day. Checking "high in Vitamin D" foods shows no way to reach that kind of level by diet.
"Few, if any pills, are actual supplements--they contain several times the RDA, whereas a true supplement would not even contain a full RDA, since the idea would be to make up the shortfall in your diet."
Since the main source of vitamin D is photosynthetic, and NOT diet, your argument fails.
"Unfortunately, people think that if, you need 20 mg of nutrient X to be healthy, it must be 1000 times as healthy to take 20,000 mg of it. That is simply not true."
A ridiculous exaggeration.
"In 10,000 years, some quite noticeable changes in human physiology have occurred. Teeth, for example, have been shrinking. People are larger. With strong selective pressures, it does not take long at all to observe evolutionary changes. I doubt it took anywhere near 10,000 years, in fact, to adapt to the lower sunlight levels reaching northern latitudes--where the native people are paper-white."
Neither you nor I know, and we have no way of knowing, how long those changes took, or the extent to which they took place. Homo sapiens of 10,000 years ago had teeth just like homo sapiens of today. You keep asserting a degree of certainty which simply does not exist in science in areas where we simply don't know the whole (or even a significant part) of the story. "Through a glass, darkly" is as good as it gets.
And likewise, we simply don't know what the optimal amount of many nutrients are, because we have not had the analytical (both chemical and statistical) to isolate and identify and quantify more subtle forms of deficiencies.
Sorry, but I'll keep taking my "D" supplements, and will likely increase the dose yet again to try to get my blood levels off of "bottom dead center". And I'll keep reading the peer-reviewed literature on the topic. As I said, "I" find the weight of evidence to be in favor of increased supplementation.
And my degree is in chemistry (PhD), with emphasis on analysis. And forty years of practice in the field has given me a much higher level of humility as to what the unknowns in science are. We know very little as yet. Your absolutist statements sound more like those of a new graduate than a long-term practitioner.
It's not irrelevant at all, considering that we have access to a far better and more varied diet now, and here are people popping tons of pills to try to... what? They heard that vitamins are good, and automatically assume that more is better. Which it isn't.
You don't have to "get tan" to photosynthesize Vitamin D. And I hardly consider the "Little House on the Prairie" to be scientific.
No, it's not scientific: it's the perspective of someone who actually grew up during the time. If you don't believe someone's memoirs of the time, you can easily go to museums and see the old pictures of people covering themselves against contact with sunlight. I point this out because you described people getting their vitamin D from spending tons of time in the sun outdoors--which obviously was not the case. You only need a few minutes of sunlight to fill your needs (unless you have a metabolic defect preventing you from adequately photosynthesizing vitamin D or you are dark skinned).
Sorry, but for Vitamin D, it can't be done. Photosynthesis, as I recall, generates the equivalent of 20,000 IU/day. Checking "high in Vitamin D" foods shows no way to reach that kind of level by diet.
Photosynthesis produces what you need, no more (because of biofeedback mechanisms, I think).
"Unfortunately, people think that if, you need 20 mg of nutrient X to be healthy, it must be 1000 times as healthy to take 20,000 mg of it. That is simply not true."
A ridiculous exaggeration.
Really? It's not that much of an exaggeration. Have you ever picked up a multivitamin supplement and looked at how much some of the vitamins and minerals exceed the RDA? This one provides 25X the RDA of Vitamin B-6, as well as several times the RDA of several other vitamins. Linus Pauling, a big advocate of the "more is better" belief, took 12,000 mg of Vitamin C, or about 160X the RDA, every day, and on occasion bumped it up to 40,000 mg (~533X RDA).
Neither you nor I know, and we have no way of knowing, how long those changes took, or the extent to which they took place. Homo sapiens of 10,000 years ago had teeth just like homo sapiens of today. You keep asserting a degree of certainty which simply does not exist in science in areas where we simply don't know the whole (or even a significant part) of the story. "Through a glass, darkly" is as good as it gets.
The tooth shrinkage is something I remember from genetics class. Apparently, the shrinkage has accelerated over the last 10,000 years. As far as other changes go, one only has to look up how long ago modern humans settled in various places and note how different they are from the "parent" groups to get an idea of how fast their evolution has occurred. These are not unanswerable questions.
Your absolutist statements sound more like those of a new graduate than a long-term practitioner.
It's been 9 years since I got my PhD, so I don't have quite as much "field experience" as you; however, I've never encountered any PhD who runs around acting like they essentially don't know anything, which you seem to imply is how I should express myself. I have not said a single thing which either is not verifiable (I verify with Google before I post), or which is not implicit in the principles of toxicology and/or biochemistry.
Bump, and thanks for the post and ping!
There’s a lot of good info there.
Garbage. We simply DO NOT KNOW what the "adequate level" of Vitamin D really is. New research indicates higher than currently recommended.
"I point this out because you described people getting their vitamin D from spending tons of time in the sun outdoors--which obviously was not the case."
That is exactly the case. People got FAR more sunlight even 75 years ago than we do today. People "covered up to the neck" IN PUBLIC. what went on when "not in public" is another story. And a farmer in the sun from dawn to dark even wearing a longsleeve shirt and long pants got FAR more sunlight than pretty much anyone does today (they called'em "rednecks" for a reason). And his wife out working alongside him did too, despite the long dress and bonnet.
And those "top to toes" clothes certainly did NOT block all sunlight. One of my "hats" is spectroscopy, and I have had my nose repeatedly rubbed in the fact the photons are slippery little bastards, and WILL get where you don't think they possibly ever could.
"Photosynthesis produces what you need, no more (because of biofeedback mechanisms, I think)."
You think??
"Really? It's not that much of an exaggeration. Have you ever picked up a multivitamin supplement and looked at how much some of the vitamins and minerals exceed the RDA?
So some pills have excessive levels. So what?? This does not prove that people as a whole get excessive levels, or take them.
"The tooth shrinkage is something I remember from genetics class. Apparently, the shrinkage has accelerated over the last 10,000 years.
LOL. The study is talking about 100,000 years, and the operate word is "might". Or did you simply not read the first paragraph.
"As far as other changes go, one only has to look up how long ago modern humans settled in various places and note how different they are from the "parent" groups to get an idea of how fast their evolution has occurred. These are not unanswerable questions."
All you can tell from that is that there has been a change in a particular direction, not that the change has been sufficient to overcome subtle deficiencies that the new statistical tools are finding.
"It's been 9 years since I got my PhD, so I don't have quite as much "field experience" as you...""
As I expected. Tell you what, get back to me in ten more years.
"I have not said a single thing which either is not verifiable (I verify with Google before I post), or which is not implicit in the principles of toxicology and/or biochemistry."
Again LOL. Google ain't a science source either (bad grammar deliberate). Even "Google Scholar" is inadequate to actually understand what is going on. As I said, see me in ten years after you have learned that science is not nearly as certain as you seem to think.
And again, your arguments are NOT convincing. There is simply too much epidemiological evidence piling up that higher than current levels of Vitamin D are necessary for optimal health.
As I originally said, I eat a healthy diet (lots of multi-colored veggies), yet my blood "D" levels are abysmally low. So obviously I am NOT getting enough sunlight OR supplements according to the hard physical evidence of bloodwork.
I don't think that a diet consisting solely of fish livers and mackerel is one I could stand (or survive on).
So I'll stick to my supplements, thank you. If I could even get the blood levels up to 25 I'd be happy.
No, we don't know what the "adequate level" is, nor will we likely ever know. And that's true for any mineral or vitamin. There will never be a fully defined diet; humans are too genetically diverse, and the concept of a "defined" diet is far too nebulous. That is why the RDA is determined in much the same way as exposure limits for radiation or toxins: it includes a buffer zone. Also, I don't know how many "studies" you look at; I look at them every day. They are, at best, limited, and tend to make conclusions that really aren't supported by the data. If you went to the link of the article that begins this thread, the experts who came out with the new recommendations said essentially the same thing about the reliability of studies (and they reviewed over 1,000 of them). In any case, there clearly is not an epidemic of malnutrition caused by lack of essential nutrients; we'd be bombarded with news about it if that were the case.
That is exactly the case. People got FAR more sunlight even 75 years ago than we do today. People "covered up to the neck" IN PUBLIC. what went on when "not in public" is another story. And a farmer in the sun from dawn to dark even wearing a longsleeve shirt and long pants got FAR more sunlight than pretty much anyone does today (they called'em "rednecks" for a reason). And his wife out working alongside him did too, despite the long dress and bonnet.
Again, there is no evidence that they got more sunlight then than today. They made efforts to shield themselves from direct sunlight. And are you trying to say that clothes today are UV-opaque in a way they weren't back then? I don't buy that. I've also observed that most people do go outside quite frequently, even in cold snowy wintery places. They have to, if they work.
So some pills have excessive levels. So what?? This does not prove that people as a whole get excessive levels, or take them.
No, it just means that people who pop pills daily for their health are getting excessive levels. There are few studies that really look into the long term effects. Since my background is toxicology, it goes against everything I was taught to just start consuming large amounts of any bioactive substance willy-nilly. The dose makes the poison, and all that.
LOL. The study is talking about 100,000 years, and the operate word is "might". Or did you simply not read the first paragraph.
You should have read the second paragraph.
"Now anthropologists at the University of Michigan have produced strong evidence identifying the onset of this evolutionary trend, establishing the rates of size reduction and showing that in the last 10,000 years tooth size on average has been shrinking at twice the rate it had been for the previous 90,000 years."
As I expected. Tell you what, get back to me in ten more years.
I'll retire in ten years. I may not have had my PhD as long as you, but I'm not actually that much younger than you. I seriously doubt that my scientific philosophy is going to change significantly in that time; if reading hundreds (thousands?) of papers so far hasn't changed it, what is reading thousands more going to do? Or talking to hundreds more fellow scientists?
I think your issue is not that I am "so certain" of what I say; it is that I refuse to jump on the bandwagon with the believers of nutritional supplementation, and my reasoning is based on my science background. I actually don't usually participate in these discussions; they bear a strong resemblance to the creation threads (you don't get anywhere trying to argue with a creationist either).
Again LOL. Google ain't a science source either (bad grammar deliberate). Even "Google Scholar" is inadequate to actually understand what is going on. As I said, see me in ten years after you have learned that science is not nearly as certain as you seem to think.
Google Scholar? I think I've used it--once? But what regular Google gives me is tons of articles. The little 2-3 line intro gives me an idea of whether the article might give useful info, or whether it's someone trying to make a buck, or push an agenda. If the article contains useful info, typically it states its sources. I can then go to those sources if I want. Another option for me is PubMed. I don't use it as often; I find that going through Google actually gives me a more directed search with more useful results. And what I mean by "useful results" are the original research articles--like those published in JBC, Science, Journal of Cell Biology, etc.
Ironically, as many times as you've accused me of believing in absolute, settled science, I've actually said many times during this thread that it is NOT settled, and that there is still a TON we don't know. In fact, my first paragraph in this post reiterates that whole theme.
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