BACK               Vitamin D (dare I say D-3 )     

Vitamin D is a powerful cancer preventive agent. It has been known for more than 60 years that people who get a lot of sun exposure are also likely to have fewer cancer deaths and the UV ray penetrating the skin converts Vitamin-D to D-3 in our body. It is now rare for us to spend a lot of time in full strength sunlight, without clothes or sun protection getting in the way.

The same UV and sunlight that makes vitamin D3, if you get too much of this sunlight also causes skin cancer. Although vitamin D is a powerful cancer preventive agent, it does not prevent the development of squamous cell carcinoma in the skin. So sun should be in moderation, preferably in the early morning, before it gets the hottest.

Vitamin D tablets are metabolized by the liver and kidneys to form something called 25-hydroxy-vitamin D (25(OH)D, for short). It is now clear that vitamin D influences many organs including the intestines, bone, kidneys, pancreas, B cells, pituitary gland, breast tissue, placenta, lymphocytes, keratinocytes, colon, prostate and a few more.

One of the downsides of not having enough Vitamin D in the system, is the increased risk of many types of cancer, a situation that can be easily corrected with our Vitamin D supplements.

Increasing blood concentrations of vitamin-D improves calcium absorption efficiency by nearly two-thirds and reduces osteoporotic fracture risk by one-third. We are conditioned to think of osteoporosis as a problem faced by post-menopausal women. It is not quite that simple. Both men and women are at risk of thinning and brittle bones as we age, especially if we lead sedentary lives without weight bearing exercise. If on top of that we add the risk, the medical sickness industry factor of chemotherapy, especially with corticosteroid drugs such as prednisone, justly famous for their side-effect of leaching calcium out of bones, you can see why this is an important issue for chronic lymphocytic leukemia or “CLL” patients.

Since sun can be both the solution and the problem, it is possible to eat your cake and have it too. The answer to getting enough vitamin D without getting too much sun (and thereby running the risk of skin cancer) is swallowing two capsules of Vitamin “D”, our for example that have the right level and right type of vitamin D. The perfect sunlight is the early morning sunlight before the damaging UVA-rays get strong from late morning to evening sun.

With a few exceptions, there is little or no vitamin-“D” in the kind of foods that humans normally eat, unless they are artificially supplemented with the proper “D”. Adult Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for vitamin D has been set in this country and elsewhere by half the amount in a teaspoon of cod-liver oil. Our modern day RDA is based pretty much on that 19th-century folk remedy. American adult RDA for vitamin D has remained unchanged since the 1960s, it has been newly revised for people older than 70 years — it is now 3-times higher than the standard RDA. Why not load everyone to the gills with Vitamin D? In simple terms, mega doses of Vitamin D can cause hypercalcemia, which in layperson terms means there is too much free calcium (Ca²⁺) in the blood.

The calcium ion (Ca²⁺) concentration is controlled by two hormones, parathyroid hormone (PTH) and vitamin D. PTH keeps tabs on calcium concentration on a minute-by-minute basis. When the concentration drops, this hormone triggers the release of calcium from the stored reserves in your kidneys as well as your bones. It also converts vitamin D to its active form, which helps your gut absorb more calcium from the food you eat. Hypercalcemia is not something to take lightly. Left untreated, severe hypercalcemia quickly leads to coma and death. However, while hypercalcemia is clearly of concern if one is taking too much Vitamin D, published cases of vitamin D toxicity with hypercalcemia typically involve the intake of more than 40,000 international units (IU’s) per day.

Most nutritionists and researchers appear to agree that supplementation of Vitamin D with 1,000 IU’s daily, poses little risk of hypercalcemia. It is unfortunate this level of supplementation has been avoided even though the weight of evidence shows that this is a safe level, likely to provide some protection against cancers of many kinds.

Vitamin “D” is more powerful in our formula called our D-3 formula; vitamin D3 has been shown to have cytotoxic and antiproliferative properties in a variety of malignant cells. However, its potential as a treatment for B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) has not been evaluated.

Make sure you do not try to get an extra helping of Vitamin D by taking more of your usual multi-vitamin tablet. You may need to increase your Vitamin D intake, but you surely do not want to get more of everything else that the multi-vitamin tablet has. Several of the other vitamins are toxic at levels that are significantly higher than those in your daily multi-vitamin tablet and you do not want to go over the limit of these other vitamins.

Much has been learned, since a 1998 study, when it seemed like we were reinventing the wheel, trying to help those persons heal prostate disease as well as all the other diseases. That study in 1998 was the latest finding that showed this close correlation of Vitamin D deficiency to prostate cancer, and there were some suggesting, that vitamin D testing may replace the discredited PSA test of the blood, for prostate cancer.

According to the study, men with higher levels of vitamin D in their blood (typically transformed through early morning sunshine exposure) were half as likely to develop aggressive forms of prostate cancer, than those with less early morning sun exposure. Experiments also suggested vitamin D inhibits abnormal cell growth.

We are constantly getting our clients to take or Vitamin D, a powerful cancer preventive agent and to walk in the early morning sunlight to transform Vitamin “D” into “D-3” for strong bones and to allow the sun, just as it comes up in the morning-- to penetrate the retina and the backs of the knees to help balance cortisol and regulate sleep.