Revealed: the best protection against cancer

[babsbunny]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/revealed-the-best-protection-against-cancer-1693138.html

Global study discovers astonishing power of vitamin made by the sun

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor

Saturday, 30 May 2009


Boosting levels of vitamin D could cut the incidence of breast cancer by a quarter, bowel cancer by a third and it should be offered to the population as part of a public health drive, scientists say.

The finding is based on a review of 2,750 research studies involving vitamin D, sometimes called "bottled sunshine", which show that taking daily supplements of the vitamin could do more for cancer prevention than a library full of lifestyle advice.

Vitamin D is made by the action of sunlight on the skin but the gloomy weather and long winter in countries north of 30 degrees latitude, such as the UK, means that a large part of the earth's population is deficient between October and March.

[begin_within]

1. except for skin cancer, which can be caused by too much sun

[BlooInBloo]

2. Details.

[begin_within]

4. You don't know about the relation between too much sun exposure and skin cancer?

[BlooInBloo]

6. That's one *possible* interpretation of what I said. Not a *good* one...

since there was no question mark, but possible nevertheless.

[begin_within]

16. Details.

[BlooInBloo]

17. :))))

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. Ten minutes of summer sun exposure will give you an adequate dose of Vitamin D

and will NOT increase your risk of skin cancer. (This is according to my brother the doctor.)

The biggest risk for skin cancer is among fair-skinned people who lie around in the sun for hours trying to bake themselves dark.

In fact, the first person I ever knew who got skin-cancer was such a person.

[dflprincess]

22. The local news did a piece last year about the importance of some sun exposure for kids

local pediatricians were finding too many kids developing rickets - something not often seen in the U.S. It's being blamed on parents being overly cautious about any sun exposure.

[shanti]

28. and then there are the others

a good friend of mine had melanoma, and she was wasn't raised in a sunny climate, neither was she a sun worshipper. she has very white skin tho, the type that never tans.

i was raised in SoCal, have fair skin that freckles lightly, and never have had melanoma. what i have had is several basals and lots of "pre-cancerous" spots. had a couple of severe sunburns, but all of the sun damage occurred before age 20, back in the days of baby oil and iodine. gives me the shivers to think about doing that now :(

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. A strange situation.... too little sun will not protect against it and

too much can cause it. Best to go easy on the sunblock if you are only get small exposures.

[BlooInBloo]

18. Um, pretty much EVERYTHING that's "good for you" is like that..

good in proper "dosage", bad in sufficiently excessive dosage.

[LeftishBrit]

32. Good point...

anything that is powerful enough to cure or prevent disease is also powerful enough to cause side effects.

[northernlights]

30. get your exposure in the early morning

or early evening hours, when the sun is at a low angle.

That maximizes your protection against high energy EM because the rays are traveling a longer distance through the atmosphere to reach you, and therefore considerably more atmospheric ozone then when coming straight down from overhead sun.

And as others have said, just a few minutes (we learned 15 minutes in anatomy & physiology) gives you ample Vit. D.

Also, you don't need to be totally exposed. Just your arms, or just your legs, or just your face will do. If you're very concerned about skin cancer, rotate the body parts that you expose.

[canetoad]

5. Ok, here is something interesting

I've been taking 2000iu of Vit.D for a while now. I don't think it's my imagination that I feel sharper, more energetic than previously. Who knows?

[azul]

7. hmm... could be. I don't remember.

Is Vitamin D Deficiency Linked To Alzheimer's Disease And Vascular Dementia?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090526140747.htm

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. I've been taking 2000 units of vitamin D since last summer

and I did not get a single full-fledged cold or flu all winter. This has never happened before. Never before have I gotten through a whole winter (in Minneapolis and Portland, which are both about 45 degrees north latitude) without contracting either a bad cold that set in for months or a severe flu. All I had to do when I felt "something coming on" was take a zinc tablet and go to bed early. The symptoms were always gone the next morning.

[I Have A Dream]

33. I was working up to 95 hours a week this past winter, and I also...

didn't get a cold. This is the first time ever, and it was the first winter since I increased my Vitamin D intake to 2000 iu.

The good thing is that Vitamin D supplements are also very inexpensive.

[Cha]

12. Vitamin D is the big seller in our co-op

thanks to a local Dr who is also a naturpath..we have to order it by the case every week in 400, 1000, 2000, and 5000 milligrams.

I take 2000 but can't wait until we start having some sunshiny days so I can bask a wee bit in the good ol Sol.

[diane in sf]

27. I had the same experience. I had been aking 400-1000 units previously, but when

I went up to 2000 I stopped catching flu and colds and I'm around classrooms full of students.

[d_b]

10. does anyone here take supplements?

recommend a brand?

[safeinOhio]

11. I take the cheapest ones I can find that say

D3. 1000 in the morning and 1000 at night. I'm 60 years old and don't feel a day over 57.:)

[Sal Minella]

13. I've ordered glucosamine-chondroitin-MSM from SwansonVitamins.com

for years and have always been pleased with their products and their prices -- shipping is $5 no matter how big the order (sometimes they have a free shipping special). I like their house brand but they carry name brands too.

[Mnemosyne]

24. Be careful with cholesterol and glucosamine-chondroitin, it can raise it as a side effect. :) n/t

[wuvuj]

14. I think about any brand of D3 would be OK....

...Puritan's Pride or Swanson are generally dependable.

[d_b]

19. thanks for the replies

[tabatha]

15. It depends upon the time of day.

"“Our recommendation, this is based on work in England and Norway, and the United States, that the optimal time to be in the sun for vitamin D production is near to solar noon as possible. That would be between say 10:00am and 2:00pm.

The reason is two-fold.

First of all, you need a shorter exposure time because the UVB is more intense.

Now, the second reason is that when the sun goes down towards the horizon, the UVB is filtered out much more than the UVA. And it turns out that the long wave of ultraviolet called UVA, which runs from about 320 to 400 nanometers, is highly correlated with melanoma -- where the UVB is the one that produces the vitamin D, and that’s from 290 to 315 nanometers,” Dr. Grant explains.

For instance, U.S. News & World Report featured an article on time in the sun, and in it Robyn Lucas, an epidemiologist at Australian National University, agreed with these findings.

“I believe we all need a little unprotected time in the sun during the middle hours of the day when the sun is at its highest and UV-B rays can penetrate the atmosphere,” she said.

If you want to get out in the sun to maximize your vitamin D production, and minimize your risk of malignant melanoma, the middle of the day is the best time and safest time to go.

“Squamous cell carcinoma is linked to lifetime ultraviolet B irradiants, whereas melanoma is linked to lifetime UVA irradiants, or sporadic sun burning in youth and things like that,” Dr. Grant says. “And so dermatologists, by telling people to put on sunscreen and avoid the mid-day sun, were actually giving recommendations that led to increased melanoma. And it’s because they didn’t carefully look at the wavelength dependents related to melanoma. And so they just didn’t figure out that they were giving bad advice.”

Both UVA and UVB can cause tanning and burning, although UVB does so far more rapidly. UVA, however, penetrates your skin more deeply than UVB, and is thought to be a much more important factor in photoaging, wrinkles and skin cancers."



http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/living-well-usn/2008/06/23/time-in-the-sun-how-much-is-needed-for-vitamin-d.html?PageNr=1

[elleng]

21. BUT dontcha know that

'Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the Mid-Day Sun!!!'

:rofl:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdEnxNog56E

[tabatha]

35. Yep, I know that well.

But, I have to agree with sun exposure thing.
After I started going out a lot more on walks, etc, I have not had the flu in many, many years.
And it all really started with the walks.
So, get interested in nature, and your health will take care of itself.

[Mnemosyne]

25. I remember being told over and over as a kid; "stay out of the sun between 10am and 2pm,

the sun it at its worst then."

:hi:

[tabatha]

36. Yep, I followed that, too, at one time.

[Mnemosyne]

37. Old habits can be soo hard to break, especially when we believed we were doing the

right thing to 'protect' ourselves.

:hi:

[applegrove]

20. Vitamin D is also good for aging brains.. men's especially. Sorry I don't have a link.

[Hannah Bell]

23. let's see the age-adjusted stats on incidence of all cancers sorted for serum v-d.

i for one don't buy it.

just the latest "miracle nutrient".

and press coverage/miracle nutrient hype follows research dollars.


A Prospective Nested Case-Control Study of Vitamin D Status and ...Higher vitamin D concentrations were associated with a 3-fold increased risk for pancreatic cancer (highest versus lowest quintile, >65.5 versus <32.0 ...

cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/66/20/10213 - Similar pages
by RZ Stolzenberg-Solomon - 2006 - Cited by 26 - Related articles - All 3 versions

[glitch]

34. in male Finnish smokers

"Our findings need to be replicated in other populations and caution is warranted in their interpretation and implication. Our results are intriguing and may provide clues that further the understanding of the etiology of this highly fatal cancer."

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18209335

edit for more info: http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind.asp
snip:
Cancer
Laboratory and animal evidence as well as epidemiologic data suggest that vitamin D status could affect cancer risk. Strong biological and mechanistic bases indicate that vitamin D plays a role in the prevention of colon, prostate, and breast cancers. Emerging epidemiologic data suggest that vitamin D has a protective effect against colon cancer, but the data are not as strong for a protective effect against prostate and breast cancer, and are variable for cancers at other sites <58-59>. Studies do not consistently show a protective effect or no effect, however. One study of Finnish smokers, for example, found that subjects in the highest quintile of baseline vitamin D status have a three-fold higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer <60>.

Vitamin D emerged as a protective factor in a prospective, cross-sectional study of 3,121 adults aged ≥50 years (96% men) who underwent a colonoscopy. The study found that 10% had at least one advanced cancerous lesion. Those with the highest vitamin D intakes (>645 IU/day) had a significantly lower risk of these lesions <61>. However, the Women's Health Initiative, in which 36,282 postmenopausal women of various races and ethnicities were randomly assigned to receive 400 IU vitamin D plus 1,000 mg calcium daily or a placebo, found no significant differences between the groups in the incidence of colorectal cancers over 7 years <62>. More recently, a clinical trial focused on bone health in 1,179 postmenopausal women residing in rural Nebraska found that subjects supplemented daily with calcium (1,400-1,500 mg) and vitamin D3 (1,100 IU) had a significantly lower incidence of cancer over 4 years compared to women taking a placebo <63>. The small number of cancers reported (50) precludes generalizing about a protective effect from either or both nutrients or for cancers at different sites. This caution is supported by an analysis of 16,618 participants in NHANES III, where total cancer mortality was found to be unrelated to baseline vitamin D status <64>. However, colorectal cancer mortality was inversely related to serum 25(OH)D concentrations; levels >80 nmol/L were associated with a 72% risk reduction than those <50 nmol/L.

Further research is needed to determine whether vitamin D inadequacy in particular increases cancer risk, whether greater exposure to the nutrient is protective, and whether some individuals could be at increased risk of cancer because of vitamin D exposure <58>.

[Mind_your_head]

26. Bacon is very high in Vitamin D, I've heard.....

:sarcasm:

Good sources of Vitamin D:

http://www.algaecal.com/vitamin-d-sources.html

[HOLOS]

38. http://www.iherb.com is usually 1/2 price of health stores, fast & no s&h:)

[Naturyl]

29. Interesting. Thanks.

I doubt I get enough Vitamin D and will be looking into this.

[LeftishBrit]

31. Problem is, overexposure to the sun can *cause* melanoma and other skin cancers

especially in very pale people.

I agree that taking vitamin D - in food or supplements - is important if you don't spend a lot of time in the sun. As regards being better than a 'library full of lifestyle advice' - it probably depends what your lifestyle is. E.g. smoking probably is the most dangerous for getting cancer.

I do take daily vitamin D, mainly to prevent osteoporosis, for which I'm at somewhat high risk; but I'm glad to note that it has other benefits.

[kimmerspixelated]

39. It is also good to note, that commercially made sunblocks

can cause cancer as well. They are full of toxic chemicals. There are several good varieties of sunscreen and block to be found at health food stores.

[Posteritatis]

40. Wonder how many will take this to mean it's "the" cure for it? (nt)