Vitamin D seems to be the new supplement to add to your medicine cabinet. Research shows that Vitamin D can help strengthen your bones, prevent cancer, help fight immune disorders, infections, and in addition to, increase your overall energy levels.
The benefits of Vitamin D seem to be a news headliner for 2008, but research shows that the sunshine vitamin just may improve people's lives. Although Vitamin D is naturally produced in the body through ultra violet rays from sunshine, most people are not exposed enough to receive the required amount to benefit.
With a study done in September 2007, 18 participants over the age of 50 were monitored by controlled trials – and found that those that took 500 units of Vitamin D daily had a seven percent lower risk of death than those that didn't consume it. There is no rhyme or reason as to why it lowers the risk of mortality says Dr. Phillippe Autier, but he suggests that vitamin D may block cancer cells from forming, and improve functions in the blood vessels and immune system.
This is part of a growing research, but even the Canadian Cancer Society noted in 2007 that individuals should up their dosage of Vitamin D to 1000 units during the fall and winter months. Researchers at Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha made it vocal that a study done revealed a 60 to 70 percent decrease in cancer rates in women over the age of 50, who took a daily dose of 1000 units of Vitamin D. The study was conducted over a period of 4 years, but critics cautioned that a larger study would have been more reliable. But, Reinhold Vieth, a nutritional scientist at the University of Toronto says this is the last building block for many researchers. He said that cells in the body use Vitamin D to produce a molecule that allows the cells to communicate with each other.
This communication between cells can stop cancer cells from being created. Cells can then distinguish what kind of cell they should be developing into, or if they should stop proliferating, and these are two values in terms of cancer development. Differentiation is key, so that the cells become well behaved cells and aren't replicating all the time.
Other developments of research focus on studies in the development of other types of cancers. At the University of California researchers suggest that taking 2000 units of Vitamin D, spending 10-15 minutes in the sun, and eating a healthy diet could lower the chances of cancer by two thirds. The same researchers found that rates of breast cancer were 50 percent lower in people with high levels of Vitamin D.
There is continual research being done about the effects of Vitamin D supplements, and besides the research done on Vitamin D fighting off cancer, other research also has revealed that taking this supplement can have positive effects on your overall health.
Vitamin D: The Cancer Fighter
