What’s the fuss about Vitamin D?

It is critical for you to know that, according to Ladd McNamera, MD:

“there are well over 89 medical studies showing that high vitamin D blood levels (which can only be obtained by supplementing with more than 400 IU/day …) reduce nearly all cancers, including cancers of the colon, rectum, breast, and prostate (some as much as 50%).”

Read more about Vitamin D at Ladd McNamera’s website. Then come back here to see what Usana is doing about it. In recent years, Usana added Vitamin D to the fish oil. Why?  In Usana’s “Ask the Scientists” feature, it explains:

“Many experts now believe that most people are not getting enough vitamin D. In addition, vitamin D is not found naturally in significant amounts in fish oil or fish oil products. Both omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D are essential to the diet, and fish oil is an ideal delivery medium for vitamin D (because vitamin D is fat soluble).
Based on a careful consideration of all these factors, we made the decision to integrate vitamin D into BiOmega.”

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4 Comments:

  1. At my Toastmasters meeting yesterday, Dr. Kennedy, a chiroprator, spoke on the value of Vitamin D. What confuses me is why the RDA is set at 400 units and many in the medical field emphatically state that that number is too low.

    Who decides the RDA?

  2. Great question! The RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) is set by the Food and Nutrition Board of NIH – a government agency. Basically, the RDA is – by their own definition – the lowest level of nutrient intakes that will prevent deficiencies in apparently healthy individuals. These minimal RDA levels may have helped us to avoid acute deficiency diseases, but the RDA of vitamins and minerals is not always enough to help prevent certain degenerative diseases or to provide protection from oxidative damage.
    As for Vitamin D, it seems that it takes a long time for policy to catch up with science. Clinical trials with humans (2007 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition) suggest a much higher upper limit as well, in the absence of toxicity.

  3. A lot of careful study and consideration goes into nutritional guidelines like the RDA, DRI, etc. Vitamin D has been especially scrutinized because it has a direct effect on calcium absorption by the body thus contributing to bone formation and strength. This means it would have implications on the possible development of osteoporosis or certain other bone diseases (rickets, etc.) Vitamin D is not an antioxidant. I’m not sure if usanajan meant to imply that it was or not, I just wanted to make sure that wasn’t being thrown out there as a claim. Vitamin D helps you absorb calcium. That’s it. But that is why foods like milk, yogurt and margerine are FORTIFIED with it! One glass of milk provides you with 25% of the RDA of Vitamin D (100IU’s) and I haven’t even got to the best part. Most people must not know this but there is a super easy way to get all the vitamin D you need for free! This is how you do it: GO OUTSIDE IN THE SUN FOR 5-10 MINUTES A DAY! UVB rays from the sun cause vitamin D formation in the skin, enough so that you can achieve your RDA by exposing your hands, arms and face to 40-60min of sunshine per week. I got this information out of my nutrition textbook – Nutrition for Health, Fitness & Sport, Melvin H. Williams. 8th Ed. – and I have a degree in Kinesiology so naturally I have a bias against nutritional quackery. That being said, I’m not naive enough to think that everyone out there eats a balanced diet, gets outside enough, drinks milk, exercises, etc… in fact if my degree taught me anything it’s that most people fail miserably at this. The point is this: if you have a few servings of dairy products a day and get outside in the sun for an hour a week you’re probably doing fine. If you feel like you need to take a supplement because you don’t do these things or you have risk factors for bone disease or osteoporosis then go ahead. A vitamin D pill a day won’t kill you, but be careful about megadosing especially with fat soluble vitamins (they stay in your body much longer). Vitamin D megadosing can lead to hypercalcemia which can lead to a myriad of uncomfortable symptoms including calcium deposits in soft tissues such as your kidneys. I found a good website giving a detailed overview of Vitamin D if you want more info:

    http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind.asp

  4. Thanks, Kin Guy, for your thoughtful response. Clarification – I did not mean to imply that Vitamin D was an antioxidant. Perhaps it was ambiguous b/c I was talking more generally about RDA’s and then referred specifically to oxidative stress.
    Good point too about sunshine – a wonderful and natural source of Vitamin D – though I believe sunscreen may limit these benefits. By the way, I don’t think the Vitamin D included in Usana supplements would be considered “mega-dosing”.

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