Lack of Vitamin D Behind Rising Cancer Rates?

Make sure you get out and get some sunshine every day and take your daily vitamins.  Two epidemiologists, brothers Frank and Cedric Garland from John Hopkins University, hypothesized back in 1974 that a lack of Vitamin D is linked to an increase in all kinds of cancer, most pronounced for colon cancer:

"Their hypothesis, painstakingly developed and published six years later in the International Journal of Epidemiology, was that sunlight has a powerful anti-cancer effect through its role in producing vitamin D in bare skin. Those living at northern latitudes, they theorized, receive less sunlight and make less of the vitamin, which in turn increases their risk of dying from cancer."

"....But the benefits of vitamin D are no longer restricted to cancer prevention: Studies have linked a shortage of the compound to such serious, chronic ailments as multiple sclerosis, diabetes, heart disease, influenza and schizophrenia."

"A U.S. study in 2007 found that overall risk of cancer in women was cut by 60 per cent when they were given 1,100 IU of vitamin D per day, plus a calcium supplement. Another study estimated the dose to cut colon-cancer risk in half: 1,000 IU daily. The amount estimated to cut breast-cancer risk in half: 4,000 IU daily."   

"...U.S. researchers estimate that vitamin D insufficiency causes up to 60,000 premature cancer deaths a year in the country, or nearly 10 per cent of total mortality from the disease."

I'm heading to GNC right now! Read the whole article for a review of the research. Here are some food sources:

"Some of the very few foods that contain vitamin D are: cod liver oil (1,300 IU per tablespoon); wild salmon (1,000 IU per serving); farmed salmon (250 IU); sardines (600 IU); fortified milk or orange juice (100 IU); egg yolk (25 IU); fresh shiitake mushrooms and some organ meats (traces in both). Most multivitamins contain 400 IU. Over-the-counter pills and drops contain up to 1,000 IU."

Comments

[Teresa]

I have never understood the almost pathological shunning of the sun that Dermatologists recommend. The planet and life revolve around the sun - without it we'd all be dead. Now that doesn't mean one has to go "bake" in the sun, but to completely cover every bit of skin and act as if a stray ray of light will kill you... how stupid is that!

I've had a melanoma removed - I'm not a sun worshipper... and yet I don't coat myself in SPF every morning. And here I am - still alive and kicking. I realize there are always "special cases" where people really do need to stay totally out of the sun...but we tend to make special cases into the norm in this country.

Hide from the sun? I don't think so.