Breast cancer and Vitamin D

There has been interesting developments around Vitamin D for some time, now. We were taught in school to be careful of the amount of Vitamin D to supplement, because it’s a fat soluble vitamin that can build up in the liver and cause more harm than good! However, we also learned about the ‘pre-vitamin’ stage of vitamin D when in school.

The latest study is particularly interesting because it was so dramatic; that women diagnosed with breast cancer are nearly twice as likely to see it spread and 73% more likely to die if they have low levels of vitamin D! This is huge and I’m sure will be researched more.

I won’t go into all the benefits other research is starting to show related to vitamin D. You can do a Medline search. But did you know that we can actually have our levels tested by measuring 25-hydroxyvitamin D.

How do you get more vitamin D? Sunlight exposure is a natural way to increase vitamin D. It’s particularly important that the forearms are exposed. But what if you don’t have much sun, such as in northern locations of the world during the winter? Then supplementation can be in order. However, just randomly taking high doses of vitamin D is STILL not a good idea. Get your levels checked; many insurance companies will now cover the test, then have a discussion with your doctor about how much to start taking. We may need more than we originally thought, but we still could cause ourselves more harm than good by taking more than our bodies need.

For a good article on Vitamin D, click here:
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/are-you-getting-enough-vitamin-d