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Five-point vitamin D primer

SIRI AGRELL

From Monday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 1:45 PM EDT 02/05/07

How to improve your body's levels of the sunshine vitamin ...Read the full article

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  1. Jorly fuster from Canada writes: I find it amusing that the Globe and Mail see's itself fit enough to tell people where to get their vitamin D. Milk is probably the worst place to get any of your nutrients as it's loaded with chemicals, hormones, and PCB's. In addition, Milk is fortified with Vit D, it does not occur naturally. Soy milk is also fortified witht the same vitamins as cow's milk and way way healthier for you.
  2. Garry C from Toronto, Canada writes: I agree with Jorly. Milk is also the worst source of absorbable calcium - it is too high in animal protein, which helps leech calcium from the body. Get your calcium from green leafy vegetables. I digress...

    Our body produces one form of vitamin D, the sun helps transform it to the useable form.

    If you want more vitamin D, GO OUTSIDE!!!
  3. adam trudeau from hamilton, Canada writes: @Jorly: For a few extra bucks you can buy organic milk which is great. Soy is very controversial being just as risky a product as cow's milk to a lot of people

    @ Garry: Bodybuilders use 10 times the amount of protein that you are probably accustomed to to great effect. The leaching that you are talking about only occurs in cases where obscene amounts of protein are digested. The average person drinking a couple classes of milk and eating an 8 ounce steak should not worry. Also I'm not sure how sunny it is in Toronto from November to March but here in Steeltown, the sun doesn't come out at all. I do go outside as you recommend, but intense sunlight is what is needed.
  4. r z from EdmontonToronto, Canada writes: I wouldn't recommend soy milk for those who are estrogen-sensitive breast cancer survivors.

    Check with medical professionals, before you believe anything someone says.
  5. Timothy Nessus from Somewhere, Canada writes: Geee..... "alternative" medicine prooven right again....
    GOSH!!! What has the world come to!!!!!
    QUICK!!! Somebody inform the Medical Bueraucracy... this information MUST be suppressed or discredited!!!
  6. Vickky Angstrom from Calgary, Canada writes: Hmmm - if darker skinned people need longer exposure to sunlight to get their Vitamin D is this confirmed by a higher incidence of cancer in darker skinned people in Northern countries?
  7. grover station from Hamilton, Canada writes: adam trudeau - you say the sun doesn't come out in the Hammer between Nov and March... Hamilton has a lot of bridges, do you live under one of them? LOL
  8. Alistair McLaughlin from Ottawa, Canada writes: "He recommends going to the doctor three or four times a year and asking for a 25 Hydroxy Vitamin D level test."

    Yeah, that wouldn't cost our healthcare system anything. That's all we need. Perfectly healthy people running to their doctor four times a year to get their 25 Hydroxy Vitamin D test. What an absolute crock.

    And Jorly Fuster, milk is NOT full of chemicals. I eat massive quantities of dairy products - milk, yogart, cottage cheese, ice cream, whey protein derived from milk - have been for 35 years, and I'm the healthiest guy around.
  9. Jennifer Menna from Canada writes: Alistair - regarding the costs of the tests for 25 Hydroxy Vitamin D levels. If the research does actually so that over the long term cancer levels are lower with higher levels of vitamin D - then it will be cheaper to have everyone tested for the Vitamin D levels than to treat the cancer in persons with levels to low.

    That being said - most people don't see their doctors for a regular physical once a year (a great prevention tool) let alone have a test done 4 times a year.

    We really need to focus more on prevention - early detection of diease is the most cost effective way. If we actually had enough doctors so that everyone who wanted one could go for a yearly physical I am sure we would see a healthier society.
  10. Rob DeVore from Vancouver Island, Canada writes: Glad to see that the info on Vitamin D is starting to come out.
    Don't worry about the milk, just get some sun.
  11. Alistair McLaughlin from Ottawa, Canada writes: Jennifer, I don't disagree with a once-a-year physical. Nor do I disagree with the 25 Hydroxy Vitamin D test being part of that physical. However, 4 times a year is simply excessive, unecessary and wasteful. Once a year would be plenty enough. Doctor's offices are already full of attention-seeking hypochondriacs.
  12. Yvonne Wackernagel from Woodville, Canada writes: When my two sons were teenagers, our household went through 7 bags of milk a week at $2.99 a bag, and they have become very strong healthy individuals. Now at $5.99 a bag, how many people can afford to buy milk for their teenagers playing hockey, skiiing, and other strenuous sports?
  13. Grant S from Burlington, Canada writes: Consumer Beware!! To Much Vitamin D can be Bad!!
    Vitamin D is one of the 'Fat Soluable' Vitamins. That means if you take to much Vitamin D your body cannot excrete it in your urine.
    Viatmin A, D, E, and K are all fat soluable vitamins. All the other Vitamins will simply be excreted in your urine if you take too much.
  14. Pat Gesner from Canada writes: Vickky Angstrom , Darker skinned people do get skin cancer. Incidence I do not know, I do believe in Australia has the highest incidence of skin cancer and it is the lightest skinned people that have the highest incidence. It is definately known tht in nothern countries people with dark skin suffer from rickets. Look up BBC news for a bunch of reports going back years with immigrants having so much problems with vit D that their children were showing signs of rickets. It was quite a scare I would think since it was noticed after AIDS was named, were the investagators afraid it was some weird symptom of a new disease? (I remember a very politicaly correct pussyfooting to avoid saying covered up muslim women were as much a suffer of low vit c as people with very dark skin. The funny thing - it was so PC you did not what was the wort risk factors for rickets in the children. Was it was the pregnancy, the nursing , the diet(most muslims in UK do not come from a milk drinking culture so they were missing out on the vit d supplements in milk that had wipedout rickets in the UK ), or just that a covered up woman is not likey to go outside so that her child misses the oppurtunity for sun exposure. Dark skinned women, their children, covered up women and their children were the ones mentioned as being at risk.
  15. Jennifer Menna from Canada writes: Alistair McLaughlin I agree 4 times a year is excessive, I was just commenting on the cheaper costs of prevention verses treatment.

    I would say a once a year test would be acceptable provided that it was taken at a mid point in the year since sun exposure peaks in the summer. Or prehaps a twice of year test spring and fall. You don't even need to visit the doctor for the second test. I generally go to my doctor to pickup the req for my yearly blood work before my physical so that the results are available at my apointment. You could just be given a second req at your physical with instuctions to have the test done in 6 months and a phone call if there were problems with the results.
  16. Carla Michaud from Sudbury, Canada writes: I find it interesting that Dr. Cannell suggests that an adult would have to drink 40 glasses of milk to achieve their daily recommended dose of vitamin D. In fact, a single 8-ounce glass of milk, or fortified soy or rice beverage, provides adults up to the age of 50 with 45% of their daily recommended dose and provides adults over 50 with 23% of their daily recommended dose. With so few food sources available, Canadians should be made aware of the good sources which are available as unprotected sun exposure may not be appropriate for everyone.
  17. Jorly fuster from Canada writes: Alistair. you obviously have been harmed a great deal by your dairy intake as you think you're the healthist guy around. You've already set your body up for a myriad of degenerative diseases that will catch up to you later in life.

    But hey, it's your body, do whatever you want with it, I don't care.
  18. Anne Onymous from Swalwell, Canada writes: What I would like to know is more detail on the various types of vitamin D available, and recommended doses, as well as what levels may be harmful to some.

    I recall reading over the years that the types of D offered as supplements, including the type used to fortify milk are not complete substitutes for the real D made by our own bodies, and that, in fact, some of the artificial or incomplete D vitamins available may be harmful to some people.

    Again, as with virtually all health advice in popular media, the discussion of vitamin D seems, thus far, to be considerably oversimplied. It seems that these studies and articles deal with the "average" individual. Little mention is made of exceptions.

    Few of us are average, however, and some of us may be different enough that following advice for the average person may be harmful to us. Knowing what happens to non-average people in the same studies might give us some insight into the risks of believing them.
  19. Laura Dover from Calgary, Canada writes: There are three kinds of people in the world - the ones who can count, and the ones who can't. (I'm trying to figure out which group I belong to)
  20. Andrea Timmons from Kingston, Canada writes: Jorly Fuster who told you milk doesn't contain Vit. D? The truth is that milk does contain Vit. D but that the pasteurization process all our milk must legally go through before it's consumed, removes the natural Vit. D from the milk, so, the processors add synthetic Vit D, after pasteurization.
    We've become a synthesized nation & it's only now, many synthetic years later that we're learning how our society has been maniputlating our general health, (for our own good it says).
    I remember my ancestors on the farm drank raw milk cause they hated the phony taste of the pasteurized stuff but I was terrified if I drank raw milk that I would die, even though our cows were healthy & content friends.
    S Agrell will you please give some thought to writing a series of articles, re how well/or not synthetic vs natural supplements work in/for our bodies?
    Taking a synthetic pill our bodies cannot digest properly may be harming more than our pocketbooks. I swear ever since vitamin supplementation went from the heath food stores to mega pharmacies I'm sure the vitamins we're consuming at an astronomical level, are one of the biggest rip offs in our society.
  21. david y from Edmonton, Canada writes: Too much sun weakens you immune system by destroying white blood cells near surface of your skin.

    Mixing cause and effect, how do we know it is the vitamin d that is stopping the cancer rather than the healthy lifestyle that includes playing outside (rather than watching tv) that has effects of both reducing cancer

    Responding to other comments... if milk is so bad, where are the studies that prove so by people without a motive to attack milk?
  22. Blissful Girl from Vancouver, Canada writes: I find it annoying that SIRI AGRELL used Vancouver as an example of a place where you don't get enough sunlight to produce vitamin D. In fact, many of the least sunniest places in Canada are in Ontario and Quebec. It took me less than a minute to find http://www.on.ec.gc.ca/weather/winners/element.cfm which clearly shows that Vancouver is not even close to the least sunniest place in Canada. I understand the point was to begin the article with a witty barb...but wit requires intelligence, or at least enough basic intelligence to research your facts.
  23. Bonnie Baxter from Ottawa, Canada writes: All cow's milk in Canada is fortified with Vitamin D ; an adult only needs to drink 2 cups of milk a day to get 90% of their RNI for vitamin D. Why would the author of this article interview an American ??? Just another reason to happily live in Canada and drink Canadian milk (and it is NOT full of chemicals !)

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