As a health economist whose career was spent evaluating medical technologies, starting with the hypothesis that they do not work (i.e., show me!), it's been difficult for me to accept my own evolution to an advocate for Vitamin D testing and supplementation.
It took a failed hip replacement to get religion (as outlined in my Jan 1 post). Now, I may have tendency to go too far with my enthusiasm (see May 17 post), but I just found a great keynote presentation by Michael Holick, M.D., at a European medical symposium on calcium which explains why I'm a believer. Holick is a professor of medicine and physiology at the Boston University Medical School, and director of BU's clinical research center. We're not physicians, but this is still a fun presentation and will teach you a lot about why the medical profession is gradually coming around to the importance of Vitamin D. Ostoporosis, osteomalacia, fibromyalgia, rickets, TB, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, prostate cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, MS, ..etc. He'll make you understand the evidence and you'll enjoy the talk. So click on his presentation and take the 20 minutes to listen. Also - it will allay your fears (and maybe your doctor's fears) of overdoses.
Dr. Holick's own web page VitaminDHealth.org is geared toward physicians but is a great resource on clinical questions regarding D.
Update: June 22- A really interesting comment pointed to this blog post by an anthropologist whose contrary view seems very well reasoned.
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1 comment:
I'd be a little more circumspect. Remember how scientists got enthusiastic about antioxidants. Now they're not so keen.
Sunbathing is a totally modern fad and the rational for believing that vitamin D levels would be improved by it,(or need to be ) may be as flawed as the similar beliefs about antioxidants were.
Mad dogs and ....
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