Reinventing the Fountain of Youth
Posts tagged Vitamin D
Supplements: The Real Story Natural or Synthetic? Foods or Tablets?
12 hours
It’s a nutritional “Catch 22″: The public is told, confusingly: “Vitamins are good, but vitamin supplements are not. Only vitamins from food will help you. So just eat a good diet. Do not take supplements! But by the way, there is no difference between natural and synthetic vitamins.”
Wait a minute. What’s the real story here?
A recent health study reported that the risk of heart failure decreased with increasing blood levels of vitamin C [1]. The benefit of vitamin C (ascorbate) was highly significant. Persons with the lowest plasma levels of ascorbate had the highest risk of heart failure, and persons with the highest levels of vitamin C had the lowest risk of heart failure. This finding confirms the knowledge derived over the last 50 years that vitamin C is a major essential factor in cardiovascular health [2,3]. The study raises several important questions about diet and vitamin supplements.
Was it Food or Supplements?
The report discussed vitamin C as if it were simply an indicator of how many fruits and vegetables were consumed by the participants. Yet, ironically, the study’s results show little improvement in the risk for heart failure from consuming fruits and vegetables. This implies that the real factor in reducing the risk was indeed the amount of vitamin C consumed. Moreover, the study appears to utterly ignore the widespread use of vitamin C supplements to improve cardiovascular health. In fact, out of four quartile groups, the quartile with the highest plasma vitamin C had six to ten times the rate of vitamin C supplementation of the lowest quartile, but this fact was not emphasized. This type of selective attention to food sources of vitamin C, while dismissing supplements as an important source, appears to be an attempt to marginalize the importance of vitamin supplements.
Many medical and nutritional reports have maintained that there is little difference between natural and synthetic vitamins. This is known to be true for some essential nutrients. The ascorbate found in widely available vitamin C tablets is identical to the ascorbate found in fruits and vegetables [3]. Linus Pauling emphasized this fact, and explained how ordinary vitamin C, inexpensively manufactured from glucose, could improve health in many important ways [4]. Indeed, the above-mentioned study specifically measured the plasma level of ascorbate, which was shown to be an important factor associated with lower risk of heart failure [1, 2]. The study did not measure blood plasma levels of the components of fruits and vegetables. It measured vitamin C.
A known rationale for this dramatic finding is that vitamin C helps to prevent inflammation in the arteries by several mechanisms. It is a necessary co-factor for the synthesis of collagen, which is a major component of arteries. Vitamin C is also an important antioxidant throughout the body that can help to recycle other antioxidants like vitamin E and glutathione in the artery walls [2,3]. This was underscored by a report that high plasma levels of vitamin C are associated with a 50% reduction in risk for stroke [5].
Yes, Synthetic Vitamin C is Clinically Effective
We can almost hear “Unsubscribe” links being clicked as we state it, but here it is: synthetic vitamin C works, in real people with real illnesses. Ascorbate’s efficacy has little direct relation to food intake. A dramatic case of this was a dairy farmer in New Zealand who was on life support with lung whiteout, kidney failure, leukemia and swine flu [6]. He was given 100,000 mg of vitamin C daily and his life was saved. We have nothing against oranges or other vitamin C-containing foods. Fruits and vegetables are good for you for many, many reasons. However, you’ll need to get out your calculator to help you figure out how many oranges it would take to get that much, and then also figure how to get a sick person to eat them all.
It is established that liver function improves with vitamin C supplementation, and it is equally well known that adequate levels of vitamin C are essential for the proper functioning of the immune system. Vitamin C improves the ability of the white blood cells to fight bacteria and viruses. OMNS has more articles expanding on this topic, available for free access at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml .
Deficiency of vitamin C is very common. According to US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, [7] nearly half of Americans do not get even the US RDA of vitamin C, which is a mere 90 mg.
Synthetic Vitamin E is Less Effective
For some other nutrients, there is a significant difference in efficacy between synthetic and natural forms. Vitamin E is a crucial anti-oxidant, but also has other functions in the body, not all well understood. It comprises eight different biochemical forms, alpha-, beta-, delta- and gamma tocopherols, and alpha-, beta-, delta-, and gamma-tocotrienols. All of these forms of vitamin E are important for the body. Current knowledge about the function of vitamin E is rapidly expanding, and each of the eight forms of natural vitamin E is thought to have a slightly different function in the body. For example, gamma-tocotrienol actually kills prostate cancer stem cells better than chemotherapy does. ( http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v07n11.shtml )
Synthetic vitamin E is widely available and inexpensive. It is “DL-alpha-tocopherol.” Yes, it has the same antioxidant properties in test tube experiments as does the natural “D-alpha-tocopherol” form. However, the DL- form has only 50% of the biological efficacy, because the body utilizes only the natural D isomer, which comprises half of the synthetic mix [8]. Therefore, studies utilizing DL-alpha-tocopherol that do not take this fact into account are starting with an already-halved dose that will naturally lead to a reduction in the observed efficacy.
Then there are the esterified forms of vitamin E such as acetate or succinate. These esterified forms, either natural or synthetic, have a greater shelf life because the ester protects the vitamin E from being oxidized and neutralized. When acid in the stomach cleaves the acetate or succinate component from the original natural vitamin E molecule, the gut can then absorb a good fraction and the body receives its antioxidant benefit. But when esterified vitamin E acetate is applied to the skin to prevent inflammation, it is ineffective because there is no acid present to remove the acetate ester.
Based on USDA data [9] an astonishing 90% of Americans do not get the RDA of vitamin E, which is, believe it or not, under 23 IU (15mg) per day.
Magnesium Deficiency is Widespread
Magnesium is another example. Over two-thirds of the population do not get the RDA of magnesium.[10] Deficiency can cause a wide variety of symptoms, including osteoporosis, high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma, depression, and diabetes. Magnesium can be purchased in many forms. The most widely available form is magnesium oxide, which is not very effective because it is only about 5% absorbed [11]. Magnesium oxide supplements are popular because the pills are smaller — they contain more magnesium, but won’t help most people. Better forms of magnesium are magnesium citrate, magnesium malate, and the best absorbed is magnesium chloride. It’s always good to consult your doctor to determine your ideal intake. Testing may reveal unexpected deficiency. [12]
Well, Which? Natural or Synthetic?
While the natural form of vitamin E (mixed natural tocopherols and tocotrienols) is at least twice as effective as the synthetic form, this is not true of vitamin C. The ascorbate that the body gets from fruits and vegetables is the same as the ascorbate in vitamin C tablets. On first thought, this may sound confusing, because there are many so-called “natural” forms of vitamin C widely available. But virtually every study that demonstrated that supplemental vitamin C fights illness used plain, cheap, synthetic ascorbic acid. Other forms of ascorbate, for instance, the sodium or magnesium salt of ascorbic acid, are digested slightly differently by the gut, but once the ascorbate molecule is absorbed from these forms, it has identical efficacy. The advantage of these ascorbate salts is that they are non-acidic and can be ingested or topically applied to any part of the body without concern about irritation from acidity.
Further, it is known that essential nutrients are symbiotic, that is, they are more effective when taken as a group in proper doses. For example, vitamin E is more effective when taken along with vitamin C and selenium, because each of these essential nutrients can improve the efficacy of the others. Similarly, the B vitamins are more effective when taken together. Readers with dosage questions will want to consult their healthcare provider, and also look at freely available information archived at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml .
Food Factors
Natural food factors are also important. Bioflavonoids and other vitamin C-friendly components in fresh fruits and vegetables (sometimes called “vitamin C complex”) do indeed have health benefits. These natural components are easily obtained from a healthy, unprocessed whole foods diet. However, eating even a very good diet does not supply nearly enough vitamin C to be effective against illness. A really good diet might provide several hundred milligrams of vitamin C daily. An extreme raw food diet might provide two or three thousand milligrams of vitamin C, but this is not practical for most people. Supplementation, with a good diet, is.
The principle that “natural” vitamins are better than synthetic vitamins is a widely quoted justification for actually avoiding vitamin supplements. The argument goes, because vitamins and minerals are available from food in their natural form, that somehow one might suppose that we are best off by ignoring supplements. Apparently this is what the authors of the above-mentioned study had in mind, because the report hardly mentions vitamin supplements.
Conclusion
In the real world of today’s processed food, most of us don’t get all the nutrients we need in adequate doses. Most people are deficient in several of the essential nutrients. These deficiencies are responsible for much suffering, including heart disease, cancer, premature aging, dementia, diabetes, and other diseases such as eye disease, multiple sclerosis and asthma. The above-mentioned study showing the efficacy of vitamin C in reducing heart failure is but one of the many studies showing the value of vitamins. Others are discussed and available at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml .
For vitamin E, the natural form, taken in adequate doses along with a nutritious diet, is the best medicine. However, for most vitamins, including vitamin C, the manufactured form is identical to the natural one. Both are biologically active and both work clinically. It all comes down to dose. Supplements enable optimum intake; foods alone do not.
Don’t be fooled: nutrient deficiency is the rule, not the exception. That’s why we need supplements. When ill, we need them even more.
References:
1. Pfister R, Sharp SJ, Luben R, Wareham NJ, Khaw KT. (2011) Plasma vitamin C predicts incident heart failure in men and women in European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Norfolk prospective study. Am Heart J. 162:246-253. See also: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v07n14.shtml
2. Levy TE (2006) Stop America’s #1 Killer: Reversible Vitamin Deficiency Found to be Origin of All Coronary Heart Disease. ISBN-13: 9780977952007
3. Hickey S, Saul AW (2008) Vitamin C: The Real Story, the Remarkable and Controversial Healing Factor. Basic Health Publications, ISBN-13: 978-1591202233.
4. Pauling L. (2006) How to Live Longer And Feel Better. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, OR. ISBN-13: 9780870710964.
5. Kurl S, Tuomainen TP, Laukkanen JA, Nyyssönen K, Lakka T, Sivenius J, Salonen JT. (2002) Plasma vitamin C modifies the association between hypertension and risk of stroke. Stroke. 33:1568-1573.
6. Watch the Channel 3 New Zealand news report at http://www.3news.co.nz/Living-Proof-Vitamin-C—Miracle-Cure/tabid/371/articleID/171328/Default.aspx or http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xh70sx_60-minutes-scoop-on-new-zealand-farmer-vit-c-miracle_tech [ Note that each video is proceeded by a commercial, over which we have no control, and with which we have no financial connection whatsoever. ]
7. Free, full text paper at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1405127/pdf/amjph00225-0021.pdf
8. Papas A. (1999) The Vitamin E Factor: The miraculous antioxidant for the prevention and treatment of heart disease, cancer, and aging. HarperCollins, NY. ISBN-13: 9780060984434
9. http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminE/ ; scroll down to “Deficiency.”
10. Free, full text paper at http://www.jacn.org/content/24/3/166.full.pdf+html (or http://www.jacn.org/content/24/3/166.long )
11. Dean, C. (2007) The Magnesium Miracle. Ballantine Books, ISBN-13: 9780345494580
12. http://www.doctoryourself.com/epilepsy.html
Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine
Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org
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Vitamin D conspiracy leads straight to Big Pharma
0330 days
You’ve probably heard about the bad rap vitamin D has been getting lately. The argument goes something like this…the vitamin D crisis isn’t as bad as we thought. You probably don’t need as much of it as we thought. But it’s a free country. So go ahead and take 400 IU of it per day, if you want. That’s more than enough. Just don’t go over 4,000 IU per day. “High doses” like that can increase your risk for “harm”
These new guidelines come from the U.S. Institute of Medicine (or IOM), a powerful non-profit agency that advises the nation of matters of health. But here’s the problem: Their report is pure propaganda.
In fact, I believe these low doses of vitamin D are a deliberate attempt to keep the American public needing more drugs until the day they die. (I’ll admit, that sounds a tad paranoid. But I’ll explain why my paranoia is well-founded a moment.)
First, let’s look at the three major problems with the IOM research.
Leave it to the IOM to redefine “majority”
First off, the IOM report states that the “majority” of adults living in the U.S. get enough vitamin D…and that’s just nonsense.
As you’ll recall, last week I told you about a major CDC study that found almost 80 percent of Americans don’t get enough vitamin D. Plus, another major study published late last year by researchers from the University of Tennessee came up with similar results. In fact, this time researchers found that 87 percent of the general population is mildly to severely deficient in vitamin D. Even the most conservative estimates put vitamin D deficiencies at about 50 percent of the population.
So how the IOM can confidently claim the “majority” of Americans get enough vitamin D, I have no idea!
Spend a minute in the sun each day
The IOM report also states that “North Americans need on average 400 International Units (IUs) of vitamin D per day. People age 71 and older may require as much as 800 IUs per day because of potential changes in people’s bodies as they age.”
Again, this is pure nonsense. But before I go any further, here’s a quick biochemistry primer…
The IOM says you only need 400 IU of vitamin D. But they actually mean 400 IU of vitamin D3 (or cholecalciferol). Your skin makes this natural form of vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. In fact, spending just 30 minutes in the sun without sunscreen, your skin will produce anywhere from 10,000 IU to 50,000 IU of D3! Plus, you can also take D3 as a supplement.
Next…
Vitamin D3 passes through your liver and it turns into a pre-hormone called 25-hydroxycholecalciferol. This is abbreviated as 25(OH)D.
When you get a vitamin D blood test, we really want to see how much 25(OH)D is in your blood. We measure 25(OH)D in nanomoles per liter or nmol/l.
Now, stick with me, because here’s where it gets interesting…
According to the IOM report, taking just 400 IU of vitamin D3 per day will give 97 percent of us a blood serum level of 50 nmol/l. And that level will protect us from fractures. Sounds okay, I guess. But let me put this another way to show you just how silly the IOM recommendation really is…
Let’s assume that your body makes 10,000 IU of D3 for every 30 minutes spent in the sun without sunscreen. (Most experts say you make at least twice that much…but let’s not get picky.) So, how long does it take for your body to make 400 IU of D3?
Hurray! Just 1.2 minutes in the sun! That’s all you need to keep your bones strong.
Is it me, or does that just sound wrong?
Well, here’s the good news. It isn’t just me. It is wrong. And there’s some solid scientific proof to back me up…
IOM gets their numbers wrong
Two major meta-analysis’ from 2009 found that 50 nmol/l of 25(OH)D in your blood isn’t enough to protect you from a fracture or a fall. In fact, 28 separate studies found that 50 nmol/l isn’t enough!
Plus, the International Osteoporosis Foundation recommends men and women have 75 nmol/l of 25(OH)D. This is what it takes to protect you from accidental falls and fractures. Lastly, numerous studies over the years show that the more 25(0H)D in your blood, the greater your bone density. But to get up to those higher levels of 25(OH)D, you need more D3.
Plus, here’s another interesting twist. The authors of the IOM report most likely knew about all this research…they just chose to ignore it.
You see, before publishing the new vitamin D guidelines, the IOM board consulted with Dr. Walter Willet. The board even thanked Dr. Willet at the end of their report.
So who’s Dr. Willet?
He’s a vitamin D expert and Chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard. He also co-wrote one of the 2009 reports on vitamin D I mentioned earlier. The IOM, however, ignored his findings.
But don’t feel bad, Dr. Willet. Yours isn’t the only research the IOM ignored…
IOM report ignores research on vitamin D and disease
Remember how I told you the IOM said 400 IU of D3 is enough to protect you against osteoporosis? Well, what about everything else…like cancer and heart disease?
In a press conference, IOM chair Dr. Catherine Ross said “We could not find solid evidence that consuming more [vitamin D] would protect the public from chronic disease ranging from cancer to diabetes to improved immune function.” And with that simple statement, Dr. Ross lost all credibility.
Here are some of the best studies linking vitamin D and major diseases:
Breast cancer: Women with vitamin D blood serum levels less than 50 nmol/mL are eight times more likely to develop an aggressive form of breast cancer.
Colon cancer: Men and women with the highest vitamin D levels cut their colon cancer risk by 40 percent.
Heart Disease & Stroke: Men and women with low vitamin D double their heart attack or stroke risk.
Cognitive decline: Older women with low vitamin D are twice as likely to suffer cognitive impairment.
Diabetes: A whopping 91 percent of diabetics have low levels of vitamin D in their blood. Plus, the less vitamin D in their blood, the greater their blood sugar problems.
And I’m just scratching the surface here! If you want to look at all the scientific data on vitamin D, the Vitamin D Council is a good place to start. They list the studies by disease, so you can see all the scientific data Dr. Catherine Ross and her colleagues missed.
In closing, there’s one last reason why the IOM report has the pungent smell of propaganda…
There’s a rat in the house
Glenville Jones, PhD is one of the authors of the IOM report. He’s a scientist and also the co-inventor of drug made by a company called Cytochroma. This drug is still in development…but what condition will they treat with their top-secret drug?
You got it.
Vitamin D deficiencies!
(I’m not making this stuff up. You can see the patent for yourself at the U.S. Patent Office website.)
Dr. Jones also sits on the scientific advisory board of a drug company called Receptor Therapeutics. These guys also made a synthetic vitamin D treatment for cancer…in fact THREE synthetic vitamin D treatments for cancer. (Drug companies use synthetic vitamin D because they can patent it and make a huge profit. You can’t patent natural vitamin D.)
Well, isn’t that so thoughtful…
You don’t need to take vitamin D. But if you do happen to get cancer…guess who plans to have a vitamin D drug you can take?
Here’s the bottom line for you: Ignore anything published by the IOM. Take up to 5,000 IU of natural vitamin D3 each day. And avoid anything made by Cytochroma and Receptor Therapeutics.
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Today, the Food and Nutrition Board has Failed Millions
3415 days
After 13 years of silence, the quasi governmental agency, the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Food and Nutrition Board (FNB), yesterday recommended that a three – pound premature infant can take virtually the same amount of vitamin D as a 300 pound pregnant woman. While that 400 IU/day dose is close to adequate for infants, 600 IU/day in pregnant women will do nothing to help the three childhood epidemics most closely associated with gestational and early childhood vitamin D deficiencies: asthma, auto-immune disorders, and, as recently reported in the largest pediatric journal in the world, autism (1). Professor Bruce Hollis of the Medical University of South Carolina has shown pregnant and lactating women need at least 5,000 IU/day, not 600.
The FNB also reported that vitamin D toxicity might occur at an intake of 10,000 IU/day (250 micrograms), although they could produce no reproducible evidence that 10,000 IU/day has ever caused toxicity in humans and only one poorly conducted study indicating 20,000 IU/day may cause mild elevations in serum calcium but not clinical toxicity.
Viewed with different measure, this FNB report recommends that an infant should take 10 micrograms/day (400 IU) and the pregnant women 15 micrograms/day (600 IU). As a single 30 minutes dose of summer sunshine gives adults more than 10,000 IU (250 micrograms), the FNB is apparently also warning that natural vitamin D input “as occurred from the sun before the widespread use of sunscreen” is dangerous. That is, the FNB is implying that God does not know what she is doing.
Disturbingly, this FNB committee focused on bone health, just like they did 14 years ago. They ignored the thousands of studies from the last ten years that showed higher doses of vitamin D helps: heart health, brain health, breast health, prostate health, pancreatic health, muscle health, nerve health, eye health, immune health, colon health, liver health, mood health, skin health, and especially fetal health. Tens of millions of pregnant women and their breast-feeding infants are severely vitamin D deficient, resulting in a great increase in the medieval disease, rickets. The FNB report seems to reason that if so many pregnant women have low vitamin D blood levels then it must be OK because such low levels are so common. However, such circular logic simply represents the cave man existence of most modern day pregnant women.
Hence, if you want to optimize your vitamin D levels ‘not just optimize the bone effect’ supplementing is crucial. But it is almost impossible to significantly raise your vitamin D levels when supplementing at only 600 IU/day (15 micrograms). Pregnant women taking 400 IU/day have the same blood levels as pregnant women not taking vitamin D; that is, 400 IU is a meaninglessly small dose for pregnant women. Even taking 2,000 IU/day of vitamin D will only increase the vitamin D levels of most pregnant women by about 10 points, depending mainly on their weight. Professor Bruce Hollis has shown that 2,000 IU/day does not raise vitamin D to healthy or natural levels in either pregnant or lactating women. Therefore supplementing with higher amounts — like 5000 IU/day — is crucial for those women who want their fetus to enjoy optimal vitamin D levels, and the future health benefits that go along with it.
For example, taking only two of the hundreds of recently published studies, Professor Urashima and colleagues in Japan gave 1,200 IU/day of vitamin D3 for six months to Japanese 10 year-olds in a randomized controlled trial. They found vitamin D dramatically reduced the incidence of influenza A as well as the episodes of asthma attacks in the treated kids while the placebo group was not so fortunate. If Dr. Urashima had followed the newest FNB recommendations, it is unlikely that 400 IU/day treatment arm would have done much of anything and some of the treated young teenagers may have come to serious harm without the vitamin D. Likewise, a randomized controlled prevention trial of adults by Professor Joan Lappe and colleagues at Creighton University, which showed dramatic improvements in the health of internal organs, used more than twice the FNB’s new adult recommendations.
Finally, the FNB committee consulted with 14 vitamin D experts and ‘after reading these 14 different reports’ the FNB decided to suppress their reports. Many of these 14 consultants are either famous vitamin D researchers, like Professor Robert Heaney at Creighton, or in the case of Professor Walter Willett at Harvard, the single best-known nutritionist in the world. So, the FNB will not tell us what Professors Heaney and Willett thought of their new report? Why not? Yesterday, the Vitamin D Council directed our attorney to file a federal Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the IOM’s FNB for the release of these 14 reports.
I, my family, most of my friends, hundreds of patients, and thousands of readers of the Vitamin D Council newsletter, have been taking 5,000 IU/day for up to eight years. Not only have they reported no significant side-effects, indeed, they have reported greatly improved health in multiple organ systems. My advice: especially for pregnant women, continue taking 5,000 IU/day until your (OH)D] is between 50 ng/ml and 80 ng/ml (the vitamin D blood levels obtained by humans who live and work in the sun and the mid-point of the current reference ranges at all American laboratories). Gestational vitamin D deficiency is not only associated with rickets, but a significantly increased risk of neonatal pneumonia (2), a doubled risk for preeclampsia (3), a tripled risk for gestational diabetes (4), and a quadrupled risk for primary cesarean section (5).
Yesterday, the FNB failed millions of pregnant women whose as yet unborn babies will pay the price. Let us hope the FNB will comply with the spirit of “transparency” by quickly responding to our freedom of Information requests.
John Cannell, MD
1241 Johnson Avenue, #134
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
(1) Cannell JJ.. On the aetiology of autism. Acta Paediatr. 2010 Aug;99(8):1128-30. Epub 2010 May 19.
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Eternally youthful: Cliff Richard, 69, appears toned and bare chested in his 2011 calendar
The Official 2011 Cliff Richard calendar is on sale in stationery stores or online at www.danilo.comLow Vitamin D Linked to Schizophrenia
3500 days
There may be a link between sunlight, vitamin D and children’s brain development.
- Babies born with low vitamin D levels are shown to be twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.
- The finding may mean there could be a way to prevent cases of the disease.
- Scientists caution more research needs to be done to confirm the link.
Babies born with low vitamin D levels are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia later in life, researchers from the Queensland Brain Institute have found.
But the researchers say the good news from the study is that it suggests it may be possible to prevent schizophrenia.
John McGrath from the Queensland Brain Institute says there have been suggestions for some time that there may be a link between sunlight, vitamin D and brain development. He says it is increasingly clear children with low vitamin D levels are more likely to develop schizophrenia.
“For the babies who had very low vitamin D, their risk was about twice as high as those babies who had optimal vitamin D,” said McGrath.
But the amazing thing was that the study that was based in Denmark, where low vitamin D is quite common, we found that if vitamin D is linked to schizophrenia our statistics suggest that it could explain about 40 percent of all schizophrenias. That’s a much bigger effect than we’re used to seeing in schizophrenia research.
While the simplest way to get enough vitamin D is to spend more time in the sun, it remains unclear whether there are fewer cases of schizophrenia in a country like Australia which sees a lot more sunlight.
“We don’t have high-quality data on that, but some statistics suggest we do have slightly lower incidences and prevalence of schizophrenia,” said McGrath.
Like many other diseases, like multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia tends to be more common in places further away from the equator. And if you’re born in winter and spring you tend to have a slightly increased risk of schizophrenia also, and that was one of the original pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that led us to wonder maybe vitamin D could be implicated.
Ian Hickie from the Brain and Mind Research Institute in Sydney says he is not surprised by the results, however he says more research is needed.
So the real acid test is going to be trying to lift vitamin D levels in pregnant women and newborns and see whether there’s an effect on later schizophrenia,” said Hickie. “Or even in fact, looking at providing higher levels of vitamin D by vitamin D supplementation in other ways later in life and particularly childhood and the teenage years, to see whether you might reduce the risk of onset of schizophrenia.
Vitamin D supplements may prove an effective way to prevent schizophrenia. But McGrath agrees there is only a statistical link at the moment and that does not prove vitamin D deficiencies are to blame for schizophrenia.
“Because the treatment and the outcome can be separated by about 20, 30 years, we need to treat pregnant women and then wait for their offspring to develop schizophrenia,” he said. “It will be a very challenging study to do.”
It could be decades before scientists know for sure.
“But medical research tends to move at a steady pace. I think the other thing is that there are many other studies suggesting that vitamin D is good for baby’s bone health,” McGrath said.
So it may well be that recommendations will be made to women to increase their vitamin D status for more obvious outcomes, like baby’s rickets for example. If that happened then it may well be that schizophrenia would start to fall in decades to come.
But Hickie warns against spending too much time in the sun to get more vitamin D because that could increase the risk of skin cancer.
“Rates of melanoma and skin cancer are obviously very high in our country and directly related to sun exposure, particularly in childhood,” he said.
So on the one hand we need to be careful about over exposure to sunlight, on the other hand it may well be that in some places, or in some individuals, low levels of vitamin D may constitute a risk factor, particularly in pregnancy and therefore affecting the rates of vitamin D in newborn children.
So this is one of the issues that we’re going to need to look at clearly. I don’t think it means that everyone should be rushing out into the sun and necessarily putting themselves at risk of other sun-related cancers.
Even if vitamin D does make a difference, there are several other factors that may play a part.
A predisposition to the illness can run in families, chemical imbalances in the brain may be responsible and stressful events are often thought to play a role in the onset of the schizophrenia.
