WHY GOVERNMENTS ARE SELLING VITAMIN D SHORT

[Guest guest]

Reinhold Vieth is frustrated. A thin, bald professor at the University of

Toronto's Department of Laboratory Medicine and Patho-biology, Vieth is among

the most knowledgeable people in the world on the subject of vitamin D. He began

studying it as a graduate student in 1974 and hasn't changed his focus since. " I

stick with vitamin D and follow it where it goes, " he says.

In recent years, vitamin D has been going to some exciting places. Reports of

new and promising studies seem to emerge almost weekly. A 2007 analysis of

vitamin D studies found that individuals with higher vitamin D levels are

significantly – as much as 50 per cent – less likely to develop colorectal

cancer. Another 2007 study found that women who took 1,100 International Units

(IU) of vitamin D per day together with a calcium supplement reduced their

overall cancer risk by 60 per cent. And the excitement is not only about cancer

prevention. Low vitamin D levels have been linked to an increased risk of

osteoporosis, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, depression and

rheumatoid arthritis, among other diseases. Perhaps not surprisingly, in light

of the other studies, one recent review of the health records of more than

13,000 Americans found that individuals with the lowest vitamin D levels were 26

per cent more likely, in an eight-year period, to die than those with the

highest levels.

This article can be found at:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/11180df8-beaa-11de-b4ab-00144feab49a,_i_email=y.html