Vitamin D Deficiency Behind Many Western Cancers?

twilight30 wrote us with a link to an article in the Globe and Mail. If further study bears out the findings, new research into the causative agents behind disease and cancer may have a drastic impact on the health of citizens in Canada and the US. According to a four-year clinical trial, there's a direct link between cancer and Vitamin D deficiency. "[The] trial involving 1,200 women, and found those taking the vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn't take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error. And in an era of pricey medical advances, the reduction seems even more remarkable because it was achieved with an over-the-counter supplement costing pennies a day. One of the researchers who made the discovery, professor of medicine Robert Heaney of Creighton University in Nebraska, says vitamin D deficiency is showing up in so many illnesses besides cancer that nearly all disease figures in Canada and the U.S. will need to be re-evaluated. 'We don't really know what the status of chronic disease is in the North American population,' he said, 'until we normalize vitamin D status.'"

Comments

now the counter argument... ?

[lems1]

Now I'm waiting for another research showing that the intake of vitamin D causes some other serious illness...

So typical.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[nullChris]

... like cancer!

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Xiroth]

Now I'm waiting for another research showing that the intake of vitamin D causes some other serious illness...

OK. Skin cancer. The main source of vitamin D in humans is through exposure to sunlight. Increase that without being careful and your risk of skin cancer goes up. Also, vitamin D overdosing from supplements is entirely possible and does have nasty side effects, although it's not possible from natural production due to exposure to sunlight.

There we go, cynicism confirmed, and it wasn't as bad as all that. Now, let's get down to reality: as vitamins, the vitamin D group have been identified as essential for human nutrition. Not useful, essential. As in, we would die without it. There's strong evidence, in fact, that the reason people that moved away from the equator developed paler skin was to maintain high production rates of vitamin D. So, quite frankly, even if the intake of vitamin D killed us, we'd have to have it as if we don't take it we die anyway, therefore the entire point is moot.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Detritus]

You can poison yourself with excessive amounts of vitamin D. Then again, you can poison yourself with almost anything if you try hard enough.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[kripkenstein]

Now I'm waiting for another research showing that the intake of vitamin D causes some other serious illness... So typical.

You are wise to be skeptical of such reports, but unwise if you disregard them completely. Yes, medical history is full of contradictions to previously known nutritional 'facts', and this one may be falsified in time as well. Yet, each case should be considered on its merits, not by some blanket "other research will show the opposite, so let's ignore them all".

Specifically, this vitamin D hypothesis has data backing it up (60% is a startlingly high number, but this will have to be replicated), as well as making sense on other levels (vitamin D levels have been dropping for various reasons stated in TFA). So this hypothesis is certainly one to watch.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Gridpoet]

Yes, you can indeed poison yourself... if you take 75,000IU a day!!!! a 1000IU pill (considered a 250% dosage by the FDA) is about .25 inches long and .15inches in width... you would have to take 75 of these a day to get poisoned... seriously, thats like an entire bottle a day....if your taking that many of the same vitamins you might want to see a psychologist... and a medical doctor to pump your stomach

i personally take 4000IU a day, due to several reaserch papers i've read pointing to this being a more appropiate dossage for healthy bone, joint and blood maintanance

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's strong evidence, in fact, that the reason people that moved away from the equator developed paler skin was to maintain high production rates of vitamin D. So, quite frankly, even if the intake of vitamin D killed us, we'd have to have it as if we don't take it we die anyway, therefore the entire point is moot.

The 'skin colour' and latitude argument has been dismissed already by evolutionary biologists, not least because humans haven't actually been in Northern Europe for long enough for evolution to have played a role in developing the pale skin colour found there. In fact, American Indians have lived on the Equator in America for longer, yet they are lighter coloured than say, Africans.
As Jared Diamond puts in his book The Third Chimpanzee The variations we see in humans are more likely caused by the genetic variation of a few early settlers.
So please be careful when quoting 'strong evidence' when this is clearly not the case. Even Darwin was dismissive about this relationship.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[arivanov]

Yep.

You also forgot to add that besides a number of major cancers Vitamin D defficiency also has clear links to obesity as well. Its defficiency in childhood results in soft tissue growth overtaking bone development and very quickly going down the fat kid spiral. Nearly every obese kid aged 7-14 has classic X legs which are a clear indication that he/she has gone through vitamin D defficiency at some point in their life (usually past the age of 2, earlier results in O-shape). For every 1 person the "Dip your child into factor 40 cream" cretins save from skin cancer tens will die of other vitamin D defficiency related illnesses.

Just look at Australia. It was the first to go into the "hide in the shade" overdrive and we constantly get Australian studies quoted about the dangers of sun onto us (without any corrections for the fact that the numbers should be corrected for different lattitudes). It now is the world leader in obesity overtaking the US.

It is proudly followed by surprise surprise - UK which has taken all AU studies and is applying them blindly despite being at way further from the Equator. It is quite funny, every time I get some "scary" number quoted I ask the origin and it ends up being Australia from the height of the Ozone hole period. In the UK there is a further complicating factor - GP incompetence. None of the UK GPs and health visitors carries out the standard checks for rachitis on children. Further to this, if you ask them they tell you not to worry. If a child in the age 3-18 months get an abnormal hair loss, they tell you to go get special shampoo for him instead of running blood tests (which the rest of EU does).

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Bryan Ischo]

Name one race from a northern climate that has brown or black skin. You can't. There aren't any. Now name a race from an equatorial region that has white or light skin. Once again, you can't.

I'd say this is pretty strong evidence for the GP's point. Sure, there will be variations among races at the same latitude, I wouldn't be surprised if some equatorial people were darker than others. But I would also be surprised if there wasn't a STRONG correlation between latitude and skin color. It would seem really, really unlikely that this was "caused by genetic variation of a few settlers." Yeah, the light colored setters just randomly happened to move north, and the darker people stayed south. Sure.

And people weren't in northern europe long enough for evolution to have played a role? OK then how about China? Northern Chinese are very light-skinned, I know this from experience. And surprise, surprise - southern Chinese are alot darker. And don't you think that a 60% greater chance of disease due to vitamin D deficiency would be a strong evolutionary pressure? Strong enough to act over relatively short time periods on the evolutionary scale perhaps?

Anyway, if your evidence for this evolutionary biologists' "dismissal" of skin color's correlation to latitude is one book, that's pretty weak. Of course, it's still more evidence than I can submit.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

But it is UVB that is required to produce vitamin D, and it is UVC that produces sunburns. Handily enough, a window will block 90% of uvc but only 10% of UVB. So stand behind a window :) plus you can do this in winter too, though you'd have to wait for a sunny day, I suppose.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the word you're looking for is 'circumstantial'.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Detritus]

The Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine has set the tolerable upper intake level for adults at 2000 IU. Going higher than that may cause problems.

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind.asp

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[jonadab]

> The main source of vitamin D in humans is through exposure to sunlight.

I'm pretty sure that's not true in my case. In the first place, I drink a lot of milk, which is most likely fortified with vitamin D, and in the second place, my skin is roughly the same color as milk, because I spend 165+ hours a week indoors.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Name one race from a northern climate that has brown or black skin.

The Inuit. The Mongols. The Ainu.

Thanks for playing!

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Winckle]

X legs? Can you elaborate?

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPs are right. Rickets is practically non-existent in developed countries now among normal people. Almost any animal fat will contain vitamin D. No reasonable individual avoids sunlight enough to get rickets, it only really occurred in london during the london smog, when there was a very small amount of sunlight, AND no artificial sources.
A single 400 iu tablet (which you can buy at any pharmacy OTC) of vitamin D can prevent rickets for more than 2 months. How can you possibly think that you know better than the whole medical profession here?

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[garett_spencley]

I believe he was referring to a symptom of rickets, which is caused by vitamin D deficiency.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Xiroth]

Skin cancer is only relevent when moving from less light to more light - I.e. whites moving back into Africa. Vitamin D deficiencies have impacts your entire life. Most of the peoples that moved north are lighter skinned across all three northern hemisphere continents except where snow is heavy (causing people to get hit by UV from two directions), so a simple explanation like that doesn't really add up.

I don't give a damn about eye colour in this context - as far as I know, that's irrelevent to the topic.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

So...you're gunning for cancer? Ah well, each to their own. I'm hoping for something a little less painful like a stroke or a heart attack, myself.

From the article, apparently you need to drink about 3 litres of fortified milk to get enough vitamin D.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Xiroth]

The Inuits' darker skin can be explained by the fact that they've historically lived in the snow, which reflects UV light, doubling their intake. I don't know under which definition you're calling Mongols dark skinned, because they certainly don't look it to me, nor do the similarly coloured Ainu.

This isn't exactly my field, though - do you have an example of why you'd call them dark skinned?

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[noemore]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloger's_rule that's my counter arguement.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[arivanov]

Disagree.

In the UK, in same nursery as my kid when he was 3 there was at least one case of Rickets worse than anything I have seen in the 3rd world. Locally born, locally grown.

The really disgusting point here is that the nursery in question was running the daycare for a UK health trust so the child was a child of UK healthcare professional.

All symptoms - skull deformity, chest deformity and O-legs so pronounced that a small dog could jump through between the knees when the child was standing straight with heels together.

And that is not the only one I have seen in the UK (though clearly the worst one).

I agree with you regarding the presense of D in the diet, but there is an important point here - when taken in its normal form it requires activation by UV in the skin. Only formula milk contains preactivated D (aka D3). Even most vitamin supplements contain the non-active form. In order for it to be activated one should get at least 35 mins unhindered (no cream) summer sun per day in UK lattitudes (on average for a caucasian white, adjust up for a darker skin). Currently, the schools and nurseries splat kids with factor 32+ and do not allow them out without it (and/or mandate long trousers and long sleeve in the summer months). As a result, how much vitamin D you have taken in food is irrelevant, it is not getting activated.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[nwbvt]

Uh, exactly how long do you think the Native Americans we know today lived in South America near the equator? There is very little in the form of written records until the end of the 15th century, while relatives of modern day Europeans have lived in northern Europe for several millennia. I don't know how long you think it takes for a certain trait like skin color to be selected for among a population, but it can be done within that time frame. Studies of the selection of similar traits in animal populations have been recorded in relatively short time spans, for instance a type of moth has been seen to have evolved a different coloring to better camouflage it against trees that are covered in soot due to modern pollution. Remember we are not talking about evolving a new appendage here, just different amounts of melanin in the skin.

Besides, there are many factors other than distance from the equator that determine how much UV light you take in. Settlers in South America were primarily living in densely covered rain forests, while much of the African population originally came from the Sahara. And of course the native South American population that early European settlers met most likely originated from northern Asia, who likely did not retain many genes for dark skin. And of course no one argued that UV light was the only selecting factor relating to skin color.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[nwbvt]

No one (including the guy you were responding to) used skin cancer the selecting mechanism. Its generally believed among evolutionary biologists that it is vitamins. Some vitamins (such as vitamin D as mentioned here) need UV light to be produced. Others get denatured by too much exposure to UV light. There have been other theories (for instance women with too pale skin might get sunburned nipples which prevents them from breastfeeding), but I have never heard anyone argue skin cancer is one since it is only recently that people have lived long enough for that to be common. Note that in species like humans, there is a selection to help humans live past their breeding age so the elder populations can pass information on down to the younger generations.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[architimmy]

Even water!

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Quino]

I agree with your post, I just wanted to add that the advice basically advocates spending more time outdoors -- hardly controversial health-wise.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Pharmboy]

Or just get regular UV exposure and your body will autoregulate itself and you will get exactly what you need: no more, no less. Kinda what nature intended.

As far as I know, no one has died or gotten sick from an overdose of vitamin D that was generated from UV exposure.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Eternauta3k]

Now name a race from an equatorial region that has white or light skin.

The guy before you said it, native American indian (like the mexican ones)

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[lems1]

I agree with you.

I don't want to simply discard hypothesis that seem to be proven by some preliminary research (or by a lot of it for this matter).

I'm simply being cautious about these studies in general, as you said, we do have to be skeptical up to a healthy level. Otherwise we would be doing things that seem to contradict each other all the time. Think of the reports showing chocolate as beneficial, people engorging themselves with them, and then another study a week later showing the contrary... I've seen that so much nowadays that I usually take this preliminary reports with a grain of salt (or two). However, as a good "scientist" I'll do my best not to discard a hypothesis per se without a lot of evidence to back it up either way (good or bad).

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank god for Vitamin D-encriched milk. It allows me to maintain my Elmers-glue complexion and fight cancer!

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Nos.]

Name one race from a northern climate that has brown or black skin.
Inuit.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[BrokenHalo]

... like cancer!

Exactly. Now take Australia, for instance, where anybody who goes outside at all gets to synthesise lots and lots of Vitamin D, maybe that should mean we have a lower incidence of cancer, but I doubt it.

And Nebraska? Well, I am perfectly willing to agree that Nebraska is a very nice place, to be sure, but how many Nebraskans strip off and expose themselves to that wonderful radiation that allows them to synthesise Vitamin D?

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[happyemoticon]

That's funny, cause I taped some lectures at a major research institution back in '04 where an evolutionary biologist cited the link between skin color and latitude. So apparently not all evolutionary biologists subscribe to this belief.

Too little sun exposure causes a Vitamin D deficiency. When women have Vitamin D deficiencies, they become less fertile. And interestingly, if I recall correctly, too much sun exposure interferes with women's antral follicle development - the ones in the ovaries, not on the skin. Therefore, there is the potential for selective pressure to be both not too dark and not too light.

Is natural selection - note that I said Natural Selection, not evolution - fast enough to cause the suppression of darker-skinned people at the poles and lighter-skinned people at the equator? Well, if I started off with a population where everyone's blood type was either AB, A, or B, and I sterilized all of the people with B alleles, the population would soon be all type A. No other factor has as direct an impact on a population's genes than fertility, by definition. Forget skin cancer. Skin cancer won't prevent most people from having children. Having no viable eggs will.

So nobody's saying those strange cosmic rays created the variation we see in people's skin tones. But it's daft to push aside the direct impact that skin color and latitude have on fertility, and the large body of circumstantial evidence we have in the form of human geography.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[buswolley]

I perused the PubMed research database and came back with a number of research studies providing a substantial amount of converging evidence that Vitamin D reduces the incidence of many types of cancer:

Here are a few of them:

Humble, M. (2007). [Vitamin D deficiency probably more common than earlier apprehended. Prevention and treatment could result in unexpected public health effects]. Läkartidningen, 104(11), 853-7.

Nielsen, LR, & Mosekilde, L. (2007). [Vitamin D and breast cancer]. Ugeskrift for læger, 169(14), 1299-302.

Ondková, S, Macejová, D, & Brtko, J. (2006). Role of dihydroxyvitamin D(3) and its nuclear receptor in novel directed therapies for cancer. General physiology and biophysics, 25(4), 339-53.

Garland, CF, Gorham, ED, Mohr, SB, et al. (2007). Vitamin D and prevention of breast cancer: pooled analysis. The Journal of steroid biochemistry and molecular biology, 103(3-5), 708-11.

The results also makes sense in evolutionary terms.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[ronocdh]

In fact, American Indians have lived on the Equator in America for longer, yet they are lighter coloured than say, Africans.

This doesn't refute the argument at all; in fact, I would say it supports it, because it's scientific consensus that humans evolved in Africa and spread out from there. How would these humans have gotten to Central America? By walking across the land bridge between Russia and Alaska, of course, which is in the northern climates, where they would need lighter skin to survive. As their population progressed southward, their skintone began to darken again; of course they are not as dark as those who stayed in Africa, because they had some catching up to do.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[BandwidthHog]

In fact, American Indians have lived on the Equator in America for longer, yet they are lighter coloured than say, Africans.

Huh?

Humans have been playing on the American continents for about 40,000 years, after having migrated there from Asia. Humans have been in Africa since... umm, since before we were humans.

And while aboriginal Americans are lighter in color than Africans, they are darker than the typical Asian stock they descended from. And they’re not exactly pale skinned, either. In fact, if you were to name a football team after them... well, I think you get what I’m saying here.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

But it is UVB that is required to produce vitamin D, and it is UVC that produces sunburns.

Really? How does it do that when almost no UVC reaches the earth's surface?

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[milamber3]

You can make the same argument for the development of language but it is not a genetic disposition. Obviously the original settlers of an area dictated the language of choice for a region, just as they dictated the pigmentation of skin. You "strong evidence" is only evidence of similarities based on geographical region, any explanation of that is valid. The point you missed is that geneticists have dismissed your reason because the time period has been too short.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Attila Dimedici]

Actually, those moths don't "evolve" darker coloration. As soon as the pollution that leads to the rise in proportion of darker colored moths is eliminated the ratio of dark to light moths reverts to its original distribution. The moths in question do not under ordinary circumstances rest on tree trunks, the pictures of the moths on trees that are used in many textbooks are actually staged. In addition, the color distribution of the moths reverts to its pre-pollution ratio, before the coloration of the trees changes as a result of declining pollution.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[buswolley]

See my post above for a few references to research articles with converging evidence. I believe.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel like I'm the only person on Earth who can juxtapose cause and effect and see things more clearly. I'm sure there are more of us out there!

Case in point: it's not that humans moved north and 'developed' lighter skin; it's that humans who developed lighter skin at lower lattitudes died off more quickly due to skin cancers.

And similarly, darker-skinned humans who moved to higher lattitudes died off due to lack of vitamin D, unless they got enough in their diets, such as Inuit.

FTFA, 1,500 die per year from skin cancer, but 1,500 die per DAY due to all cancers. Vitamin D is it. I've been taking 3 x 400 per day for almost a year, and have always felt better and more alive when I get out in the sun more.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[AxelBoldt]

when taken in its normal form it requires activation by UV in the skin.

That is crap. You can either take in D2 (from plants or fungi) or D3 (from animal sources) or you can produce your own D3 from sunlight and cholesterol. All these are converted by the liver into the active from of vitamin D, Calcitriol.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[mackyrae]

The north's not the only "far the from the equator" place. How about southern parts of Africa? Are the people there really pale because of Vitamin D? No? Oh, that can't be it then.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[blind biker]

Very interesting.

I have O legs, but am not overweight at all. I am almost too slim for my height, very low body fat, and quite fit (do a lot of cycling, and regular gym). I have never been overweight in my life, not even a hint of it. Does it mean that early lack of vitamin D, has been compensated, in my case?

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Name one race from a northern climate that has brown or black skin.

Eskimos. Next.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[delvsional]

inuit - when they do go outside it's really bright because of all the snow/ice.

Amazon natives - under tree's all day, i mean come on they're in a rain forest right?

Also check out daisy world if you think there wasn't enough time for all these skin tones to evolve. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisyworld/

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

actually... the vitamin D in your skin that is generated from sun exposure helps protect you from skin cancer. Your skin builds up a resistance to uva and uvb with gradual exposure increases. The gradual increases, increase the vitamin D.

I have psoriasis.. and i use narrow band UVB light for treatment on a daily basis (2 to 7 minutes)... DAILY for the past 20 years.

There have been studies that show that there is no increase in skin cancer rates for psoriasis patients who use UV therapy. The study had taken over 30 years of data into consideration.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[linuxmop]

You may want to consider looking at a globe. The southern tip of Africa is about as far from the equator as mid/north Texas.

A better comparison would be southern South America. Does anyone know how dark the indigenous people's skin is there?

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Coan_teen]

Well, one of the major sources of vitamin D is UV exposure, right? Haven't they been telling us for years that the sun will give us cancer? Perhaps the Epicureans really did have it right: all things, in moderation. Have a glass of milk and your tits won't rot off.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[mackyrae]

South African people are still a LOT darker than Native Americans, including the ones Texas/Mexico.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[fyngyrz]

The 'skin colour' and latitude argument has been dismissed already by evolutionary biologists, not least because humans haven't actually been in Northern Europe for long enough for evolution to have played a role in developing the pale skin colour found there.

Evolutionary change can occur very quickly; we've seen this. Deer moved to an island shrank in size over the course of several generations. Insects change their colors to cope with soot. Outright mutations only take one generation, no matter what changes.

So wherever you got your "information", stop going there. They don't know how evolution works. It isn't just gradual change, though it encompasses that too.

All that aside from the circumstantial evidence.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[schnibitz]

Not much to say about most of what you just said, and I don't know where you get your obesity facts for AU, but I've been to MOST of that continent before, and I can tell you that they do not have an obesity problem. Sorry to nit-pick, but whatever studies there are regarding the issue are obviously skewed. Thinking back, I don't remember seeing a single overweight person there. Not a one, and we went to some of the most populous areas in the country. I think you should check your facts dude.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[BeanThere]

Google for 'Bantu migration' and you'll see why.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[(negative video)]

The 'skin colour' and latitude argument has been dismissed already by evolutionary biologists, not least because humans haven't actually been in Northern Europe for long enough for evolution to have played a role in developing the pale skin colour found there.

They've been there long enough for melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) loss-of-function (which causes red hair, light skin, and freckles) to reach a 5% prevalence. However genetic studies have found that around six distinct mutations are responsible for most European red heads, and occur with about equal prevalence.

The variations we see in humans are more likely caused by the genetic variation of a few early settlers.

The moderate frequency and high variability disprove a founder effect in a recent migration, which would have caused high frequency of a single polymorphism. The zero prevalence in the ancestral African population, as well as in equatorial mammals in general, speaks to non-ancient positive selection. Likewise, the variability tells that it is unlikely to have been under weak positive selection during a long migration, since that circumstance would tend to fix the single best mutation. The probability that the observed frequencies would arise by chance is so low that it can safely be assumed impossible.

The remaining possibility is that the red head phenotype has recently been under strong positive selection. Given its effects on vitamin D, and the importance of vitamin D to reproductive success, it is reasonable to think that vitamin D was a major selection mechanism. This hypothesis can probably be tested using existing records in Ireland, which has little UV and lots of red heads. In fact the effect might be strong enough to measure using post-1940 records, a period covering the dietary deprivations of WWII and the movement to indoor industrial and clerical jobs, and for which reliable hair color information can easily be obtained.

In fact, American Indians have lived on the Equator in America for longer, yet they are lighter coloured than say, Africans.

Many (most?) of whom recently immigrated across the Bering land bridge from high-latitude populations. (Land bridge?! OMG, the Russkimos caused global glaciation so they could finish off the wooly mammoths!)

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[tgibbs]

The 'skin colour' and latitude argument has been dismissed already by evolutionary biologists, not least because humans haven't actually been in Northern Europe for long enough for evolution to have played a role in developing the pale skin colour found there. In fact, American Indians have lived on the Equator in America for longer, yet they are lighter coloured than say, Africans.
As Jared Diamond puts in his book The Third Chimpanzee [wikipedia.org] The variations we see in humans are more likely caused by the genetic variation of a few early settlers.

But why do some settlements succeed and others fail? Is it purely coincidental that light-skinned settlers in a new land (who are likely to have a limited diet and be vulnerable to vitamin deficiencies) are more likely to succeed in northern latitudes than dark-skinned ones? It seems more likely that the selection pressure for pale skin in northern latitudes is greater than has been realized--strong enough to make a difference over a few generations in whether a settlement survives or fails.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[DerangedAlchemist]

Latitude and DIET are the important factors. Inuit are darker skinned than the light exposer theories predict, but the traditional diet was very high in vitamin D. Europe was very different.

I have trouble believing that humans were in Europe for too short a time for evolution to occur. There are a great number of genes that have been selected for by disease resistance. Epidemic disease has only existed as an evolutionary factor for less than 10 000 years. Also, these mutations are very simple, its very easy to break a pigment gene by random mutation (much easier than a different but still functional immune receptor for disease resistance.) In fact, as long as dark skin was no longer an advantage we would expect to see people gradually become paler. Just like pigmentation dropped out of many cave dwelling creatures.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[superwiz]

All the "long enough" arguments are moot when it comes to evolution. Because the process is random it is entirely possible for singular events to occur that expedite the change and force to occur over a very short period of time. The argument that genetic variation occured in few early settlers actually supports the claim that vitamin D had a role. Because having paler skin allowed these "freaks" to have stronger bones (vitamin D is used mainly for bone development of children). This, in turn, would obviously allow them to overwhelm their less pale neighbors.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[TheoMurpse]

When I lived in Japan, I noticed that the milk sold there didn't have Vitamin D supplements in it. However, Vitamin D is added to milk in the US. Curious as to why that was, I did some research and found out that Vitamin D deficiency is a problem in the US but not in Japan, so dairy products in the US are fortified with Vitamin D.

I suppose it is because Japanese people eat a metric assload of salmon, tuna and eel, good sources of Vitamin D, and spend more time outside walking and biking to school/work/leisure activities.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[porcupine8]

Sadly, I don't have a link, but I did read a study a few months ago showing that Vitamin D deficiency had a slightly stronger link to melanoma, the deadliest skin cancer, than sun overexposure. Sunburns, etc are more likely to lead to the easy-to-remove cancers, and moderate amounts of sun (providing vit D) lower melanoma rates a bit compared to total sun avoidance.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[nwbvt]

"Actually, those moths don't "evolve" darker coloration. As soon as the pollution that leads to the rise in proportion of darker colored moths is eliminated the ratio of dark to light moths reverts to its original distribution."

Yeah, thats a process commonly known as natural selection.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Jorgandar]

It seems to me that evolution doesnt necessarily have to take place. (and yes there wasent enough time for this to occur)

But if you simply let genetic variation and natural selection run its course, you get the same result. Here's my thinking: Those in the north with lighter skin had an advantage due to higher abilities to produce vitamin D and ward off cancers and other deficiency-related illnesses. Those in the equator with dark skin had an advantage due to natural proection from sunlight overexposure.

No evolution required! :)

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Domo-Sun]

Be careful when you're giving people medical advice like that. I used to give out advice like this, until I realized that people have adverse reactions to everything. I've tried to take 100% daily vitamin D, but I keep getting serious arthritis. What makes you 100% sure what you're doing is totally okay, for you, or anyone for that matter?

It's one thing to tell people to try it, check with your doctor, see if it works for you, but you're telling people it's okay to take 1000%. You're talking about D3, a completely active, fat-soluble vitamin/hormone, that gets stored in your fat, and hence, not easily eliminated from the body after toxicity symptoms occur; which immediately mobilizes minerals into the blood stream and tissues, which can accumulate and mineralize and calcify in said tissues, causing blood clotting, calcium on the brain, and so on.. and you just think that's totally okay, taking 1000% of it every day?

And what happens 10 years from now, when they discover that it was NOT supplementation that helped, in fact, supplementation actually harmed peoples' kidneys hearts and joints?

Don't jump so far onto the bandwagon. That's crazy.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Xiroth]

Well, yes, that's how evolution works. But do you really want to have go through all that every time you want to note an evolutionary phenomena? Obviously, since evolution works in a Darwinistic rather than Lamarckian form, life forms cannot 'develop' traits in the usual sense of the word, but if you assume in your audience an understanding of how evolution works, using words like 'develop' is a useful shorthand.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[stewby18]

And don't you think that a 60% greater chance of disease due to vitamin D deficiency would be a strong evolutionary pressure? Strong enough to act over relatively short time periods on the evolutionary scale perhaps?

Why would it? How many people die of cancer before they reach childbearing age?

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Attila Dimedici]

If it is evolution, why do the moths revert to the lighter coloration being the predominant color before the trees revert to lighter color? I thought the idea was that the moths evolved to darker coloration because of darker trees?

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[mabinogi]

It's quite possible that we have different standards for obesity.

We definitely do have plenty of obese people here, but from a few short weeks in the USA, I'd say that an Australian "Obese" person would probably only be called "slightly overweight" in the USA.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[rstultz]

A quick Google reseach reveals the Inuit have only been where they are now for 5,000 years From the article:
"The Inuit people of the American Subarctic are an exception. They have moderately heavy skin pigmentation despite the far northern latitude at which they live. While this is a disadvantage for vitamin D production, they apparently made up for it by eating fish and sea mammal blubber that are high in D. In addition, the Inuit have been in the far north for only about 5,000 years. This may not have been enough time for significantly lower melanin production to have been selected for by nature."

According to this article you're totally wrong on the Ainu, and they are a great example showing that people lighten up as they move north:

"Another example is the Ainu of northern Japan, who have light skin but overall are very similar genetically to the darker-skinned groups that surround them. The evolution of skin color was apparently not a onetime event; it has occurred repeatedly during the history of our species. "

I can't find anything in the skin color of Mongols, but any reply has a picture which doesn't seem terribly dark skinned to me.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it is evolution, why do the moths revert to the lighter coloration being the predominant color before the trees revert to lighter color? I thought the idea was that the moths evolved to darker coloration because of darker trees?

It's evolution because a change in the frequency of certain alleles occured as a result of the moth's interaction with its environment. Once the selection pressure is removed, there's no reason the allele for lighter coloration can't re-enter the population.

Make no mistake - the change in numbers of light-colored vs. dark-colored moths is a genetic change, and it is caused by natural selection. Whether it has anything to do with the color of the trees is debatable, but the it is still an evolutionary change.

- Vic

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The moths in question do not under ordinary circumstances rest on tree trunks, the pictures of the moths on trees that are used in many textbooks are actually staged.

This article covers the "moth pictures were staged" complaint pretty well. There are plenty of non-staged examples out there.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[jtev]

Lots, and lots die of childbirth if they don't get enough Vitamin D. Ever heard of rickets? It's a debilitating bone condition caused by a lack of Vitamin D. It's not quite as severe and immediate as scurvy, but it's pretty nasty. The cancer issue is a lesser evolutionary force.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

To add to this, one argument in favour of the link between skin colour and latitude is that ancient humans artificially selected for pale skinned children. That is, in higher latitudes, pale skinned children were nurtured more than dark skinned children, and some dark skinned children may even have been abandoned to die.

This may seem gruesome by today's standards, but it wasn't long ago that infant mortality rates were above 50%, so it made perfect sense for parents to put more effort into raising children that they knew would have a better chance to grow into healthy adults.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Bryan Ischo]

OK, so clearly I was wrong about there being no races from northern climates with dark skin. Everyone pointed out Inuit, but lots of people also pointed out that they probably have dark skin because they spend so much time around ice and snow and water, all of which reflect UV light (ever get a sunburn on the ski slopes? Even when it was overcast? Yep, there's alot of UV light bouncing around when there is snow on the ground). Also I guess they haven't been there that long (5,000 years as some people suggest) ...

I believe that the *most* races that developed away from the equator became lighter than *most* races that developed near the equator. Not all races adapted equally to vitamin D production vs. sunburn pressures, though. Diet and other factors probably played a role, more in some races than others.

Anyway, I am glad that lots of people had intelligent responses to my post. I just found it surprising that the GP post was saying that latitude was agreed by biologists not to have affected skin color, which just seems counterintuitive to me.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[flink]

How does a predilection for cancer due to vitamin D deficiency translate into a selectable trait? Cancer typically strikes after your childbearing years, after you've already passed the "defective" gene on to your offspring.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a tribe of pale skinned people in South Africa, I think they call themselves 'Africaaners'.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[gnuman99]

Skin cancer is harmless if you catch it in time. It is easy to catch skin cancer if you are careful.

Other cancers are not easy to spot because you can't see them.

Don't burn. Don't use SPF X if you don't need to.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[nwbvt]

First, I keep on saying "natural selection" and you keep on repeating "evolution". There is a difference between the two. Second, you are not going by Intelligent Design advocate Jonathan Wells's "research" that has been debunked by actual scientists, are you?

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[iamplupp]

Well actually it is converted to 25-OH-vitamin D in the liver. And that in turn gets converted to calcitriol in the kidney.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[jan_koch]

Science... Medical science... statistics... a million alarm bells go off in my head.

With the limited data that the article gives, I tried to do the math.

US cancer incidence statistics for 2003 are available here: http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/npcr/npcrpdfs/US_Cancer_ Statistics_2003_Incidence_and_Mortality.pdf (PDF)

Age-adjusted cancer incidence in females in 2003 was 0.4036%. In favour of the article's publishers, I assume there was no control group to reduce the numbers. ~4.8 women on average would have gotten cancer in one year. The study was done over a time of four years, so it would have been 20. Now reduce that by 60% and you arrive at 8 women with cancer, or a difference of 12.

We see that we have probably been fooled by the percentages. A lower incidence of 60% sounds high, but 12 cases less?

Checking the significance level isn't really possible unless you have the complete setup and data of the study (statisticians, please correct me if I'm wrong!). However, I suspect that the answer in a detailed analysis would have to be "maybe". I guess I'll have to wait for the final publication of the results until I begin to sunbathe during lunch break.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Weedlekin]

Its isn't the predilection for cancer, but the fact that Vitamin D deficiency leads to rickets in children, which can be far more detrimental to health than the bowed legs commonly associated with it. Note also that vitamin D deficiency in adults can cause osteomalacia, which will result in them being (sometimes significantly) weaker than those without it, and can also cause pelvic and spinal deformities.

Given the frequently debilitating or even fatal effects of severe vitamin D deficiency, it should be fairly obvious that those who are less prone to the worst symptoms would not only significantly out-breed their less fortunate brethren, whose offspring would be disadvantaged not only because of their own illnesses, but also due to the fact that their parents would be less able to provide for them. If a small population managed to survive at all under such unfavourable conditions, it wouldn't take very many generations for all the very dark skinned individuals to be completely replaced by much lighter ones because there is already enough of a natural variation in skin colour within any population to ensure that some individuals in each generation would have a small advantage over others.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Weedlekin]

There's a hereditary form of rickets that's caused by kidneys that can't retain phosphates. It can also manifest itself in people with certain digestive disorders that affect the ability to absorb fats (e.g. Crohn's disease, Sprue), so one should not necessarily assume that such cases are due to malnutrition caused by parental neglect.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[buswolley]

12 cases less in the pool of participants, which was what, 1200 people? ~1500 die per day in the US from cancer. Reduce that by 60%. Now 600 die per day from cancer. That IS significant.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Reziac]

I think he means where when standing at rest, the knees are together but the feet are out at an angle, so there's a visible inverted-V from knees to ground, rather than the feet being directly under the knees per a normal skeleton.

I've mostly seen these "X-legs" in obese children, and in adults who have been heavy to obese their entire lives. Interesting to now read that vit.D deficiency and obesity are connected -- most of the people I've seen with "X-legs" clearly never go outdoors unless they have to.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[Reziac]

Interesting. I'm of Norwegian and British extraction, and I've spent a good deal of my life outdoors (2 to 5 hours every day, mostly morning and evening). When I was a kid in Montana I got the occasional moderate sunburn, but never more than once per summer -- after that I was completely "immune" for the year.

As an adult, I neither burn nor tan easily, but after 22 years in the SoCal desert, I've got a permanent tan everywhere that's regularly exposed to the sun, and it only fades a little during the winter. (I also have thick skin, about double the thickness of most folks.) I only use sunscreen when I'm out during the height of the day -- if you're paying attention you can tell when you really need it, by the sensation of "heat" in your skin.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[jonadab]

> From the article, apparently you need to drink about 3 litres of fortified milk to get enough vitamin D.

I probably drink more than half that much per day, and milk is only my single largest dietary source, not the only one. I'm more likely to have a deficiency in D than any other major vitamin (being as I eat a lot of vegetables, which are loaded with most of the others), but I'm probably alright. Granted, I'm in no danger of overdosing on vitamin D (which, incidentally, *is* possible, albeit unlikely unless you take too many vitamin pills).

> So...you're gunning for cancer? Ah well, each to their own. I'm hoping for something a little less painful like a
> stroke or a heart attack, myself.

Whatever. Cancer, stroke, heart attack, diabetes, thyroid disorder, abcess tooth leading to a cerebral infection, grill of a truck, ... there are a lot of ways to go. I used to joke that I wanted to die in such a way that everyone who heard about it would wince in pain, but I was never serious about that. (In fact, that actually sounds rather unpleasant, and I think I'd prefer to take a pass on it.) If I could choose, I guess I'd want to die quietly in my sleep, but you can't always have everything you want, and there are more important things, to my way of thinking, than the details of exactly how you die. And bear in mind that it's not a question of whether you're going to die: that much is pretty well a foregone conclusion. Only when and how are really up for speculation.

When all is said and done, I'm not going anywhere until I have finished everything God wants me to do on this earth, and once I have, then I've got no further need to stick around. This is not to say that I don't try to take care of my health as best I can, within reason, but I don't fret over it. Worrying about how much longer I've got wouldn't extend my life, even if that were a desirable outcome. As you point out, spending a lot of time out in the sun would be a dubious measure, as likely to kill me with skin cancer as to save me from soft bones. My eyes are sensitive to light, and I don't like the bright sun, plus I like to be alone a lot, so I spend a lot of time indoors. Sure, spending a lot of time inside could potentially injure my health -- though more likely in terms of circulatory-system issues than bones -- but there are plenty of ways to die outside too. If God wants me dead, he'll find a way to make an end of me, indoors or out.

Re:now the counter argument... ?

[jan_koch]

I used the term "significant" rather in the statistical sense. As in, "Is there a high probability that the reduction in cancer incidence is based on the vitamin D and not on random variation in the sample". This probability can be calculated, but only based on the original data, not on the cumulated data (60%) given in the article. A typical probability that would validate the results (in medical science, not in sciences that benefit from better repeatability of experiments) is 95%.

This is one of the principal problems of medical science which makes it nearly impossible to prove the effectiveness of a therapy.

Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

See the high suicide rate in Seattle is making more sense. We're not depressed, we're just getting the cancer before it gets us. Scorched Earth oncology.

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, this is an interesting thought. If this Vitamin D theory is correct then those who are the least able to produce Vitamin D from sunlight should have the highest incidences of cancer--meaning those in the northern climates and those who have darker skin colors.

Re:Yeah...

[smittyoneeach]

suicide rate in Seattle

Insufficient Startbucks

Re:Yeah...

[bytesex]

So you would expect the rate of skin cancer among Ghaneans in Trondheim (for example) to be soaring. Then again, Norway has one of the best medical systems in the world, but you'd at least expect to see a correlation.

Re:Yeah...

[Knutsi]

So you would expect the rate of skin cancer among Ghaneans in Trondheim (for example) to be soaring. Then again, Norway has one of the best medical systems in the world, but you'd at least expect to see a correlation.

According to this article, there is. The article is well written, and quotes the reference on this particular point to be:

Angwafo FF. Migration and prostate cancer: an international perspective. J Natl Med Assoc 1998 Nov; 90 (11 suppl):S720-3.

Is this as big as I think it is?

[Lord Duran]

60%. That's not a small number. Consider the possibilities: 60% of cancer reduced, just by using a standard vitamin pill. I think I'll head off to the pharmacy.

Re:Is this as big as I think it is?

[aussie_a]

Well the study was only done with women Lord Duran. I don't think dressing up in women's clothing will get you the 60% boost in your cancer avoidance abilities.

Re:Is this as big as I think it is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, poppin' pills is the answer! But then again, you could also get out of your house/office/hacker dungeon once in a while...

Re:Is this as big as I think it is?

[aussie_a]

then again, you could also get out of your house/office/hacker dungeon once in a while... Except wouldn't that result in an increase in cancer? I think I'll stay in my hacker dungeon thankyouverymuch.

Re:Is this as big as I think it is?

[Mountaineer1024]

I like the fact that you've offered the choice of EITHER taking the pill or getting out of the dungeon.
For me with my pasty white skin that burns so easily, I think the pill is the way to go.
Sorry if you were trying to infer some bias one way or the other. :)

Re:Is this as big as I think it is?

[Trogre]

... or sit in the sun for a bit.

Amazing article, predictable ending

[mshurpik]

TFA: >Referring to Linus Pauling, the famous U.S. advocate of vitamin C use as a cure for many illnesses, he said: "Basically, Linus Pauling was right, but he was off by one letter."

OK, who else had the feeling that they were going to bash vitamin C before the end of the article?

Re:Amazing article, predictable ending

[Rudeboy777]

Off by one letter? Who cares!

Now excuse me while I go back to kernel hacking in D.

Re:Amazing article, predictable ending

[christopherodonovan]

Off by one errors are common when using C.

Re:Amazing article, predictable ending

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to get a lost of bouts of gout before I started supplementing with vitamin c. I got the idea from the effectiveness of cherries in preventing gout. Supposedly the reason why cherries work is they carry an oxidized version of vitamin C (the same as supplements). Of course who knows if I'm not trading one thing for another. He he he.. But I can state with certainty that it did help. I've been taking about a gram a day and I haven't had any attacks as long as I've been taking it.

Re:Amazing article, predictable ending

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA: >Referring to Linus Pauling, the famous U.S. advocate of vitamin C use as a cure for many illnesses, he said: "Basically, Linus Pauling was right, but he was off by one letter."

I prefer to think of it as C++

Hey Everybody!

[mavi_yelken]

Get naked and get out! you know.. for Vitamin D synthesis.

Re:Hey Everybody!

[Dogtanian]

Get naked and get out! you know.. for Vitamin D synthesis. The prospect of the Slashdot readership (overweight or skinny nerds) running about the streets naked, exposing their skin to the sun for the first time in years does not appeal to me. :-6

In fact, the sun reflecting off all that pasty-white flesh is likely to blind many people and cause traffic accidents.

Re:Hey Everybody!

[Pharmboy]

You laugh (and I did too) but moderate tanning (read: no burning) is the best way to get vitamin D. Your body makes its own, and the best kind that is the easiest for the body to use. Been saying it for years, but the skin nazis have been preaching (incorrectly) that moderate sun will cause cancer.

Re:Hey Everybody!

[malsdavis]

Been saying it for years, but the skin nazis have been preaching (incorrectly) that moderate sun will cause cancer.

That's because moderate sun and sunbeds DO cause cancer. In many western countries skin cancer is the most common form of diagnosed cancer and the major cause cited is DNA damage caused by UV light. http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerandresearch /cancers/nonmelanoma/?a=5441 explains it well (as do many other sources available). Advocating that increased sun exposure and artificial tanning beds in particular are health inducing is extremely dangerous and a gross over-simplification of established medical opinion.

From the quoted source:

Non-melanoma skin cancer is the most common cancer in the UK. [...] UV radiation is the major risk factor for skin cancer. The main source of UV is the sun, so people who work outdoors are at greater risk. But UV from sun beds can also increase your risk of skin cancer.

Re:Hey Everybody!

[ceoyoyo]

There are several scientists and physicians, even a few dermatologists, who have noticed that a small increase in the likelihood of skin cancer, which is very unlikely to kill you, is a small price to pay for a decrease in the likelihood of pretty much all other cancers (and lots of other diseases), many of which are very likely to kill you.

Re:Hey Everybody!

[malsdavis]

I agree there are some highly qualified physicians and researchers who say that but the problem is that there is just so little definitive evidence for it. The referenced study in the article is another piece of evidence but the evidence pool is still small.

The problem is that almost always, people who get "a lot of sun" tend to be fit & active people who get fresh air etc. whereas people who don't get any sun tend to be overweight, inactive and each junk food, which are well-known causes of so many diseases and cancers. Whether the health benefits are down to the sun or the activity / lifestyle has proven extremely difficult to identify.

Re:Hey Everybody!

[ceoyoyo]

The supplement studies are doing that. Several groups are actually starting to try vitamin D as not only a preventative agent, but as part of treatment for both cancer and MS.

I wouldn't recommend anyone go out and get cooked either leathery or outright burned, but, as this article says, ten or fifteen minutes a day is a good start. Moderation always seems to be a good strategy, but it works both ways. Don't get burned crispy in the sun, but don't hide from it either.

Re:Hey Everybody!

[Anonymous Coward]

> the skin nazis have been preaching (incorrectly) that moderate sun will cause cancer.

The "skin nazis" have decades of epidemiological facts on their side. What do you have? Your gut?

Incidentally, sunbathing isn't "moderate sun".

Re:Hey Everybody!

[Anonymous Coward]

"In fact, the sun reflecting off all that pasty-white flesh is likely to blind many people and cause traffic accidents."

fewer cars + additional reflected light = Global Warming Solved

Re:Hey Everybody!

[Pharmboy]

And the highest incidence of skin cancer is in areas where people get the least amount of UV exposure, such as northern Europe. The key is moderation.

Also, most skin cancer that is UV related is linked directly with OVEREXPSURE, several times, mainly when young. Again, UV in mild to moderate doses is less dangerous than getting NO UV.

Re:Hey Everybody!

[jc42]

That's because moderate sun and sunbeds DO cause cancer. In many western countries skin cancer is the most common form of diagnosed cancer and the major cause cited is DNA damage caused by UV light.

A number of people have reported trying to research the literature while writing articles on the topic, and found that they had a lot of difficulty finding any actual scientific studies of this "fact". They ended up concluding that maybe sunlight causes skin cancer; maybe it doesn't; they couldn't find any real science on the topic.

If you have references to actual scientific studies verifying this "well-known" link, it might be interesting to read them.

A couple years ago, I did stumble across a paper (in Science IIRC) that described exposing shaved mice to levels of UV thousands of time greater than what was possible from solar exposure, and seeing a small increase in melanoma. I haven't found anything else. But then, I don't have subscriptions to all the publications in which such studies might be published, so I don't know.

Anyone have the references, perhaps with abstracts of the results?

Re:Hey Everybody!

[Pharmboy]

Thank you for proving my point. Moderate exposure (where you have no chance of getting "red" in any way) is not the same as sunbathing without SPF, which is never a good idea.

And what is on my side is a wealth of data, including the actual incidence of skin cancer for the globe, relative to UV exposure, and over a decade of studying UV and cancer. What I DONT rely on is anonymous experts on Slashdot.

Re:Hey Everybody!

[StikyPad]

On the other hand, the dramatic increase in reflective surface area might help offset global warming.

Re:Hey Everybody!

[BryanL]

But if it reflects the suns rays back into space it may cure global warming.

Re:Hey Everybody!

[KillaBeave]

In fact, the sun reflecting off all that pasty-white flesh is likely to blind many people and cause traffic accidents.

I think that's a acceptable risk since all this reflection of solar radiation could help counteract global warming (tm)!!

Re:Hey Everybody!

[Anonymous Coward]

Blah blah blah global warming!!!

Confusing

[Antony-Kyre]

Let me get this straight. Vitamin D deficiency can be caused by a lack of sunlight, yet sun exposure can cause (skin) cancer.

Re:Confusing

[aussie_a]

Yes. You see sunlight, like many things, too much of something can be lethal.

Re:Confusing

[the_lesser_gatsby]

The cancers are different and have different risks. As the article says, by limiting exposure to sunlight you're trading skin cancer (which is easily detected, quite easily treated and often not fatal) for the scarier cancers like bowel cancer which are implicated in a lot more deaths.

Re:Confusing

[mavi_yelken]

According to the article, Vitamin D deficiency causes whole other nasty types of cancers of body like colon, breast etc. Skin cancer has a much better prognosis then the cancer of the inner body.
Also, we evolved in Africa. Surely evolution found a balance between cancer of skin and Vitamin D synthesis? Also, color of skin is basically the answer of natural selection to the latitude your ancestors migrated to.

Re:Confusing

[Don Sample]

Skin cancer is both easy to diagnose (you can see it) and to treat. Many of the other cancers that vitamin D deficiency may cause are neither. To quote from the article: "Fifteen hundred Americans die every year from [skin cancers]. Fifteen hundred Americans die every day from the serious cancers."

Re:Confusing

[**loki969**]

It seems that one needs to have a minimal amount of direct and "strong enough" sunlight on naked skin each week to have a sufficiant vitamin D3 supply. According to Wikipedia the minimal amount of sunlight is ten to fifteen minutes twice a week at sea level when the sun is more than 45 above the horizon. So skin cancer shouldn't be much of a problem.

I have to admit that after reading the headline, I was sceptical too. But after doing some reading, it seems to me that this story does make sense.

Re:Confusing

[packeteer]

Skin cancer is both easy to diagnose (you can see it) and to treat.

You can USUALLY see it. Also there is a lot of skin cancer types that look like something perfectly normal on your body. You were mostly right on your point but nobody should assume skin cancer is easy to detect and not to worry about it.

Re:Confusing

[Rich0]

Or you can just take pills and not worry about either...

Re:Confusing

[the_lesser_gatsby]

Well yea, I've been supplementing vitamin D for a few years now. (I do D, selenium and alpha lipoic acid plus lots of veggies, fish and red wine) But I also think there are psychological benefits to sun exposure.

Re:Confusing

[guruevi]

I am not a doctor, but having lived near a very touristic beach, it's not necessary the exposure to the sun that generates skin cancer, but the repeatedly roasting of your skin for hours on end (as most do in the middle of summer) in the hottest temperatures of the sun. We saw bunches of tourists coming from the beach looking like boiled lobsters for days on end, we were recommended to go in the morning and the evening and stay out of the sun in the hottest parts of the day (between 1pm and 4pm). It's not only less dangerous, it's also more fun (less tourists, the sun going down in the sea and if it gets dark afterwards you get fluorescent algae on your skin and you can go skinny-dipping)

Re:Confusing

[TheRaven64]

Also, we evolved in Africa. Surely evolution found a balance between cancer of skin and Vitamin D synthesis? Yes, the balance was to have us reproduce by about the age of twenty and then be completely expendable.

Re:Confusing

[Courageous]

It's more than that. Sunlight deprivation is associated with both depression and heart disease, the latter of which is one of the largest killers in all first world countries, and the first of which will certainly shorten your life. People who stay indoors to avoid skin cancer are making a life-damaging error. The impact of sunshine on heart disease is much, much more significant than your chance of getting melanoma.

C//

Re:Confusing

[Truekaiser]

actually from fossil records. living to at least 40 was not uncommon, living past 50 though was rare.
the 20 year lifespan though was achieved by agriculture and civilization due to malnutrition and harsh treatment by other humans since the foundation of all civilizations is a very large base of toiling slaves for the very few elites. this has not changed till recently due to the boom caused by fossil fuels replacing the need for allot of the toiling human labor and a some scientific research that shows, surprise surprise nature knew best resulting in people getting a more natural varied diet. though it's still a far cry from how we evolved to live.

Re:Confusing

[tieTYT]

The summary says that this was with over-the-counter supplements. So you don't have to go out in the sun to get these benefits.

Re:Confusing

[BandwidthHog]

Yeah, just ask the Polish astronauts who didn’t have the good sense to wait till nightfall before attempting that historic landing!

Re:Confusing

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not so confusing if you assume that eventually we will die of something.

Re:Confusing

[Antony-Kyre]

Although, there are approximately 6 billion living people who could potentially prove you wrong by not dying. We won't know until it happens.

Whuh???

[BriSTO(V)L]

Something in this article sounds wrong, or else I have not understood it properly.

A 60% reduction in an illness by getting more vitamin D equates to a relative risk of 1.66 by not having sufficient vitamin D. The article states this is bigger than the cancer risk of smoking.

However, IIRC, the relative risk for lung cancer for smokers is more like > 20. So this article seems to have a baaad case of journalistic exageration going on...

Re:Whuh???

[BriSTO(V)L]

OK my maths was off - 60% reduction = RR 2.5

Re:Whuh???

[crumley]

A reporter who doesn't understand statistics? Who would have thunk it?

Re:Whuh???

[ColdWetDog]

Dunno as well. Of course, there's no real article to look at, just some sketchy statistics and boosterism. A 60% change in a study with only 1200 people concerning a molecule that's been studied for a long time ... well, color me darkly cynical.

If this is such a big biological deal, how come cancer isn't rampant up here in the Great White North? How come people don't live to be 100 and cancer free in Florida or Arizona?

If he's correct, it's Fame, Fortune and the Nobel prize for him. I suspect that a better study won't show much of anything at all. Just somebody trying to get their 15 minutes of media sunshine.

Well, that's it

[sycomonkey]

Time for another helping of milk and cookies... For health reasons.

Not so confusing.

[Hamster Lover]

How is this confusing? Not enough sunlight may cause vitamin D deficiency, too much may cause cancer. Not enough food and you starve to death, too much and you grow obese and suffer related ailments.

Life is about balance.

Re:Not so confusing.

[midnighttoadstool]

"life is about balance"

I would have agreed with you except that over time I;ve come to realise that there is a bunch of stuff that doesn't fit the balance/moderation idea. An extreme example would be Arsnic since, if I remember, it accumulates, so even moderation isn't going to save you in the end, let alone balance.

You may think arsnic is a poor example, but margarine contains fats which are not found in nature, so you can imagine that it might be considered a poison also, and that balance and moderation aren't enough to address it.

Ironically the one thing moderation/balance almost never applies to is diet, and it is that it is most applied to. For example you can't be balanced about fruit : it needs to be eaten in quite small quantities seasonally if anthropologists are right. But in a strange twist modern dieticians and doctors completely ignore our evolutionary roots and get us to stuff our selves with it. In practice they are following the creationists even though they condemn them.

And how do you balance carbs/fat/protein? 33% of each. That's a mathematical balance but does it apply to the body? Unlikely.

Re:Not so confusing.

[Overly Critical Guy]

Unfortunately, we've raised several generations of people who need the nanny state to tell them how to live. They don't have the capability to moderate themselves through intuition and common sense. Expect a bunch of people to whine about how the government tells them one thing then tells them another. How about not listening to a fucking government all the time? Go out in the sun and just roll with it. You'll know when 10 minutes have passed and it's time to put on the sunscreen or go inside.

Come get some

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the sources of vitamin D?

Fortified foods are the major dietary sources of vitamin D.4 Prior to the fortification of milk products in the 1930s, rickets (a bone disease seen in children) was a major public health problem in the United States. Milk in the United States is fortified with 10 micrograms (400 IU) of vitamin D per quart , and rickets is now uncommon in the US.7

One cup of vitamin D fortified milk supplies about one-fourth of the estimated daily need for this vitamin for adults. Although milk is fortified with vitamin D, dairy products made from milk such as cheese, yogurt, and ice cream are generally not fortified with vitamin D. Only a few foods naturally contain significant amounts of vitamin D, including fatty fish and fish oils 4. The table of selected food sources of vitamin D suggests dietary sources of vitamin D.
Exposure to sunlight

Exposure to sunlight is an important source of vitamin D. Ultraviolet (UV) rays from sunlight trigger vitamin D synthesis in the skin.7,8 Season, latitude, time of day, cloud cover, smog, and suncreens affect UV ray exposure.8 For example, in Boston the average amount of sunlight is insufficient to produce significant vitamin D synthesis in the skin from November through February. Sunscreens with a sun protection factor of 8 or greater will block UV rays that produce vitamin D, but it is still important to routinely use sunscreen whenever sun exposure is longer than 10 to 15 minutes. It is especially important for individuals with limited sun exposure to include good sources of vitamin D in their diet.

Re:Come get some

[Solra Bizna]

If you're going to cut-and-paste like that, at least do the rest of us the courtesy of preserving the footnotes...

-:sigma.SB

Re:Come get some

[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic? I am not the AC who posted the parent (sources of vitamin D) but that post is indeed on-topic. Metamods better catch that one.

Re:Come get some

[RonBurk]

One cup of vitamin D fortified milk supplies about one-fourth of the estimated daily need for this vitamin for adults.

First of all, one cup of milk contains a completely unknown amount of Vitamin D. Spot checks have found levels all the way down to zero.

Second, we don't know what the daily need for this vitamin is. I refer you to Vieth's Vitamin D insufficiency: no recommended dietary allowance exists for this nutrient

but it is still important to routinely use sunscreen whenever sun exposure is longer than 10 to 15 minutes.

Well, that's a good recommendation if you're a black person trying to get rickets. Although it would be simpler if we were all the same color as the people who write shoddy nutrition information, the reality is that we come in lots of different kinds of skin shades. The safety rules for sun exposure depend on your skin type, but it's worth noting that sunscreen is much better at blocking UVB that creates Vitamin D than it is at blocking UVA that causes skin cancer. Hopefully, sunscreen that is actually effective for UVA will be widely available someday.

In the meantime, the simplest sun safety rule is: terminate sun exposure well before your skin starts to redden. Do not ever get burns!

60% reduction in risk?

[aschoff_nodule]

I believe that Vitamin D might protect against some cancers.

However, I do not agree that Vitamin D deficiency can be responsible for about 60% cancers.

Here are my reasons why:

1) The process of carcinogenesis (initiation of the first DNA mutation/ adduct required to form cancer to the stage of clinically overt disease) in most cases takes more than 4 years. This clinical trial is only 4 years and too premature to reach to conclusions.

2) I have yet to read the paper, but it is necessary to know whether this trial was truly randomized meaning that the those who got the Vitamin D pill and those who got the placebo were similar to each other in all other ways. It is possible that if it is not randomized, a healthier cohort of people chose to take Vitamin D for a long time.

3) It is also important to know how they treated those people who dropped out of taking the Vitamin D pills. It is possible that unhealthier people dropped out and then we were comparing all subjects in the placebo group to the "healthier" people in the Vitamin D group.

4) A risk reduction of 60% (= relative risk of 0.4) is epidemiologically very strong and if that was the case, we would have already found such a role of Vitamin D much earlier (like 30 years before or so). There is something called Bradford Hill's criteria for causation in epidemiology which has strength of association as one of the criteria. The rationale for that is if we had a confounder which is actually responsible for the effect, we would have known it before because it is more likely to have a stronger effect. The same principle goes here. We do not know anything that could prevents so many types of cancer with such great attributable fraction. The magnitude of effects of like 2.5 or reduction of risk to 0.4 were the strengths we used to see in the papers of 1970s. Hence I think there could be some issues with the study design and data analysis of this study if they found such a great magnitude of effect.

Having said that I think that Vitamin D might prevent many cancers, but I expect a lower magnitude of the effect.

Re:60% reduction in risk?

[knapper_tech]

You have yet to read the paper, but you do not agree that Vitamin D deficiency can be responsible for 60% of about cancers. Congratulations. You have a lifetime supply of straw man ashes.

All you did was list reasons why you're skeptical of the results, yet you haven't read the paper. Granted they are plausible reasons, someone who is capable of excercising this kind of critique could do the world a favor by reading the article to either confirm or address their skepticism and then posting their final interpretation of the article.

This post is like reading intial lab notes. I don't care what you're hunch is now if you can follow through on the data (do several hundred more experiments in the lab) and come to something more conclusive. The paper isn't a state secret. Read it.

Re:60% reduction in risk?

[djmurdoch]

The paper isn't a state secret. Read it.

Did you see a link to a paper? I'd like to read it, but couldn't find one. Am I blind?

Re:60% reduction in risk?

[adrianmonk]

4) A risk reduction of 60% (= relative risk of 0.4) is epidemiologically very strong and if that was the case, we would have already found such a role of Vitamin D much earlier (like 30 years before or so). There is something called Bradford Hill's criteria for causation in epidemiology which has strength of association as one of the criteria. The rationale for that is if we had a confounder which is actually responsible for the effect, we would have known it before because it is more likely to have a stronger effect. The same principle goes here. We do not know anything that could prevents so many types of cancer with such great attributable fraction. The magnitude of effects of like 2.5 or reduction of risk to 0.4 were the strengths we used to see in the papers of 1970s.

I see where you're going with that. The more obvious things tend to be the ones discovered first. It's not a hard and fast rule because it's quite possible for everyone to miss something obvious for a long time (due to groupthink or just chance), but it is a good rule of thumb.

On the other hand, there's another possible explanation for why this was not discovered in the 1970's when all the other big factors were being discovered: if a variable doesn't change much, it's harder to notice what happens when it does change. The push to wear high-SPF sunscreen didn't occur until after the 1970's and neither did the warnings to stay out of the sun. So it seems possible that the reason this phenomenon wasn't discovered in the 1970's was that it didn't exist in the 1970's. I'm not saying that the (supposed) causal link between vitamin D deficiency and cancer didn't exist; what I am saying is that vitamin D deficiency may have been uncommon enough that the causal link didn't matter because it wasn't being "triggered".

Of course, I'm postulating something about how common vitamin D deficiency is now versus 30-ish years ago, and I don't really have any data to say that difference actually exists, so my whole argument may be BS. Not only that, vitamin D deficiency would have to have been rare enough not just to be uncommon but to actually reduce the effects down near the noise level.

Re:60% reduction in risk?

[pla]

it is necessary to know whether this trial was truly randomized meaning that the those who got the Vitamin D pill and those who got the placebo were similar to each other in all other ways.

A "Truly" randomized double-blind study and a matched-subjects design fall basically at right angles to one another in terms of what they can tell you. A randomized double-blind study can verify (or rather, fail to not verify, if we want to get technical) the existance of a primary effect and rule out placebo effect. A matched-subjects design allows you to enjoy some of the benefits of a repeated measures study without concern for sequential effects.



I have yet to read the paper
[...]
I do not agree that Vitamin D deficiency can be responsible for about 60% cancers.

Wow. that takes balls to say. Kudos.

Re:60% reduction in risk?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically, if you'd RTFA, you'd know that you can't RTF Study yet--it's due to be published in June.

Re:60% reduction in risk?

[jez9999]

Did you see a link to a paper? I'd like to read it, but couldn't find one. Am I blind?

Dunno. Maybe you didn't get enough vitamin D.

Re:60% reduction in risk?

[Anonymous Coward]

he hasn't read the paper because there isn't one.
the globe and mail article says the study is to be announced in june. So there's no paper to read yet. The announcement may well be a presentation at a cancer conference, so there may well not be a paper in june either.

Re:60% reduction in risk?

[John Newman]

I have yet to read the paper[...]I do not agree that Vitamin D deficiency can be responsible for about 60% cancers.
Wow. that takes balls to say. Kudos.

Even more ballsy is put out a press release making the astonishing claim that more than half of all cancer deaths in this country (100,000's lives/year?) could be prevented by a little sunlight or a supplement pill, when the actual data is to be presented at some undisclosed time, at some undisclosed location, in some undisclosed form. Science by vapid press release always takes balls, but this is a different magnitude altogether. The more respected clinical journals frown heavily on press reports far in advance of publication, so expect this to be a substantially flawed or underpowered study that will eventually see daylight in the West Canadian Journal of Gerontological Heliology.

A randomized double-blind study can verify (or rather, fail to not verify, if we want to get technical) the existence of a primary effect and rule out placebo effect.

RCTs don't have to be placebo-controlled, and in fact few are these days, as we have some sort of "standard of care" for most diseases under study. "Primary effect" and "placebo effect" are only semantically different in any event. You test for (the lack of) difference between any two interventions; statistically it doesn't matter if the control intervention is placebo or some standard treatment.

Re:60% reduction in risk?

[Octopus]

Like all things, the Vitamin D issue is only one component - there's also:

• Oxygenation - studies have shown cancer cells thrive in parts of the body where there is low oxygen. Hence the current studies with hyperbaric oxygenation chambers, and the flushing the body with O2. How this is relevant to modern life and the cancers we get, I'm not sure - it may have to do with sedentary lifestyles, air quality, diet, or all of the above.
• Acidity vs Alkalinity in the body - this is why broccoli and other legumes become known for preventing cancer. A better understanding of the acid/alkaline balances in our body is reportedly key as well - many people actively check to find out where they're at. Another diet and activity issue.
• EM fields - we've all heard the stories about living near power lines, etc. I'm sure this is a mixture of valid science and a handful of Luddite hysteria, but low-frequency EM rad is still a little suspect.

And now that I'm blabbing about this off the top of my head, I'm sure I'll be beaten in the street for yakking about science I don't understand.

Re:60% reduction in risk?

[Octopus]

Actually, I misspoke on the oxygen issue - cancer cells die when flushed with oxygen.

Re:60% reduction in risk?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it is a good study, actual evidence trumps all of those theoretical considerations.

There is much other evidence supporting the vitamin D/cancer link, like the strong correlation between cancer rates and solar intensity in the US for example.

If simple vitamin D supplements do have a 60% effect, this is disastrous news for the cancer treatment industry.

Re:60% reduction in risk?

[AK Marc]

2) I have yet to read the paper, but it is necessary to know whether this trial was truly randomized meaning that the those who got the Vitamin D pill and those who got the placebo were similar to each other in all other ways.

That's not random. If you purposefully match up people to make sure the groups are balanced, you have removed the random selection. You are asking if the groups were normalized. Generally, with a small group you normalize, with a large group you randomize. I didn't read the paper either, so I don't know how big the group is. With large enough groups, the confidence level increases, and random is sufficient.

Quick Physiology Lesson

[mrbluze]

I think I'll head off to the pharmacy.

Not so fast ;)

Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin and is present in meat products. Deficiency in Vitamin D causes rickets. Vitamin D is so-called, and many would think it was not available without a dietary source, but it is produced in the skin under the influence of UV light. It then gets processed by the liver, then 'activated' in the kidneys and off it goes and does good things.

Because it is fat soluble, it is unlike Vitamin C in that stores are steady and no Vitamin D production only starts to cause problems after several months.

Whilst Vitamin D requirements increase with age, sun exposure commonly decreases with age, especially in the elderly. Much of this is simply a lifestyle issue.

Importantly, Vitamin D is already known to have immunomodulatory activities (a well functioning immune system is critical in preventing cancer over time). It is also known to induce some cancers to self-destruct.

Re:Quick Physiology Lesson

[Splab]

So we should get fatter and stay in the sun longer?

Guess mortality rate will stay at same levels then ;)

Re:Quick Physiology Lesson

[mrbluze]

So we should get fatter and stay in the sun longer? Actually, not as stupid as it sounds. At least then you'd be happier. It has been shown that decreased serum lipids predispose people to depression and suicide. Depression and stress itself promotes cancer. I guess if we managed to farm fish a bit more efficiently, it would really be something to think about. Problem though is, the fatso's you see in the street aren't eating too much fish, but too much MacDonald's which is practically devoid of any nutrients, as far as I can tell.

Re:Quick Physiology Lesson

[Pharmboy]

So we should get fatter and stay in the sun longer?

Actually, people who are in the sun a lot tend to be less fat, its a lifestyle thing. That is part of how the wife and I are trying to get and keep more fit in our 40s. More fishing, more outdoor activities (which means more exercise) = more vitamin D, more endorphines (from sunlight exposure) and better toned.

Fish more often (and eat the fish, high in omega 3) and you will live longer ;)

Re:Quick Physiology Lesson

[that this is not und]

Make sure you are aware of any contaminants in the water where you fish, though. Eating a lot of fish can be a bad thing if they're from a lot of the places people commonly 'sport' fish.

Re:Quick Physiology Lesson

[RonBurk]

gets processed by the liver, then 'activated' in the kidneys and off it goes and does good things.

Well, you're only about 10 years behind the research with that description, which puts you even with most doctors. The revolution in Vitamin D research came with the discovery that D is "activated" (25OH-D3 turns into 1,25OH-D3) in a variety of different tissues of the body, not just the kidneys.

Which body tissues do we know can "activate" Vitamin D3? Here's some: prostate tissue, colon tissue, breast tissue. Where are some popular places that cancer likes to form? Same list. Hmmm.

no Vitamin D production only starts to cause problems after several months.

You might be right, but I'm betting not. Here, things get interesting.

In general, significant (not the 200IU your doctor will tell you to take) levels of Vitamin D3 pretty much always correlate with "better outcome" when it comes to cancer. Even folks with skin cancer who have higher levels of D3 do better than folks who don't. But, there are a few puzzling instances where studies find a U-shaped curve. In other words, they find some instances where people with medium levels of Vitamin D3 do better than those with low -- but those with high levels of Vitamin D3 do as bad as those with low levels! What explains these contradictions?

There is a simple hypothesis (far from proved, but I'll bet my pill taking regimen on it for now) that explains this: local tissue conversion of 25OH-D3 to 1,25OH-D3 shuts down as soon as serum levels of 25OH-D3 start to decline, and doesn't start up again until serum levels stabilize.

If this hypothesis is true, then allowing your vitamin D3 serum levels to drop during the winter may be as bad for you as just having low levels of vitamin D3 all year round.

Re:Quick Physiology Lesson

[marleyboy]

In other words, live an active lifestyle and eat healthy. Why does it take studies to prove this?

Re:Quick Physiology Lesson

[Pharmboy]

I get the full report for my state each year. Most of the problems are with bass, which I don't eat anyway. The lakes that have problems (in NC, those lakes east and just west of I95) I don't frequent.

Re:Quick Physiology Lesson

[mrbluze]

Well, you're only about 10 years behind the research with that description

Well I'm only up to the latest edition of Ganong. Better book myself into the nearest re-education camp ;)

Very interesting stuff nonetheless. My guess would be that, since activated Vitamin D has a role in the way osteoclasts/blasts handle calcium, it would be doing the same thing in other tissues (such as those of the immune system), thereby regulating the basal activity of the immune system and having the ability to induce apoptosis in cancer cells by increasing cytoplasmic calcium levels.

Therefore, it is as you say. The correct vitamin D levels are needed. When there is a lack of sunlight, then diet must be supplemented.

But I really think pill popping is a crappy way of fixing these problems. We either fix the diet (fortify foods) or educate.

Re:Quick Physiology Lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

"In general, significant (not the 200IU your doctor will tell you to take) levels of Vitamin D3 pretty much always correlate with "better outcome" when it comes to cancer."

OK, then what dosage should people be taking? They mention 400UI in the article as being too low. 1200UI, 1600UI?

Re:Quick Physiology Lesson

[RonBurk]

The "correct dose" depends on how much you have now. You really have to get your serum 25OH-D3 measured to know how many IU per day you would need to achieve a target serum level. Worse, unless you totally avoid UVB exposure, you'll need more at some times of year, and less at others.

However, because I know nobody will really follow the advice to see your doctor and get your serum levels measured, most people could probably safely follow Heaney's conjecture that 2,200IU or more might be required to get your serum levels up to... basically the level that researchers are coming to believe is required just to keep your skeleton from falling apart as you age. (Evolution probably did not really intend us to be just about the only animal who gets osteoporosis when we get old.)

Re:Quick Physiology Lesson

[Reziac]

Interesting... As I recall, my grandmother didn't get osteoporosis until she was in her late 80s, and stopped doing outdoor activities like gardening and berry-picking. When I think about it, ISTM that correlated with her moving to an apartment where for the first time in her life, she did not have a garden space, so lacked a reason to spend time outdoors. Hmm.....

Myself, I have a strong natural desire to see the sun come up, and to spend the next hour or so out in the sunlight. You gotta wonder if how a lot of old folks want to spend an hour every day rocking on the porch is actually an instinct to seek sun, driven by their bodily needs.

Dogs have a similar vit.D metabolism, and have a very definite instinct to seek sun.

Less Cancer Among those who Buy Supplements?

[mcrh]

Is it normal to be concerned that TFA doesn't appear to mention where the funding for this research came from?

Re:Less Cancer Among those who Buy Supplements?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I bet you it was the freakin' SUN, that Sun is always trying to sucker people into getting outdoors.

Vitamin D deficiency? Life style!

[MavEtJu]

Let me see... People roll from their bed into their car (via a door between the house and the garage), drive to work and park under the building. Lunch in the canteen, and in the evening the same path and sitting in front of the TV. 90% of the people in the apartment block I'm living in does live this way and get no direct sunlight for weeks. I think I found the reason why people have a vitamin D deficiency!

Re:Vitamin D deficiency? Life style!

[Old Wolf]

bash$ :(){ :|:&};:

Hey, you should include a disclaimer with that :)

Vitamin D For Gaijin

[knapper_tech]

It took me about 20minutes of reading to confirm that living abroad has left some holes in my diet, and because of the mechanisms of vitamin D mentioned in the article, I've decided I need to pay a lot more attention to the local diet.

When I lived in the states, I was in Oklahoma and probably ate two or three bowls of cereal a day. Lots of milk. I am a cereal fanatic. As far as getting my vitamin d intake up, all the cereal coupled with the rest of the food I ate, the sunlight in Oklahoma, and being a cracker, I think I was probably okay.

Since coming to Japan, I get less sunlight for a variety of reasons and my dairy consumption has plummetted to near zero. If I get vitamin D fortified food, it's the half-and-half creamer in my coffee. At first when I read the article I was mildly alarmed for Japan since we eat almost no diary food over here, and I'm not sure if anything is vitamin d fortified, but then I read up on dietary sources of vitamin d and noticed that fish is generally a very good one.

I thought I was doing okay with the curry-rice, eggs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Wendies, and the karatama-don (fried chicken, egg, rice). I think I'm going to pay attention to what's keeping the locals alive and start taking more trips to the sushi shop instead of Wendies as well as replacing the chicken in my curry with squid and whatever other fish I can get to survive being simmered for an hour.

In the end it means more green tea at the sushi shop and fewer big-double-curry-cheeseburgers, so I guess it's better for me in a lot of ways to get over some of the diet changes. I've been here for months and will be here for more, so I should be getting used to things by now.

Re:Vitamin D For Gaijin

[Anonymous Coward]

Squid is not fish. And how many vitamins do survive being simmered for an hour?

Re:Vitamin D For Gaijin

[am 2k]

According to this page, rice and soy are also good sources, which should be easy to get in Asian countries.

Re:Vitamin D For Gaijin

[knapper_tech]

The issue is highly technical. Given the high penetrance of curry into any available sink material, foods with weak structural integrity will be overpressured by the diffusion of curry into the material with no corresponding outflow to balance the internal pressure. Many types of fish will incur multiple structual failures within the filet and, upon agitation prior to consumption, will dissintegrate, complicating consumption and lowering the throughput of nutriant flows.

Fish falls apart when you cook it. It's that simple. I use either chicken or squid because they are both available and squid is a very tough meat...at least until it's been curried. The real issue is that I use a lot of different ingredients including lots of onions, bell-peppers, or whatever else looks interesting at the supermarket as I can't tell that anything is capable of making curry unappetizing. It takes me about 30min just to get everything in the pot. When I find a fish that has decent vitamin d content and can stay in one piece (more than chicken at least, which squid doesn't seem to) I will use it in place of chicken.

Then there's the issue of making sure to add about five or six limes and boiling the shit out of it to make sure I cause any DNA strands to seperate. Wouldn't want those to survive that ultra hot 100C environment. Of course it varies depending on what types of molecular structures are present, but vitamins aren't the most complex or fragile ones in general. I could just take your word for it and die from eating nothing but cooked food...or at least I could try really hard.

Re:Vitamin D For Gaijin

[knapper_tech]

Sweet. I have an excuse to vedge out on sushi all day. Fish, soy, and rice. The triumvirate of awesomeness ^_^ Maybe Asian happy faces are good for health to. I really appreciate the info!

Re:Vitamin D For Gaijin

[knapper_tech]

I looked at the article a bit more. They say fortified rice and soy beverages. I doubt soy sauce falls into that category, and I can't read enough to determine anything about the rice. The search continues. Might concede and just buy some pills. Depends on how this gets accepted. Don't want to be an early adopter and have my skin turn orange.

Re:Vitamin D For Gaijin

[Anonymous Coward]

What on Earth are you talking about? DNA strands to separate? Curry into available sink material? WTF?

Re:Vitamin D For Gaijin

[KDR_11k]

Why do you think the Japanese eat their fish raw?

Re:Vitamin D For Gaijin

[ashitaka]

Where in inaka do you live? Aomori?

Any 7-11 has milk. The supaas have cereal, just in teensy weensy boxes that last 2-3 days. If you're in the suburbs there should be big-box stores around that have cereal and other such food in more western-size quantities.

I wouldn't touch a Japanese Wendy's but Denny's is actually a good place to eat. Royal Host is an ok second choice but never, ever go to a Volks no matter how good the promotional pictures of the steaks look. The only place in Japan that consistently gave me an upset stomach every time I went.

Re:Vitamin D For Gaijin

[knapper_tech]

lol....I live in right next to . No, no, no...it's not that I can't get dairy. I can buy peanut butter if I work my ass off. I can even buy the attempted peanut butter from my local super. Then there's peanut cream at Lawson. It's...close.

The issue is that dairy is nowhere near as ubiquitous, and what there is isn't served up like it is in the states. No huge bricks of cheese at the super. No ordering five $5 hot-and-ready's. Milk comes in quarts at most and is usually mixed with something funky. Cereal is like 380yen a box for what I eat in one sitting. It's a far cry from when I used to go through a gallon every four-five days along with ice-cream, and cheese by the pound.

I'm sorry, but I can't have this conversation. I'm getting hungry, and it will last all day.

Re:Vitamin D For Gaijin

[Raideen]

Of the Americans that go out for sushi, they will probably have sushi more frequently than the average Japanese person does. I don't have sushi very often but I do eat it more frequently than my relatives in Japan. It's a delicacy, even in Japan (and perhaps more so). Also, the North American varieties of some fish actually make better sashimi so it's quite possible to have better quality and tastier sashimi in the states. Most Japanese people do not regularly stock sashimi quality fish (or varieties), nor do they frequently go out for sushi. In fact, I have never had sushi/sashimi at a relative's house [in Japan]. The only time I've had sushi/sashimi in Japan was when we went out to eat.

Re:Vitamin D For Gaijin

[sandmaninator]

Because they dont cook it. hehehehe

slashdot is deteriorating

[someone1234]

Hmm, bash, C and linus in one sentence and it isn't about Linux.

Re:slashdot is deteriorating

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice :P

Re:slashdot is deteriorating

[Phoz]

Hmm, bash, C and linus in one sentence and it isn't about Linux. For what it's worth, it seems (our) Linus was named after Pauling:
http://www.linfo.org/linus.html

Re:slashdot is deteriorating

[InfectedSector]

That's because the article advocates going outside.

Re:slashdot is deteriorating

[cayenne8]

"For what it's worth, it seems (our) Linus was named after Pauling..."

Not Van Pelt?

:-)

Re:slashdot is deteriorating

[ScrewMaster]

That's the funniest thing I've read all weekend.

Re:slashdot is deteriorating

[Profane MuthaFucka]

And bash was named for what users of the DOS shell should have done to their heads?

Re:slashdot is deteriorating

[simplerThanPossible]

...and an "off by one" error.

Correlations vs. causation

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the research address the fact that this link could be correlation but not causation? I.e., people who take vitamin supplements might live healthier lives than the overall population...

Re:Correlations vs. causation

[gvc]

To start with, this popular press article does not name the study, its authors, or the journal it is to appear in. i.e., the article is a puff piece.

That said, a placebo-controlled intervention can indeed show causality.

Re:Correlations vs. causation

[arkarumba]

See my post above "Vitamin D requirements during pregancy"
Many sources cited including placebo-controlled.

Just from personal experience ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have known lots of people who have died from cancer. I can't think of anyone I knew who died of lung cancer. I'm guessing that if you prevent 60% of breast cancers etc. that would be more people than if you prevented 100% of lung cancer.

Re:Just from personal experience ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The number of cases each year in the USA of breast and lung cancer are about equal, but the death rates are in the ratio of approximately 1:4. In other words you are much more likely to survive breast cancer. So this suggests that the effort should be on preventing lung cancer cases if the goal is to save the maximum number of lives. The implication is relatively simple: encourage people not to smoke. In any given year lung cancer currently kills twice as many women as breast cancer.

Re:Just from personal experience ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care so much about activities that a single person can control.

Lung cancer doesn't scare me too much because I don't personally smoke and pretty much nobody I care about does. If other people want to then that's too bad but it's their personal choice. Breast cancer, on the other hand, is much harder to lower the risk factor for.

Re:Just from personal experience ...

[Anonymous Coward]

My real point was to emphasise the fact that the risk factor that is smoking is so huge and the deaths from it dwarf even breast cancer. I didn't phrase it very directly. If someone is a smoker stopping that is the first thing they should do, THEN worry about vitamin D! Personally I don't smoke and can't see why anyone would want to.

Re:Just from personal experience ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, I agree with this completely. In your original post you said "if the goal is to save the maximum number of lives", which is often proclaimed as being sensible public policy. And of course since the rest of us probably bear a significant amount of the health care burden of these smokers, it's probably somewhat sensible. But when it comes down to figuring out what diseases should be fought in order to prevent deaths, something like breast cancer is a much better choice than something like lung cancer, at least in my mind. But as you say, someone who smokes has no business worrying about most other health aspects of their life until they quit.

Really Bad Taste

[zappepcs]

Okay, how long before we see:

Cancer patients in the hospital doing "Got Milk?" public service announcements?

Nudist colonies advertising the health benefits of their lifestyle?

Advertisements for anti-cancer tanning beds?

Some research paper by two male med students doing a paper on cancer in nudist lifestylers?

Spam email selling vitamin D pills at only twice the cost of c14li5? sponsored by 3400 people in the US and Russia

Advertisements for GM milk that has twice the cancer curative properties of normal milk? sponsored by Monsanto

A study linking cancer and baby formula vs. mother's milk? sponsored by Gerber

Research that shows the George Forman iGrill retains more vitamin D than any other meat preparation method?

ok.... I'm going to stop now

Re:Really Bad Taste

[grumling]

Don't forget spam...

"Our growth supplements have more vitamin D than anyone else's, so you can achieve a thicker, fuller member and be confident that you'll not have to worry about cancer."

Re:Really Bad Taste

[jasenj1]

Nudist colonies advertising the health benefits of their lifestyle?

They've been doing it for a long time. Back in the 20s and 30s when "nudist colonies" started up in the US, one of the primary reasons was health. Of course, they emphasized total health - diet, exercise, et al. - one component of which was letting the sun and breeze hit your whole body.

Interesting that a remedy from ancient times has been the sun bath.
Walt Whitman
Some "Wellness Cafe"
Another site

IMHO (with no medical training), one of the bad things about sun exposure is the way we "binge" and "starve" ourselves. In the summer, people will work in an office all week then go to the beach and be in the sun for 10 hours. Or we cower in our offices during winter and then fly to some sunny clime and lay on the beach for a week. Not good.

- Jasen.

Go outdoors for a few minutes

[giafly]

Only brief full-body exposures to bright summer sunshine -- of 10 or 15 minutes a day -- are needed to make high amounts of the vitamin. But most authorities, including Health Canada, have urged a total avoidance of strong sunlight or, alternatively, heavy use of sunscreen. Both recommendations will block almost all vitamin D synthesis.

Those studying the vitamin say the hide-from-sunlight advice has amounted to the health equivalent of a foolish poker trade. Anyone practising sun avoidance has traded the benefit of a reduced risk of skin cancer -- which is easy to detect and treat and seldom fatal -- for an increased risk of the scary, high-body-count cancers, such as breast, prostate and colon, that appear linked to vitamin D shortages [my highlights].

The sun advice has been misguided information "of just breathtaking proportions," said John Cannell, head of the Vitamin D Council, a non-profit, California-based organization.

Our modern diet is very different from what we evolved to eat. Better in some ways - few Westerners starve - but probably lower in many micronutrients than the ideal. So this type of report is not a surprise. Expect more.

Re:Go outdoors for a few minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only hope that commencement speeches around the US begin with the words: "Don't Wear Sunscreen"

Re:Go outdoors for a few minutes

[AmiAthena]

Our modern diet is very different from what we evolved to eat. Better in some ways - few Westerners starve - but probably lower in many micronutrients than the ideal. So this type of report is not a surprise. Expect more.

QFT... the evolution of our dietary needs is exactly why so many of us do have weight issues. Everyone who's ever went on a diet or tried to eat healthier has one major complaint: all the stuff that tastes good is bad for you. But there's a reason for that! Cavemen didn't have Twinkies, Haagen-Dazs, and Big Macs. Protein, fat, and sugar/carbs were necessities to the developing human, and they were pretty scarce. Early man had green leafy stuff to eat as far as the eye could see, but it was work to kill something for food. So we evolved to have a greater affinity for these rare essentials.

Up until one or maybe two hundred years ago, this worked fine. Only the wealthy could afford to gorge themselves to dangerous levels of obesity. Today, for maybe $6, I can go to Burger King and get a Whopper, fries (King Size) and a Coke (King Size). According to BK's own meal-builder nutrition info, this meal has 1660 calories (650 from fat), 72 grams of fat, and 117g total sugars. And I didn't even put cheese on that Whopper. (And no Vitamin D as far as I can tell.) This is theoretically one out of three meals, supposedly totaling 2000 calories. In all likelihood, it's more like hald the day's calories than most. Meanwhile, the average modern American doesn't burn nearly as many calories Mr. Caveman did, since we survive by sitting in cubicles instead of hunting and gathering. Clearly, our ability to feed ourselves has improved to the point where the foods we naturally crave due to things coded in our genes thousands of years ago are actually harming us. For all the exotic things we can now eat because of technology, our range of nutrients sucks.

So it's hard to diet because as far as your body knows, that triple fudge brownie might be the the calories you burn not freezing to death tonight. And since you're body's so preoccupied with this now baseless fear of starvation, it forgets to make you want to eat things like broccoli or spinach, which our ancestors were probably eating to pass the time until some meat wandered close enough to kill. Call it evolutionary sabotage- what we needed before is not what we need now, and if we can't stay on top of those changes, we tend to die.

Re:Go outdoors for a few minutes

[maxume]

Lots of well fed modern people go to Burger King and eat 800 calories(or less...). There is also room in your 'body craving' theory for simple child hood training(because there really are people who eat to make themselves feel better, which it isn't clear if the food makes them feel good because of what it is, or because of the feelings it triggers(from memories or whatnot)). There is also room in epigenetics for a generational metabolic set point(this is entirely speculative, but the point is that parents can pass on expression characteristics for different genes) where the fact that large numbers of humans have only started sitting on their asses a lot in the last 50 years or so is not yet accounted for. This sort of metabolic tuning would be very useful from an evolutionary standpoint, so it is at least interesting(because good times would promote 'health' and lean times would promote 'survival', things that are somewhat at odds because of energy storage in fat).

Re:Go outdoors for a few minutes

[BandwidthHog]

What you posted is nothing a lot of us don’t already know, but that is probably the best written version of it that I’ve come across.

Re:Go outdoors for a few minutes

[__aailob1448]

That was a most excellent post. People like you are the reason I haven't given up on slashdot. Thank you.

Re:Go outdoors for a few minutes

[sco08y]

Our modern diet is very different from what we evolved to eat.

We only evolved to live to about 20 years old, typically, and only a few needed to live to 30. (You could argue it down to adolescence given that that's the age when genes are passed on, but mating depended on a functioning tribe or pack so there had to be older, experienced individuals present.)

So I'm skeptical that ancestral diets are a good guide to longevity.

Re:Go outdoors for a few minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Our modern diet is very different from what we evolved to eat.
> ... I'm skeptical that ancestral diets are a good guide to longevity.

Not to mention that our ancestors got a lot of protein from eating bugs.

You won't find many "natural diet" advocates scarfing down beetles, spiders, and flies.

Re:Go outdoors for a few minutes

[zCyl]

Today, for maybe $6, I can go to Burger King and get a Whopper, fries (King Size) and a Coke (King Size).

If you want a burger, make a burger at home using the cheese of your choice and fresh bread from a bakery, and it will be tastier and healthier for you. And drink it with a glass of milk, juice, or water, and lay off the diet soda. (Your ancestors weren't drinking all the obesity-causing aspartame and preservatives in diet sodas either.)

You can eat just about any KIND of food in reasonable quantities (twinkies are not a kind of food), but you can't eat the poor quality foods that are present in most fast food restaurants or pre-packaged TV dinners. If you want a TV dinner, it has to be of much better composition than what you will find in a Walmart freezer, and it's going to cost you a little more than tofu injected with toxic flavoring agents.

I don't buy the argument that obesity is caused primarily by the availability of food. People living on farms have often had plenty of food, even if they didn't have much money for other things, and they were very rarely obese. The catch is, they had farm food, not factory food. So eat farm food.

Re:Go outdoors for a few minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

Today, for maybe $6, I can go to Burger King and get a Whopper, fries (King Size) and a Coke (King Size). According to BK's own meal-builder nutrition info, this meal has 1660 calories (650 from fat), 72 grams of fat, and 117g total sugars.

I recommend going to Wendy's and getting a large chili and a plain baked potato. It's filling enough for a whole meal, it costs less than 3 bucks, and it's actually reasonably nutritious. If you want to splurge, get a side salad off the dollar menu as well.

This is theoretically one out of three meals, supposedly totaling 2000 calories.

Actually, you can't order a Whopper or french fries off the breakfast menu. (I guess you don't Wake Up with the King.)

Re:Go outdoors for a few minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

The 2000 calorie/day limit is a myth. When I did my weight loss calculations, my maintenance intake is over 3000 calories a day, and I lost a pound a week eating about 2500 calories a day, keeping a log for every day and actually using a dietary scale for portions. This makes for a much easier diet than the inane diets that dictate below 2000 calories no matter what. Those diets are for masochists, unless, of course, you calculate you need below 2000 to lose anything.

I highly recommend people try to calculate the calories they are actually using for maintaining their weight (available on-line, google it), subtract about 500 calories/day, and enjoy the healthy steady weight loss!

What about historic trends?

[mangu]

People have been going much more to the beach in the last half-century than before. Even people in Nordic countries have been going to tropical countries during their vacations. People have been exposing more skin.

Do the epidemiological studies report a large drop in cancer starting about 50 years ago? Particularly in northern countries?

If vitamin D has any effect in cancer, these factors should stand out clearly.

Re:What about historic trends?

[robbo]

I suspect that most candidates for cancer would have died of heart disease first.

Re:What about historic trends?

[Anonymous Coward]

More people can afford to go to the beach on vacation, but few have to run across open fields stalking game with a spear. As others have said, we go from man-made structure to man-made structure on a regular basis, coat ourselves in sunscreen and make a real effort to avoid getting sun, unless we're paying to lay in a tanning bed. This is a far cry from leaving the cave in the morning, spending all day in the sun, and returning at night.

Re:What about historic trends?

[robogun]

There are probably other factors, even if it can be proven people didn't go to the beach 60 years ago (check ebay for vintage swimsuit photos for a 2nd opinion).

In the last century the Western populations have largely moved from rural locations (and working in the the outdoors) to mostly living in the cities (and inside buildings). On the whole exposure to sun has dropped dramatically.

Re:What about historic trends?

[IdahoEv]

Indeed. Aside from the fact that beach trips have been popular for decades and centuries, most people now work office jobs and that wasn't anywhere near as true 60 years ago.

Re:What about historic trends?

[porcupine8]

Yes, but in the past 20-30 of those 50 years an ever-growing number of those beachgoers (probably quite a large majority by now) have been spending every waking moment of sun exposure covered in SPF 30+ sunscreen to avoid skin cancer. Maybe taking just enough time off from it to keep a tan going, but probably not enough time to get a dose of D every day. Being in the sun doesn't help you if you're blocking the sun from your skin. As low as SPF 8 can block D production. The beachgoing and tropical-vacation-taking only had a couple of decades to start increasing and having any kind of effect before the sunscreen craze started cancelling it out.

Re:What about historic trends?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately diagnosis of cancers has improved over the last 50 years so this would tend to hide
any reduction in the incidence of cancer.

Re:What about historic trends?

[RonBurk]

Not necessarily. There is a hypothesis (probably turning into a theory before long) that local tissue conversion of 25OH-D3 to 1,25OH-D3 ceases as soon as serum levels of 25OH-D3 start to decline. What that means is, people who go generate lots of 25OH-D3 in a short period by going to the beach, followed by little or no vitamin D from sun or supplements, may actually be putting themselves in the same boat as folks who get little or no Vitamin D at all (with respect to preventing colon/prostate/breast/etc. cancer, that is).

Deciding whether this is true or not has to take a back seat to proving that Vitamin D can affect cancer epidemiology. But if you are really want to bet on Vitamin D to keep you cancer free, don't focus on getting lots of Vitamin D. Instead, get your serum levels of 25OH-D3 measured a couple times of year, and focus on trying to keep it at a reasonable level year round, instead of dipping during the winter.

So how much Vitamin D do I need? Need a number

[Anonymous Coward]

You can find the official recommended intake amounts here though. There is 400 IU of vitamin D added to fortified milk (ref, so the article is recommending that one consume 1200 IU, but if you check the offical recommendations I linked to you can see they say 200 is enough. So they are saying the min. intake is currently too low, not just that people don't consume or synthesize enough due to inadequate sunlight.

        Another thing I found out is that you can't get an optimal amount of Vitamin D from supplements because it is all preformed vitamin D so your blood levels will track your intake, and nobody really knows exactly how much is best. When skin gets exposed to sunlight on the other hand, the vitamin D is stored and released appropriately to maintain the optimum concentration (assuming there's enough sunlight).....

Who said they were waiting to see that too much vitamin D causes some other serious illness? It causes "hypercalcemia", at least. If you were to consume a bottle of vitamin D supplements that would be lethal, if my memory serves correctly (and it's not a really small bottle). A bottle of halibut liver oil would also do it, though the vitamin A would get you first (In fact vitamin A overdose from consuming livers is how some arctic explorers died).

Can anyone make a useful comment about those sunlamp things, *please*? Do they output enough UV for vitamin D production? I have read that UV exposure below a certain intensity produces no vitamin d at all (it gets destroyed as a fast as it can be produced), but I don't remember the threshhold :(.... You also need UVB for vitamin D production, and I think most "sunlamps" or tanning lamps produce mostly UVA, as that can produce a tan but not a burn very easily. I think that would be the optimum solution - just point one of those sunlamp things at my chair and have it turn on for 15 minutes a day when I'm working. Apparently exposure of the face and forearms only, for 15 minutes at noon with clear skies at 75 degrees north, facing the sun, 3 times a week, is enough. Try getting a straighter answer from any other source - no, I had to cobble that together myself from the almost uselessly vauge recommendations authorities spit out and relative uvb intensities at my latitude.... to bad I forget the numbers I used. If you are behind a window it reduces the intensity of UVB by only about 10 percent. After 15 minutes or so the skin actually stops producing vitamin D so there's no point in exposing a specific area of skin for more than than amount of time in one day for this purpose. I think it takes at least 1 day to reset, but good luck finding that sort of thing out from medical literature...... I just want some dam numbers! If you get an "erythmal" exposure, that is past the saturation point. That's when your skin turns slightly pink, - from the UV, not the heat mind you-, and takes about 15 minutes in full sunlight.

Re:So how much Vitamin D do I need? Need a number

[RonBurk]

You can find the official recommended intake amounts

And you can find Vieth's explanation of why there is no RDA for Vitamin D here: Vitamin D insufficiency: no recommended dietary allowance exists for this nutrient

Another thing I found out is that you can't get an optimal amount of Vitamin D from supplements because it is all preformed vitamin D so your blood levels will track your intake, and nobody really knows exactly how much is best. When skin gets exposed to sunlight on the other hand, the vitamin D is stored and released appropriately to maintain the optimum concentration (assuming there's enough sunlight).....

Yes, we are still learning how much is best. No, we are not completely without informed opinions. It is generally accepted that serum 25OH-D status is the best indicator of Vitamin D status. There is an emerging consensus that you need to keep your serum levels above 70 or 80nmol/L to keep your skeleton from falling apart as you age.

Who said they were waiting to see that too much vitamin D causes some other serious illness? It causes "hypercalcemia", at least.

Please cite your cases. Or perhaps you meant to say "COULD cause hypercalcemia in some patients, but rarely in any who have not take INDUSTRIAL amounts of the substance". You may want to start by reviewing Vieth's seminal paper in which he systematically dismantles published accounts of Vitamin D poisoning.

If you were to consume a bottle of vitamin D supplements that would be lethal

Now you have passed along an utter untruth. You're probably unaware that it is not uncommon in Europe for doctors to use "stoss therapy" to assure Vitamin D status in particular patients. Stoss therapy consists of an annual injection of perhaps 150,000IU to 300,000IU -- much, much more than can be found in your local grocery store bottle of Vitamin D. I seem to recall a recent study in which infants (infants!) with rickets were given 600,000IU. I personally took an entire bottle (90,000IU) of Vitamin D3 the last time I started coming down with a cold (checks pulse -- yes, still completely alive!).

Can anyone make a useful comment about those sunlamp things, *please*?

If you elect to use sunlamps, buy from someone who can supply the relative known fraction of UVA/UVB (you want UVB for D production -- you don't really want the UVA that much). Sperti is a possibility. There is a flourescent bulb that really closely emulates the sun's UV frequency power ratios. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell it's only being used in industrial hoods, not consumer sun lamps.

I just want some dam numbers!

Get the #1, most important number: go to your doctor and get a prescription for a test to measure your 25OH-vitamin D serum levels. Make sure the test technology is either Diasorin RIA, or high-performance liquid chromotography with tandem mass spectrometry (or just insist on going to Quest Diagnostics -- I *think* they now uniformly use the latter technology).

There's some truth to this...

[Eggplant62]

The doctor that I work for has asked me to research this very line of thinking for her, pulling every article out I could find on multiple sclerosis (MS) and Vitamin D, and I even ended up using some of that research in a paper I wrote for an English class.

There's a very significant link between Vitamin D deficiency and MS. Most MS cases occur in the far north and far south climes. Think of southern Australia and Tasmania and northern Europe and United States, areas where sunshine is at low levels for as much as nine to ten months out of the year. We are able to make Vitamin D via sun exposure on the skin, which for humans, is a primary source of Vitamin D. Some of these studies find that people who had high levels of sun exposure as children greatly reduces their risk of contracting MS.

Don't believe me? Read these studies. There are tons more just like them, confirming the suspicion.

Re:There's some truth to this...

[solanum]

Think of southern Australia and Tasmania... ...where sunshine is at low levels for as much as nine to ten months out of the year. You are joking, southern Australia gets huge amounts of sunlight thus it has the one of the worlds highest rates of skin cancer. Don't forget that the latitude of the south coast of Australia is only about 36 degrees and that the southern hemisphere receives more sunlight than the northern hemisphere due to the eccentricity in the earth's orbit (and angle of axis). Most people in southern Australia have difficulty getting enough sunscreen on year round rather than getting enough sun exposure.

Re:There's some truth to this...

[scottv67]

northern Europe and United States, areas where sunshine is at low levels for as much as nine to ten months out of the year.

Dude, I live in Wisconsin (there is just a weee little sliver of Michigan between WI and Canada) and it's not as light-deprived as you make things sound. Do you think we scurry around in the dark with flashlights like mole-people (except for June and July)?

Interesting sidebar: I was in Philadelphia recently on a work-related trip. On the way to the airport, the Philly cabbie asked me "Where are you from?" I had a feeling that "Milwaukee" probably wouldn't ring any bells with him so I tried "Wisconsin." He asked "Which coast is that on?" :^) I thought to myself: "Ummm, just watch the road and get me to the airport so I don't miss my Midwest flight outta here."

Re:There's some truth to this...

[shawb]

I usually just go with "a little North of Chicago." haven't met anyone in the US who doesn't understand that.

Re:There's some truth to this...

[ThisNukes4u]

Dude, I live in Wisconsin (there is just a weee little sliver of Michigan between WI and Canada) and it's not as light-deprived as you make things sound. Do you think we scurry around in the dark with flashlights like mole-people (except for June and July)?

OMG, that was one of the funniest things i've read in a while. If I had mod points, I'd mod you up. Great stuff.

Re:There's some truth to this...

[ceoyoyo]

I'm from Calgary, in Canada, and originally from northern Canada, where we did scurry around with flashlights six months of the year.

But even in Calgary, Canada's sunniest city, most of the population is vitamin D deficient. There's less sunlight here than in Africa, much of it is low angle in the winter, and it tends to be strongest at the time when most people are sitting in offices. The people who DO go out in it are constantly being told to slap on sun screen.

Re:There's some truth to this...

[lachlan76]

Southern Australia is low-light, now? I live in South Australia (~38 South), and I would have to disagree. In the summer, there is enough radiated heat to make facing towards the sun in the afternoon rather unpleasant, and skin cancer is very common here. In the winter, there is enough light to keep the air warm, and it very rarely reaches zero (by very rarely, I mean that when it does happen, it happens once a year. Usually for a short enough period that there are no effects beyond a thin layer of frost on anything).

Re:There's some truth to this...

[Reziac]

Tell that to my dad, who spent his whole life thoroughly suntanned, yet died of MS.

I am suspicious.

[Killshot]

Did you notice the link in the article to the vitamin D council?
Did you notice the doctor who did the study is part of the vitamin D council?
Although they are a non profit, they do provide links to lots of people who will be happy to sell you some vitamin D.

I work for a small biotech company that has been doing cancer research and we never put out a press release every time we think we are on to something interesting or promising. We do study after study not just to establish a link, but to understand exactly how a compound may stop or prevent cancer.
I wish people would take more time to ensure they have lots of data to go on before saying they have found a "direct link"

And on another note, I find it hard to believe that so many people are deficient in vitamin D.
We may spend a lot more time indoors than our ancestors, but I feel confident I am getting enough sunlight and enough D in foods i consume.

Re:I am suspicious.

[awfar]

If it was anything other than Vitamin D, I would be as concerned with the conflict of interest as well. But Vitamin D is sprayed(I think) by the gallons on cereal and there cannot possibly be a huge, terribly lucrative market to be leveraged when the cheap solution is to go outside or bathe yourself in a sunlamp.

Re:I am suspicious.

[djmurdoch]

The "conflict of interest" doesn't bother me, but the lack of a link to or citation of a published study does. Does anyone know where the real details about this study are available?

Re:I am suspicious.

[Vellmont]

And on another note, I find it hard to believe that so many people are deficient in vitamin D.
We may spend a lot more time indoors than our ancestors, but I feel confident I am getting enough sunlight and enough D in foods i consume.

Why are you so confident? You're probbably getting enough vitamin D as established years ago to prevent rickets and other more obvious vitamin D deficiencies. But is the level established years ago high enough to exhibit these anti-cancer benefits? (assuming the vitamin D + cancer link is real).

Re:I am suspicious.

[mdielmann]

Why would this be a surprise? Our society is so out of balance that even though we live in a constant state of excess, people get sick from vitamin C deficiency. Here's a link specifically about the United States, which may not be representative of other modern countries. And if we can be deficient in one vitamin due to our high-calorie, low-nutrient diet, why not another?

Re:I am suspicious.

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a small biotech company...

I might point out that your company isn't (and won't) look for any effects common vitamins and nutrients have on the incidence of cancer and tumors in humans. No money in it.

we never put out a press release every time we think we are on to something interesting or promising.

Your company has the problem that, even if you discover a promising cancer treatment, you have to do study after study to determine the treatment's short- and long-term toxicity (an effective treatment that kills the patient isn't much good). While the toxicity of vitamins is well understood.

I find it hard to believe that so many people are deficient in vitamin D.

Whether or not a person is deficient is based on the recommended daily allowance. The recommended daily allowance of any vitamin (in the US) is set by the FDA. The allowance is usually set as enough to prevent any common deficiency disease, that's it.

Would an increased intake reduce the incidence of any other diseases? Or have any other health benefits? The FDA doesn't know and doesn't care.

Re:I am suspicious.

[ceoyoyo]

You shouldn't be. Very few people get the kind of sun exposure that our bodies evolved for, and even if you do chances are good that you're wearing sunscreen much of the time. The vitamin D in foods you consume may or may not be easily absorbable... probably one of the reasons your body evolved the ability to make it from sunlight in the first place.

I don't have first hand experience with the cancer link, but researchers I work with have found that vitamin D deficiency is implicated in the development and progression of multiple sclerosis. And no, they haven't made a press release. Also, study of my city showed that a large majority of the population is vitamin D deficient (on blood tests).

Re:I am suspicious.

[catbutt]

I wish people would take more time to ensure they have lots of data to go on before saying they have found a "direct link" Even when you think that 1500 people a day are dying, and that there might be a very simple way of reducing that by 60%?

I feel confident I am getting enough sunlight and enough D in foods i consume. Based on what? The article says:

To achieve the vitamin D doses used for cancer prevention through foods, people would need to drink about three litres of milk a day, which is unrealistic.

Do you have other information?

Re:I am suspicious.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I work for a small biotech company that has been doing cancer research and we never put out a press release every time we think we are on to something interesting or promising. We do study after study not just to establish a link, but to understand exactly how a compound may stop or prevent cancer."

Out of curiosity, do you know anything about the theory about how cancer is a result of a lack of vitamin B17? I've heard about it in several places and it wouldn't surprise me if there was a cure that's being kept under reps by the big pharma companies but I'd like to hear what a /. expert has to say anyway.

I heard about Laetrile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laetrile from several sources and there seems to be quite a lot of commotion about it if it were just another useless drug being marketed.

Thanks to anyone that has anything to say about it,
AC

Re:I am suspicious.

[Killshot]

I've never heard of "vitamin B17" However there are other people doing research on different glycosides and possible anti tumor properties, What we are doing however is focusing on glycans.

As for the pharma companies wanting to keep a cure secret. Pretty doubtful, they have a strong interest in preventing or curing cancer and they can make a lot of money at it. Just look at the new cervical cancer vaccine, first thing they have done is try to get state governments make it mandatory.

Re:I am suspicious.

[Killshot]

Just doing a check on what food I eat daily, I am getting 500% my RDA in vitamin D.
I get outside a decent amount, walk to the store, beach and hiking on weekends, etc..

I haven't gotten cancer yet, but I also have not yet gotten Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, nor have I had a heart attack, or gotten infected with HIV.

Re:I am suspicious.

[Old Wolf]

We do study after study not just to establish a link, but to understand exactly how a compound may stop or prevent cancer. I wish people would take more time to ensure they have lots of data to go on before saying they have found a "direct link"

We may spend a lot more time indoors than our ancestors, but I feel confident I am getting enough sunlight and enough D in foods i consume.

Pot, kettle, etc.

Re:I am suspicious.

[zobier]

I work for a small biotech company that has been doing cancer research and we never put out a press release every time we think we are on to something interesting or promising. Of course not! Because that would hurt your chances of patenting the cure.

Re:I am suspicious.

[greg_barton]

Although they are a non profit, they do provide links to lots of people who will be happy to sell you some vitamin D.

Vitamin D is about as close to a commodity as you can get. No one's going to get rich selling vitamin D. No one owns the formula. The manufacturing process is well known. No trade secrets. If it was "Sooper Dooper new Substance X that only I have the formula for" I'd be suspicious.

Vitamin D?

Be serious.

Re:I am suspicious.

[Killshot]

No, as broken as the patent system is, that is not how it works. Patents are applied for pretty early on, during development of a process or identification of a compound. Not at the end of testing efficacy.

Re:I am suspicious.

[mpe]

Just doing a check on what food I eat daily, I am getting 500% my RDA in vitamin D.

This kind of research appears to imply that the RDA values could be wrong though...

I get outside a decent amount, walk to the store, beach and hiking on weekends, etc..

It's also going to depend what you are wearing, i.e. how much skin you have exposed to the sun when you perform these activities.

Re:I am suspicious.

[mpe]

Our society is so out of balance that even though we live in a constant state of excess, people get sick from vitamin C deficiency. Here's a link specifically about the United States, which may not be representative of other modern countries. And if we can be deficient in one vitamin due to our high-calorie, low-nutrient diet, why not another?

Nutrient deficiency may actually be more important a factor than "calories".

Re:I am suspicious.

[mrmauiman]

well... the beach near my house is a nude one.....

Also linked to Multiple Sclerosis

[SoopahMan]

Sunlight exposure before the age of 16 has also been linked to occurence of Multiple Sclerosis. It's not clear whether this is because of Vitamin D production/regulation though.

Re:Also linked to Multiple Sclerosis

[geek]

They link everything to MS. I mean literally EVERYTHING. 15 years ago it was the fillings in our teeth. The fact is, they have no clue whatsoever what causes MS other than it being hereditary. I know, my mom has it and I might someday also.

Re:Also linked to Multiple Sclerosis

[Reziac]

Give me a few multi-generation pedigrees, and I'll work it out, right down to the foundation carriers. I do this all the time as a professional dog breeder and pedigree consultant -- but I always have a minimum of 5 generations of data to work with.

See, there's the problem, we don't HAVE extended pedigrees (including littermates) for humans, the way we have for other domestic animals. So stuff that's actually hereditary gets blamed on anything else, and when something IS finally pegged as genetic, the usual reaction is a wildly emotional "OMG genocide!" or "I'll take the risk that my kids have these defects, because I want to breed regardless!"

My dad had MS; I apparently don't (no symptoms at age 51; my dad died at 50), but judging from my experience in tracking canine genes, the probability is that the root cause is a single recessive gene, and I do regard myself as an obligate carrier. Unlike some folk, I don't find this to be a personal attack. We all carry lethal genes, some more detrimental than others. But for the sake of your kids, it's wise to do a little risk management, and improve your kids' chances by not knowingly doubling up on a defect.

I guess it's true then!

[MasterGwaha]

The strong eat, the weak are MEAT......(Paid for by the Vitamin D council)

We are Caucasians.

[Futurepower(R)]

Our white skin color comes from the Caucasus mountains, north of Iran. That's why white people are called Caucasians. I had a woman friend whose ancestry was from northern Iran, and it was amazing to see how white she was, in a way I thought was beautiful. Comparing her skin and mine, it was easy to see that I am a mixture of Caucasian and something else.

Probably the reason northern people are white is that black people inter-marrying with a high concentration of white people tends to produce lighter-skinned new generations.

All humans apparently spread from an original migration from Africa, but the people who initially migrated tended to continue to migrate, and migrated much more than those who initially stayed in Africa.

Re:We are Caucasians.

[lawpoop]

We are Caucasians. Our white skin color comes from the Caucasus mountains, north of Iran. Are you saying that all 'white' people alive today derive their white features from an ancestor in the caucus mountains? That was a popular theory from about 50-100 years ago, but I haven't heard of any researcher that sticks by that today. Yes, there are white people in the caucus mountains, but there's no evidence to believe that white skin developed there, over and above any other place in Europe.

Re:We are Caucasians.

[toddhisattva]

Yes, there are white people in the caucus mountains, but there's no evidence to believe that white skin developed there, over and above any other place in Europe.

It does, however, explain Herodotus's "the Colchians [Georgians] are manifestly Egyptian." The dark-skinned woolly-haired (translator's pre-Imus words) people he reported would be the relict population which didn't bleach out.

That the Caucasus are perhaps the most linguistically interesting place on the whole Earth also adds a least a little credibility to Blumenbach's wild guess.

The Caucasus were next to the "Ukrainian" glacial maximum refuge, where folks got funneled together as the ice grew, folks whose diets (and thus vitamin D intake) were changing rapidly as the world cooled and all the animals too got funneled together.

Now, I don't think I completely believe all "Caucasians" are descendants of Caucasians. Almost any high latitude low insolation area would do. Perhaps people were dark and eating D-laden fish from Lake Fessenden (boringly called by boring scholars the "West Siberian Glacial Lake") and its Turgay-Aral-Caspian-Euxine-Mediterranean outflow path. Then the glacier dams broke, the Ob Yenisei Lena rivers could drain into the Arctic Ocean, the fish died and people had to bleach out to get vitamin D.

Which would make "white people" the #1 most famous people from Kazakhstan!

Also, I am fascinated by the role the Urals could have played, because that range is also linguistically interesting seeming to be the nucleation site of the Finno-Ugrian languages.

The most intriguing theory regarding the Finno-Ugrians is that they are Dravidian people who moved north and bleached out. AFAIK there is only a handful of experts taking care of this pet theory. I like it because it would make the Finns a branch of the Dravids, that's right folks, they would be Branch Dravidians!

Strangely enough, from my non-expert reading of experts' stuff, it seems that white people did not originate in Europe. That the original populations of Europe were coastal and riverine fish-eaters who could remain dark despite lower insolation. Indeed, the theory of Europeans originating in Europe, the "Paleolithic Continuity Theory," is nowadays relegated to "alternative" status.

(I apologize for any conflations, simplifications, and confusions. This is just a hobby of mine. Readers are advised to do their own research.)

Re:We are Caucasians.

[Unnngh!]

There is no evidence of an evolutionary tie to the Caucasus region. White people are called Caucasians because of a man named Blumenbach, who created many of the racial categorizations that we have today. I can't recall if it was Blumenbach or one of his contemporaries who did this, but I heard the story from one of my professors way back when in an anthropology class in college. During his travels, he kept a paper cross in his pocket. He carried a small sewing pin with the cross. Every time he saw someone who he thought was "beautiful", he made a mark with the pin on one arm of the cross. Someone "ugly" got a mark on the other arm. He kept a tally, and his final conclusion was that the people of the Caucasus region were the most beautiful in the world, thus white folk were thereafter termed Caucasians.

Re:We are Caucasians.

[lawpoop]

You can do a lot of phenotypic and linguistic analysis, but these theories, once widely held and certainly scientific according to the standard of their day and the available evidence, have fallen into disrepute, after we started to do genetic analysis. One fo the things that hinder this is that as human beings, we have a lot of built-in brain mechanisms to analysis and classify people based on their facial features, which don't strongly correspond to genetics. While we haven't cracked the code yet of exactly which genes contribute to facial features and skin color, other genes that we have identified in the human genome paint a much wider and complex picture.

I'm not trying to be confrontational, just regurgitating what we learned in anthropology class ;)

Re:We are Caucasians.

[Futurepower(R)]

You said, "There is no evidence of an evolutionary tie to the Caucasus region."

Apparently you didn't read the scientific evidence I posted that indicates that my ancestors, and probably yours, too, migrated through the Caucasus region: My ancestral path of migration (and yours, maybe).

Quote from the My Male Genetic Contribution" TARGET="_blank" >link I provided: "Your next ancestor, a man born around 40,000 years ago in Iran or southern Central Asia, gave rise to a genetic marker known as M9, which marked a new lineage diverging from the M89 Middle Eastern Clan. His descendants, of which you are one, spent the next 30,000 years populating much of the planet."

It's a fact that we are no longer black. Apparently it is a fact that most of us lived in northern Iran. I suppose the mutation to white occurred then, because it is a fact that the people who still live there are very white.

From the medical perspective...

[DrNickDonovan]

It's interesting to note that regardless of the type of cancer (save some of the forms of mesothelioma that you tie to chemical exposure) the majority of cancers can be traced back to oxidative stress. As a physician I've seen remarkable results with dropping the usual chemical approach and using super antioxidents such as Acai extracts and grape-seed extracts.) My fellow physicians need to get off of the chemical bandwagon and really do some research in this direction. Cheers, Nick

Re:From the medical perspective...

[maxume]

Is it tough to be Dr. Nick and make quackish observations?

I say this because The Simpsons used to be hilarious, not because your post is uninteresting or particularly off the wall.

Re:From the medical perspective...

[DirePickle]

I wonder if he went to Hollywood Upstairs Medical College, too.

Re:From the medical perspective...

[ceoyoyo]

Acai extracts and grape seed extracts are chemicals. Chemical cocktails, actually.

Re:From the medical perspective...

[lukesl]

There are (at least) three problems with what you're saying:

1. I suspect you know this, but there are many types of tumors beyond mesotheliomas that are linked to environmental exposures, viral infections, hormonal states, and other things that have nothing to do with oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is just one small piece of the puzzle.

2. oxidative stress may be bad, but what does the evidence say about the efficacy of exogenous antioxidants in vivo? I'll give you a hint: they've been a big disappointment. Bonus question: what are the most important endogenous antioxidant systems in the human body, and which disorders affect them? hint: patients with Gilbert's syndrome have a five-fold lower risk of ischemic heart disease. I didn't learn that in med school biochemistry, and I bet you didn't either.

3. even if initiation of a cancer is tied to oxidative stress, it doesn't make any sense to think that antioxidants would be effective treatments for cancer that already exists. By giving antioxidants you would be making all the cells healthier, including the tumor cells. In fact, there have been studies demonstrating that you can ablate tumors by inducing oxidative stress locally while inhibiting the endogenous antioxidant systems of the tumor cells.

Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for clinicians, but you need to get on the critical thinking bandwagon.

Re:From the medical perspective...

[comp.sci]

Hi Dr. Nick!
Moderators: Please read the article about the MIT dean of admissions that got fired for stating false credentials before upmodding some Dr.Nick with only a single comment ever, talking about how the medical profession should step away from the "chemical bandwagon"...
What kind of results would you, as a physician see in preventing cancer anyways?

Re:From the medical perspective...

[porcupine8]

About #3 - I was told/read in various sources while I was going through chemo that I absolutely should *not* take megadoses of antioxidants during chemo, specifically because the chemo drugs themselves are acting as free radicals and so the antioxidants will inhibit their effectiveness. Many chemo patients want to start taking every vitamin and supplement they see to try and "get/stay healthy;" even though you're always hearing that you should check with your dr first, many assume that simple vitamins must be safe.

Re:From the medical perspective...

[Reziac]

From the only reference I could find, he appears to be a chiropractor. 'Nuf said.

Re:I am suspicious. - I am not, no money in it

[harvey the nerd]

Vitamin D3 (the good version) costs about 2c - 5c per 1000 IU tablet (2.5x RDA) at places like Costco, Swansons, Puritans Pride, Sams Club, Walmart etc depending on size bottle and frequent specials. Huge obscence profits, conspiracy to take over the world (sarcasm). However in northern latitudes like Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, northern Russia, these are very basic health issues worked in a number of mainstream North Am medical schools despite rampant anti-vitamin politics. Score one for the med school researchers over the drug addled (and coddled) managements. I take mine with vitamin K and mixed tocopherols, the natural isomeric mixtures of vitamin E, all cheap online as well as separately with a *good* multivitamin without iron (like many men, I already had excess).

This is *so* Slashdot...

[Analein]

News: "Somebody cured cancer!" Slashdot: "Lol, N00b. Evidence or gtfo!"

You can get too much Vitamin D

[white_owl]

Vitamin D deficiency is linked to all kinds of health degradation. So I started taking 2,000 IU a day. Now vitamin D is stored in your body so you can build up concentrations over time. Earlier this year (maybe a year and a half after starting) I started to experience nausea about 15 to 30 minutes after dinner, which is when I took my vitamin D. Looking it up it turns out nausea is one symptom of vitamin D poisoning. I stopped taking vitamin D and the nausea stopped immediately. My wife continues to take that same dose and not to experience any problems so your mileage may vary.

Re:You can get too much Vitamin D

[Anonymous Coward]

Color me curious - what form were you taking of vitamin D? There are several, and only D3 is directly usable by the body.

For example, if you're taking ergocalciferol, that is a fungus-derived chemical, not used immediately, called vitamin D2.

If you're taking cholecalciferol, that is D3, and it's usable by the body.

Re:You can get too much Vitamin D

[thebatlab]

Sounds like you might have got scared you were too low and quickly upped it without looking into it. Which happens to a lot of people. Supplementing with 2,000IU of vitamin D is, scientifically speaking ;), a crap load of extra Vitamin D.

Most supplements, good supplements, I've seen are derived from D3 so I'll assume yours was too. You could switch to one that contains maybe 200-400IU and get a good boost. You also have to watch how much is in any other supplements you take. A lot of multivitamins have 400IU of D3 in them already.

Re:You can get too much Vitamin D

[white_owl]

If you're taking cholecalciferol, that is D3, and it's usable by the body.

Yes it was cholecalciferol.

My ancestral path of migration (and yours, maybe):

[Futurepower(R)]

Migration route of my ancestors: You may be interested to see the migration route of my ancestors: My Male Genetic Contribution.

That adds to the discussion of why there is a need for Vitamin D supplements, and my parent comment, by showing that much more can be determined about our general ancestry than most people know. The results shown came from The Genographic Project, an organization related to the National Geographic Society.

My guess is that, long before the 1600s, some of my Caucasian ancestors intermarried with Slavs, and before that, Arabs. That would account for my Slavic look and the Mediterranean shade of my skin.

Can I use a sunlamp?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am canadian, and as it says in the article we don't really get sun for most of the year... Would one of those sunlamp things work to give me some sun for some of the year?

Re:Can I use a sunlamp?

[RighteousRaven]

"I am canadian... we don't really get sun for most of the year" In other news: Canada to Build 40MW Solar Power Plant

Re:Can I use a sunlamp?

[Anonymous Coward]

No shiz dipwad. Solar panels cope slightly better with 10 below than bare skin. What I am saying is that even in winter when there is sun you can't just go sunbathing, your skin has to stay covered. Thus, for the purposes of vitamin D production, there is practically no sun. The face alone is too small an area of skin.

Re:Can I use a sunlamp?

[bcwright]

You sure the headline wasn't that Canada was to build a 40 mW Solar Power Plant?

If you can read this...

[owlstead]

In the Netherlands, it's a joke for children to write: "Als je dit leest ben je dom." Or "You're stupid if you read this." But this is taking that same joke a bit too far. New title: "Slashdot leading cause of cancer?"

Any studies on naturists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has there ever been made any medical studies about the health of naturists versus textiles? It would be interesting to see if the cancer rate is lower among people who sunbathe naked every summer. Such a study would, if large enough, really show wether these findings are true or false.

Smoker subsidised healthcare

[Anonymous Coward]

This information will not stop the Canadian provinces from taxing smokers into submission. $10 a pack . Almost 100% tax.

I am sure that tobacco tax revenue in Canada is a huge profit for the government and brings in many times what smoking related cancers cost the healthcare system. Everybody loves to hate smokers these days, but without us, Medicare would fall down flat, guaranteed.

The tax on my cigarettes, pays for your healthcare. I have not been to a doctor or the hospital once in over then years, though over that ten years I have probably paid $10400 in tobacco tax directly subsidising the wasteful and frivolous healthcare system. (about two $10 packs a week for 10 years) Not to mention the 10% sales tax I pay on everything else I buy - everything, which is supposed to pay for the healthcare system. (Compounded by an additional 8% federal sales tax - the "GST").

Nor will I visit a doctor or a hospital in the next ten years. I simply do not trust the medical profession, I'd rather let nature take its course thank you very much.

There is no way in hell that smoking related illness costs even a fraction of the taxes earned on tobacco. What costs the healthcare system are the "health freaks" who visit the doctor or hospital on a regular basis for every little thing. Not smokers.

However, I'm sure this extortion will continue. And you can rest assured that if I started to grow and cure my own tobacco, the mounties would be here with their guns in no time.

Re:Smoker subsidised healthcare

[xtal]

[quote]
The tax on my cigarettes, pays for your healthcare. I have not been to a doctor or the hospital once in over then years, though over that ten years I have probably paid $10400 in tobacco tax directly subsidising the wasteful and frivolous healthcare system. (about two $10 packs a week for 10 years) Not to mention the 10% sales tax I pay on everything else I buy - everything, which is supposed to pay for the healthcare system. (Compounded by an additional 8% federal sales tax - the "GST").
[/quote]

If you think $10k pays for a lot of cancer drugs, you're wrong.

http://www.epa.gov/oppt/coi/pubs/II_5.pdf

Figures I see there are an initial three month cost around $25k with a per year maintenance of $10k. With much more possible if you survive.

I think you'd need to pay more like 500% tax to make up the diff. Something to think about.

Re:Smoker subsidised healthcare

[Anonymous Coward]

As a chemist related to a pharmacist I am fully aware of drug "costs". The point is that I have put in over $10K and have never taken anything out and never will. It is just wrong that I should have to pay for somebody else's hypochondria.

I'm sure if I looked up the stats that revenue from tobacco tax would be much greater than expenditures on smoking related cancers and illness. Lets do just that...:

Direct cost of health care for tobacco related illness in Canada in 2002: 4.36 billion
(http://www.otru.org/pdf/updates/update_june2006.p df [PDF])
Total tax revenues from tobacco sales in Canada for 2002: 7.05 billion
(http://www.smoke-free.ca/factsheets/pdf/totaltax. pdf [PDF])
Difference (extortion profit): 2.69 billion ...just as I expected.

Never mind the fact that doctors do not have the first clue what they are doing, especially when it comes to something as chemically complex as cancer. The majority of health professions students fail basic organic chemistry. I'd bet that it has been removed as a requirement of a medical doctorate by now.

Cancer (uncontrolled growth) is natural. One cannot have life without cancer, that is just the way it its. Yet the snake oil purveyors will do their best to convince us otherwise.

So why should I be forced to pay for a wasteful system that I will never use and do not want?

Re:Smoker subsidised healthcare

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, if you smoke you are a selfish a-hole and a drain on society. There is no excuse.

Re:Smoker subsidised healthcare

[porcupine8]

You might be underestimating the cost of cancer treatments. If you DO get lung cancer, and suddenly decide that you might like to live and do get treatment, here's what that $20,800 will buy you (that # is assuming you don't find the cancer til 10 years from now, since you won't go to a dr til then): A couple of xrays and CT scans to find the cancer, maybe a PET scan, and if you're lucky maybe the first chemo treatment of many. What a bargain!

Re:Smoker subsidised healthcare

[maraist]

Well, nobody is forcing you to pay the taxes. Its supply and demand, just like gas prices. The government found a demographic that they could exploit tax-wise. Likewise big oil is testing the elasticity of the new mellenium, which is pretty low. We'll likely see $5 gas soon, because the market CAN bear it. Now if only the gov would get past puritanism and start taxing Meth, cocain, and prostitution, we might clean up the inner city - much like abortion does (or at least did until pandering Republicanism takes full effect) [see freakonomics]

Re:Smoker subsidised healthcare

[urbanRealist]

This information will not stop the Canadian provinces from taxing smokers into submission. $10 a pack. Almost 100% tax.

Last I checked, the cost of a pack of cigarettes in NYC was about $6. That was about a 400% tax, so $10 per pack has to be more than a 100% tax. Although some of that is likely to be in the form of tariffs, so it doesn't go into your health system and you may not notice it.

That being said, I quit smoking over 2 years ago when I had trouble breathing. If the tax can get you to quit before you have health problems, it is worth every penny.

Re:Smoker subsidised healthcare

[wilec]

As someone with a bit of inside knowledge of the health care field I can assure you that while mouth, throat and lung cancer and yes acute heart related treatment cost is very high it is far from the most expensive health care expense. The most expensive is long term nursing care and treatment of the chronic diseases of the very old. Those that die before age 70 from acute disease or illness are a nominal expense compared to the cost of last 10-20 years of most those who live past 70. Now calm down, I am not suggesting that we do not take good care of these folks, just that we tell the truth about things. Smoking is a terrible self destructive addiction that can contribute to hideous diseases and it is fine that as a society we discourage it. However to demonize smokers with an excessive and undeserved tax burden while telling lies about their relative cost to society is shameless.

Whats next outrageous sporting goods taxes for the endomorphin addicts that suffer terribly expensive orthopedic trauma. How about a food fat content tax for the vast majority of western society, the hell with no sales tax on milk and butter, lets tax it cheese, ice cream just like tobacco. Don't get me started on what prion contaminated hormone saturated red meat, chicken or heavy metal laden fish does for colon cancer and mental health. Just wait until all the implications of prion based illness like CJD and the outrageous practices of the "meat factories" are exposed. And lord knows just what is actually in much of the processed foods you consume such as chips, dips, frozen pizza and breakfast cereals. Of course if you really want to be risque you can always eat out, may I suggest the latest redneck BBQ joint or Chinese diner in town.

Wabi-Sabi
Matthew

Re:Smoker subsidised healthcare

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, if you smoke you are a selfish a-hole and a drain on society. There is no excuse.

So I am a "selfish a-hole" despite the fact that I have proved above that I am paying for your health care and not using a cent myself? That's some interesting logic you have there you parasite.

Though unlike you, I can forgive you, as the propaganda that you have succumbed to is pretty powerful. It requires a great deal of intelligence and clarity to overcome it.

You might be underestimating the cost of cancer treatments. If you DO get lung cancer, and suddenly decide that you might like to live and do get treatment, here's what that $20,800 will buy you (that # is assuming you don't find the cancer til 10 years from now, since you won't go to a dr til then): A couple of xrays and CT scans to find the cancer, maybe a PET scan, and if you're lucky maybe the first chemo treatment of many. What a bargain!

I guess you did not read the part where I said will never use the health care system. I will use none of the tens of thousands of dollars that I have put into the system (involuntarily). If I DO get lung cancer I would rather let it play out its course and drown in my own blood than suffer chemo and morphine poisoning. I maintain that more cancer patients die of chemo and morphine poisoning than from cancer itself. Doctors really have no clue, they are futilely grasping at straws and have no idea what they are doing. As an instrumental analytical chemist I know exactly what the costs of diagnostic imaging modalities such CAT and MRI are, and how their costs are artificially inflated by a corrupt, incompetent and inefficient health care system. I guess you also missed the part where I said that cancer is an unavoidable side effect of biochemical life.

It never fails to amuse me how the moderation here always suppresses unpopular facts, yet these same moderators are the first to scream bloody murder about censorship anywhere else.

Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[SerpentMage]

Inuit... Inuit have relatively dark colored skins...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/climate-forces-in uit-onto-thin-ice/2006/05/26/1148524886121.html

And Inuit have been living in the North for many thousands upon thousands of years (50,000 I think). Actually I am always amazed at how dark their skin is comparing to where they live. It's not like you are going to see a bunch of Inuit suntanning on the tundra...

A skin near the equator that is light colored? Hmm... How about Amazon natives? http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/z0302a1700/amazon.jpg

The Amazon is about as close to the equator that you can get and their skin is relatively light colored when compared to say the skin color of an individual from Africa. And last I heard Amazon natives have been there for many many many thousands of years.

So the nutshell is equator = darkness of your skin color is HOGWASH! Want me to prove it even further? How about the aboriginals of Australia when compared to an individual from Malaysia? Aboriginals are much much darker and further away from the equator than individuals from Malaysia....

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[Zaphenath]

The reason I have heard cited for why people such as the Inuit, or Italians have darker skin is because of fish intake.

Coastal peoples, such as the Inuit, have a high intake of fish in their diet, and so get a lot of Vitamin D. Same goes for the Italians.

My guess for the Amazon natives having lighter skin would be that they live in the jungle? Not out in the plains, and so they would still be receiving less sunlight than people living in the Savannah. Just a guess, but it fits with the theory.

So, light skin is still associated with low Vitamin D levels. If there is strong sunlight, or a large amount of fish in the diet, darker skin is advantageous.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[shawb]

My guess for the Amazon natives having lighter skin would be that they live in the jungle? Not out in the plains, and so they would still be receiving less sunlight than people living in the Savannah. Just a guess, but it fits with the theory.

Bingo. Dense rainforest canopies block a very significant amount of light. IIRC about 5% makes it through to the lower levels where people would reside. Jungles are quite dark, something that doesn't come through in pictures and movies due to compensating with exposure time and aperture size.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[ceoyoyo]

A possible reason for the Inuit is snow. I'm from northern Canada. UV reflects from snow and you'll actually get burned crispy if you're out on snow or ice when the sun is up MUCH faster than you do on regular ground.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[Angostura]

Well, I would be tempted to agree, expect for the fact that relatively little of South America is covered in jungle. The huge altiplano, the Andes and associated areas, the Western desert, the huge pampas regions. My guess would be that even historically, less than 50% of S. America would be heavily forested.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[zenyu]

A possible reason for the Inuit is snow. I'm from northern Canada. UV reflects from snow and you'll actually get burned crispy if you're out on snow or ice when the sun is up MUCH faster than you do on regular ground.

I'm pretty sure it was their diet. Fish oils are very high in Vitamin D. Pretty much everyone is Iceland takes a daily cod liver suppliment. The parents take it in pill forms, the kids get it by the spoonful.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone already mentioned the jungle foliage explanation for the light skin of those living in the Amazon.

Your other example is even more interesting considering the nature of the article being discussed. The Inuit eat a lot of foods naturally rich in vitamin D (fatty fish primarily). It fits quite well with the idea that vitamin D is an important underlying factor in the correlation of skin shade to the latitude a given people are living at.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[MonkWB]

This may seem horribly racist but.........
Inuits have been forced to wear clothing, massive amounts really in comparison to what would lead to natural evolution in other parts of the world. Also, the Amazon natives are in the forest, and there is some argument there that works but I can't express it well!

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[jacksonscottsly]

Wouldn't you expect darker skin color--at least on faces--in areas with strong reflected light? Living on permanent ice and snow cover is like living on a mirror. I've been sunburned (no, not just windburned) skiing before.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[Octopus]

Australian Aborigines didn't exactly evolve under a rainforest canopy though...

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[ColaMan]

and there is some argument there that works but I can't express it well!
The words that you are looking for are, "Yadda yadda yadda."

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[SerpentMage]

Ok let's say you are right fish intake. So what happened to the folks from Iceland and Scandinavia? These folks eat fish to the wahzoo and some of it is downright disgusting. Why do they not have dark skin? They have blond hair and burn to crisp?

Considering that my sister lives in Ecuador not all of the country side is jungle. And in many many cases they live beside water which would give them plenty of sunlight.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[SerpentMage]

Please explain Iceland and Scandinavia? Same conditions, same food (other than the raw seal meat.) Yet those folks are fairly light skinned, and blond?

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[Michael Woodhams]

My understanding is that the generally accepted date for humans reaching the Americas is about 12000 years ago, although there are persistent controversial claims for evidence of human habitation back to about 30000 years ago. I don't think your 50000 year figure is supportable.

(Disclaimer: all the above is from memory.)

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[DigiShaman]

What about overcast weather? Year around, does Iceland have a lot more overcast than where the Inuit live?

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[fbjon]

the kids get it by the spoonful.

Haha, gotta make your kids strong! :)

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[Dachannien]

Sun exposure in the far north of North America is increased due to snow reflection.

Sun exposure in central Australia is increased due to the very sunny climate.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[Orange Crush]

Ok let's say you are right fish intake. So what happened to the folks from Iceland and Scandinavia?

This is just conjecture, but it could also be a factor of time. Humans only migrated to the Americas 12 to 15 thousand years ago. Europe was populated 40 to 50 thousand years ago. The Inuit may simply have not been up long enough.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[AaronStJ]

Your couple of anecdotal examples aside, the major trend in clearly towards darker skin nearer the equator. Look at any of the countless skin color maps that researchers have generated.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[Zaphenath]

Time would be my guess, as well. Perhaps if people have lighter or darker skin than what one would expect from the Vitamin D hypothesis, it is simply due to the amount of time evolving under such pressures, and their ancestors came from a different location.

I know this sounds like it is far too easy to make what seem to be excuses, but it does make sense, and one can easily look at how long people have inhabited certain regions to see if the hypothesis holds water.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[ceoyoyo]

Disclaimer before I start, I don't know whether this theory is valid or not. It's interesting to think about though.

Iceland is easy to explain -- it was settled by white people fairly recently (less than 2000 years). I don't actually know if anyone was there before the Vikings. I have the impression nobody was though.

Scandinavia is considerably warmer than northern Canada. Here's the climate data from Inuvik (http://theweathernetwork.com/weather/stats/pages/ C02139.htm) and Oulu, Finland (http://theweathernetwork.com/weather/stats/pages/ C00419.htm), for example. Maybe the influence of the Gulf Stream. Even the area I grew up in, despite being ten degrees further south, is a touch cooler: http://theweathernetwork.com/weather/stats/pages/C 02127.htm.

Other possible explanations include Scandinavia being in better (genetic) touch with the rest of Europe than the Inuit were with more southern regions.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[StrahdVZ]

Bingo. Dense rainforest canopies block a very significant amount of light. IIRC about 5% makes it through to the lower levels where people would reside. Jungles are quite dark, something that doesn't come through in pictures and movies due to compensating with exposure time and aperture size. This also applies to the Australia vs. Malaysia scenario. Malaysia and similar countries are traditionally dense jungle much like the Amazon (especially in Sabah and Borneo). 40,000 years of Aborinal evolution in the Australian outback involved sun, sun and more sun.

The equatorial argument is not quite accurate, but the sun exposure argument is obvious?

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[Anonymous Coward]

Use your common sense! Its not just being near to the equator, its exposure to sunlight.
If you live close to the equator in a forest you will be exposed to much less sunlight
than you would be living on an open plain. Now compare the aboriginals of Australia to
individuals from Malaysia.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[jericho4.0]

Actually, the Inuit have only lived in North America for about a thousand years. They replaced the Dorset culture. This is supported by archaeological evidence, European contact with the last of the Dorset, and the oral histories of the Inuit themselves.

A facinating subject, IMO, and good to keep in mind when thinking of prehistoric movements of ethnic groups and cultures. In a similar vein, more and more evidence indicates that Asia was dominated by causcasians for much of prehistory, with the race we now think of as 'Asians' confined to a small corner of their current range.

Equator = darkness is not correct, but it's close. Two complications are availability of Vitamin D from food and UV exposure. The inuit have tons of D in their diet, so no selection pressure exists. The Amazonians live in a deeply shaded forest canopy. Likewise, the aboriginals exist in an enviroment with little shade.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have dark skin because the people that colonized those areas didn't have dark skin (because, at some point, their ancestors had to live in areas where there was not enough sunlight and not enough foods with vitamin D in them).

In case the vitamin D connection is not clear to you yet: a dietary vitamin D source *enables* dark-skinned people to live in areas where there is not enough sunlight to trigger vitamin D production inside the body. Vitamin D does *not* trigger increased production of melanin (does not make your skin darker).

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[joto]

So what happened to the folks from Iceland and Scandinavia? These folks eat fish to the wahzoo and some of it is downright disgusting.

Oh, are we? I didn't know that. Like most norwegians, I very rarely eat fish. However, Norwegians fish a lot of fish, which is exported to other countries.

In a historical perspective, it's no different. While many coastal-living norwegians has had fish as an important part of their diet, it has never been like the inuits who practically eat nothing but fish and seal. Farming has probably been even more important. And people would trade, so farmers would get fish, and fishermen would get meat, grains (rye, oat, barley), root vegetables, and other herbs).

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[joto]

Yeah, you know inuits love to take their heavy clothing off, and let their naked bodies absorb the precious sunshine in out there in the snow at -30 degrees.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[joto]

Please explain Iceland and Scandinavia? Same conditions, same food (other than the raw seal meat.) Yet those folks are fairly light skinned, and blond?

Not same conditions. Not same food. I believe clearing up this misunderstanding removes the need for further explanations.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[joto]

I believe the biting cold combined with wind would bring more evolutionary pressure than a few reflected sun rays (although inuits invented sunglasses a long time ago) . It would be more interesting to investigate whether Inuit facial skin is more resistant to frostbite than e.g. Kenyan facial skin.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[RedBear]

And Inuit have been living in the North for many thousands upon thousands of years (50,000 I think). Actually I am always amazed at how dark their skin is comparing to where they live. It's not like you are going to see a bunch of Inuit suntanning on the tundra...

In far northern latitudes during the summer there is sunlight up to 24 hours a day. During the winter there is snow and ice everywhere, and people tend to live near the ocean since that's often the only place to obtain food during most of the winter. Ice, snow, and water are all really good at reflecting ultraviolet light, which of course is the main component of sunlight that causes tanning. So on a lot of winter days there would actually be more UV bouncing around than on a lot of summer days. Even light cloud cover won't stop it. You can get a horrible sunburn on an overcast day on the water or on a ski trip. And strange as it may seem they weren't particularly averse to going around in loincloths at times, even in the middle of winter.

A skin near the equator that is light colored? Hmm... How about Amazon natives?

Most leaves reflect both UV and infrared light. If the natives did the smart thing and spent most of their time under the jungle canopies where it's cooler, they would also be protected from a massive amount of UV and direct sunlight over the millenia. This isn't true anymore, but in the old days you could practically travel from one side of the country to the other without crossing any open areas not covered by the jungle canopy.

So the nutshell is equator = darkness of your skin color is HOGWASH! Want me to prove it even further? How about the aboriginals of Australia when compared to an individual from Malaysia? Aboriginals are much much darker and further away from the equator than individuals from Malaysia....

Most of Australia is an arid desert with strong similarities to sub-Saharan Africa. Dry, flat, with very little tree cover. It makes perfect sense that they would develop darker skin pigmentation over time.

So you came up with some good examples of exceptions without really disproving the fact that there is a general correlation between latitude and skin color. But the main thing is that this correlation is caused by relative exposure to sunlight, so it's only natural that people who live in environments that tend to concentrate or block sunlight would have characteristics that may be different from other areas in the same latitude.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[ceoyoyo]

Are you under the impression that you can't get your face sunburned? Perhaps you should go test that theory.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[joto]

Are you suggesting that too much sun on the tip of your nose, is something that will put strong evolutionary pressure towards darker skin all over the body? I wouldn't waste my time trying to test that theory.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[ceoyoyo]

Constant burns on your face, with attendant blistering and infection (you don't get to sit at home and put aloe vera on your sunburn when you're supposed to be out fishing for survival) could well be a selective pressure towards not losing your pigmentation. Particularly if you eat more high vitamin D fish than pretty much anybody else in the world to remove some of the pressure towards lighter skin. Not to mention you're probably paddling around in much less during the summer taking the reflection off the water.

Re:Actually I can a dark colored race in the north

[Reziac]

Dark skin in Italy wasn't native. It was the result of the Romans bringing in dark-skinned Africans, which mingled with the light-skinned Romans to produce the darker tones (and the often-curly hair) of modern Italy.

Similarly, the early "pure" Spaniards were typically blonde and blue-eyed; the dark-skinned, dark-eyed Spaniards of today are the descendants of Moorish invaders.

However, per the Wikipedia article, Inuits have not lost their dark skin because their diet is rich in Vit.D (by way of seal liver) thus there has been no selection pressure toward lighter skins.

Huh? Do You Know How Inuit Live?

[SerpentMage]

The Inuit skin is darker because they have historically lived in the snow reflecting light... Huh? Sorry dude, but do you know where the Inuit actually live? They live above the arctic circle meaning that when there is snow for the most part (6 months) it is dark, and thus their Vitamin D reserves would have been used before the sun could replenish it. Then when there is sun the snow melts and there is very little reflection giving them a "sun tan."

Re:Huh? Do You Know How Inuit Live?

[krbvroc1]

You do know that in addition to sunlight, Fatty fish and Fish Oils, a staple of Inuit diet, is a significant source of Vitamin D? Seems to me that they adapted to get their Vitamin D by an alternative source.

Re:Huh? Do You Know How Inuit Live?

[ceoyoyo]

Apparently you've never lived in the north. There's plenty of overlap between sunlight and snow on the ground. No to mention it's pretty hard to grow a field of corn, so when there's no snow or ice around the Inuit were out in boats on the water, which is just as bad.

Re:Huh? Do You Know How Inuit Live?

[SerpentMage]

I don't buy that. Look at the folks from Iceland, and from the Scandinavian countries. They eat the same fatty fish yet they are blond, blue eyes, and very very light skin. The only real difference in diets is that they don't eat raw seal meat.

Re:Huh? Do You Know How Inuit Live?

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the point -- the Inuit's alternative source of vitamin D explains why they don't fit the sun exposure:skin color correlation. People that live in Iceland and Scandinavia already fit the trend, so it doesn't matter that they also get plenty of vitamin D.

What's to gain by naysaying this study?

[Spittoon]

The arrogance in the comments to this article is pretty astonishing. Either you don't believe the study because apparently you're an expert, or you think you're already getting enough Vitamin D and don't need to pay attention to it.

You'd think the study was telling us that battery acid cures cancer, rather than some natural substance that everybody agrees is necessary to live.

So what if milk producers funded the study-- they did some work, it seems legit, and they're advocating a substance we NEED TO LIVE ANYWAY, and which could POSSIBLY KEEP YOU FROM GETTING CANCER.

Protect yourself. Read the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D

Add fish oil and yogurt to your diet, and then, my dear geeky friend, take your ass outside for just a little bit each day. Walk around the block or something. It won't hurt you unless you get hit by a bus, and it MIGHT KEEP YOU FROM GETTING CANCER.

Re:What's to gain by naysaying this study?

[Anonymous Coward]

" my dear geeky friend, take your ass outside for just a little bit each day. Walk around the block or something. It won't hurt you unless you get hit by a bus, and it MIGHT KEEP YOU FROM GETTING CANCER."

        As mentioned in the article, Canada practically gets no sun for most of the year (I'm in Ottawa). I asked about using a sunlamp but we ACs are so often ignored :( I've been trying to get more sun for years but I can never do it 3 times a week for 15 minutes like you're supposed to. You have to be free at around 10 to 3 or something or buildings will block most of the sun, sunlight dims rapidly as the sun leaves the zenith, and it can't be cloudy. You also have to expose your whole arms or another area of skin (staying out for longer will not work), or it won't do you any good. How often will those things coincide? Not 3 times a week. I'm not going to budget half an hour every lunchtime just so I can get some vitamin d - as important as it might sound, there are so many things like that, and it's not worth 4% of my waking life.

Besides, who cares about cancer??? I just want to be as healthy as I can right now. Life is short, but youth is shorter. I'm 25 now, and by the time cancer or whatever concerns me, in 30 years, treatments are liable to be pretty good anyway.

Re:What's to gain by naysaying this study?

[Anonymous Coward]

Healthy skepticism is essential for life in modern society. Without it, you end up buying herbal viagra, taking homeopathic medicine, believing Saddam and Osama were best buddies, and so forth. This much criticism for what appears to be a flawed and biased study is a good thing, even if following its recommendations would be mostly harmless.

Re:What's to gain by naysaying this study?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh... a modern day version of Pascal's wager.

Re:What's to gain by naysaying this study?

[Wordplay]

Search for "sunlamp vitamin d" on Google, and you'll find information just as authoritative, if not more, than what you'll get off Slashdot. Short answer, yeah, they sure -claim- to stimulate Vitamin D production.

Re: the your last paragraph, all I can tell you is that my ability to properly triage long-term goals has risen exponentially with age and experience. Personally, I'd go out of my way to get the proper UV exposure, and failing that, I'd supplement. Your body is plainly built to require it, whatever the cancer link is.

And speaking as someone who is having both a parent and a good friend go through chemo, the downside if you lose that "pretty good treatment" bet of yours is notable.

Re:What's to gain by naysaying this study?

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't hurt you unless you get hit by a bus, and it MIGHT KEEP YOU FROM GETTING CANCER.

I would not say "might". Statistically, getting killed by an oncoming bus has been shown to prevent 100% of deaths by cancer in those deceased impacted upon by said omnibus vehicle.

Re:What's to gain by naysaying this study?

[Anonymous Coward]

ah, thanks for the response :)

Sometimes there are hiccups

[turing_m]

"So it's hard to diet because as far as your body knows, that triple fudge brownie might be the the calories you burn not freezing to death tonight. And since you're body's so preoccupied with this now baseless fear of starvation, it forgets to make you want to eat things like broccoli or spinach, which our ancestors were probably eating to pass the time until some meat wandered close enough to kill. Call it evolutionary sabotage- what we needed before is not what we need now, and if we can't stay on top of those changes, we tend to die."

A little refresher on evolution: As far as natural selection is concerned, health after age 50-60 is essentially unimportant. I suspect many slashdotters will recognize this as being similar to a "don't care" state on a Karnaugh map. If having DNA for cancer or heart disease also makes you more likely to live, create and provide for your progeny, your genes aren't going to die out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnaugh_map

As such, some 50 year old dropping dead from twinkie overload hardly registers with natural selection. By that stage, any offspring resulting from that person will likely be ready to leave the nest and quite unlikely to starve - at least one parent must have died from gluttony after all.

Contrast that with someone who is able to breeze through life with a washboard stomach and no desire in the world for food. The moment there is a war, drought, epidemic, harsh winter, crop blight or even rats getting into your root cellar, that individual is out of the gene pool.

The last great depression was only 70 years ago. War/government induced lean times, less long ago (outside the US). It's a pretty bold bet to assume that the next few hundred years will involve as a matter of course people munching burgers their whole lives without any hard times, what with limited world resources, exponential population growth and the natural tendency of people to fight and sometimes constrict the supply of said limited resources.

Re:Sometimes there are hiccups

[espressojim]

You can take that even further selection: If a trait makes you more likely to have children early in life, but to die when you're past your child rearing years, then it's an advantage to have that trait, even though it kills you at a time when most of us still want to be alive.

Re:Sometimes there are hiccups

[koreth]

A little refresher on evolution: As far as natural selection is concerned, health after age 50-60 is essentially unimportant.

Sounds like someone else needs a little refresher on evolution too. The presence of people who have a few decades of extra life experience to impart and who can take care of the grandchildren while mom and dad are out hunting is not exactly insignificant to the survival of a tribe.

Re:Sometimes there are hiccups

[turing_m]

Interesting article.

'We aren't talking about living into your 80s," Caspari says. Human life span in those days was pretty brief, under the best of circumstances, so even living into your 30s was quite an achievement.'

The necessity of age 50/60+ people to a tribe has been in part counteracted by the institutional memory functions of both papyrus and religion. The other thing is that with something like cancer that is in most cases a probability rather than a certainty, not everyone is going to die. The article compares the memory of the elderly to a hard drive or tape backup. Redundancy is good... but you only need so many backups before it's overkill. As long as there are one or two lucid old people around, the tribe will do fine.

At least your own elderly don't have much of an incentive to lie about the important things, only how tough they had it. Unlike much of the media.
http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/jokes/monty-python-fo ur-yorkshiremen.html

It's also a very difficult task to keep cells dividing that many times without errors. Extend it far enough and there will inevitably be some compromises made, unintended consequences, etc.

For every extra old person eating food, that's food that could otherwise be eaten by someone able to reproduce, is about to reproduce, can remember the stories his parents told him, can defend the tribe, and can harvest more food. Obviously it's not an age set in stone, it's a gradation that will correspond with general age related deaths (heart disease, cancer, etc).

To be talking about the "end of (tens of thousands of years of) history" just because of a couple of decades of plenty (and mostly just in the US, because of the dollar denominated oil empire) reflects more than just a little hubris. Kind of like the '2. ??? 3. Profit!' dot com business models.

why

[JustNiz]

is it that they only did the study on women?
Judging by how much attention is focussed on health issues only relating to women it seems society today thinks men are clearly less important.

Re:why

[ONOIML8]

That's only true of white males in North America. Other guys are plenty important.

Re:why

[An Onerous Coward]

Dude, most of these initial studies try to get all their participants from one gender or the other. I think the primary reason is to limit the variability of the sample somewhat.

There are plenty of possible reasons that do not involve power-hungry womyn trying to institute an oppressive matriarchy, overthrow your biblical values, turn your daughters into lesbians, and eventually shoot males for sport.

Re:why

[porcupine8]

There have been a lot of other similar studies done on both genders; many have already been cited in the comments if you'll scroll through.

It's become increasingly common to do single-gender studies. Why? Because it turns out our bodies work differently, who'dathunkit? And for decades, women suffered because the medical community assumed that what was true for men, is true for women. So, for instance, heart attacks in women went undiagnosed because they had different symptoms than men's heart attacks. So now to be on the safe side, anything that is suspected to work at all differently (which, since women have more problems with their bones then men, could easily include vitamin D) is done single-gender.

Re:why

[RonBurk]

Most likely because we have really good data on how many cancers we expect to see in a group of women of a particular size and age range and medical history. Also, women tend to be getting screened more aggressively. Looking at prostate cancer for something like this is not such a good choice, because to get results as quickly as 4 years, you have to look at older men, thus requiring a bigger starting group because more of your patients will die off of things like heart disease. Prostate cancer also tends to be slower growing, which increases the time required before you can claim to see results.

If you want to see if something can affect a lot of cancers, and want to get your results relatively quickly, you probably want to start with a group of women, not men.

Scotland too far north?

[2901]

Scotlands high rate of cancer is usually attributed to bad diet, smoking, etc. Maybe we are just too far north?

Re:If 20 Minutes Of Noon Day Sun Does D

[umghhh]

I remeber having B. type of social control in a country I come from and this was a communist country. I had simialr observation about public spaces in UK where I lived and worked for while. Add to this the fact that majority if not all public space available (in shopping malls and such) are properly video supervised and what you write seems to make even sense.

Orwell would be proud of his predictions even if current big brother state needs no war to proceed with its big brother style invigilation.

Cod Liver Oil

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no wonder that people used to take cod liver oil supplements in the days before Politically Correct Nutrition hijacked our thinking. Just make sure you take cod liver oil from a supplier that tests it for heavy metals.

tv's that radiate?

[freeasinrealale]

yea I know - patents. I hereby declare this idea that any tv or monitor or handheld or portable device has an added function that enables an amount of safe uv radiation for purposes of tanning/vitamin d generation. Since its my idea this post is evidence of prior art. I am placing this invention/idea in the public domain. so there

What about oral supplements?

[QunaLop]

I did not scan the comments, merely skimmed them... perhaps this has already been discussed? For a few dollars a year you can buy your recommended dose in pill form, I have been doing this, mainly to help calcium absorption, as I just recently became a tumour survivor. Are there any detriments to taking the vitamin in this form?

It's not enough.

[ScrewMaster]

As an American I can only say this: focusing on Vitamin D (or any other single nutrient) as a factor in causing disease X or condition Y simply shifts our attention from the real problem. And that is the simple, undeniable, thoroughly-established fact that our diet sucks. Sucks on a Biblical scale. If more of us accepted that and made some (admittedly significant) changes to that dietary intake, there'd be one hell of a lot fewer people with cancers of any kind. Not to mention strokes, and heart attacks, and diabetes, and all of the other diet and obesity-related conditions from which we suffer. My mind is absolutely boggled by the sheer scale of health problems resulting from typical American fare, and I feel sorry for people in other countries that are adopting American food because they think it's better for them. Chances are, compared to their traditional diet ... it isn't.

For example, my fiancee is North African, and her traditional meals are largely vegetarian with relatively few percent of calories from animal-derived foods. She's never had a health problem. Her grandmother is 103. Granted, the reason the average person from her country doesn't eat more meat is because they can't afford it, not because they have some inhibition about eating meat. Yet, the wealthier members of the population there are eating more and more American-style foods and guess what ... they're already seeing an increase in cancers, strokes, heart attacks and diabetes, but without the drugs and surgical techniques we use to try and compensate for the lifetime abuse of our bodies.

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad they're researching the effects of insufficient Vitamin D reserves on cancer. We can just add that into our total body of knowledge about diet and health. But we really need to keep our minds on the big picture, which clearly says that we don't eat right. Too many people I know have suffered or died from what they ate over their shortened lifetimes. So here I am, now at the age where I have to take a good, hard look at my family history, and take stock of my future health. The conclusion I've reached is this: either I make some serious changes to what I eat, and the way I live ... or the outlook will not be good. So, I'm making those changes.

My father died of diabetic complications at the age of 62, and his doctor said to me "that's one possible future for you." It was an awful, painful, degenerative death that lasted several years. I don't want to go that way, and sometimes we have to accept that changing a few little things here and there aren't going to cut it. Taking some Vitamin D supplements, or getting some more Sun, or eating some more broccoli ... that's fine so far as it goes. It doesn't go far enough for most of us. Not nearly far enough.

Re:It's not enough.

[BandwidthHog]

Very true. I’m a huge proponent of eating like a caveman. Apart from the fact that there weren’t really and proto-human populations living in caves, the diet and lifestyle we adapted to is what we are still tuned for. The closer we can come to that, the better. It’s actually a very basic and simple idea. The only tricky part is executing that plan in 21st century America. And, ironically enough, it’s also a fairly expensive way to eat in this society.

The prevalence of natural food coops over the past few decades helps greatly, and I think we’re starting to see a pretty significant shift in the dietary patterns of this society. Things are kinda coming to a head in a lot of ways, from the organic movement, to concerns over HFCS, fear of GMO foods, and lately the melamine thing.

Now if only I could buy organic whisky...

Re:It's not enough.

[ScrewMaster]

I wouldn't mind some organically-grown beer, personally.

But I agree: the caveman diet is a good one, if that means lots of fruits, nuts and vegetables. I think our mistake is in assuming that, because we're omnivores, we are therefore equally as well adapted to eating animal products as we are to eating plants. We're not, really. I look at our ability to digest either as an effective survival trait (we can eat anything, if we have to) but when you get right down to it ... we're still herbivores at heart. I don't know if I'll ever be able to manage a completely vegetarian diet, frankly, but I'm going to get as close as I can. As I mentioned in my previous post, my fiancee is from Africa and eats very little meat and as little American food as possible, so hopefully I can pull it off. My last girlfriend loved fried foods and steak: not much chance for improving my diet there, but I will say she was a damn good cook and I have the extra body mass to prove it!

So. The evidence is there, has been for a long time, and I don't want to wait until I have my first bypass operation to accept a few facts. Interestingly, there's an international grocery store just down the street from me. I shop there a lot (they have great produce.) Lots of Europeans, Indians and other folks that are looking to get as close to their traditional foods as they can, and I might add that you don't hardly see an obese individual among them.

Note to all the foreign visitors to Slashdot: if you see an American fast-food joint coming near you, be afraid. Be very afraid. And ... don't eat there.

Re:It's not enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I'm sure that if one's not getting enough Vitamin D, they're not getting enough of a lot of other essential nutrients as well.

Re:It's not enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

We are supposed to be, and DESIGNED to be, vegan.
Most people aren't vegan for ONE reason alone: they were brought up to eat animal products. For NO other reason. They didn't think it through, they don't 'crave' the flesh of animals, or milk from cows, or hens' eggs.
They were CONDITIONED into thinking these disgusting acts were 'normal' and 'necessary'.

We can't catch animals with our bare hands, we don't have claws, we can't open our mouths wide enough to break the spine of a cow, we don't naturally want to suck milk from a pregnant cow's breasts, we don't naturally want to eat a hen's egg that contains a half developed chick...

But STILL MOST people will insist that we are 'supposed' to eat this shit.
The wages of sin is death, and the incidence of cancer and heart disease is appropriately higher in animal product eaters...

Re:It's not enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

> We are supposed to be, and DESIGNED to be, vegan.

Oh really? Our closest relatives, chimpanzees (who share 98% of our DNA and most of our evolutionary history), are not vegan. Not even close. Why is that?

> Most people aren't vegan for ONE reason alone: they were brought up to eat animal products. For NO other reason.

Most animals eat what they eat because they were brought up eating it. Humans are only different in being able to ponder whether a different diet might be better. I've never seen any objective evidence that a vegan diet is healthier than a balanced non-vegan diet.

  - Vic

Re:It's not enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

> We are supposed to be, and DESIGNED to be, vegan.

Since veganism is an ideology, this is a bit like saying "we are supposed to be, and DESIGNED to be, Aristotelians."

Re:It's not enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Vitamin B12 is only found in animal food sources. Vegans MUST take supplements for this. This implies that veganism cannot be the natural diet. I agree that excessive "carnivorism" is unhealthly and wasteful.

Re:It's not enough.

[Jimithing DMB]

What a load of bullshit. It sounds like some PETA propaganda. You can rationalize all you want that a no-meat diet is preferable to a some-meat diet. You can throw out bogus statements about eating an animal being "disgusting." You can even make bogus assertions that because we can't eat many animals without tools that we aren't supposed to be eating them. A particularly good example is the assertion that we eat hen's eggs that contain half-developed chicks. Apparently you are pretty damn ignorant. When a cock is not around, a hen will not lay fertilized eggs but unfertilized eggs. Chickens do not reproduce asexually. There are several tricks employed to ensure that the eggs you buy have no chance at becoming chicks. The obvious one is to not have a cock around the hens laying eggs for food. The other one is to candle the eggs a few days after they have been laid. If you see red spots or veins of any sort then it is obviously an embryo.

Frankly I see no problem with eating meat in a rational quantity. It is a good source of nutrients that a human may not otherwise pick up from a typical diet of plant material. It is true that the nutrients ultimately come from plant material but they build up in certain ways in animals that have beneficial effects for the human consumer.

Personally, I am quite healthy and take ZERO supplements. I get plenty of water and plenty of food and I vary my diet among different foods. I do not eat hamburgers every day. I do go out in the sun, although less in the winter than I probably should. All I can tell anyone is that this works for me and also a number of other people. If you get to talking with the guys that live to be 90 or 100 in good health you generally see that they eat a varied diet. Anecdotal, I know, but to me it seems more trustworthy than studies like this that focus on one specific nutrient.

If veganism works for you, great. But you come off sounding like a preaching kool-aid drinker. And if you want to talk religion (i.e. "the wages of sin" crap you spew) then perhaps you might try reading the bible sometime and tell me if you get the impression that it tries to convey a message of never killing or eating any animals. Why the bible? Putting the word of god stuff aside you can still take it for what it is which is the oldest known book about building and maintaining societies. Gluttony, of course, is a sin and one could certainly make a case that overindulging on bad food on a consistent basis is not healthy for the body nor the soul. It takes a massive leap of logic to go from that to veggies-only.

Re:It's not enough.

[AliasTheRoot]

We are designed to be omnivorous, hence the incisors, forward facing eyes, social structures, tool use and general purpose gastro-intestinal system. No creature is designed for our industrialised food production and that's where the problems lie.

Re:It's not enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

You reminded me of that crazy guy in that movie, hur hur.

But I like you, we can be friends. :)

Re:It's not enough.

[benzapp]

For example, my fiancee is North African, and her traditional meals are largely vegetarian with relatively few percent of calories from animal-derived foods. She's never had a health problem. Her grandmother is 103. Granted, the reason the average person from her country doesn't eat more meat is because they can't afford it, not because they have some inhibition about eating meat. Yet, the wealthier members of the population there are eating more and more American-style foods and guess what ... they're already seeing an increase in cancers, strokes, heart attacks and diabetes, but without the drugs and surgical techniques we use to try and compensate for the lifetime abuse of our bodies.

Friend, North Africa is a hell hole. Anecdotal evidence of her grandmother doesn't discount the fact the entire region was once the epicenter of the civilized world and that today, it is more barbaric than it has been in almost 3,000 years.

You have somehow irrationally determined that the only measure of success of a people is their average lifespan, rather than a careful analysis of the creative output of said people.

I would take Roman North Africa with an average lifespan of 65 over barbaric modern North Africa with an average lifespan of over 100.

Oh, and by the way, last time I was in Cairo, the number of men with huge guts was comical. Most of the men there look pregnant.

Re:It's not enough.

[Joey Vegetables]

Dead animals in small to moderate quantities aren't necessarily harmful. Some, including fish if not raised in a mercury-laden environment, are highly beneficial. However, many people in the developed world eat way too much meat and other animal products, to the great detriment of their own health.

Re:It's not enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's wrong. Vitamin B12 is not reliable supplied by modern agriculture, but in nature it is found on plants (generated by bacteria) modern chemicals and excessive cleaning get rid of those bacterias together with generated B12. It's why vegans must supliment B12.

Nothing to see here...move along.

[TheMohel]

Okay, after reading the entire hysterical FA, I want that ten minutes of my life back. A sensationalistic article published on a slow-news Sunday in the Globe and Mail (where I always look for good peer-reviewed scientific evidence) says that a study "will be published" in June that will revolutionize the way that I, a practicing physician, view chronic disease.

Or maybe not. I can't tell whether the study was prospective, controlled, or blinded. I can't tell what cancers were examined. I CAN tell you that four years is ridiculously short for a study examining the emergence of cancer, which appears (we're not sure yet) to take decades in most cases. Since the journal is not named, I don't know its reputation or whether the study was peer-reviewed (and by what peers). In other words, I have no information that allows me to evaluate the claim, except that the claim itself was published in the newspaper. This in itself is not a good sign.

It is a violation of scientific ethics to pre-announce your results in the lay press without also revealing the details of your methods and the limitations of your study. In the case of a "miracle" result for a common supplement, it rises to the level of being truly suspicious. Extraordinary claims really do require extraordinary proof, and making such a claim in a Sunday supplement in the complete absence of accompanying evidence is the stuff of psychics and snake oil.

I am skeptical. I am willing to be convinced, but I'm also willing to entertain cash bets on the probability of this being true and clinically useful.

Vitamin D requirements during pregancy

[arkarumba]

My wife and I are planning a family, which prompted me to trawl for "Vitamin D" and "Pregnancy" and I came across this very interesting review of Vitamin D medical research indicating it would be useful for mothers to get a lot more Vitamin D than they are getting. (Note, the article is quite long, but for those in a similar position, its interesting reading and maybe something to discuss with your obstetrician.)

Tanning Industry Hoax!

[reversible physicist]

The "controversy" about the health benefits of sun exposure is fueled mainly by the tanning industry. All of the large studies on which the health benefit claims are based (including the one cited here) used oral vitamin D, not sun exposure. To quote from the abstract of a recent article in The Journal of steroid biochemistry and molecular biology (B. Gilchrest, March 2007),

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is a proven carcinogen, responsible for more than half of all human malignancies. It also compromises skin appearance and function. Since the UV action spectra for DNA damage, skin cancer and Vitamin D(3) (vit D) photosynthesis are identical and vit D is readily available from oral supplements, why has sun protection become controversial, now that some data suggest conventionally "sufficient" levels of vit D may be less than optimal for at least some population groups? First, the media and apparently some researchers are hungry for a new message. Nevertheless, after 50 years, UV exposure is still a major avoidable health hazard. Second, the controversy is fueled by a powerful special interest group: the indoor tanning industry. They target not the frail elderly or inner-city ethnic minorities, groups for whom evidence of vit D insufficiency is strongest, but rather fair-skinned teenagers and young adults, those at highest risk of UV photodamage. Third, evolution does not keep pace with civilization. When nature gave man the appealing capacity for vit D photosynthesis, the expected lifespan was far less than 40 years. Long-term photodamage was not a concern, and vit D was not available at the corner store. The medical community should avoid sensationalism and instead rigorously explore possible cause-and-effect relationships between vit D status and specific diseases while advocating the safest possible means of assuring vit D sufficiency.

Re:Tanning Industry Hoax!

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I have psoriasis and one of the major most effective treatments is UVB exposure. I've used it for 20 years.. 2 to 7 minutes at a time...

Studies have found that in over 30+years of data... Psoriasis patients who use UVB regularly over 30 years, have no increased risk of skin cancer than regular folks

Thats not to say UV isnt responsible for cancers.. but i do think there is a tolerance that is built up that helps defend against the effects of UV. Vitamin D is one of those effects.

I also use a vitamin D based drug for prosiasis.. and it is quite effective.

Re:Tanning Industry Hoax!

[reversible physicist]

According to the Gilchrest article, 2 to 8 minutes of exposure to direct summer sunlight is all it takes for a light skinned Caucasian to reach a plateau in their manufacture of the precursor to vitamin D. It then takes several hours for this to turn into vitamin D. So hours of whole-body exposure doesn't actually produce more vitamin D than just a few minutes.

I'm not in this field, so someone else should comment on whether sunlight has additional benefits for psoriasis over oral vitamin D. It seems reasonable that very short (and regular) exposure causes only minimal long term damage.

Re:Tanning Industry Hoax!

[Octopus]

Then why isn't history filled with reports of Caucasians dying young from tumors that eat people from the skin down? Am I missing something here? Pale people who "should be" hiding from the sun have been around for quite a while now.

Re:Tanning Industry Hoax!

[Pharmboy]

I think you will find a deaf ear here when it comes to UV. I have spent years trying to educate people that UV exposure is nature and healthy if none without burning and in moderation.

The problem is that there is an industry in people getting ZERO UV, and this industry is easily 100x larger than the indoor tanning industry. The tanning bed industry is extremely small, with no public companies.

So billions are at stake, and no amount of science is going to change their minds. As soon as you talk about medical use, "moderate use", or anything reasonable, they will scream how there is "no safe level" and other garbage that simply isn't supported in the data.

Statistics can say anything you want them to say. Saying that any UV is deadly, after we have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to adapt to it (and even NEED it to produce vitamin D), smacks of bad science.

Re:Tanning Industry Hoax!

[alienmole]

I think you will find a deaf ear here when it comes to UV.

Most people who really do take time to look at the facts will come to the conclusion that use of tanning beds is a pretty unattractive proposition. If nothing else, the skin damage effect is pretty well documented, and is more likely to get through to the people who are most interested in tanning, i.e. the appearance-obsessed who have been indoctrinated with a particular standard of beauty which, interestingly, is actually quite unnatural for caucasians.
a particular

I have spent years trying to educate people that UV exposure is nature and healthy if none without burning and in moderation.

You mean "convince", not "educate". Although a lot depends on what you consider "in moderation". But if you believe in UV exposure in moderation, the best place to get it from is the sun, not tanning beds, because by your own argument, that's what we're evolved to deal with:

Saying that any UV is deadly, after we have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to adapt to it (and even NEED it to produce vitamin D), smacks of bad science.

That's a very unscientific appeal to common sense, which also happens to be completely irrelevant. With things like this, we're evolved to be able to survive to breeding age, and what happens after that doesn't matter much from an evolutionary perspective. People in their forties and fifties with wrinkly, leathery, sagging skin used to be quite common, and that was caused by sun exposure (and often also smoking). Skin remains much healthier, much longer now among people who have reduced sun exposure.

BTW, I don't know of any reputable source that says "any UV is deadly", so you're arguing against a straw man there. Most of the articles I read seem quite balanced to me. A lot of them are by people like dermatologists, who don't have any direct stake in the "zero UV industry" you mention -- if anything, their jobs would be more secure if they encouraged their patients to get UV exposure. So your conspiracy theory doesn't really track. Think about the cigarette companies -- once the science of smoking became known, the doctors didn't cooperate and continue to claim that smoking was healthy. So you're going to have to try much harder to extricate yourself from the company of the good old tobacco industry, with which you have far more in common than you're willing to admit. You both sell something that people don't need, that is actively damaging to their health.

Re:Tanning Industry Hoax!

[Pharmboy]

Nothing I said in any post referred to nor advocated using tanning beds. Everyone just is blinded by that fact that I refer to them in my sig.

And educate is the proper word. Since you have no idea who I am, or what I really stand for excepting a couple of paragraphs that you didn't read in full, I am confident you don't know enough to judge me on this.

Like most of the others, you see "tanning bed" and you make assumptions about what I stand for and believe. And like them, you would be wrong.

Re:Tanning Industry Hoax!

[alienmole]

You refer to tanning beds in your sig, and in your profile url, so you're clearly pretty interested in them. At the same time, you're postulating a kind of vast conspiracy against UV exposure, which somehow even involves people who don't stand to benefit from it. I think I have plenty of information to judge you on, and so does anyone else reading your posts. If my conclusions are wrong, you're going to have to explain why.

Wouldn't be surprised if it was funded by the...

[kennylogins]

National Dairy Council.

Here's his published research

[nbauman]

The "conflict of interest" doesn't bother me, but the lack of a link to or citation of a published study does. Does anyone know where the real details about this study are available?

They're not. That's the problem, he's talking to a newspaper without having published anything. AFA I can tell from the article, he hasn't even presented his results as an abstract or a talk at a meeting. And the Globe & Mail is usually pretty good on reporting medicine, but this story doesn't even mention whether it's a prospective, randomized controlled study or a retrospective, backwards-looking study. (And it doesn't get a reacton from another scientist who knows the research.) Apparently it's a retrospective study, which has problems. Retrospective studies found that women who took hormone replacement therapy had fewer heart attacks. But prospective studies found out the truth, which is that they had more heart attacks. The probable reason: Women who have generally healthier habits, like exercise, diet, and no smoking, are also more likely to take (useless and dangerous) hormone replacement therapy, and vitamins.

Here's Veith's earlier work, which was a retrospective study, and toned down by a responsible journal editor. As far as I could tell from a Google search, he hasn't done any prospective studies.

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/ 16/3/422

Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2007 Mar;16(3):422-9.

Vitamin D and Reduced Risk of Breast Cancer: A Population-Based Case-Control Study Julia A. Knight1, Maia Lesosky1, Heidi Barnett1, Janet M. Raboud1 and Reinhold Vieth2

1 Prosserman Centre for Health Research, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute and 2 Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada

Requests for reprints: Julia A. Knight, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, 60 Murray Street, Box 18, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5T 3L9. Phone: 416-586-8701; Fax: 416-586-8404. E-mail: knight@mshri.on.ca

Background: Vitamin D, antiproliferative and proapoptotic in breast cancer cell lines, can reduce the development of mammary tumors in carcinogen-exposed rats. Current evidence in humans is limited with some suggestion that vitamin D-related factors may reduce the risk of breast cancer. We conducted a population-based case-control study to assess the evidence for a relationship between sources of vitamin D and breast cancer risk.

Methods: Women with newly diagnosed invasive breast cancer were identified from the Ontario Cancer Registry. Women without breast cancer were identified through randomly selected residential telephone numbers. Telephone interviews were completed for 972 cases and 1,135 controls. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for vitamin D-related variables were estimated using unconditional logistic regression with adjustment for potential confounders.

Results: Reduced breast cancer risks were associated with increasing sun exposure from ages 10 to 19 (e.g., OR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.50-0.85 for the highest quartile of outdoor activities versus the lowest; P for trend = 0.0006). Reduced risk was also associated with cod liver oil use (OR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.62-0.92) and increasing milk consumption (OR, 0.62 95% CI 0.45-0.86 for ?10 glasses per week versus none; P for trend = 0.0004). There was weaker evidence for associations from ages 20 to 29 and no evidence for ages 45 to 54.

Conclusion: We found strong evidence to support the hypothesis that vitamin D could help prevent breast cancer. However, our results suggest that exposure earlier in life, particularly during breast development, maybe most relevant. These results should be confirmed. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(3):422-9)

Re:Here's his published research

[djmurdoch]

Well, they do say it's a "four year clinical trial", which I would take to be a prospective study. But they also say "In June, U.S. researchers will announce the first direct link between cancer prevention and the sunshine vitamin. Their results are nothing short of astounding." So you're right, there's nothing real yet.

Over here in Sweden

[aliquis]

I live in Sweden and over here vitamine A and D are added to most diary products, such as milk, yoghurt, sour milk (?) and margarines. The vitamine D is added because we live so high up north that sun light of the correct wavelengths for the body to product vitamine D doesn't reach us in the winter because it's filtered away in the atmosphere or something, the EU however wants us to stop this I've been told.

Anyway, why is D3 better? I'm vegan so my pills only contains D2.

Re:Over here in Sweden

[bjohnson]

Nearly all dairy products in the US are Vitamin D enriched as well. This study (if true) points to either the fact that the enrichment isn't enough, or that the majority of cancer patients arent eating these sorts of things. Gee, back to diet and exercise, isn't it :-)

Re:Over here in Sweden

[Dravik]

The article mentions that the amount of enrichment in dairy products is large enough to prevent rickets but not enough to get the cancer fighting effects. As far as D2 versus D3 goes, D2 has to be activated by your body and turned into D3 before it can be used. It is turned into D3 by your skin during exposure to the sun. So if your not getting a good amount of sun exposure you D2 supplements aren't doing you any good. Also, to address what some other people were arguing about, Northern latitudes such as Wisconsin and Canada do get plenty of sun light as related to good lighting conditions and sight are concerned but the intensity of the light during large portions of the year are not enough for your skin to produce and/or activate vitamin D.

Re:Over here in Sweden

[DerangedAlchemist]

It appears that D3 is used far more efficiently by the human body than D2. There may be some issues with D3 used by other, minor metabolic pathways that make D3 healthier. Note D3 is the form produced by the human body on exposure to UV light. http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/ 89/11/5387 It appears D2 is about 1/3 the effective dose as the same quantity of D3.

Re:Over here in Sweden

[rossifer]

Anyway, why is D3 better? I'm vegan so my pills only contains D2.

D3 is the same type of vitamin D that's produced by your skin and is more easily activated into the 1,25-D hormone in your body. For most people, however, a vitamin D2 supplement will still provide the desired result (stable serum levels of 1,25-D hormone).

If you want vitamin D3 in the winter, given your location and dietary preferences, mount a sun lamp in your shower/bath and turn it on while you're getting ready in the morning. At least 15 minutes three time a week will give you a significant benefit: enough to stop taking any vitamin D supplement. On the other hand, the supplement is pretty easy to consume and will almost certainly do what you want.

Ross

Re:Over here in Sweden

[Reziac]

However, excess vitamin D also has bad effects, like screwing up your calcium metabolism (the effect is similar to rickets) and IIRC, can also result in liver damage.

Point being, good nutrition is all about BALANCE, *not* about consuming megadoses of $nutrient on the off chance that it might prevent $disease.

Got Milk?!

[NeuroManson]

Milk has had added Vitamin D as long as I can remember, since most people in the US drink milk on a regular basis, why haven't we seen a notable decline?

Re:Got Milk?!

[Catbeller]

Americans fetishize not drinking milk. They consider it childish, some consider it fattening, some avoid it for health reasons; when I was a kid, we didn't drink it because it was too expensive. Um, how about those lactose intolerant folk - cancer rate should increase in direct proportion with their numbers. I now drink about a gallon or two a week, just to keep the ol' bones from wasting away.

Re:Got Milk?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually milk drinking has gone way down in the US population overall, compared to our parents' and grandparents' generations. Kids are now more likely to drink soda than milk.

Mod parent up

[UpnAtom]

Retrospective studies are bordering on meaningless.

1. Nobody measured vitamin D intake. Instead people were asked to report on vit D related activites when they were teenagers ie up to 44 years ago. How much time did you spend outdoors when you were a teenager? Are you sure?

2. Very little effect was found at 20+. None at 45+.

3. We are then asked to believe that the cancers were caused at 10-19 but didn't get diagnosed for up to another 40 odd years.

4. Outdoor activity, milk drinking & cod liver oil consumption are all linked with upper-middle class and/or active parenting.
Outdoor activity implies friends & family. Was milk ever provided in schools in Canada?

I'm playing devil's advocate to some degree but it looks like childhood stress/trauma and other factors could account for a lot of that 60%.

Just pop a multi-vit.

[walterbyrd]

Problem solved.

I don't get this article. It seems to emphasize, and re-emphasize, that the "main source" of vit D is sunlight. Why should that be? Just take a one-a-day, or whatever.

Re:Just pop a multi-vit.

[RonBurk]

The reason that be is this: a fair-skinned person sitting naked in the sun at the equator may make as much as 20,000IU of Vitamin D in 20 minutes. Now go to your grocery store and find a multi-vitamin with Vitamin D in it. It will likely have about 200IU in it. Now try taking 100 of those so you will get the same effect as sitting in the equatorial sun for 20 minutes. Ooops -- you just overdosed on a lot of other substances!

This discovery that the body makes huge amounts of Vitamin D via sunlight is part of what led to the revolution in Vitamin D research. It's hard to look at that number and not ask: WHY, did we evolve to make such large amounts of Vitamin D?

That's part of why lots of old Vitamin D research is useless and invalid. Let's see, do women who take 200IU of Vitamin D a day have fewer bone fractures? Who cares? That's like adding a teaspoon of gasoline to a car to test whether gasoline makes cars go further without stopping or not -- you'll discover a teaspoon makes no statistical difference, so you've "proved" that gasoline has no effect on how far a car can go without stopping!

What about the question

[ndverdo]

of what the equivalent IO units intake is for the equivalent natural should-be concentration in the bloo

Re:What about the question

[RonBurk]

Here's what's wrong with your question: pick a car at random from a random parking lot and tell me how much gas I have to add to fill the tank. "Ah, you say, I can't do that unless I measure how much gas is in that tank already!". That's exactly why no one can say "This is precisely how much D3 you should take to achieve thus and such serum level."

What foods do you eat? What latitude do you live at? What time of year is it? Just some of the things that influence your current serum levels of Vitamin D3.

However, we do have at least two studies that give rough estimates of the dose/response for taking Vitamin D3. Go to your doctor, get a prescription for a D3 serum level and make him/her do the calculations. Also, keep in mind that there's weeks of lag time between when you start taking D3 pills and when your serum levels level off -- do don't remeasure too soon and then overshoot.

Vitamin D is not all about the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the arguments in here are off topic. I see the reactions here aimed at vitamin D. But what about the cancer? No one has (as far as I read) doubted that vitamin D can reduce cancer. What sickens me is the aim at one vitamin without looking at the whole picture. Our body's are systems and very complicated. To say that a single nutrient change in a persons diet can cure cancer is absurd. For example, lycopene (sp?) was said to reduce cancer a few tears ago. Suddenly daily vitamins were branding the lycopene additive. From what studies I read about lycopene, scientists cloud not prove that lycopene caused cancer. And the patients in the study became healthier. So the assumption was that lycopene did not cause cancer and increased health. What the scientists did look at was the change in the patients diet. To get lycopene in their bodies, patients were eating a healthier diet with more plant-based foods. That was not mentioned in the results, only in the report did they mention what the patients ate. The body as a system became healthier and able to ward off cancer because of a change in the whole diet, not just by adding vitamin D. A person cannot simply eat a fast food diet and take a vitamin D supplement and expect to reduce the chances of cancer.

Reductionism, that is when science tries to focus on one element and not on a more broad range of elements, to make an analysis. It plagues our society and can lead to false statements.

A few questions come to mind: What were the patients diets in this study like before and after the study? What changes did they make? What population did they use? Why vitamin D? Was vitamin D chosen to study only its effects, or was the study more broad to begin with? What other aliments of the patients were bettered or relieved from the diet change?

In the U.S., the drug companies and the food industry take studies like these and contort the results to create sales. Many scientists and researchers are "funded" by the food and drug industries which makes the results more one sided. Money is favored instead of well being of the public. Before you rush out and buy vitamin D, add some vegetables and fruits to your diet, then sit in the sun for fifteen minutes every three days(or five minutes a day), thats all the vitamin D your body needs.

Dr. Holick - a Vitamin-D Pioneer

[pg--az]

The Google query (( HOLICK VITAMIN D )) confirms than Dr. Michael Holick was a pioneering researcher in this field - his name is missing from the globeAndMail write-up. By analogy to more-pigmented-people needing more sunshine, (( Holick Iguana )) explains that if you happen to own any pets which evolved under baking tropical sun, they might be suffering too...

Cartago Delenda Est...

[flyingfsck]

The Spanish, Turks and Greeks are all dark and they are all in Western Europe. Then of course, you also have the Arabs in North Africa.

Re:Cartago Delenda Est...

[Weedlekin]

"The Spanish, Turks and Greeks are all dark and they are all in Western Europe"

And all have been both invaded and settled by non-Europeans on a regular basis over many thousands of years. Note also that these countries have _many_ more hours of sun per year than those in Northern Europe, so people who live there with nominally the same skin colour as other Europeans (which is the vast majority in Spain and Greece) will tend to be at least a shade darker due to natural tanning. I'm British for example but currently live in (eastern) Spain, and friends in the UK remark on how dark my face and hands are compared with theirs despite the fact that I don't sunbathe or spend a huge amount of time outdoors, or live in the hottest, sunniest part.

Not insightful, outright wrong

[BeanThere]

Several counter-points:

- Southern and particularly South Africa are HOT, very hot, and it's sunny almost every day of the year. Summer is baking hot for months. Rudimentary research would've turned that up.

- The black people of South Africa are here as a result of a relatively recent massive migration of the Bantu peoples from around the Cameroon area that spread first East and then South. In South Africa they have been here probably not more than 1500 years.

- The indigenous people of South Africa that have been here for a long time (10,000+ years), e.g. the Khoesan, DO in fact have lighter complexions than the Bantu peoples that came from the equatorial regions.

- Even the 'black' people of South Africa ARE in fact lighter than their self-same relatives from up North - in fact generally speaking the closer you get to the equator, the darker the black people get. (That itself appears to be another strong argument for the Vitamin D correlation, although it's not that cut and dry because some, or perhaps much, of the lightening of the blacks in South Africa is due to generations of interbreeding with e.g. Khoesan peoples.)

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Scrameustache]

Name one race from a northern climate that has brown or black skin. You can't. There aren't any. Inuits

Can't get anymore northern than that.

Just wrote on this

[GooberToo]

For whatever reason, someone decided that a topical and factual recounting was flamebait...but this is slashdot...

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=232291&cid=188 83941

Re:Just wrote on this

[Jerry Rivers]

It was probably a mistake. Don't worry about it. It may be meta-moderated later anyway.

Re:Just wrote on this

[GooberToo]

It was probably a mistake. Don't worry about it. It may be meta-moderated later anyway.

Thanks for the encouraging word but it's very unlikely it was accidental. Two topical posts of mine were incorrectly moderated within a very short period of time; as is often the case. A user here loves to troll-moderate my posts, presumably via multiple accounts, especially when they are topical. Worse, I find meta-moderation to be completely useless as they never fix the ongoing abuse. The user in questionis repruhsent. He's my very own slashdot stalker. One has to ponder just how empty and meaningless a life is that has nothing better to do than to stalk someone on slashdot.

Re:Just wrote on this

[Jerry Rivers]

Interesting, because I too believe I have been stalked by a moderator (though I can't be sure who since I can't tell who is mod'ing me). I have also had posts incorrectly moderated for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

Mistakes can happen though, but you're probably right in this case.

Forget about cancer -- other symptoms

[Somnus]

I have Vitamin D deficiency, and it came close to ruining my life. I am a scientist, but I also have dark skin that never burns. Even though I don't own a car, I just can't get the 2-3 hours of sunshine daily needed to fulfill my Vitamin D requirement; white folks only need 20 minutes. Moreover, it's kind of chilly where I live, so I wear long pants and sleeves much of the time.

Over time, I developed a pain that just sucked the life out of me -- like I was playing four quarters of football daily, with the flu. Even with powerful pain killers I couldn't sleep, and woke up every day feeling I was hit by a bus.

The link to cancer is still an open question, but the pain is a hard fact.

PS: The only way to overdose on Vitamin D is to abuse prescription-strength supplements or cod liver oil.

Re:Forget about cancer -- other symptoms

[littlewink]

The medical article you referenced states:

"Vitamin D deficiency can be treated easily by giving the patient an oral dose of 50,000 IU of vitamin D once a week for 8 weeks.16 Long-term prevention of vitamin D deficiency can be accomplished by giving 50,000 IU of vitamin D once or twice a month."

But this seems an astonishing dose: I have a bottle of Vitamin D, 400 IU per pill. I would have to take the entire bottle for a single dose as prescribed above!

Is this correct? If so, the daily requirement for vitamin D seems far too low.

Even cod liver oil has 400 IU of vitamin D per teaspoon. Again, half a bottle of cod liver oil would meet the above requirement of 50,000 IU!

It would seem that, very much as you state, it would be difficult to overdose on D(even _with_ cod liver oil or prescription-strength supplements).

Thank you very much for providing this information. I am due for an appointment re osteopenia, suffer generalized skeletal pain even though I workout regularly and I will ask my doctor to prescribe a vitamin D supplement.

Re:Forget about cancer -- other symptoms

[Reziac]

[reads article]

Interesting, and word-for-word what a mostly-housebound friend is experiencing. I've pointed him at it, maybe it'll help him out.

I was also struck by how the description re direct effects on bone/collagen are similar to panosteitis ("growing pains") in dogs. Pano has no lasting effects (indeed, dogs that go thru pano are MORE likely than average to be sound as adults) but given that it's seen mostly in the fastest-growing specimens, I begin to wonder if the cause of *symptoms* is that they wind up short on some nutrients, because they simply can't ingest as much as they need during rapid growth.

Re:Forget about cancer -- other symptoms

[Somnus]

* Dosing

One must note two facts:

- The dosage a white person gets in the sun is something like 20,000 IU after only 20 minutes. (Increased sun exposure does not lead to toxicity because if the blood level of Vitamin D is high, any extra produced stays in the skin and is broken down.)

- Vitamin D is fat soluble. One you are depleted, the fatty tissues (e.g. liver) must be saturated before the blood level rises.

I took 50,000 IU of Vitamin D2 three times a week for one month, and since then once every 10 days. Note that Vitamin D2 has 40% the efficacy of Vitamin D3, and so requires 2.5 times the D3 blood level. (DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical doctor! I just see one.)

* Dietary allowances

The RDA for Vitamin D is what is prescribed to white children to prevent rickets, usually manifesting over the winter after they've grown without enough available Vitamin D. If you don't get enough sun for your skin tone the requirements will be far, far higher year 'round.

Re:Forget about cancer -- other symptoms

[Somnus]

Please also see my other comment, in response to some questions.

Re:Forget about cancer -- other symptoms

[Reziac]

I saw those, thanks. I suspect when there is NOT a daily intake of Vit.D, then megadoses aren't really a problem, because you're covering for an ongoing and future deficit. In short, it'll get stored, but it will also eventually get used up.

But I recall that there can be problems with liver toxicity if Vit.D builds up beyond a certain point. One does wonder if that might itself be symptomatic of some other imbalance. Vit.A/D/E *do* have to be in the correct proportions for any of them to work right. (About 100/10/1, if I remember the ratio correctly. I haven't actually had to look up the numbers in decades.)

Usually the balance among such nutrients gets handled well enough by our normal healthy-omnivore's tendency to eat just about anything that doesn't eat us first. "Modern" diets may vary. :/

Which reminds me, I've got a chunk of beef thawing in the microwave. Scare it a bit with the hot frypan, and it's ready to chow down!

Re:Forget about cancer -- other symptoms

[Somnus]

Toxicity cases are rare, and occur when blood levels reach multiples of the recommended upper limit. You have to abuse prescription strength supplements or guzzle cod liver oil to achieve the necessary high doses.

The toxic mechanism is hypercalcemia: increased calcium mobility and reabsorption through the kidneys, which can get damaged.

You make a good point: the amount of Vitamin D you get from normal diet is very small compared to the amount of Vitamin D obtained by exposure to UV-B radiation, but this amount is zero if your Vitamin D blood level is already maxed out due to chemical equilibrium in the skin.

Really, prescription supplements or cod liver oil are only appropriate if there's a demonstrated deficiency like pain/osteomalacia/rickets.

Re:Forget about cancer -- other symptoms

[Reziac]

As I vaguely recall, toxicity will result from eating a diet comprised primarily of seal liver. I don't know how many IU that comes to per day -- how much is in a pound or so of seal liver?

Has anyone tracked utilization of Vit.D that's self-generated vs consumed as a supplement?? I wonder how much difference that might make.

Since I spent 2 to 5 hours a day in the morning and late-afternoon sun, I doubt I'm in any serious deficit. :)

Calcium cycle is also dependent on Vit.C -- excess causes Ca to be leached out of the bones and deposited in soft tissues, and can cause blood calcium to fluctuate beyond what's safe (causing heart arrythmia, etc).

Re:Forget about cancer -- other symptoms

[Somnus]

Has anyone tracked utilization of Vit.D that's self-generated vs consumed as a supplement?? I wonder how much difference that might make. It's probably a moot point. The biochemistry of Vitamin D is well known, and the D3 you eat is exactly the same chemically as what's produced by the skin. Any difference in bioavailability between digestion and direct production is handled by monitoring blood levels.

Vitamin D2 in humans is a bit trickier, but its biochemistry is also well-known from studying animals.

Since I spent 2 to 5 hours a day in the morning and late-afternoon sun, I doubt I'm in any serious deficit. :) Make sure it is outdoors, and not just basking in the sunlight from behind a window. Glass doesn't block UVA, so you can get a tan, but it does block UVB, which is necessary for Vitamin D production.

Re:Forget about cancer -- other symptoms

[Reziac]

My main work is outdoors, usually the first two hours after dawn and another hour or more before dusk... so yeah, I get the real thing :)

If I were indoors all the time, that'd be another story... people always complain that my house was designed for vampires. :)

Latitude correlation

[tgibbs]

This has long been suspected due to the strong correlation of cancer incidence statistics with distance from the equator.

Re:Latitude correlation

[RonBurk]

Yes, but it's been a long, hard road from that first epidemiological hint to this study (which in turn, will only be the first in a long series of attempts to make a definitive statement about Vitamin D and cancer).

Please explain.

[HelloKitty]

>> The results also makes sense in evolutionary terms.

Please explain. Sounds interesting...

Re:Please explain.

[buswolley]

Nothing that great.. --Just that I do not find it very surprising that we critically need a vitamin that our body normally produces for us when in conditions consistent to those of our evolutionary history. While the body is not a perfectly tuned machine, wasteful processes and unneeded biochemical production systems do tend to get weeded out with the application of death.

Re:Please explain.

[KIFulgore]

Good point, I've often thought that the best way we could possibly live is the way our ancestors did. That's how our bodies were tuned, after all. I'm sure if we spent time outdoors, in the sun, chasing high-speed animals around for our food, that would make for a healthier population. For those who don't know, Vitamin D is produced naturally when our skin is exposed to sunlight.

Re:Please explain.

[Anonymous Coward]

"chasing high speed animals around for our food"...
Humans are herbivores. We can't catch wild animals. We can't kill them with our teeth, we don't have claws, we would become constipated if we ate them.

Meat eating is a totally unnatural CULTURAL artifact, which is only commonplace because strangely enough, the most violent, sadistic tribes ALL ate meat. Killing animals was fun for sick bastards like that, and it was they who killed the nice, kind, non-violent, loving tribes, who offered them the hand of friendship.

Re:Please explain.

[buswolley]

Look at our teeth. Then, get back to the real world.

Re:Please explain.

[buswolley]

I often wonder if it unhealthy to eat a large variety of foods, as we now do in our modern world. Even if these foods are healthy in and of themselves, they each have their unique chemical properties. I wonder if our bodies can handle a constantly varying diet, and would prefer a healthy, but simple/consistent diet. Say: Beans, oats/wheat/corn, squash, small portions of meat, berries, leafy greens and water.

With a consistent diet, the body may be able to adjust to an optimal strategy for energy levels, appetite, digestion, fat retention etc.

Whudya think.

Re:Please explain.

[Domo-Sun]

I often wonder if it unhealthy to eat a large variety of foods... I wonder if our bodies can handle a constantly varying diet, and would prefer a healthy, but simple/consistent diet.

What I think is you're wrong. A varied diet is the best. You get exposed to a variety of vitamins, nutrients and chemicals.

They actually have bred fruit flies on rice or single foods, and they do adapt, through natural (artificial) selection to the food.

But what does that tell you? Species have to die to adapt, and the end result is not the optimum state for the species, unless the species would be expected to experience related famines periodically. Otherwise, species thrive on ample supplies of food.

Re:Please explain.

[NevermindPhreak]

our teeth decay mostly because of sugars, acidic drinks, and carbonated drinks. i'd imagine we would have much healthier teeth if you cut these out of our diets.

Re:Please explain.

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought we were omnivores much like bears. We eat both meat and plant life and that is most likely how we evolved. Predators are also born with the eyes in front unlike deer etc. with the eyes more to the sides of the head. Chimps are also known to kill animals and eat the meat. Eating pasta, bread, refined sugar etc is unnatural and a cultural artifact because none of that existed before if you believe in evolution. Some people actually kill animals to survive, not to torment animals. Pure vegetarians require vitamin supplements because it is unnatural. But I'm guessing you're just a troll and I fell into your trap. Very clever hairy one, very clever. Trolls are carnivores by the way you friggen hypocrite.

Re:Please explain.

[mrbooze]

Humans are not herbivores. We are also not carnivores. We are omnivores.

It's hard to argue that the modern western diet has far more meat than was ever natural during our evolution (along with far more dairy, and probably a lot more grains). However, our closest primate relatives are also observed to eat meat, though again, not as much as in the modern western diet.

Re:Please explain.

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans are herbivores. We can't catch wild animals. We can't kill them with our teeth, we don't have claws, we would become constipated if we ate them.

Wait, you mean like Chimpanzees... which directly show that the more meat they get the more intelligent they (as a group) get?

The fact that only Chimps with a high meat quantity in their diets figure out how to make things like spears, or figure out how to corral smaller monkeys for food by working together (the chimps that just eat figs all day are rather stupid in comparison).

I view this in much the same way, really. You see, Vegans are all stupid ass-hats who, without any sort of reason, decided that meat eating is bad... never mind that the human brain requires meat proteins in early years to develop properly... which, circularly, explains why vegans are, again, incredibly stupid people, on average, who say things like "I was born without canines, therefor I am a higher evolutionary stage that is meant not to eat meat!"...

99% of the "humans are herbivores!" folks I know of also carry around crystals in an attempt to "be closer to mother earth" or some other stupid superstitious mumbo-jumbo. Retards, the lot of them.
 

Re:Please explain.

[CastrTroy]

However, animals such as dogs can produce vitamin C, but humans can not. However, humans do need vitamin C to live. How do you explain that situation. Low vitamin D results in something that will kill you slowly, like cancer, but low vitamin C will kill you much faster.

Re:Please explain.

[Col Bat Guano]

"However, animals such as dogs can produce vitamin C, but humans can not. However, humans do need vitamin C to live. How do you explain that situation. Low vitamin D results in something that will kill you slowly, like cancer, but low vitamin C will kill you much faster."

There was a mutation in the gene that results in our ability to synthesise Vitamin C early in the primate days (before most of the primates split off in fact). Gorillas, Chimpanzees, Orang-Utans etc all have this fault gene. Mostly it isn't noticed because the primate family live in Vitamin C rich environments.

There's more about this here...http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/sec tion2.html#molecular_vestiges

Re:Please explain.

[jtev]

Humans are opportunistic scavengers. We are capable of chasing down the weak and ill animals, we have a greater natural stamina than wolves, horses, zebras, bison, deer, oxen, and many other animals. Our teeth have grown smaller because we cook our food, however humans are quite capable of killing many animals with our bare hands. We also have been tool users for millions of years, and our bodies have adapted to this as well. Indeed the most violent and sadistic tribes enjoyed killing animals. And they got significantly better nutrition than those that do not. The nearest related species to humans also is an opportunistic omnivore, though they do eat much more plant matter. Chimps hunt and kill birds, smaller primates, and even members of other chimp troops. They readily eat termites, and even make tools to get them. So, anyone who says that humans are herbivores is woefully lacking in their understanding of comparative biology, and usually blinded to the truth by dogmas of certain religions that believe that harming animals harms the soul. If you look at the way that food is prepared, you'll even notice that humans prefer their meat to be slightly decayed, such as aged beef. Also cooking accelerates non-biotic breakdown of the muscle tissues, making them easier to digest for fat and protein It also kills the very bacteria that we like to partially predigest our food for us. As to the constipation angle, we are omnivores. We do eat vegetable matter as well as animal matter, which cancels this out. And many of the organisms that live in rotting meat (which as I've stated, is what is preferred by humans) can cause dysentery, so it's not as big of a deal as you'd think. Anyway, I'm done with my rant, and I've got karma to burn. Respond or not. I don't really care.

Re:Please explain.

[joto]

However, animals such as dogs can produce vitamin C, but humans can not. However, humans do need vitamin C to live. How do you explain that situation.

I explain it by saying that cavemen probably ate fruit, while dogs typically don't. Do you have any further questions?

Re:Please explain.

[buswolley]

Dogs aren't great tree climbers. So anyone know if giraffes produce their own vitamin C?

Re:Please explain.

[joto]

Neither must we forget that our teeth isn't necessarily designed for living untill we are 80 years. Humans can reproduce at age 15, which means that at age 30, you can die with a good conscience. If you want to see your grand kids grow up, you can wait until you are 45 to die. Furthermore, the teeth must only be good enough to let you survive, not necessarily to keep you from pain.

I believe a diet consisting mostly of meat, veggies, and water would keep your teeth sufficiently healthy for you to survive until you are 45, even if you don't use a toothbrush.

Re:Please explain.

[Anonymous Coward]

PETA/PCRM/ALF nutters are herbivores. The rest of us received passing grades in biology and know that humans are omnivores.

Re:Please explain.

[YourMotherCalled]

you're not serious are you?

Re:Please explain.

[Reziac]

Anyone who says we have "flat herbivore teeth" has never looked at a cow's teeth. The structure is completely different in every way; it's clear that obligate-herbivore teeth evolved along another route entirely. Conversely, human teeth differ from a dog's or bear's teeth only as a matter of degree. Ours are less pointy, but we have the same basic set (plus or minus a few bicuspids) and the tooth itself has the same general structure -- NOT the layered structure of the ever-growing herbivore tooth.

Herbivores' teeth need to grow throughout their lifetimes because otherwise the dirt in their food grinds 'em down to nothing. Teeth ground down to the gumline has been observed in humans eating a diet high in root veggies and/or grains ground by primitive methods.

Some folk will point at rodents as their "humans are vegetarians like that" example, forgetting that rodents have ever-growing incisors, AND that some (frex, rats) will readily eat flesh, often by preference.

IMO herbivores are a form of degenerate carnivore -- witness that even horses will eat flesh on occasion (leave a bag of meat meal in the back of your truck and see how long it takes range horses to rip it open and chow down) and that stallions come equipped with fangs. :)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go find me a vegan for lunch. ;)

skincancer from vitamin d?

[HelloKitty]

>> OK. Skin cancer. The main source of vitamin D in humans is through exposure to sunlight.
>> Increase that without being careful and your risk of skin cancer goes up.

talking out my ass here, but isn't skin cancer caused by damage from UV exposure?

Can you back up your claim that it is caused by Vitamin D? I haven't read any literature about this, so, I'm not saying you're wrong... I'm just always skeptical when no reputable literature has been quoted... and if you're right, I'd like to know more about it...

Are you saying that vitamin d causes cancer [instead of] or [in addition to] damage from UV?

Re:skincancer from vitamin d?

[DigiShaman]

I agree.

I've always thought it was over exposure to UV radiation that shattered DNA strands to the degree of causing cells to become cancerous.

Re:skincancer from vitamin d?

[Domo-Sun]

No. It doesn't shatter them. It damages them. If it damages one side, the cell can repair it by looking at the other, but if it damages both parallel acids (be it TGA or C), it can cause a permanent change. But that change has to happen at exactly the right spot to become cancer. Theoretically. Off the top of my head, from old text books.

Re:skincancer from vitamin d?

[Xiroth]

Hmm, I can see how you misinterpreted that, but I was actually saying that if you increase your exposure to sunlight (in order to get more vitamin D) then you increase your risk of skin cancer.

There is no paper to read - mod parent down.

[DogFacedJo]

For being a hypocritical goof.

    TFA points out that the paper will be published in June, so nobody here can likely have read the paper, which hopefully, is still being edited for publication.

    We have every right to be sceptical, they are releasing results to the Globe and Mail before they do to their journal or conference.

    The criticisms in the grandparent were entirely applicable to TFA - the globe and mail article.

Re:There is no paper to read - mod parent down.

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, are my "hero of the day",... and I'd like to think that I speak for all anonymous cowards. [seriously]

It's wonderful to think that there's some wonderful pill that will cure a stalking monster. There may be one... for each of us, but it's very unlikely to be exactly the same one. I have a little background in medicine,... if you want some interesting reading you may wish to check out _Hope or Hype: The Obsession with Medical Advances and the High Cost of False Promises_ by Deyo and Patrick,... here's somethin' stolen from Amazon, stolen from the NEJM review of the book...

[ i have a small vested interest in the book, since i met one of the authors a few decades back, and thought he was a relatively careful thinker,... but wadda i really know ]

-=-=-
From the New England Journal of Medicine, April 14, 2005
Armed with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Deyo and Patrick make a well-documented -- if depressing -- argument that doctors, scientists, and laypersons alike are far too easily seduced by industry hype for merely new (as opposed to truly better) drugs and medical devices. Deyo and Patrick are appropriately tough on the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) drug approval process, in part because the agency's mission does not include weighing one drug against another but, rather, merely approving a new drug if it works at all, even if it has no advantages over cheaper drugs already on the market. The authors are even tougher on the FDA's process for approving medical devices, deftly hanging the agency by its own quotes, such as this gem: "New devices are less likely than drugs to have their safety established clinically before they are marketed." And, of course, they note that it is not part of the FDA's mission to regulate surgical procedures. But the basic message from Deyo and Patrick, both professors at the University of Washington, is that we are all too ready to believe that new, expensive, or aggressive care must be better than older, cheaper, or milder treatments. It is a cultural thing, they argue, citing one study that showed that whereas 34 percent of Americans believe that modern medicine can cure almost anything, only 27 percent of Canadians and 11 percent of Germans do. There is little that is new in this book for anyone who has followed the medical journals and the mainstream press over the past decade. But it is an excellent reference for the reader who wants details of the horror stories that have grabbed headlines: the rise and fall of the fenfluramine-phentermine diet pill (sometimes referred to as "fen-phen"); the high failure rate associated with some cardiac pacemakers; the widespread use of bone marrow transplantation for advanced breast cancer before studies finally showed that it was no more effective, and could be more dangerous, than standard chemotherapy; the appalling suppression or delayed publication of "negative" results in studies funded by drug makers. Citing example after example, Deyo and Patrick are at their most successful when they detail the degree to which the pharmaceutical industry, the most profitable industry in the United States, sometimes abuses its enormous power. Happily, just when you are about to move on to something, anything, else, Deyo and Patrick come up with a comparatively upbeat ending, exploring some remedies for America's ills. They like the idea of having insurers pay provisionally for some new treatments so that the insurers could easily stop payment if a treatment proved worthless or dangerous. They like the idea, endorsed last September by a coalition of editors of medical journals, including this one, of a national registry for clinical trials in order to make it harder for the manufacturers of drugs and devices to suppress negative findings. They want to stop drug companies from claiming marketing expenses as tax deductions -- a no-brainer, in my mind. And they want a better post-marketing surveillance system for drugs and devices. None of this will be ea

Sample size?

[nietsch]

1200 women sounds like a lot, but if the incidence of what you are trying to measure is low, your standard deviation is going to be quite high.
Say, 600 women take the real pills, 600 a placebo. Now I take a reasonable sounding figure out of thin air: 1/3 of all people are diagnosed with cancer at one point in their lives, and for arguments sake, the incidence is not related to age (it is!): this means that the chance per year to contract cancer is 1:3 / average lifespan= ~1:225. The study lasted 4 years so for 600 controls, you'd expect an incidence of cancer of around 10, and the claim a reduction of 60 %, so they got 4 cancer diagnoses in the treated group. So how high is the chance that this difference of 6 cancer cases caused by the treatment, and how high is the chance that it is caused by chance?
It has been a long time since I had my course in statistical methods, and I don't know how to calculate. Somebody better versed in statistics is invited to provide those answers (or correct my questions :).
My guess is though that some effect might be significant with a 95% error margin, but the quoted 60% reduction is not proven. You need more data for that.

Re:Tanning Industry isn't hoaxing anything

[Pharmboy]

Um, its not a hoax, and I haven't tried to hide the fact that I have worked in the industry for many years. And in those many years, I have had to put up with people who don't have the facts, when the facts are very simple:

Mild to moderate exposure is good for you. Overexposure, particularly when you are young, is very bad. Most states have laws preventing teens from using tanning beds and many of those were pushed BY THE INDUSTRY. I have written several articles on the same subject over the years.

No one is saying UV doesn't have risks, we are saying that getting NO UV is also bad for you, and this study simply demonstrates this fact. And oral vitamin D is not nearly as effective as what your own body produces.

Personally, I get all my UV from being outdoors, and yes, I use SPF most of the time. Again, too much isn't good either.

My observations are based on personal experience.

[Futurepower(R)]

Very interesting comment. However, I did not intend to link what I said to anyone else. I made the comment about Caucasians coming from the Caucasus because of my own personal experience with Iranian friends. (In spite of the Bush administration's attempts to demonize Iran, I have found Iranians to be very friendly.)

What I observed is that Iranians originally from northern Iran have a lighter skin color than those from the south of Iran. I am talking about Iranians who know their extended ancestry, of course, not about people who recently moved to either region.

It seems that when darker-skinned people intermarry with people from the Caucasas, the lighter skin tends to become the norm. That's all.

--
Here is my summary of U.S. government corruption. Where's yours?

Slashdot Doesn't Support Asian Characters

[knapper_tech]

Oh the oppression! Anyway, I live in Yamashina, right next to Kyoto.

Not magic

[DrYak]

Nobody said that, skin colour of all ethnic groups will automagically instantly adapt to the amount of sunlight they receive in their location.
Nor that you could predict the latitude where some ethnic groups lives, down to 1 precision, based only on skin colour.

What the parent says is that *there seems* to be some variation of skin colour which may follow some pattern which can be put in relationship with some factor like sunlight exposure. Like always with nature, there are never "nevers" or "always". Only "tendencies" and even if there's so much variation between skin colours, you can't deny that paler complexion are a little bit more frequent in region with less sunlight exposure.
Amazon natives MAY be a lot less dark than other people living in the equator, they ARE STILL a little bit more tanned than Swedish people.

Also the whole point of the original poster was to say that this tendency of distribution could be partly caused by the fact that on one hand, too much sunlight kills because UV are cancerigens, and not enough kills too because of Vitamin D deficiency. Thus people will tend to have skin colours grossly adapted to the region where they originate from even if there's a lot of variation (partly due to the fact that all this is recent history and there hasn't been enough time for selection to discriminate more strongly, in fact given the local climate variation and the degree of additional modulable protection produced by clothes it's not necessary that skin colour needs more adaptation for regions).

As a side note, in practical medicine, we do see, for example, occurence of some problems such as osteoporosis (brittle bones due to deficiency in vitamin D) happening with a higher frequency in women originating from northern Africa (skin "somewhat tuned" for high sun exposure by recent evolution, but hiding under too much clothes for religious reasons and not getting enough sun to produce vitamin D) than with european women (wear also a lot of clothes for cold / sunburn protection, but the light that gets through paler skin is a little bit more for Vitamin D synthesis).

Aboriginals are much much darker and further away from the equator than individuals from Malaysia

But on the other hand both gets way much more sun than people in Denmark. Or northern China. Or Siberia.
And happen to be, on the average, darker than those people, even if there's variation than can't be only explained by the amount of sun exposure alone.

Just another study

[dorpus]

For decades, medical scientists were sure that obesity raises cancer risk. However, a slew of large recent studies have cast this theory into serious doubt -- obesity has little, if any, statistical association with many cancers. I would take this study with a big grain of salt.

Re:Tanning Industry isn't hoaxing anything

[reversible physicist]

I don't think you're being dishonest, but Dermatologists would disagree with you.

According to the Gilchrest article I cited, Dermatologists believe that no amount of exposure to summer sun is completely safe, since the UV needed to produce vitamin D is exactly the same range of frequencies that cause DNA damage and skin aging. Also, according to this article, not only is oral vitamin D just as effective as that produced by the body, but in fact all of the large studies that show benefits of higher doses of vitamin D have been conducted using oral vitamin D. To quote from the abstract of the study cited in the original post, "it was achieved with an over-the-counter supplement costing pennies a day".

The Gilchrest article also points out that you can get the full vitamin D benefit from sunlight even if you use a high SPF sunscreen, since you only need the equivalent of a few minutes unprotected exposure. Tans are pretty, but there is a cost that is paid later in life.

Correlation between race and cancer rate?

[jopet]

From how the article argues, there should be some correlation between the skin pigment and cancer rate: the darker the skin the higher the cancer rate because darker skin will produce less vitamin D when exposed to the same average level of sunlight. Such a study should not be too hard to do with available data and should of course give *some* hint about how absurd the theory really could be. Of course there could be other hidden factors that could cancel out the effect, but still, before somebody makes such a claim, I would have expected him to run an analysis on this kind of data and report it.

So is there anything known on the correlation between cancer rate and skin color of people living in the same region and having the same average sun exposure?

Reasons?

[Anonymous Coward]

However, I do not agree that Vitamin D deficiency can be responsible for about 60% cancers.

Here are my reasons why: [...]

2) I have yet to read the paper, but it is necessary to know whether this trial was truly randomized meaning that the those who got the Vitamin D pill and those who got the placebo were similar to each other in all other ways. It is possible that if it is not randomized, a healthier cohort of people chose to take Vitamin D for a long time.

That's not a reason why you don't believe the study's results, but only a condition of your believing it. If the study involved a truly randomized trial, it would be a reason for you to believe the study. That you propose it as a reason not to believe the results reveals your bias against it.

By the way, this is my first reason why I don't trust your disbelief in the properties of vitamin D. My second reason is that I don't know anything about it and have no position from which to judge. Personally I hope it's true, because nudism will become popular again.

Anonymous Cunt

know your sub googles

[way2trivial]

in this case, scholar
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=sunlight+skin+ cancer&hl=en&lr=
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&safe=o ff&q=sunbeds+cause+cancer
first result
"Review Tanning Devices - Fast Track to Skin Cancer?"
search down to the line
"Studies That Show A Possible Relationship Between Use of Tanning Devices And Malignant Melanoma (1988-2003)"

Not all D is good

[blueforce]

Hmm, I have Sarcoidosis, which causes my body to over-manufacture a subtype of vitamin D, thus causing issues with over-use of calcium, which leads to things like calcification of the kidneys, among others.

http://www.sarcinfo.com/calcium.htm

Genetically speaking, my family on both sides is void of any cancer history, so I should be OK on that end. Even though I could die from complications of sarcoidosis, I likely won't get cancer. Good news. Everyone is dying of something - disease, old age, CHF, stroke, whatever - some people just know it sooner.

So, in conclusion, I stand by "everything in moderation."

Just remember, don't take life too serious - no one gets out alive.

Re:Not all D is good

[RonBurk]

That's a very good reason why you should measure your serum 25OH-D3 before starting to slam down large doses of Vitamin D. It's unfortunate that I can walk into a Quest Diagnostics office in the U.S. and get a (potentially devastating) PSA test done without a doctor's prescription, but I can't buy a test to measure my serum D3 without first finding (and paying!) a doctor to write me some scrip for it.

Ah, I think I've stumbled over "The Marshall Protocol" before. They say they've got this disease "beat" -- were they able to cure your case?

Look at a map before posting!

[Brown]

The southernmost point of Africa is nearer to the equator than northern Africa (Algiers or Tunis for example).

Incidentally, a quick google image search for Khoi San (the 'original' native peoples of S. Africa) suggests that at least some of them are actually pretty light-skinned anyway - not much darker than a european who spends much of the days outdoors in sunshine would.

-Chris

Race = family

[myowntrueself]

The variations we see in humans are more likely caused by the genetic variation of a few early settlers.

I don't believe that the 'races' are anything more than large extended families.

The differences in appearance are just family resemblances.

Evolutionary indicator...

[localman]

I've always thought that the existence of white people proved that there was some important benefit to getting sunlight. Otherwise there would be no reason that skin would have lightened in the people who migrated north. I don't know what all the benefits might be, but I try to get a little sun on my pasty white skin most days.

So, if 50% of South America is not rain forest,

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

in which parts do the light skinned Amazon natives live? the parts that are rain forest part or the part that aren't, or some combination of both?

joudanzuki, thinking about paper mills

Everything old is new again

[Torodung]

So wow. Just drink your milk (Vitamin D fortified, of course) or take your cod liver oil, or get out in the sun a little more often.

The dairy folks are going to love this, and start advertising that they put Vitamin D in their milk, I'll bet.

--
Toro

Vitamins stay in the system only a few minutes.

[zymano]

Some kind of time release patch or time-release pill might work.

A sunlamp!

Only one right answer...

[dbc]

"Which coast is that on?"

The North coast. You've got a North Shore, eh?

Reminds me of taking sailing lessons on Lake Superior off Bayfield. One of my fellow students asked the instructor: "What is that big island over here?" Dead-pan answer: "Wisconson."

Osteoporosis and Vitamin D are linked as well

[egghat]

Though there a gazillions of studies of what might cause osteoporosis the single strongest link is between sunlight and osteoporosis. Sunlight is needed to produce/convert Vitamin D. No sunlight, no Vitamin D. Osteoporosis is quite common in Scandinavia or the UK.

To be more precise it's not sunlight, but daylight. In New York, Berlin or Toronto 30 minutes of daylight are enough even on a cloudy day in winter with only your hands and face exposed to daylight. So that one is easy to solve.

Bye egghat

Balanced diet solves this

[CarpetShark]

I'm quite convinced that a lot of unexplained illnesses are probably due to nutrients we don't even know about yet.

Rather than taking supplements, the best thing you can do with the known vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc. is use them to figure out what a balanced diet looks like. For instance, if you have to eat a certain amount from every food group to get certain nutrients, that's a good indication of what kind of a diet we're used to surviving on. It's arrogant to assume that we understand that diet, and can substitute it (or parts of it) with modern "equivalents".

Antioxidant supplementation during chemotherapy

[bboling]

According to a recent study, the long held belief that antioxidant supplementation during chemotherapy will make the cancer worse is not the case. Not only were antioxidants and other nutrients found not to interfere with the treatments, but in 47 of the studies supplements were associated with protection of normal tissue and a reduction of side effects. Increased survival rates were found in 15 of the studies.

See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Citation&list_uids=1728373 8
Altern Ther Health Med. 2007 Jan-Feb;13(1):22-8.
Altern Ther Health Med. 2007 Mar-Apr;13(2):40-7.

Re:Antioxidant supplementation during chemotherapy

[lukesl]

There are so many red flags there, I don't even know where to start. It's a review article in some no-name journal where all the authors have the same last name and work at a "center" that also shares the same name (presumably a tax write-off operated out of their basement). Of course, that doesn't automatically discount what they say, but they "indiscriminately" include all studies done on the topic (when they really should filter out the bad ones), and they include in vitro and animal studies as if those mean anything. Then they say that 15 out of 50 human studies show increased survival rates. Do the other 35 show decreased survival rates? Anyway, you get my point. I wouldn't be surprised if antioxidant supplements didn't make any difference one way or the other--the general consensus of the studies that have been coming out is that they just aren't all that effective in vivo. The future of antioxidant research will most likely be in stimulating the body's natural antioxidant systems, not trying to add artificial antioxidants. That is something that I think is much more interesting. Try looking up bilirubin and heme oxygenase in pubmed.

Re:Antioxidant supplementation during chemotherapy

[bboling]

That's very interesting, thanks for the info. Just one nitpick tho, you say the future is likely in "not trying to add artificial antioxidants". I'm not sure what you consider adding artificial antioxidants to be, but there are many vegetables and fruits and berries which are naturally high in antioxidants. I believe it's been shown that diets high in fruits and vegetables correlate to lower incidence of cancers due to the antioxidants and other nutrients in them. I'd rather increase the fruits and vegetables in my diet rather than take a pharmaceutical drug to increase my body's production of bilirubin unless there is some very compelling evidence of the benefits of such a drug. The benefit of a nutritionally diverse diet is that there are many other nutritional components in fruits and vegetables which have either proven or suspected health benefits.

Re:Antioxidant supplementation during chemotherapy

[lukesl]

I believe it's been shown that diets high in fruits and vegetables correlate to lower incidence of cancers due to the antioxidants and other nutrients in them.

I don't know the data very well, but as you said, there are many health benefits to eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables, so I'm not sure that the lower cancer risk could be attributed to antioxidant effects per se. As far as the bilirubin stuff goes, I think that the key thing there is realizing that iron deficiency is more widespread than previously thought, especially among people with certain diseases, such as GI diseases that inhibit iron absorption, or renal dialysis patients. Interestingly, it turns out that proton pump inhibitors like Prilosec, Prevacid, and Nexium that millions of people take for indigestion have been shown to inhibit absorption of dietary iron and B12. My girlfriend is on Prevacid, and she recently started taking oral iron supplements. It could be placebo effect, but she says that after two days she could feel her endurance at the gym increase noticeably. There have also been animal studies showing dramatic increases in exercise tolerance 10-14 hours after iron injection in animals that were iron-deficient. Of course, those effects might not be mediated by the heme oxygenase antioxidant pathway, but I think that's more dramatic than anything an oral antioxidant supplement could claim.

Re:Antioxidant supplementation during chemotherapy

[porcupine8]

I can't (or don't know how to) see the whole article, only the abstract, though I can see a lot of lukesl's points just in there. But I can't see what doses of vitamins were used in any of the studies looked at - I've never been told not to take normal vitamin supplements, with doses of antioxidants around the RDA or even a bit above. It's only megadoses (like those crazy 10x RDA or more vitamin C tablets some people pop when they have colds) that are to be avoided.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about noting that "vitamin" D is actually a secosteriod?

Corrected: Our ancestors lived in northern Iran.

[Futurepower(R)]

You said, "There is no evidence of an evolutionary tie to the Caucasus region."

Apparently you didn't read the scientific evidence I posted that indicates that my ancestors, and probably yours, too, migrated through the Caucasus region: My ancestral path of migration (and yours, maybe).

Quote from the link I provided: "Your next ancestor, a man born around 40,000 years ago in Iran or southern Central Asia, gave rise to a genetic marker known as M9, which marked a new lineage diverging from the M89 Middle Eastern Clan. His descendants, of which you are one, spent the next 30,000 years populating much of the planet."

It's a fact that Europeans and their descendants are no longer black. Apparently it is a fact that the ancestors of most of those who live in the U.S. and Europe once lived in northern Iran. I suppose the mutation to white occurred then, because it is a fact that the people who still live there are very white, and there are no people so purely white anywhere else on earth. It is a fact that many or most of us later mixed with other people, such as the Arabs who invaded Europe.

Re:Nature is nothing if not clever

[NelsChristian]

'so typical' of what? These are all statistical correlations, they haven't described any biochemical reaction path from VitD to cancer, so they are just making a partially educated guess. They are totally wrong about the VitD causation for auto-immune disease.

Vitamin D,25 is not the active form. Other metabolites, such as vitamin D,1,25 are the active forms. High vitamin D,1,25 can cause by itself a lot of the symptoms of auto-immune disease. Since D,1,25 is converted from D,25, the low D,25 is a result of rapid conversion to D,1,25. Adding more D,25 just adds fuel to the inflammatory fire.

Start here: http://vitamind.ucr.edu/biochem.html

It is not due to vitamin D deficiency but is caused by not having enough calcium in the diet.

Much of previous beliefs about Vitamin D are being changed, see this
from the USDA website [ href="http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publication s/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=169216"
]
It is not due to vitamin D deficiency but is caused by not having enough calcium in the diet.

this paper describes the disregulation of the vitamin d metabolism in the disease process. Macrophages can drive the vitamin D,25 levels low by generating damaging high levels of vitamin D,1,25. So, the current knowledge that low vitamin D causes disease is backwards, low vitamin D can be a indication of a disease process that is driving the D,25 levels low, while driving D,1,25 high.

One interesting point for Slashdot readers, is that a lot
of the lastest Vitamin D research is being driven by computer
modeling of the Vitamin D molecule and the various nuclear receptors it affects. see http://winmlm.neostrada.pl/vitamindbook/vitamindne wresearch.pdf

I would like to be clear that I'm not disagreeing with the result that higher VitaminD is correlated with Cancer. I'm just pointing out that it is likely not as simple as somebody eating too many eggs,
and just needing to cut back.

However, I do disagree with the side comment made that high Vitamin D might cause autoimmune disease. The research (and my personal experience) is that Vitamin D disregulation is caused by the autoimmune disease and clears up when the disease clears up.

Homo Sapiens

[Royston P Lloyd]

Homo Sapiens have been exposed to sunlight since they have been a species (approximately 150,000-200,000 years) and have developed very nicely as a species and become dominant on this planet in a relatively short period of time. Why now is it all of a sudden a bad thing to receive moderate sun exposure? Because there is money to be made by selling goop (lotions) to block UV but do you know what chemicals are in the spf lotions. Some pretty nasty stuff such as: The following are the FDA allowable active ingredients in sunblocks: * p-Aminobenzoic acid (PABA) up to 15 %. * Avobenzone up to 3%. * Cinoxate up to 3%. * Dioxybenzone up to 3%. * Homosalate up to 15%. * Menthyl anthranilate up to 5%. * Octocrylene up to 10%. * Octyl methoxycinnamate (Octinoxate) up to 7.5%. * Octyl salicylate up to 5%. * Oxybenzone up to 6%. * Padimate O up to 8%. * Phenylbenzimidazole sulfonic acid (Ensulizole) up to 4%. * Sulisobenzone up to 10%. * Titanium dioxide up to 25%. * Trolamine salicylate up to 12 %. * Zinc oxide up to 25%. I certainly wouldn't want those chemicals on my skin. Also I would be Vitamin D deficient if I used them. Africans living in Europe or North America have a terrible incidence of Vitamin D deficiency and disease because of this as do fair skinned individuals who receive no or little sun exposure. The Dermatologists have really got us running scared without any basis in fact. Do you research and do not listen to any one body of professionals without hearing severals sides of the story.