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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.'"

4 of 478 comments (clear)

  1. Confusing by Antony-Kyre · · Score: 0, Redundant

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

  2. Re:now the counter argument... ? by Nos. · · Score: 0, Redundant

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

  3. Re:now the counter argument... ? by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 0, Redundant

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


    Eskimos. Next.
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    "Sufferin' succotash."
  4. Re:Please explain. by KIFulgore · · Score: 0, Redundant

    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.

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    - For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.