CombinedNSP Site Admin
Joined: 13 Dec 2006 Posts: 1406 Location: Cleveland, OH
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Posted: Dec Thu 14, 2006 12:14 pm Post subject: Vitamin D - Have Your Level Tested Now |
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Vitamin D - Have Your Level Tested Now
Traditionally, specific nutrient intake recommendations have been based on preventing a particular "index" disease--for instance, calcium to prevent osteoporosis or vitamin D to prevent rickets. However, researchers are now finding that nutrients are needed to prevent not only short-term disease but also many of the chronic, long-term diseases that are now facing the nation.
The "normal" ranges for many nutrients reflect their ability to ward of short-term disease only and may not be adequate to protect the body from long-term diseases such as cancer, heart disease and central nervous system degeneration.
Since these chronic diseases often show up much later in life, they are commonly attributed to non-nutritional causes. But, evidence suggests that nutrient deficiencies--even deficiencies that are viewed as slight by modern medicine standards--may be the cause of many chronic diseases.
One such nutrient deficiency is vitamin D. It was traditionally thought that a person had enough vitamin D as long as they didn't have rickets or osteomalacia. Nutritional scientists have referred to 25(OH)D, the functional indicator for vitamin D, values of <20 nmol/L as "deficient", values above 80 as "normal," and values in between as "insufficient."
According to the author of the paper in the web address below, Robert P Heaney, "Discerning the extent to which nutrition may play a role in such disorders [chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease and central nervous system degeneration], positive or negative, is probably the principal challenge facing nutritional science today.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, November, 2003;78(5):912-919
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/78/5/912
Vitamin D – Have your level tested now |
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