If I had bone problems (thinning or fractures) then I would likely take anything remotely connected to bone strength,proven or not.
But imagine you are Australia's top doctor and Ju-liar Gillard comes to you and says "Ive been reading this forum where a guy reckons vitamin D changes everything."
She goes on - "Dr. Motorway, I want you to tell me if I should be adding vitamin D to all our water and bread supplies forever?"
"Dr. Motorway, do you believe you have the evidence to make this multi-billion dollar change in all Australian's diets."
I would be different to you I would tend to use things with the most proven efficacy.
Esp if those things were natural must haves..
The vitamin D studies. How powerful is vitamin D as a fracture-reduction agent? To answer this question, researchers conducted a similar meta-analysis of clinical trials investigating vitamin D and fracture. They summarized the findings of 12 state-of-the-art randomized control trials, involving 19,114 individuals 60 years of age and older.
This analysis found that, “A vitamin D dose of 700–800 IU a day reduced the relative risk of hip fracture by 26% and any non-vertebral fracture by 23%.” Lower dose vitamin D was not effective at reducing fractures, and no clinical trials had looked at the fracture-reduction power of higher dose vitamin D.
You can not fortify foods .. You need all your tanks full and you need optimal levels.
That is YOU as an individual !
As Julia stated why put ourselves above the expert researchers in the field ?
In case for some reason you could not play Heany's Vid
"Markedly Higher Vitamin D Intake Needed to Reduce Cancer Risk
Researchers reported that markedly higher intake of vitamin D is needed to reach blood levels that can prevent or markedly cut the incidence of breast cancer and several other major diseases than had been originally thought.
The findings by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha are published February 21 in the journal Anticancer Research.
While these levels are higher than traditional intakes, they are largely in a range deemed safe for daily use in a December 2010 report from the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine.
"We found that daily intakes of vitamin D by adults in the range of 4000-8000 IU are needed to maintain blood levels of vitamin D metabolites in the range needed to reduce by about half the risk of several diseases -- breast cancer, colon cancer, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes," said Cedric Garland, DrPH, professor of family and preventive medicine at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. "I was surprised to find that the intakes required to maintain vitamin D status for disease prevention were so high -- much higher than the minimal intake of vitamin D of 400 IU/day that was needed to defeat rickets in the 20th century."
"I was not surprised by this" said Robert P. Heaney, MD, of Creighton University, a distinguished biomedical scientist who has studied vitamin D need for several decades. "This result was what our dose-response studies predicted, but it took a study such as this, of people leading their everyday lives, to confirm it."
The study reports on a survey of several thousand volunteers who were taking vitamin D supplements in the dosage range from 1000 to 10,000 IU/day. Blood studies were conducted to determine the level of 25-vitamin D -- the form in which almost all vitamin D circulates in the blood.
"Most scientists who are actively working with vitamin D now believe that 40 to 60 ng/ml is the appropriate target concentration of 25-vitamin D in the blood for preventing the major vitamin D-deficiency related diseases, and have joined in a letter on this topic," said Garland. "Unfortunately, according a recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, only 10 percent of the US population has levels in this range, mainly people who work outdoors."
Interest in larger doses was spurred in December of last year, when a National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine committee identified 4000 IU/day of vitamin D as safe for every day use by adults and children nine years and older, with intakes in the range of 1000-3000 IU/day for infants and children through age eight years old.
While the IOM committee states that 4000 IU/day is a safe dosage, the recommended minimum daily intake is only 600 IU/day.
"Now that the results of this study are in, it will become common for almost every adult to take 4000 IU/day," Garland said. "This is comfortably under the 10,000 IU/day that the IOM Committee Report considers as the lower limit of risk, and the benefits are substantial." He added that people who may have contraindications should discuss their vitamin D needs with their family doctor.
"Now is the time for virtually everyone to take more vitamin D to help prevent some major types of cancer, several other serious illnesses, and fractures," said Heaney. "
Motorway, unless you are a medically qualified researcher with those qualifications being superior to the Associate Professor who reported this study I referred to above, how can you have any valid basis for making such an assumption?
The Ass. Prof. suggested it could have to do with diet or any number of other factors which they have yet to research. She at no stage referred to the possibility of increased Vit D.
Exactly in this spirit why second guess the cutting edge research of experts in the field ? In this entire thread ?
"Now is the time for virtually everyone to take more vitamin D to help prevent some major types of cancer, several other serious illnesses, and fractures," said Heaney. "
Who is better qualified to disagree ?
On Julia's particular MS study .. it was what it was ( fairly limited )==>and interesting comments form the researcher and some of the participants on the web...
UVA can damage skin
But only UVB makes Vitamin D
The first does not mean the second.
EG:
http://community.ozms.org/content/sunshine-and-vitamin-d-again-new-research
This study (of which I was a particpant) confirms that people who have spent more time in the sun and those with higher vitamin D levels may be less likely to develop multiple sclerosis, according to an Australian study.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/08/us-sun-ms-idUSTRE7170BL20110208
Couple of points:
* there is an inference that more time in the sun equals higher vitamin D levles.
* it has been argued here before that some of us who have spent years in the sun have still got MS.
* it may be important WHEN the sun exposure occurred.
* this study did try to test for lifetime exposure of sun, i.e. they asked me to report how much sun exposure I had had since birth! not sure I was keeping much of a diary when I could neither speak nor read - and that is the big problem for this study -virtually impossible for particpants to accurately record their lifetime exposure.
* and, ironically I had to be newly diagnosed with MS to be able to participate in the study.
* I have had quite a lot of sun exposure but with the first 20 years in Sydney (beach bunny got sunburned badly) and the latter half in Qld where I was quite outdoorsy, so really I did not fit the profile of not a lot of sun,
although I had done office work all my working life, which kept me inside during the peak sun times- maybe that will prove to be the key- that it is the lifestyle change to indoor work that is creating problems. Given that MS is more likely to be contracted at a younger age, it would seem to me that the early years exposure are the important ones and I think there is other research to suggest. I got MS quite late so I am thinking that my early years must have protected some how. Also there is that other research that suggests that genetically some people with MS do not absorb Vitamin D as well as others.
Helen.
Motorway