Life in Your Years Blog: Health, Finance, & More

Swanson Vitamins is currently running a buy one-get one deal on Vitamin D 2000 IU. Right now, the price is $6.39 for 500 capsules. That is right, for 500 capsules! I thought the normal deal, $6.39 for 250 capsules, was pretty good itself, but this is just amazing. 

I don’t know how long this deal will last, but I can tell you that I ordered 3 of them (for a total of 1500 capsules) yesterday. I should note that Swanson tends to be conservative on their estimates of expiration. From my observations, they seem to say their products expire 2 years from the date of manufacture. This seems too conservative to me.  Based on the expiration dates of other reputable companies, I have concluded you can effectively add 1.5 years (18 months) to Swanson’s expiration dates without worry of major potency loss. This means that taking full advantage of this sale (i.e. buying 1500 capsules) will safely last you for awhile!

PS – We have only updated this blog sporadically as of late. We hope to start posting regularly again, but alas, life happens!

Another study shows that Vitamin D plays a very important role in preventing pregnancy complications. This is in addition to other studies that demonstrate the importance of getting enough of the sunshine vitamin while pregnant.

This new study, carried out by Dr. Bruce Hollis and Dr. Carol Wagner of the Medical University of South Carolina, gave 600  women of various races, 4000 IU of Vitamin D per day, and followed them throughout their pregnancies and beyond (for 2.5 years). The control group received 400 IU per day, the official recommended amount of Vitamin D.

In the group receiving 4000 IU of Vitamin D, there were half the premature births as the c0ntrol group. Fewer babies who were “small for date” were born in the 4000 IU group. The treatment group also had 25% fewer infections. The “core morbidities” of pregnancy were reduced by 30%; these include diabetes, preeclampsia, and high blood pressure. Additionally, babies getting extra Vitamin D also suffered from fewer colds and less eczema after birth. In other words, consuming 4000 IU of Vitamin D per day, 10 times the RDA, was associated with better health of mother and child. And, during the course of the study, there were no adverse effects reported from taking that much Vitamin D.

Sadly, many Americans have now lost the ability to make Vitamin D because we are in the autumn, and the sun’s rays are not strong enough to cause our skins to produce Vitamin D. This means many mothers (and babies) will be at risk of preventable pregnancy complications, unless they take Vitamin D supplements.

Vitamin D and its relationship to influenza is much-discussed recently, and is a connection I find interesting. Lately, the Vitamin D Council, led by Dr. John Cannell, has been trying to determine if there is a connection between H1N1 and Vitamin D. Just because it appears that a connection exists between seasonal flu and Vitamin D does not mean Vitamin D prevents the pandemic flu.

Recently, Cannell sent out two emails that explain the experiences that two doctors have had with Vitamin D and H1N1. Both emails, summarized here, suggest that Vitamin D helps prevent the current strain of H1N1. Of course, these case studies are not conclusive and definitive, but they are interesting early research that should be investigated further (also, since Vitamin D is cheap, and many of us are deficient, upping our Vitamin D levels is a good idea even if it doesn’t prevent pandemic influenza.

The first case involves nursing home patients receiving regular Vitamin D supplementation. 103 of the 800 staff members working at the home contracted H1N1, while only 2 of 275 residents did. Even excluding 43 staff members whose diagnosis may be suspect, the difference between the flu rates among staff and residents is statistically significant, i.e., it is very likely this was not due to chance. Less than 1% of residents became sick, while 7.5% of the staff did, which was a tenfold increase in infections among the group not definitively taking Vitamin D.

The second case comes from a doctor in Wisconsin. This doctor regularly monitors Vitamin D levels in her patients, and makes sure their levels are high. She has seen no cases of flu yet, whereas her colleague, who does not monitor Vitamin D, is seeing 1-10 cases of flu-like illness a week. Anecdotal? yes. However, it does provide food-for-thought.

I know I talk about Vitamin D a lot. There is a reason. Humans are supposed to get regular sun exposure, period. It is, and has been, the common experience of mankind since our inception. Could it be that many of our diseases are the result of living in a way that defies our very nature, i.e. are we inside too much? Vitamin D is not a miracle drug, no more than oxygen would be a miracle drug in a world in which most people denied themselves optimal levels of it. Sun exposure is a basic part of living optimally as a human, so it is no puzzle as to why modern Westerners are so depressed and sick.

Fortunately, even in times when the sun is weak (the late fall, winter, and early spring), Vitamin D is cheap and readily available. Right now, for example, Swanson Vitamins is running a sale, in which 500 capsules of 1000 IU/cap Vitamin are only $5.79. That is a 100 day supply of the amount Cannell recommends taking,  5000 IU/day (in conjunction with a Vitamin D blood test). Considering many drugs cost this much per pill, Vitamin D is cheap.

Image taken  by me

I have been intrigued by research about the relationship between Vitamin D and influenza, so I often wondered how this relationship could stand the scientific scrutiny of events associated with the 1918 flu pandemic, where individuals with presumably the highest Vitamin D levels (young people) died readily, while those who likely had low levels (African-Americans) lived. Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D Council recently addressed this issue in the newest Council newsletter.

Cannell argues that the reason so many with low Vitamin D levels survived the worst outbreak of the 1918 flu is that they became relatively immune because many were infected earlier by a weaker, less deadly, strain. In other words, their low Vitamin D levels (hence, a lower resistance to the flu) was beneficial because they got sick from the milder, earlier, form of the 1918 flu. Interesting.

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Cannell also examines the relationship of current H1N1 deaths to Vitamin D, and concludes that the majority of children who have died so far are likely Vitamin Deficient. He argues that since 2/3 of those who died had neuro-developmental conditions like epilepsy or mental retardation, they most likely spent little time in the sun, and when they did, were probably covered with sunblock. Many also probably took medications that caused a deficiency of Vitamin D. Cannell also observes that in Boston and Chicago, research shows that African-Americans have been hospitalized more for H1N1 than other races. Again, he takes this as evidence of a Vitamin D connection to the current Swine flu (because darker skinned individuals require more sun exposure to make Vitamin D, which is not a problem for those living close to the equator, but darker skinned individuals in most parts of North America are often deficient).

This is all intriguing. I can say that since I have taken higher doses of Vitamin D in the winter (anywhere from 1000-3000 IU/day), I haven’t gotten the flu. Last year I didn’t get the flu shot either. This, of course, proves nothig in a strict scientific sense, since I am but one case, and since my healthy lifestyle offers protection against the flu as well, but since I am convinced Vitamin D is beneficial in other areas of my life, I will continue to take it, hoping it also helps my body defend against a possible H1N1 innfection.

According to The UltraMind Solution by Mark Hyman, M.D., a study published in 2002 in the British Journal of Psychiatry, prison inmates who supplemented with adequate amounts of vitamins, minerals, and Omega-3 fats, experienced a 35% reduction in felony-related violent crime while in prison.

So, I guess the lesson is if you know someone who is getting ready to be violent, take them to a seafood buffet!

The newest newsletter of the Vitamin D Council addresses the issue of Vitamin D and Schizophrenia is depth, and it appears that since Schizophrenia is a disease that takes a long time to develop (sometimes 25 years), prenatal maternal environmental factors play an important role in the development of Schizophrenia.

Researchers at Harvard (Kinney, Huang, et. al.) released a paper looking at the role of environmental factors in Schizophrenia. They looked at three environmental factors that may trigger Schizophrenia

- Poor prenatal care

- Low Omega-3 fat consumption (i.e. not enough fatty acids from fish)

- Prenatal exposure to infections, esp. influenza

Here are the key points that Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D Council points out, which show that maternal Vitamin D deficiency may cause Schizophrenia later in life:

First, the highest prevalence of Schizophrenia is in Canada, near the Arctic circle, while the lowest prevalence is near the Equator. While not proving that Vitamin D deficiency causes Schizophrenia, it certainly starts the investigation!

Second, in the analysis, prenatal care did not have an effect on the prevalence of Schizophrenia around the equator; in other words, if your mother and you had bad prenatal care, you still didn’t get Schizophrenia later in life, if you lived around the equator. However, in extreme latitudes, individuals whose mothers received poor prenatal care were more likely to have Schizophrenia.

Third, at the equator, fish consumption did not affect Schizophrenia prevalence, but it did affect prevalence for the subjects studied farther away from Equator. Basically, the connection from this is that it wasn’t the Omega-3 fats from fish that made the difference, but the Vitamin D in the fish (although Omega-3 fats are certainly necessary).

Fourth, it is known that dark-skinned individuals have higher rates of Schizophrenia. However, this only holds true in dark-skinned individuals in latitudes far from the equator, and not near the equator (where even people of very dark skin make plenty of Vitamin D).

All of these factors suggest that maternal exposure to sunlight (or Vitamin D consumption) is, according to Cannell, not just a cause of Schizophrenia, but the cause.

Food for thought.