by Joan O’Keefe, RD
I’m a cancer survivor. At 26 years-old and while six months pregnant with our eldest son Jimmy, I was diagnosed with a metastatic cancer. That experience is just one of the many reasons I am so passionate about diet and lifestyle. In my career as a dietitian, I’ve seen many cancer patients and cancer survivors and there are ways to help decrease your chances of getting this disease (and others).
We’ve been touting the benefits of Vitamin D for quite some time now, but lately, we’ve come to understand the role Vitamin D plays in cancer prevention. It’s known that the majority of breast and colon cancer cases appear in the Vitamin D deficient and the majority of cases are appearing above 35 degrees latitude (about Atlanta, GA). North of this line, it is physically impossible to make Vitamin D in the winter from sun exposure.
Most of your cells have Vitamin D receptors, as well as your organs. When you have adequate Vitamin D in your blood stream, your cells’ vitamin D receptors are full of the vitamin and it acts as armor, defending your cells against invaders. Without enough Vitamin D, your cells are weak and vulnerable. When a cancer cell forms in your body, it approaches your other cells and wants to make them cancer cells too. Cells armored with enough Vitamin D can easily resist the cancer cell, but those without enough armor are too weak to resist.
How can you be sure you’ve got enough “armor?” Know your numbers. Get your Vitamin D levels checked. Check them now and again during the winter. If you’re deficient, discuss treatment plans with your physician or clinician. We can help you return your Vitamin D levels to normal and keep them there.
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Astounding observational data presented this week at AHA on the link between low vitamin D and CV events.
The findings are similar to what we have published during the last year.
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By Joan and James O’Keefe
Healthy living in Winter months means more sunshine and exercise to
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Here is an interesting article written by Shelley Wood on theheart.org regarding Vitamin D abstracts presented at the American College of Cardiology, (ACC). I have highlighted two major points from the article. I have also attached the story.
Two major points:
Among 9491 individuals with Vitamin D deficiency (≤30 ng/mL) those who subsequently [...]
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Tags: cancer, cancer cells, vitamin d
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 at 9:27 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
can you get too much vitamin D?
I am presently on vitamin D 1000 due to something being low in my lab work.
Speaking of vitamin D, it behaves in such a way inside the body that it is classified as a hormone. It is involved in an important task known as the mineral homeostasis that deals with the regulation of the gene expression and also that of cellular differentiation.
Infomratoin is power and now I’m a !@#$ing dictator.
If you’re redanig this, you’re all set, pardner!