Preventing deficiencies or promoting optimal health?

Concerns about Vitamin D deficiency may bring up an interesting dilemma. Those of us who live outside the tropics, don't eat enough of the foods that naturally have Vitamin D in them, spend little time outside four walls, use sunscreen or even have factors that inhibit normal absorption -- may be deficient in Vitamin D.

RDA's were set to define minimum levels to prevent deficiency conditions -- short on D = rickets. Who would have thought that Vitamin D's functions go far beyond bone health? Studies are piling up with benefits for high blood pressure, autoimmune disease, and cancer and diabetes prevention, to name a few. Other studies show that low levels of D are common.

So what do we do? Eat fatty fish and egg yolks, take cod liver oil, and cautiously get just enough sun. It would be hard to get too much D from food or the sun, but what about supplements? Canadian advisers have already increased the recommended daily intake from 400 IU to 1000 IU, and experts in the US want the FDA to do so too. "Upper levels" have been set higher already. Supplements can fill that gap.

All this seems to be a good move. Increase Vitamin D intake, understand the crucial interaction of D, calcium, magnesium, Vitamin K, and other co-factors and make sure we're getting enough (but not too much). Now my question is -- are we changing the meaning of the RDA (or whatever incarnation it's in now)? Are we proposing a move from minimum nutrition to prevent rickets (or whatever) to a new view that would realistically promote real health?

Another possibility: if Vitamin D can prevent a specific condition, or improve a condition, does that qualify that condition as a deficiency disorder? Cancer? Arthritis? Alzheimers? At the very least, we are certainly reinforcing this truism: Eating well is the best revenge!

THINK AGAIN -- Recommendations for Vitamin D usually specify D3, the natural form found in fish oils and lanolin. D2, either synthetic or from other natural sources, is said to be absorbed only about 1/2 as well. Or is it? A recent study from Boston University found that blood levels are the same when either form is used. In Australia, a study showed fewer falls in elderly women using D2. Stay tuned...

Musing on my absence

Did I fall off the horse? Can I get back on? What's the natural cure for blogger's block? For the power of seeing my own words in print for all the world to see, I'll just swallow all the cliches I can think of: today I'll just jump in/on again!

So much strange news about nutrition and supplements lately, both positive and negative. Much of it reinforces the commitment to food -- whole and natural. Vitamin D: can we be more careful here, before falling for prescribed megadoses? Vitamin E: how can we compare wheat germ with synthetic dl-alpha tocopherol? Carotenes: what imbalances do we create with synthetic beta carotene when we replace a very complex vegetable or algae source?

Now that I'm selling eggs in the store again, from very local hens that eat organic grain when they're not out hunting and pecking, I wonder if the sunshine they get doesn't make a crucial difference in the Vitamin D content of the eggs. Even certified organic eggs may not be this good.

Sadly, "USDA Certified Organic" is fulfilling the fears of the paranoid, gradually being undermined by agribusiness who like charging more for organic and don't like paying more to grow it. Bit by bit "exceptions" are being allowed. We have to keep fighting to keep some measure of conscience here. Keep sending emails, snail mails, signing petitions to let USDA or Congress know what you think. Support local farmers, farmers markets and CSA's which have the commitment and honesty to still produce real food and healthy soil.

FROM IDEAL BITE: Patients in London are wearing pajamas made with silver linings (literally) to combat an aggressive form of staph infection.

What is it? "Mother of us all", a sculpture by Elinore Koenigsfeld.

the fish bone's connected to the...

Concern about heavy metal toxicity is a very real thing as the world becomes more laden with chemical residue. Concern about mercury in fatty fish, sources of Omega 3 fatty acids, is seemingly good for the vitamin business (buy omega 3 capsules), but bad for people who believe that food should be our primary source of nutrition. Preganant women are warned to limit eating tuna, or just forget about it. Now Jean Carper, in USA Weekend Magazine, reports from Wm Lands, expert on fish oil benefits, that you can eat any and all fish IF the fish are "loaded" with selenium. "Mercury is toxic in the absence of selenium." "selenium ...neutralizes the danger."
Selenium, in food and in supplements, has been shown in studies to have strong cancer preventive activity, but I find this report confusing. Are the warnings just a mistaken case of taking the part (mercury toxicity) for the whole (balance of poison and protection found in the same food)? Can we take the chance that he's right and eat all the fish in sight? (And what about the issue of overfishing and the probability of no fish in the sea after 2048?) I don't know!

What about Vitamin D? It's the hottest "new" vitamin. In 1976 my trusted reference Laurel's Kitchen said, "Amounts (of Vitamin D) over 2000 IU per day can produce dangerously high levels of calcium in the body, leading to the deposit of calcium in unwanted places like the blood vessels and the kidneys...never exceed the recommended daily allowance of 400 IU." Now it's 2007 and almost everyday I hear "my doctor wants me to take 1000, 2000, even 4000 IU's of D" because tests show deficencies, specifying the D-3 (natural) form. There is a shift taking place which seems to be leading to less calcium, more D, a good change toward better absorption rather than sending the calcium down for cement. And where should we get it? Sunshine is the most natural source (safest in moderation); fish liver oils have it, but it's removed when the dread mercury is removed by molecular distillation (some add it back and it may not be the natural D-3/cholecalciferol but the less beneficial D-2/ergocalciferol; get Nordic Natural's D enhanced oil); and the latest, MegaFood's D-3 from lanolin, prepared with their special process (good for sun-sensitive vegetarians like me). Keep watching as we see more of the benefits of Vitamin D (cancer, MS, IBD) and promising food sources (mushrooms!).

Follow-up: Another complex: Thank you Michael Pollan, author of the eye-opening "The Omnivore's Dilemma" -- 10/15/06, New York Times Magazine -- "The Vegetable-Industrial Complex." More thought for food.