Want to Die Young? Don't Get Enough Vitamin D

I'm not a vitamin person.  Though my husband believes in everything from saw palmetto to garlic to that stuff people take for their knee cartilage.

But now I'm thinking about taking vitamin D.  That's because a new study has found that a vitamin D deficiency has been linked to cardiovascular and even cancer deaths.

You're probably skeptical like I am.  Today it's a savior, tomorrow it's discredited.  Like the vitamins above.

But several new studies are pointing to the fact that this vitamin is different.

"A vitamin D boost may prevent early death from heart disease and cancer, according to a large scale study by Mount Sinai and a consortium of international collaborators, newswise.com reports.

Research has showed a strong association between low vitamin D levels and risk of death in general, as well as death from cardiovascular diseases, and from cancer, at least in older people with a history of cancer.

 Past studies have linked Vitamin D to protection against many health problems, including hypertension, diabetes and bone loss. Could its protective role be even greater?

“Going into our study, the effect of vitamin D supplementation on risk of death was not clear,” the Web site quotes Paolo Boffetta, MD, Director of the Institute for Translational Epidemiology and Associate Director for Population Sciences of the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sina.

Past studies have linked vitamin D to protection against many health problems, including hypertension, diabetes and bone loss. Could its protective role be even greater?

The reason the elderly are more at risk is because we get vitamin D from the sun and they are often not out in it.

So does this mean if you're young, forget about it?  I think not.  Why not protect yourself now?  It may well pay off later.




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