Morning everyone!
Welcome to another edition of the Doctor’s Note where we talk about what’s on our minds when it comes to your health.
I’ve got some really good news today about vitamins that I’ve been wanting to share for a few weeks now.
People are starting to ask me what they should do post COVID-19 with vitamins. Should they keep taking their vitamins and at the same doses?
We certainly know that vitamins help during COVID-19, but what should we do when COVID-19 is over?
My answer to this is that you should stay on your vitamins for prevention!
We know that higher dose vitamins (including IV vitamins and especially Vitamin C) fight diseases of many kinds.
We’re trying to prevent diseases. That’s what functional integrative medicine is all about.
So, I’m suggesting that you take vitamins for the rest of your life.
You don’t have to take the exact amount I’ve been recommending during COVID-19, but it should be similar. You shouldn’t go from taking a lot of vitamins to taking none at all.
My top vitamin by far is Vitamin D. It’s actually not a vitamin, it’s a hormone.
And that’s what I want to talk about specifically today, and you’ll see why.
Vitamin D3 and Cancer Deaths
There is a new study that came out of Germany relating Vitamin D and prevention of cancer deaths.
This study showed that by giving 1,000 units of Vitamin D daily cancer deaths in Germany decreased between 13-25%.
Note that I recommend to my patients that they take 5,000 units daily and check their Vitamin D levels.
To me, this was an interesting study. It concluded by saying that we should be giving adults over the age of 50 Vitamin D not only to prevent death of cancer, but to save money for the national healthcare system. This study proved that it could save the health system billions of dollars because end of life cancer care is very expensive. It’s actually 4 times more expensive than dying of heart disease. Of course, heart disease is the number one killer in the US and cancer is number two.
We always hold out hope, but if you have end stage cancer, that last year of life is often spent in misery.
So this study showed that Vitamin D reduced cancer deaths. A subsequent study at Harvard that had 27,000 people in it, confirmed the findings in Germany. In the US, there was closer to a 25% decrease in cancer deaths.
Note that it didn’t reduce the incidence of cancer, it reduced cancer deaths. We don’t know how this worked exactly, however, we do know that it decreased metastasis.
Our bodies are always trying to get cancer. We have these cancer cells in us. Our bodies just have an amazing ability to fight cancer cells off.
The other interesting thing this study found was that Vitamin D only reduced cancer deaths in people who had normal body weight, and a normal BMI (Body Mass Index).
The decrease in deaths didn’t apply to those people who were obese.
This is a huge statement!
Abdominal obesity is an inflammatory producing organ, and it’s a cancer causing medical condition.
This affirms what I’ve said for years in that the US wouldn’t have a healthcare crisis if we did two things:
- Give every human Vitamin D (both kids and adults), especially those over 50. We know it helps prevent Covid deaths, and now this study shows that it can prevent cancer deaths in those over 50.
- Get our average weight back to where it was in the 1960’s, when on average men weighed 160lbs and women weighed 115lbs.
If those two things happened, there would be no healthcare crisis.
So, this is yet another reason to take Vitamin D and try to get to a lean weight!
Vitamin D will help prevent cancer death along with the other great things it does.
- Helps your mood.
- Helps you lose weight.
- Prevents diabetes.
- Helps with blood pressure.
- Prevents Osteoporosis.
There are so many reasons to take Vitamin D.
Here are the forms to take it in:
- Vitamin D3 (active form of Vitamin D).
- Vitamin D3 with K for people over 40. This is because Vitamin K makes the Vitamin D more absorbable, so the calcium will get into your bones and not your arteries.
Bottom line..
Everybody should be taking Vitamin D3 and checking D levels!
Links mentioned: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/947603