Do you know that a lack of Vitamin D is a cause of Cancer and other health problems? Research shows the unequivocal benefits of vitamin D both in the prevention and treatment of cancer as well as other diseases. Lack of, and fear of sunshine, combined with processed, cooked diets has become an undeclared catastrophe of modern times with regard to health.

The Vitamin D Council writes: “Technically not a ‘vitamin’, vitamin D is in a class by itself. Its metabolic product, calcitriol, is actually a secosteroid hormone that targets over 1000 genes in the human body. Current research has implicated vitamin D deficiency as a major factor in the pathology of at least 17 varieties of cancer as well as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, muscle wasting, birth defects, periodontal disease, and more. Vitamin D’s influence on key biological functions vital to one’s health and well-being mandates that vitamin D no longer be ignored by the healthcare industry nor by individuals striving to achieve and maintain a greater state of health.”[1]

www.orthomolecular.org writes:

“If you search the US National Institutes of Health’s Medline online database for ‘cancer vitamin D’, you will find over five thousand papers… some dating back nearly 60 years. It’s true: physician reports on vitamin D stopping cancer have been ignored for decades. In 1951, T. Desmonts reported that vitamin D treatment was effective against Hodgkin’s disease (a cancer of the lymphatic system).[2] That same year, 57 years ago, massive doses of vitamin D were also observed to improve epithelioma.[3] In 1955, skin cancer was again reported as cured with vitamin D treatment.[4] In 1963, there was a promising investigation done on vitamin D and breast cancer.[5] Then, in 1964, vitamin D was found to be effective against lymph nodal reticulosarcoma, a non-Hodgkin’s lymphatic cancer.[6] The American Cancer Society has been obsessed with finding a drug cure for cancer. Pharmaceutical researchers are not looking for a vitamin cure. And when one is presented, as independent investigators and physicians have continuously been doing since 1951, it is ignored.”[7]

Vitamin D RDA and Sun Shine

The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin D is set at 200-400 international units a day (IU). This is supposed to be the level that will prevent the classic vitamin D deficiency disease Rickets. Sadly, (and as is typical with the generally simplified criteria used to set RDA’s for nutrients by our Governments) you actually need around 4,000 IU/day just to maintain the vitamin D levels you already have.

Do you think government scientists know this? Of course they do.

To understand vitamin D and our requirement for it to maintain our health a little better, let’s consider the following. Let’s say you went out to your local park between 11am and 2pm, stripped naked and laid on the grass to catch some rays. In the half an hour it took for someone to make a call to the local police station and then for the the local police to come and arrest you, scientists say you can generate around 20,000 IU of vitamin D. Of course this will vary from person to person depending on things such as skin pigmentation, where you are on the planet, cloud cover, pollution, speed of police etc. When you get bailed out at the station and return home with your clothes on, you strip off and have a shower and wash all that vitamin D down the plughole!

Apparently it takes around 48 hours for vitamin D to penetrate the skin. Vitamin D is oil-soluble and is broken down by soap and so can be washed away in  shower. This is important to know, (I didn’t until just very recently!). To avoid this happening after sun exposure (adequate exposure is enough for the fair-skinned types to get a slight pinkish look) wash off the skin with water and don’t use soap! (You can use it on those smelly bits if you must, but use only water on most of your skin).

Dark-skinned people need much more sun than those of us with light skin and this is a big part of the reason for the statistics that show much higher rates of some diseases and conditions in dark skinned people living in cooler climates.  That is obvious everywhere – the Maori in NZ have extremely high rates of certain health problems, as do Black Americans, and dark skinned races living in the UK.

When your shadow is shorter than you are is a great time to be getting some sun according to  Dr John Cannell. He says this is a useful thumbnail to determine when you can make vitamin D. Unfortunately in some areas on the planet such as the UK, your shadow is longer than you are for a good part of the year.

Trying to get sun exposure behind glass is no good since the vitamin-D-making UVB wavelength is disrupted. It needs to be real sun – outside.

We all need to take getting adequate sun exposure not only more seriously, but view it as one of the absolute must haves for a longer life. If you have dark skin and have moved to a northern country, you are especially at risk from vitamin-D-deficiency problems. Numerous studies indicate that ‘all-cause mortality’ is significantly higher if you are vitamin-D-deficient.[8]

Vitamin D Testing

If I had cancer or another serious health challenge, one of the first things I would do is find out what my blood serum levels of Vitamin D are. You can do this even if you are healthy and just want to know. The test to request from your GP is known as a 25(OH)D or 25-hydroxy D test for calcidiol, and is done using a blood sample.

You need the figure and the calibration (don’t just accept being told you’re a bit low by your GP) i.e. 25 ng/ml or 75 nmol/L. If you end up with other calibrations, convert as follows: 10 ng/ml = 10?g/L (no change) 10 ng/ml = 24.96 nmol/L (1:2.5)

The ng/ml and ?g/L scales run as follows (UK, USA, etc.):

• <20 ng/ml – grossly deficient
• 20-40 ng/ml – deficient
• 50-60 ng/ml – normal
• 70-90 ng/ml – therapeutic
• >100-110 ng/ml – toxic threshold

The nmol/l scale runs as follows (Australia, etc.):

• < 50 mmol/l – grossly deficient
• 50 – 100 nmol/l – deficient
• 130 – 150 nmol/l – normal
• 170 – 190 ng/ml – therapeutic
• >220 nmol/l – toxic threshold[9]

Dr Bruce Hollis remarks that no circulating D3 can be found until levels are 40-50 ng/ml (100-125 nmol/l). By this measure, at least 85% of the US population are vitamin-D-deficient. Consider that America is below the 52nd parallel, so the UK and northern Europe will be far worse. If your test comes back deficient, vitamin D levels should be raised using sunlight and/or supplementation, and then re-tested four weeks later to see if progress is being made. I encourage people to take 10,000 IU/day of D3 while they are getting tested and then adjust the supplementation accordingly (usually upward) and re-test in four to six weeks. There are specially designed, electronic-ballast ‘safe’ tanning beds, too, which emit predominant UVB wavelength. Dr Joseph Mercola recommends these but they are expensive and not to everyone’s tastes.[10]

During the 4 years that we lived back in NZ recently, I bought and used a tanning bed. I’m now living back in Queensland where the sun shines most days and so sun exposure is much easier to come by. I loved using the tanning bed in the middle of winter in NZ. I used it usually every 2nd or third day and I remember how good it made me feel after each session. I wouldn’t have been without it! Here in Australia we had an sad case of a young lady who died of skin cancer – she blamed it on the half a dozen sessions she had had on a sunbed while in her teens. The media made a huge and very emotional story out of it and turned tanning beds and the businesses that provide them, into the bad guys. Now new regulations here have made it more difficult for businesses to provide tanning beds as part of their business, but they are still available for those who want to use them.

All the mis-information that has been bombarded at us over the past 30 years or so (and sadly still is) regarding the ‘dangers’ of sun exposure has done much damage as there are many people that are literally afraid of the sun and avoid it like the plague not realising that they are in fact damaging their health by doing so. To me it’s always made sense to go with what is and feels natural – lying in the sun feels great! It makes you feel happy and alive! and a tan looks sexy and healthy because it is! Pale white skin looks unhealthy and sick – because it is.

So get out in the sun (be sensible and don’t get burned) for a while each day if you can or use supplements if you can’t.  Make sure you’re getting enough Vitamin D and you’ll feel great, look great and your body will thank you for it.

Resources:

My thanks to Phillip Day and Credence Publications for a lot of this information in a recent newsletter. Phillip Day has a booklet The Essential Guide to Vitamin D available from Credence Publications.

Have you ever thought about what you would do if you were diagnosed with cancer? I think that most people fear it and don’t want to think about it – until it happens to them that is and then there’s fear, panic, and confusion along with the anger, self pity and other emotions that come as part of the result of a cancer diagnosis.

Keeping our heads in the sand and hoping it won’t happen is a mistake – especially at this point in history when statistics indicate that close to every 2nd person will get cancer at some point in their lives and those numbers are growing.

I see people (including some in my family) being diagnosed with cancer and then not knowing what to do. The doctors are who we are brought up to believe are the ‘experts’. They seem to be the safe option – leave your life and your body in their capable hands. They know what they’re doing right? Then as the journey progresses and the cancer patient realises that the chemo just makes them sicker and the prognosis is getting worse. It’s not working. They turn to alternatives in an attempt to save their lives. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it’s just too late.

I’ve always had a ‘thing’ about cancer. I remember even as a very young teenager thinking about cancer and worrying that I would get cancer and knowing that I didn’t want go through the horrors and pain that most cancer sufferers go through before their eventual death (althought I didn’t  know how I knew it was so bad).  I remember thinking a lot about and being quite confused over stories I heard of children getting cancer and babies even being born with it. I didn’t understand back then how that could be so.

I’ve wondered over recent years why I was so interested in cancer even as a very young person when most kids wouldn’t even give it a thought. Especially when I think back to when I was young and remember that cancer really wasn’t a common disease back then. Not like now.

I’ve come to the conclusion recently that it may have eventuated because of a visit to see my Grandpa in the hospital when I was 5 years old only days before he died of cancer. I remember going to visit him, but don’t remember details. I was talking to my Mum and Dad just last week about it and they were saying that they were shocked when we went to visit him as he was in a really bad way (we lived many hours away in Lower Hutt and so had gone up to Tauranga to see him). I remember that I was told he had died – I don’t think I really understood. I understood that I wouldn’t see him again, and I remember trying to make myself cry, but I just felt sad. I don’t think most 5 year olds would really understand.

After Mum and Dad talking about his physical condition when we saw him I’m thinking that’s what probably sparked my ‘interest’ in cancer and my search to find some way that I could know that I had some ‘control’ (I guess) over what happens to my body.

Now a days, I do know what I would do if I were diagnosed with cancer and I don’t fear it any more. I’ve done much reading, listening, and research over the years and I am totally at peace with with the possibility although of course I do what I can to prevent it. Prevention is always going to be better than cure.

I know that if I were diagnosed, my cancer treatment would include no chemotherapy, no radiation and no surgery.

I would immediately stop consuming any animal products, as well as sugar and processed foods. I would be taking large doses of good quality vitamins and minerals as well as making myself fresh vegetable juices every day.  I would be eating apricot kernals for their vitamin B17 daily and taking herbs to rid my body of any parasites. I would be relaxing, meditating and exercising daily.

In other words I would be focusing on getting my body as healthy as I could. Keeping my body alkaline and well oxygenated. Cancer thrives in acid conditions where tissues are suffering a lack of nutrients and  oxygen – reverse those problems and the cancer will be gone.

This approach to cancer is referred to by most as ‘alternative cancer treatment’. Does it not just sound like good health and common sense?

Disease of any kind (no matter the name given to it by doctors) only happens in an unhealthy body. Create the right conditions in the body and the disease will go. A useful analogy is rats in a rubbish dump where the rats are the disease or illness and the dump is the body. Do the rats cause the smell and mess at the dump? or is it the conditions at the dump that attract the rats?

You can get a gun and shoot the rats. Will it solve the problems? No. Clean up the dump and the rats will be gone.

I’m going to start posting a lot more info about different ‘alternative’ cancer treatments over time, so do come back.

Do your research and be prepared for the cancer diagnosis. It might not be you, but there’s a really good chance it’ll be someone in your family.