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Title: Vitamin D helps lower blood pressure
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URL Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english20 ... th/2011-04/04/c_13812167_2.htm
Published: Apr 4, 2011
Author: staff
Post Date: 2011-04-04 08:40:31 by Tatarewicz
Keywords: None
Views: 115
Comments: 6
LOS ANGELES, April 3 (Xinhua) -- People with lower levels of vitamin D are more likely to have stiffer arteries and an inability of blood vessels to relax, U.S. researchers have found. This finding also applies to people who are in general good health, according to researchers from the Emory University School of Medicine. The researchers presented their findings on Sunday at the annual American College of Cardiology meeting in New Orleans. Impaired vascular health in correlation with lower vitamin D levels contributes to high blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular disease, the researchers say. The study involved 554 participants, with the average age of 47 and generally healthy. The average level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (a stable form of the vitamin reflecting diet as well as production in the skin) in participants' blood was 31.8 nanograms per milliliter. In this group, 14 percent had 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels considered deficient, or less than 20 nanograms per milliliter, and 33 percent had levels considered insufficient, less than 30 nanograms per milliliter. The researchers monitored the ability of participants' blood vessels to relax by inflating and then removing a blood pressure cuff on their arms. To allow blood to flow back into the arm, blood vessels must relax and enlarge -- a change that can be measured by ultrasound. The researchers also made other measurements of smaller blood vessels and examined the resistance to blood flow imposed by the arteries. Even after controlling for factors such as age, weight and cholesterol, people with lower vitamin D levels still had stiffer arteries and impaired vascular function, according to the study. "We found that people with vitamin D deficiency had vascular dysfunction comparable to those with diabetes or hypertension," says Ibhar Al Mheid, MD, a cardiovascular researcher who led the study. But when participants increased their vitamin D levels, their vascular health was improved and blood pressure lowered, the study shows. Previous study have shown that lack of vitamin D can lead to impaired vascular health, and the new study adds more evidence to the conclusion, the researchers say. "There is already a lot known about how vitamin D could be acting here," Al Mheid says. "It could be strengthening endothelial cells and the muscles surrounding the blood vessels. It could also be reducing the level of angiotensin, a hormone that drives increased blood pressure, or regulating inflammation." Study findings were published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on its website.
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#1. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
I appreciate you taking the time to post all these health articles for us. Thank you.
"...as long as there..remain active enemies of the Christian church, we may hope to become Master of the World...the future Jewish King will never reign in the world before Christianity is overthrown - B'nai B'rith speech http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/luther.htm / http://bible.cc/psalms/83-4.htm
Vitamin D seems to have a lot of uses. It helps fight the flu, and now is good for blood pressure. Preventing hardening of the arteries Published: Tuesday | January 25, 2011 The circulatory system plays a critical role in the body. It supplies oxygen and nutrients to all parts of the body and removes wastes from those areas as well. Arteries are an important part of your circulatory system. They are the vessels that carry blood pumped from your heart to the rest of your body. Healthy arteries are flexible and strong, but with time the walls of your arteries can become thick, stiff and inflexible. This process is called arteriosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. A specific type of arteriosclerosis involves a build-up of plaque on your artery walls and is called atherosclerosis. This plaque can rupture, causing a blood clot that blocks off blood flow in the artery. Atherosclerosis can affect arteries anywhere in your body and is responsible for most cases of heart disease and stroke. INFLAMMATION IS THE CULPRIT Because plaque is found to contain cholesterol, the medical profession has focused its efforts on reducing blood cholesterol levels as a treatment for athero-sclerosis. Research has, however, clearly demonstrated that the real cause of atherosclerosis is inflammation and damage to the walls of the blood vessels, not the cholesterol circulating in the blood. The formation of cholesterol containing plaque is a secondary event following the damage and inflammation. When this is understood, hardening of the arteries can be seen as a lifestyle-related disorder that is preventable and treatable. CORRECT INFLAMMATION Add foods with anti-inflammatory properties to the diet, avoid unhealthy fats, exercise regularly, learn to manage stress and do not smoke. Supplementing with the antioxidant ACES, omega-3 fats and magnesium also helps to control inflammation. Herbs like green tea, rosemary, garlic and ginger also have powerful anti-inflammatory effects. A useful indicator of inflamma-tion, in general, and athero-sclerosis, in particular, is the level of an impurity called homocysteine, which can be detected with a simple blood test. Research indicates that this test is much more significant than the blood cholesterol level in determining ones risk of a heart attack or stroke. What is more amazing is that an elevated homocysteine level can be easily corrected with vitamin B6, B12 and folic acid supplements that are both safe and inexpensive. I wonder why we continue to prescribe dangerous and expensive choles-terol-lowering drugs so frequently? USE CHELATION THERAPY Chelation therapy is an intravenous therapy performed in a doctor's office to treat and prevent atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, and other age-related problems of circulation. Properly administered chelation therapy improves metabolic function, reduces inflammation and increases blood flow, opening blocked arteries throughout the body. The chelating agent EDTA (ethylene-diamine-tetra-acetic acid), along with a mixture of vitamins and minerals, is administered by slow, intravenous drip. One of the features of atherosclerosis is that excess calcium accumulates in the walls of the arteries, causing the 'hardening'. Too much calcium within a cell becomes toxic to the cell, and as we age, calcium drifts out of our bones and into our tissues. This accelerates the ageing process. Chelation therapy removes the calcium from the artery walls, corrects the inflammation present there, making the blood vessels soft, open and flexible. It literally helps to make your circulation younger and healthier. Mainstream medicine has been trying to discredit chelation therapy for a long time, but its scientific basis is sound and the results extremely impressive. DANGEROUS HEAVY METALS One important but unrecognised source of toxicity and inflammation for humans is the accu-mulation of dangerous heavy metals in the body. These include lead, mercury, aluminium, arsenic and cadmium, to name a few. They damage cells and disrupt delicate enzyme systems that run the body's metabolism. Today's polluted environment leaves most people with a toxic level of heavy metals in their body. This has been shown to accelerate the ageing process and promote a long list of illnesses including heart disease, cancer immune disorders and atherosclerosis. Another powerful benefit of chelation therapy lies in its ability to bind and remove these heavy metals from the system and thus reduce the load of toxins that the body has been carrying. Other natural chelating agents that help remove heavy metals include vitamins A, C and E, alpha lipoic acid, glutathione, selenium, zinc, cysteine, cilantro, milk thistle, green tea, garlic and dietary fibre. You may email Dr Tony Vendryes at vendryes@mac.com or get a copy of his new book 'An Ounce of Prevention - Especially for Women'.
Best Answer - Chosen by Voters Yes! Clouds will reduce the amount of Ultraviolet B, but some still gets through. This is why sunscreen is recommended on cloudy days. As a very pale skinned individual, I can confirm that sunburns occur on cloudy days - but it takes longer than on sunny days! Vitamin D is absorbed by the skin via ultraviolet B. Keep in mind that the amount of Vitamin D the body needs is relatively small and can be obtained in 10-15 min of sun exposure 2 - 3x a week. In other words, walking in and out of stores and to your car after work, should be sufficient. There is not a need to "lay out in the sun and bake". Something more specific: xford Companion to the Body: sun and the body Home > Library > Health > World of the Body The sun has exercised a powerful influence on the physical and mental lives of human beings. The sun emits visible light, heat, ultraviolet rays, radio waves, and X-rays. Ultraviolet light affects the human body in a number of ways. One of the greatest health benefits of ultraviolet light is the production of vitamin D, which is essential to calcium metabolism and the formation of bone. High energy ultraviolet light enters the skin and causes the photochemical conversion of 7-dehydrocholesterol to previtamin D3, which at body temperature undergoes isomerization to vitamin D3. When the skin is exposed to excessive sunlight, previtamin D3 is changed into two biologically inert substances, lumisterol and tachysterol, which prevent the synthesis of excessive amounts of D3. The production of vitamin D is affected by time of day, season, and latitude. A century ago, the lack of sunlight in industrial cities, and hence, of vitamin D, caused widespread rickets, characterized by bowleggedness. There is evidence that breast-fed babies require exposure to ultraviolet light — perhaps only 30 minutes a week — in order to acquire adequate vitamin D. Studies also reveal that mobility-impaired geriatric patients have only about one-quarter of the serum vitamin D of healthy middle-aged persons. Dietary changes and increased sunlight may help solve this problem. Vitamin D can also be taken in various vitamin supplements. Ultraviolet light has several therapeutic effects. In combination with drug therapies, it is useful in treating skin diseases, such as psoriasis, herpes, and eczema. ‘Phototherapy’ — exposure not to ultraviolet but to light from the blue end of the spectrum — is used for jaundice in new-born babies, caused by the immature liver's inability to rid the body of bilirubin, which, if it accumulates excessively, can cause brain damage. Another positive effect of the sun is psychological. In the early 1980s a report appeared of a woman whose depression increased when she went north in the winter and disappeared when she visited Jamaica. Her condition later acquired the name Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). An accepted treatment for this condition is exposure to a full-spectrum light of at least 2500 lux — 5-10 times as strong as standard indoor lighting. By comparison, sunlight gives 1041;000 lux on a cloudy day, and 8041;000 lux (at the Equator) on a sunny day. The human body apparently evolved a daily rhythm in response to the length of daylight. Sunlight suppresses the secretion of prolactin, which aids in rest; melatonin, which affects mood and subjective energy levels; and growth hormone, which is needed for bodily construction and repair. When male subjects were put on a 10-hour photoperiod, they typically experienced a 2-hour period of non-anxious wakefulness in the middle of their sleeping period, and prolactin was found to be elevated for 14 hours. Those on a 16-hour, modern period, experienced less melatonin secretion than other test subjects, while growth hormone levels doubled. Women seem to be more sensitive to seasonal changes in length of day, perhaps explaining why they are more susceptible to SAD. Photoperiodism also seems to be involved in the production of the neurotransmitter, serotonin, which controls the appetite for carbohydrates. People affected by SAD crave carbohydrates during the winter. Sunlight can also harm the human body. Excessive exposure of the unprotected skin results in erythema (sunburn). With one Minimum Erythemal Dose (MED) the skin turns pink and starts to produce melanin. With 5-10 MED an excruciating sunburn results after 4-14 hours. Certain medications, including tetracyclines and estrogens, increase the skin's susceptibility to sunburn. The body has ways to protect itself from skin damage from sunlight. Repeated exposure to the sun creates a tan, as melanin accumulates close to the surface of the skin. A deep tan can filter out 95% of the sun's rays. However, after only 2-3 minutes of exposure to the sun, skin damage begins. Two main structural proteins of the skin, collagen and elastin, begin to break down, ultimately resulting in wrinkles. The skin has the ability to repair itself, but repeated and prolonged exposure to the sun damages the skin permanently. Prolonged exposure to the hot sun or any other heat source may cause heat exhaustion or the more serious heatstroke or sunstroke. By far the most serious ill effect of the sun is skin cancer. Skin exposed chronically to the ultraviolet light of the sun shows a tenfold increase in mutations of a gene called P53. Sunlight further causes the cells containing the mutated cells to spread, where they copy themselves. This mutated gene has been linked with basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers. The most serious form of skin cancer, melanoma, has also been linked with exposure to the sun. Even one or two blistering sunburns in childhood have been associated with an increase in the incidence of melanoma. The sun has profoundly influenced human intellect and custom. To the pre-technical mind, it ordered the world and set the rhythm of daily life. For many early peoples, solar observations formed the bases of their agricultural, religious, and ceremonial lives. The power of the Egyptian Pharaoh is underlined by the belief that he was the son of the sun god Ra. Images and designs found world-wide depict the sun. The sun governed conceptions of time; ancient observatories measured the time in terms of seasons, while, at least in antiquity, only the sundial existed to measure the time during a single day. The ancient Greeks considered the sun to be unchangeable and divine, and Plato likened the highest form of human understanding, the understanding of unchanging truths, to the sun. In many cultures, particularly more northern ones, the end of winter is marked by celebrations. Even the Copernican revolution played a role in the conception of the central power of the sun, as the gravity of the sun became the literal controller of the solar system, displacing the changeable and corruptible earth from the centre position. It is little wonder, then, that the absolute monarch Louis XIV assumed the title of Sun King. — Kristen L. Zacharias
You don't know how timely this is! Thank you again!!
"...as long as there..remain active enemies of the Christian church, we may hope to become Master of the World...the future Jewish King will never reign in the world before Christianity is overthrown - B'nai B'rith speech http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/luther.htm / http://bible.cc/psalms/83-4.htm
(and please post if you do) How Much Sunshine Does it Take to Make Enough Vitamin D? Perhaps More Than You Think! Posted By Dr. Mercola | October 29 2009 | 72,386 views Share vitamin D, sunVitamin D deficiency is quite common, and a growing list of diseases and conditions are being linked with it. Regular sun exposure, without sunscreen, causes your skin to produce vitamin D naturally. But how much sun do you need? You've probably seen some vague guidelines, recommending "a few minutes every day." But these recommendations are far too general to be useful. The amount of sun you need to meet your vitamin D requirements varies hugely, depending on your location, your skin type, the time of year, the time of day, and even the atmospheric conditions. The Vitamin D/UV Calculator Scientists at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research have devised a calculator that will take all those factors into consideration and estimate how many minutes of exposure you need for your skin to produce 25 mcg (the equivalent of 1,000 International Units) of vitamin D. It's not the most user-friendly interface and it is very easy to enter the wrong information. But once you get past the technicalities, it's very interesting to see how much the answers change when you vary the input. It is also not written for US cities so you can go to this page to find out latitude and longitude of many cites and enter the numbers manually. The easiest way may be to simply google "altitude of [your town]". Remember to convert it to kilometers. One kilometer is about 3300 feet. If your latitude is 39 S, enter -39. If your longitude is 76 W, enter -76. You’ll also need to enter the time of day you are going out in the sun, expressed as UTC (Greenwich Mean Time). Here is a converter that will convert local time into UTC. The calculator uses a 24 hour clock, so hours from 1 PM to midnight are expressed as 13 to 24. The calculator also wants to know the thickness of the ozone layer. I suggest just setting this one to medium. Be sure to click the radio button next to the entries. They are often not automatically selected when you fill in the values. Keep in mind that the exposure times given are considered enough to maintain healthy vitamin D status. If you are starting out with a vitamin D deficiency, you might need more. Vitamin D Dose Recommendations Age Dosage Below 5 35 units per pound per day Age 5 - 10 2500 units Adults 5000 units Pregnant Women 5000 units WARNING: There is no way to know if the above recommendations are correct. The ONLY way to know is to test your blood. You might need 4-5 times the amount recommended above. Ideally your blood level of 25 OH D should be 60ng/ml. Dr. Mercola's Comments: Follow me on twitter Follow me on facebook As mentioned in the article above, figuring out how long to stay in the sun in order to produce sufficient amounts of vitamin D can be tricky business, although as a general rule of thumb, you’d want to expose as much of your body as possible to sunlight until your skin turns the lightest shade of pink. However, the calculator created by the Norwegian Institute for Air Research could be helpful as well, especially if you have darker skin. But I would still only use it to get a general guideline. It’s important to remember that you need to get your vitamin D levels measured regularly, regardless of what method you use to raise or maintain your vitamin D levels. That way, if you find that sun exposure is not enough to maintain an optimal level, you may want to look into taking a supplement, for example. Without testing, you will not be able to figure out how much you need, or whether the sun exposure you get, or the supplements you take, is sufficient. For more information on recommended dosages for children and adults, please see this previous article. You can find information about testing and optimal vitamin D levels at this link. Later on, I’ll review several of the factors that influence how much vitamin D your body can produce when you’re in the sun, but first, I want to bring up another important, related finding. Preterm Births are on the Rise World-Wide According to a recent report by CNN, nearly 10 percent of all annual worldwide births are born prematurely (before 37 weeks of development), and the trend is rising across the world. A report by the March of Dimes states that one million of these preemies die within the first month of life, each year. In the US, the rate of preterm births has increased by 36 percent in the past 25 years, and the annual health care costs for preterm care and associated health problems is now over $26 billion. Africa has the highest premature birth rate, where 11.9 percent of births each year are preterm. Surprisingly, North America (consisting of the US and Canada) come in second place, with a preterm birth rate of 10.6 percent of all births. Preterm Births Can be Drastically Reduced by Optimizing Vitamin D Levels Just days after CNN’s article was published, the Times Online reported there is powerful new evidence supporting the claim that sufficient vitamin D levels can reduce your risk of having a premature delivery. It can also help protect your newborn baby from other health problems. In what is considered the first scientific trial that meets the most stringent criteria for “evidence-based inquiry,” US researchers Drs. Hollis and Wagner divulged their findings at a recent international vitamin D research conference in Brugge, Belgium. Their findings included: * Mothers who took 4,000 IU’s (ten times the RDA of 400 IU) of vitamin D during pregnancy had their risk of premature birth reduced by half * Premature babies born to women taking high doses of vitamin D were reduced by half at both 32 and 37 weeks, and * There were also fewer babies who were born “small for dates” * Women taking high doses of vitamin D had a 25 per cent reduction in infections, particularly respiratory infections such as colds and flu as well as fewer infections of the vagina and the gums * The “core morbidities of pregnancy” were reduced by 30 per cent in the women who took the high-dose vitamin D. (Including diabetes, high blood pressure, and pre-eclampsia – a potentially deadly increase in blood pressure and fluid) * Babies getting the highest amounts of vitamin D after birth had fewer colds and less eczema Another 2009 study on vitamin D deficiency in newborns with acute lower respiratory infection confirmed a strong, positive correlation between newborns' and mothers' vitamin D levels. That study found that over 87 percent of all newborns and over 67 percent of all mothers had vitamin D levels lower than 20 ng/ml, which is a severe deficiency state. As a result, the researchers recommended that all mothers optimize their vitamin D levels during pregnancy, especially in the winter months, to safeguard their babies' health. In addition, numerous other studies have found that vitamin D may protect against a number of birth defects. Researcher Dr. Bruce Hollis of the Medical University of South Carolina also said: “I’m telling every pregnant mother I see to take 4,000 IUs and every nursing mother to take 6,400 IUs of vitamin D a day. I think it is medical malpractice for obstetricians not to know what the vitamin D level of their patients is. This study will put them on notice.” Along with Dr. Carol Wagner, the pair has researched vitamin D’s impact on pregnancy outcomes for a number of years. In 2006 they published a study in the journal CMAJ, “Nutritional vitamin D status during pregnancy: reasons for concern, “ and in a 2007 study they discovered that that vitamin D deficiency is quite common in pregnancy. Naturally, pregnancy is not the only time you need to be mindful of your vitamin D status. Most people, including children, adolescents and seniors, are in fact deficient. As I’ve stated on many occasions, getting your vitamin D from the sun (or a safe tanning bed) is the absolute best way to optimize your vitamin D level, but there are a number of factors that influence your vitamin D production that you need to take into account, and below I will explain why. Factors That Influence Production of Vitamin D in Your Skin Production of previtamin D3 in your skin is highly individual and varies depending on several factors, including: * Skin color, and current tan level * Amount of time spent in the sun * Weather conditions such as: cloud cover and pollution, ozone layer, surface reflection * Latitude and altitude (elevation) * Season * Time of day * Use of sunscreen * Clothing So, let’s review these factors to see how they affect your production of vitamin D when you’re trying to metabolize it naturally, from the sun, as opposed to getting it from an oral vitamin D supplement. Skin Color, Current Tan Level, and Amount of Time Spent in the Sun Caucasians and others with paler skin will hit an “equilibrium point” after about 20 minutes of exposure to UVB light, at which point vitamin D will no longer be produced. You can tell you’ve reached your optimal exposure for the day when your skin turns a very light shade of pink. After that you’re only increasing your chances of getting burned, which is something you definitely want to avoid. There is NO additional benefit to staying in the sun any longer. You only risk damage by extending your time in the sun. It’s not like your gas tank. Your body can only produce a limited amount of vitamin D every day. Once it reaches its limit you only cause damage by going beyond that amount. However, once you have a tan you spend much longer in the sun. If you have darker skin, reaching this equilibrium point can take two to six times longer (or up to an hour or two), depending on your pigmentation. A light-skinned person fairly far from the equator (such as in the UK or the northern U.S.) needs at least three of these 20 minute sessions per week, in bright midday sunlight and with few clothes. A dark-skinned person, of course, should be outside significantly longer, and more often, to get the same effect. Weather Conditions The more clouds there are, the less UV radiation reaches the earth’s surface. However, UV can penetrate cloud cover to some extent, so it is still possible to get sunburned on a cloudy day. This is especially true under light clouds, which can block infrared radiation but not UV radiation, leaving the day deceptively cool. Likewise, some types of ground cover reflect UV radiation, increasing its intensity even in deceptively shaded areas. These surfaces include sand, snow, and water. Air pollution, on the other hand, can block UV radiation too effectively. If the air pollution contains large amounts of ozone, UV penetration can be reduced to a sometimes dangerously low level for at-risk populations. This can be particularly true of cities surrounded by hills or mountains, which trap air pollution. Latitude and Altitude Sunlight is, of course, strongest at the equator, where the sunlight comes from directly overhead rather than at an angle; the solar radiation therefore has the shortest distance to travel through the earth’s atmosphere. The UV radiation is about four times as strong at the equator as it is at the Arctic and Antarctic circles. To find the latitude of your town or city, check out this easy-to-use International Latitude / Longitude finder to determine how your latitude affects your sun exposure: * Between 0 and 10 degrees latitude, there is very intense sunlight for several hours before and after noon, year-round. Pale or untanned skin will be completely overwhelmed in just a few minutes. * Between 10 and 30 degrees latitude, there are several hours of very strong sunlight each day, especially during the summer, but the hours after dawn and before dusk can be milder. * Between 30 and 50 degrees latitude, sunlight can be strong during the summer, but a tan can be built up gradually by starting in the milder spring. * Upwards of 50 degrees latitude, summers are often short. However, the inhabitants of these countries often have pale skin that should still be exposed to summer sunlight with care. Anyone with very dark skin living at these latitudes is at a very high risk of vitamin D deficiency. UV radiation is also more intense at higher altitudes, because there is less atmosphere to absorb it. The radiation increases by about 10 percent for every additional mile above sea level. You will therefore burn more easily when you’re at high altitudes -- a fact that is often difficult to remember because it is usually colder at higher altitudes. Season Always start “priming” your skin early in the spring when the sun’s rays are still mild. In summer, avoiding being outside when the solar radiation is most intense is a good idea at most latitudes, to avoid sunburn. In many parts of the world it is even possible—and probably advisable—to sunbathe at noon in the winter with as little clothing as the weather permits (finding a place that is out of the wind can reduce the cold significantly). This is the time of year when you need to be most concerned about the amount of vitamin D you are receiving, as your vitamin D levels can drop by up to 50 percent during winter months. Time of Day The optimal time to be in the sun for vitamin D production is as near to solar noon as possible. That would be between roughly 10:00 am and 2:00 pm. During this time you need the shortest exposure time to produce vitamin D because UVB rays are most intense at this time. Plus, when the sun goes down toward the horizon, the UVB is filtered out much more than the dangerous UVA. This information is just beginning to permeate through the mainstream media, so let me repeat and emphasize this important point … If you want to get out in the sun to maximize your vitamin D production, and minimize your risk of malignant melanoma, the middle of the day is the best and safest time to go. You just need to be very careful about the length of your exposure. Remember you only need enough exposure to have your skin turn the lightest shade of pink. This may only be a few minutes for some. Once you reach this point your body will not make any additional vitamin D and any additional exposure will only cause harm and damage to your skin. Use of Sunscreen and Clothing Keep in mind that using sunscreen while outdoors in large part nullifies your efforts to metabolize adequate amounts of vitamin D. I recommend testing your vitamin D levels to make sure you're not deficient before resorting to sunscreen of any kind. But, if you really need some form of sun protection because you’re outside for extended periods of time, either use light clothing to cover exposed areas, or look for safer, natural sunscreen products that contain no petrochemicals, which you can likely find in your local health food store. Another excellent resource is the EWG's "Skin Deep Report," where you can find out which brands of sunscreens are free from toxic chemicals. Bathing It is important to remember, if you are using the sun or a safe tanning bed to obtain your vitamin D, that the vitamin D takes about 48 hours to be completely absorbed into your blood stream, and you can easily wash it off with soap and water. So you might want to consider only using soap in your armpits and groin for at least 48 hours to allow all the vitamin D to be absorbed. Personally I never use soap on my body other than these places (and my hands of course). Seems a waste to remove the sebum which is a collection of fatty acids on the skin. Over-washing can impair one of primary methods of staying healthy. Not washing my skin hasn’t ever seemed to harm it and many people comment that my skin is as soft as young child’s. I think that also has to do with keeping fat content optimized by avoiding processed fats and having high quality omega-6 and 3 fats. Related Links: How Much Vitamin D Do You Really Need to Take? Experts Starting to Agree -- More Vitamin D is Better Why Vitamin D Supplements Are NOT the Same as Sunlight
#2. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
I take 2000 units a day, because I work at night. On the weekends I probably get plenty of D from sun exposure.
#3. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#1)
I found it odd that the EU folks did not refer to the arteriosclerotic process itself and what role Vit D might play in it:
#4. To: Armadillo (#2)
(Edited)
Yahoo Answers says you can make vitamin D on cloudy days (but not how much longer it takes):
#5. To: Tatarewicz (#3)
#6. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#5)
Here's more precise info. Might find something even better (among 90,000) by googling: vitamin d cloudy days
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