Low Vitamin D in Childhood Linked to Heart Risks Later in Life, and Raises Adults’ Risk of Severe Stroke and Cancer
People who have low vitamin D status are far more likely to suffer more severe strokes, and they also have poorer outcomes after suffering a stroke compared to those with more adequate vitamin D levels
Patients diagnosed with metastatic colorectal cancer who have higher levels of vitamin D have a far greater progression-free survival rate than those who are deficient
Researchers such as Dr. Robert Heaney, who I previously interviewed in the above video, have now realized that vitamin D is involved in the biochemical “machinery” of all cells and tissues in your body, which is why it has such a potent impact on health and disease.
When you don’t have enough, your entire body will end up struggling to function properly, because all cells need the active form of vitamin D to open up the genome and access the information retained within its genetic plans.
When you’re deficient in vitamin D, your health can deteriorate in any number of ways from this lack of access to the cells’ genetic blueprint.
Researchers have previously pointed out that increasing levels of vitamin D3 among the general population could prevent chronic diseases that claim nearly one million lives throughout the world each year.
Chances are this number would reach even higher if more recent research were to be taken into account. Either way, compelling evidence suggests that optimizing your vitamin D can reduce your risk of death from any cause,1 making it a foundational component of optimal health.
For years, it’s been known that children born to vitamin D-deficient mothers are at increased risk for type 1 diabetes. Vitamin D deficiency in childhood is also associated with more severe asthma and allergies.
Recent research also suggests that having low vitamin D levels in childhood may raise your risk of hardening of the arteries in middle-age. The study,2 published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, involved nearly 2,150 people who were enrolled in 1980 at the age of 3-18. As reported by the New York Times:3
“All underwent periodic physical exams, including measures of serum vitamin D levels, blood pressure, lipid levels, diet, smoking, and physical activity and were examined up to age 45.
Doctors used ultrasound to examine arteries, including the carotid artery in the neck; thickening of the arteries is considered a marker of higher cardiovascular risk.
A vitamin D level of between 30 to 50 is generally considered adequate. Children in the lowest one-quarter for vitamin D levels, about 15 nanograms per milliliter, were nearly twice as likely to have thickening of the carotid artery as those in the other three quarters.”
According to lead author, Dr. Markus Juonala, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Turku in Finland, the findings suggest that vitamin D plays a role in long-term arterial health.
Here, they did not find that low vitamin D in childhood resulted in any specific heart conditions or stroke later in life, but other studies have indeed noted a strong connection between low vitamin D in adults and such health problems.
According to veteran vitamin D researcher Dr. Michael Holick, research has shown that vitamin D deficiency can increase your risk of heart attack by 50 percent. Moreover, if you have a heart attack and you're vitamin D deficient, your risk of dying from that heart attack is upwards of 100 percent!
Similarly, findings presented at this year’s annual American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference suggest that people who have low vitamin D status are far more likely to suffer more severe strokes.
They also have poorer outcomes after suffering a stroke compared to those with more adequate vitamin D levels. As reported by the American Heart Association:4
“[Stroke] patients who had low vitamin D levels –defined as less than 30 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) – had about two-times larger areas of dead tissue resulting from obstruction of the blood supply compared to patients with normal vitamin D levels...
For each 10 ng/mL reduction in vitamin D level, the chance for healthy recovery in the three months following stroke decreased by almost half, regardless of the patient's age or initial stroke severity.”
Low vitamin D is also strongly associated with an increased risk for well over a dozen different cancers, including breast and colon cancer. Theories linking vitamin D deficiency to cancer have been tested and confirmed in hundreds of epidemiological studies, and understanding of its physiological basis stems from more than 2,500 laboratory studies.
Its anticancer effects include the promotion of apoptosis (cancer cell death), and the inhibition of angiogenesis (the growth of blood vessels that feed a tumor), and the level of protection afforded by vitamin D can indeed be significant. For example:
One recent meta-analysis5 found that having a high serum level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D was associated with a 25 percent reduction in relative risk of bladder cancer
A 2007 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine6 concluded that a vitamin D level of more than 33 ng/mL was associated with a 50 percent lower risk of colorectal cancer
Researchers7,8 Joan Lappe and Robert Heaney found that menopausal women given enough vitamin D to raise their serum levels to 40 ng/ml experienced a 77 percent reduction in the incidence of all cancers after just four years’ of supplementation
According to Carole Baggerly, founder of GrassrootsHealth,9 the evidence suggests as much as 90 percent of ordinary breast cancer may be related to vitamin D deficiency
Not only does vitamin D protect against tumor proliferation in the first place, it also affects treatment outcome and recovery. The connection between vitamin D status and cancer survival was most recently demonstrated in research presented at the annual Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.
Patients diagnosed with metastatic colorectal cancer who had higher levels of vitamin D had a far greater progression-free survival rate than those who were deficient. As reported by Clinical Oncology:10
“The study’s lead investigator, Kimmie Ng, MD, MPH... said the research adds to the existing evidence that vitamin D levels have an effect on cancer. Vitamin D is known to inhibit cell proliferation and angiogenesis, induce cell differentiation and apoptosis and have anti-inflammatory effects.
“Many of these processes are dysregulated in cancer, which led to the hypothesis that perhaps vitamin D had anticancer activity,” said Dr. Ng. Laboratory data support this hypothesis, with experiments demonstrating that administering vitamin D to mice with intestinal cancer reduces tumor burden.”
Nearly 1,045 patients with metastatic colorectal cancer were included in the study, and the median vitamin D level among them was just over 17 ng/ml. Few of them reported taking any kind of vitamin D supplement. Typically, anything below 20 ng/ml is considered a serious deficiency state that increases your chances of any number of health problems, including cancer. Many studies show that having adequate vitamin D is critical in order to optimize treatment outcome. Here, Dr. Ng noted that: “Patients who had levels in the highest quintile had a median survival of 32.6 months compared with 24.5 months for patients with levels in the lowest quintile.”
Vitamin D is one of the most well-researched nutrients out there, and the evidence overwhelmingly points to the fact that it is critical for optimal health and disease prevention. By the end of 2012, there were nearly 34,000 published studies on the effects of vitamin D, and there are well over 800 references in the medical literature showing vitamin D's effectiveness against cancer alone.
I’m thoroughly convinced that optimizing your vitamin D stores can go a long way toward preventing disease and living a longer, healthier life, as the known health benefits of vitamin D now number in the hundreds, if not thousands. Besides cancer and cardiovascular disease, other benefits of vitamin D include protection against:
Autoimmune diseases. Vitamin D is a potent immune modulator, making it very important for the prevention of autoimmune diseases, like multiple sclerosis11 (MS) and inflammatory bowel disease.
Lung disease. In those who are deficient, vitamin D supplementation may reduce flare-ups of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) symptoms by more than 40 percent.12 Other research13 suggests vitamin D may protect against some of the adverse effects of smoking as well.
Infections, including influenza. Vitamin D also fights infections, including colds and the flu, as it regulates the expression of genes that influence your immune system to attack and destroy bacteria and viruses. I believe it's far more prudent, safer, less expensive, and most importantly, far more effective to optimize your vitamin D levels than to get vaccinated against the flu.
DNA repair and metabolic processes. One of Dr. Michael Holick’s studies showed that healthy volunteers taking 2,000 IUs of vitamin D per day for a few months upregulated 291 different genes that control up to 80 different metabolic processes. This included improving DNA repair; having a beneficial effect on autoxidation (oxidation that occurs in the presence of oxygen and /or UV radiation, which has implications for aging and cancer, for example); boosting the immune system; and many other biological processes.
Brain health,(depression,14,15 dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease). Vitamin D receptors appear in a wide variety of brain tissue, and activated vitamin D receptors increase nerve growth in your brain. Vitamin D is therefore important for optimal brain function, mental health, and for the prevention of degenerative brain disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease. According to one recent study,16,17 seniors with low vitamin D levels may double their risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Another study18,19,20 found that people with the highest average intakes of vitamin D had a 77 percent decreased risk for Alzheimer's. Researchers believe that optimal vitamin D levels may enhance the amount of important chemicals in your brain and protect brain cells by increasing the effectiveness of the glial cells in nursing damaged neurons back to health. Vitamin D may also exert some of its beneficial effects on your brain through its anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting properties.
Dr. Robert Heaney is a professor and a well-respected vitamin D researcher, having studied this nutrient for more than 50 years. In the interview above, he shares many of his insights into this question. As a general guideline, an ideal, and what needs to be reclassified as normal, vitamin D level is in the range of 40-60 ng/ml. According to Dr. Heaney, research has shown that 40-60 ng/ml is the level a nursing mother needs in order to ensure her milk will contain the vitamin D her nursing infant needs. The 40-60 ng/ml range is also the same range needed for thyroid health, and it’s the range found in tribal populations living on the equatorial plains of East Africa.
Dr. Heaney has pointed out new research showing that oral sources of vitamin D are much higher than previously thought, and this provides compelling justification for the use of oral supplementation. But virtually every expert I have asked does believe that vitamin D produced from the UVB exposure provides additional therapeutic benefits. But for most people, winter precludes anything other than to increase their oral vitamin D supplementation.
That said, sensible sun exposure appears to be the best way to optimize your vitamin D level. Dr. Heaney stresses that you need to get approximately 5,000 to 6,000 IUs of vitamin D per day from all sources – sun, supplements, and food – in order to reach and maintain a blood level of 40-60 ng/ml.
Keep in mind that the specific dosage is a very loose guideline, because people vary widely in their ability to respond to vitamin D. GrassrootsHealth—which Dr. Heaney is Research Director of—also has a helpful chart showing the average adult dose required to reach healthy vitamin D levels based upon your measured starting point. Ideally, make sure to monitor your levels at regular intervals, and take whatever amount of vitamin D3 you need to maintain a clinically relevant level year-round. Do remember to take vitamin D3—not synthetic D2—along with vitamin K2 and magnesium. To learn more about the reason for this recommendation, please see my previous article, “Magnesium—The Missing Link to Better Health.”
Virginia Quarterly Review and the awesomeness of books and moves, with emphasis on Amour and Iron Man 3
I began this post shortly after seeing Amour — a gorgeous film, IMO, with sets that convinced me to return for a second viewing, despite its difficult subject matter. And the depth and breadth of human experience it reveals — well, for the week after enjoying this movie, I toyed with the idea that I should actually throw out my 40+ years of writing stories (yes, I started when I was six) and learn how to craft a screenplay.
And. But. One: I’m an old dog, it’d be a new trick, etcetera; there is truth to adages. Two: I love stories more than I enjoy movies. Three: see my previous post; my short story has me in its howling grip and I can’t/won’t walk away from it.
Then: VQR arrived in the mail, with Richard Nash’s essay, What is the Business of Literature. He writes eloquently about the book as technology — like a chair! or the wheel! — and concludes, “Literature is about blowing sh*t up.” (He uses the entire s word. My kids read these posts so I’m making an effort to be family friendly.)
Then, in early May, we went to Iron Man 3. It is always a pleasure to watch Robert Downey Jr. in action. But the last, oh, 30-40 minutes is naught but explosions, and glistening-with-sweat near-death misses. The opposite of the still, quiet, physical-explosion-free Amour, which was, for me, the more devestating movie.
I have pondered the appeal of each of these films, and the motivation behind those who imagined and created them. They are as different as Marcel Proust and formulaic romance novels, yet, like each of those genres, each holds its pleasures for this reader. They each have a place in the human experience; they each have something to teach us about how to behave with each other.
And they each started with a story in someone’s head. I don’t care if you write comic books or Great Literature, an effective story is both well-told and compelling. Check out Donald Maas’ comment on Julianna Baggott’s post at Writer (un)Boxed for his succinct analysis of the false dichotomy between stories that are sold to us as “literature” versus those promoted as “entertainment.”
In Amour, the sh*t that gets blown up, as in expanded, was my idea of end-of-life care and what it may require of us, as humans, lovers, family. In Iron Man 3, the sh*t that gets blown up is more literal: buildings, oil tankers, human beings. Eye-candy fireworks.
I had some folks over for game night recently; Engineer Hubby has been traveling and on this particular evening the boys were both avidly watching (and then bemoaning the results of) Virginia Tech’s football fate in the regional championship. I’m sort-of following FLY-Lady’s “Cruising for the Holidays” plan, which means I do a little bit every day, and although some days I resent the little bit, it also means that having people over isn’t stressful: a quick sweep to gather up the day’s cat and dog hair is about all that’s required. Which is lovely! I know author Laura Benedict actually gave FLYLady an Official Acknowledgement on the Acknowledgement page of her first novel, which is no small thing, as anyone who’s fantasized about having such a page, and who they’d include on it, knows.
So. Folks over. For all my hermit-crab ways, I know I need people and their quirks and their loving ways and their good hearts and thoughts in my life. ‘Twas lovely, and we had a few drinks and few nibblies and it was very Civilized. Though some of us are more persnickety about the rules being strictly followed than others; some of us want the game to be played Efficiently (eg, no side conversations! What’s your card?!), some of us are hard of hearing; some of us don’t realize others of us are hard of hearing; some of us think the others of us are competitive egotistical maniacs; some of us think everyone is taking it too damn seriously!; some of us know we’re hard of hearing and speak slowly and clearly; some of us are writers and are, compulsively, taking massive quantities of mental notes. Not necessarily me; there was a poet at the gathering, too!
Notwithstanding the specifics of that event, I find myself floundering, more often than I’d like given my age and so-called experience and wisdom, in social settings. This is temporarily mitigated when I read essays by other writers who experience the same thing. But it remains a chronic challenge for me. A zone of discomfort, albeit one softened by a healthy slug of port, and a zone where good things also happen.
And it reminds me of the friends with whom I do not flounder. A few rare souls with whom my awkwardness is nonexistent, for whom my sense of humor is instantly understood, who make me feel beautiful inside and out. I want to nurture those friendships, and yet I don’t. I don’t often invite them over for game night, or drinks, or to watch a movie or to take a walk in the woods or whatever other small, daily bit of life I’m living and could share with someone.
This is often because, frankly, I don’t want to share. I want to be left the hell alone. My kids gobble up all my extrovert energy, plus we are SO DAMN BUSY.
And it occurred to me while taking one of those solo walks that my relationship with my friends parallels that of my relationship with my favorite authors and their books. I had a passionate love affair with Henry James novels in my early twenties. I’d love to return to Portrait of a Lady and see what, if anything, resonates with me now. Ditto Laurens van der Post’s A Far Off Place. But I don’t make the time. I pick up new books, I skim the inside flaps of the latest and greatest novel, I take notes when Maureen Corrigan gives her recommendations and compare those with the various bestseller lists compiled by Publisher’s Weekly, then don’t venture to the library to pick up a copy, or splurge and buy a copy.
Just as I fail to pick up the phone to call my brother and father on a regular (dare I say it, disciplined) manner, I fail to return to the words and stories that formed me. I need to reflect and refine my thoughts to write –I’ve re-read Emma and Middlemarch, and both yielded generous fruit. How different to be on the other side of love, marriage and childbearing and read Austen and Eliot! Why don’t I re-read more often?! Why don’t I call the friend of my early twenties, the one with whom years melt away when we bump into each other? Why don’t I commit to hosting or attending more social gatherings, where I’ll deepen old connections or build new ones?
The effort it takes to enter the social discomfort zone, open new books or re-read known novels, is laden with potential friends, readers, fellow-writers, insights, opinions. And I’ll never know if I don’t show up.
I am so damn busy in part because I’ve fallen into a rut of thinking that butt-in-chair, hands-on-keyboard (or pen-on-paper) is my only “real” writing time. I hold those hours sacred, and everything else is play, time away from the Real Work.
When time away is forced upon me by, say, an older son with a concussion followed by head cold that puts him to bed all week with pathetic requests to me for things like tissue and Vicks Vaporub, I have, traditionally, squirmed with anxiety about the time away from my desk. But! Personal progress! This week, spurred in part by The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, and The Life Organizer by Jennifer Louden, I forced myself to consider these breaks opportunities to undertake “other” writing work. I decided to make the most of what was before me, instead of lamenting what I don’t have: uninterrupted chunks of time. So, I hosted my writers group at my house for our craft discussion. I read the memoir I’ve had on my to-do list, settled into my reading chair and stared at my bookshelf and selected my top three re-reads for 2012. Had folks over for that game night. All things related to my writing life but that I haven’t done because “I don’t have time.”
I suspect, based on the evidence, that breaks from at-my-desk time will continue to occur organically while my boys live at home, and run into each other at high rates of speed, cracking skulls. But I also want to honor the time to (re)connect with friends – real and fictional – old and new.
It feels cold-blooded to pencil into my calendar, “reading hour” but if I don’t, it doesn’t happen. It feels equally workman-like to schedule a phone call with my dad, my friend from the 80s. But if I don’t, it won’t happen. I’m breaking out my 2012 calendar and inking in sacred time for getting into my discomfort zone, socially. And for reconnecting with those real and fictional friends.
With a back-up plan for the inevitable snow days when the boys are home, flying off sleds into snowbanks.
Tagged Fiction, FlyLady, friendship, GretchenRubin, Happiness Project, Henry James, re-reading, time management, writing
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Abstract: Optimal control theory is a powerful tool for improving figures of merit in quantum information tasks. Finding the solution to any optimal control problem via numerical optimization depends crucially on the choice of the optimization functional. Here, we derive a functional that targets the full set of two-qubit perfect entanglers, gates capable of creating a maximally-entangled state out of some initial product state. The functional depends on easily-computable local invariants and uniquely determines when a gate evolves into a perfect entangler. Optimization with our functional is most useful if the two-qubit dynamics allows for the implementation of more than one perfect entangler. We discuss the reachable set of perfect entanglers for a generic Hamiltonian that corresponds to several quantum information platforms of current interest.