Why Not all News is New

Recently, as I was taking a moment to catch up on world events and watching the morning news, I saw a brief bit of a story regarding the "newly discovered" roll of Vitamin D in health. Many of my patients have been reporting for the last 2 years that their family doctors have encouraged them to start taking a vitamin D supplement, and many had received requisitions to have their vitamin D levels checked by blood test. As they share these anecdotes with me, they often smile, and allude to the fact that they have been on a vitamin D supplement for quite some time already. Why? Well - those of us in "alternative" or "holistic" health have been on the vitamin D bandwagon for decades, and so have been silently applauding this mainstream recognition about the importance of Vitamin D.

This most recently reported research has again underscored the importance of vitamin D in the prevention of disease, and even more specifically in the prevention of disease babies in utero. In the news item was mention of a public health policy in France, whereby all women who are pregnant receive an injection of vitamin D – in the astonishing amount of 75,000 IU! This underscores just how long the research has existed to support the theory that vitamin D plays a role in the expression of various genes, as well as in the optimization of the health of our immune systems. We know that babies conceived or born in the dark months of winter are at increased risk of developing auto-immune disease such as lupus and multiple-sclerosis, but this "news" piece points out the lag of implementation of public health policy and standards of care are behind the research.

So what is the take home message here? Certainly that vitamin D is important in pregnancy, but perhaps more importantly – we would do well to remember there is often a significant difference between recommended daily intake levels for vitamins and minerals and the optimal amounts needed to confer best health.