On Thursday (19th June) the American Medical Association (AMA), the largest doctors organisation in the USA, voted at their Annual Meeting to urge the Food and Drug Administration to re-examine the recommendations for vitamin D intake in light of new scientific evidence.

Those of you who have been reading my posts will know that I have mentioned vitamin D a couple of times already with respect to prevention of many diseases including cancer and heart disease.  This year alone there have been over 100 papers, articles or studies released which show how important this ‘sunshine vitamin’ is for our optimal health and wellbeing.  There is an almost constant stream of new scientific findings showing benefit.

The AMA are concerned because the American Reference Intake Values for Vitamin D were established back in 1997.  I hope that here in the UK we follow suit soon and re-examine our recommended intake too.  Ours was set back in the early 1990s!  Current research strongly suggests that we need more of this important vitamin than previously thought.

On Friday (20th June) a study(1) was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, I wanted to mention it here because it did not look at vitamin D with regards disease prevention.  The study looked at vitamin D and survival after cancer.  It has been previously shown that individuals with higher levels of vitamin D in their blood are less at risk of contracting colorectal cancer.  This present study found that among patients affected by colorectal cancer a higher pre-diagnosis vitamin D level was associated with a significant improvement in overall survival.  The authors of the study say that a trial is being planned in which colon cancer patients will take vitamin D along with post-surgery chemotherapy to assess whether there are any benefits with supplementation.

Just as I was about to finish this post a very interesting piece of peer-reviewed clinical research came to light(2) that was published in Pain Treatment Topics a few days ago.  The paper looked at vitamin D in relation to ‘pain’ and found that:

“Inadequacies of vitamin D have been linked to chronic musculoskeletal pain of various types, muscle weakness or fatigue, fibromyalgia syndrome, rheumatic disorders, osteoarthritis, hyperesthesia, migraine headaches, and other complaints. It also has been implicated in the mood disturbances of chronic fatigue syndrome and seasonal affective disorder.  Current best evidence demonstrates that supplemental vitamin D can help to resolve or alleviate chronic pain and fatigue syndromes in many patients who have been unresponsive to other therapies.”

There are downloadable documents on the Pain Treatment Topics website which provide detailed background information and recommendations.  There is a Full report and a Patient brochure available.  If you are suffering from any of the mentioned conditions you may wish to discuss this evidence with your doctor to see if Vitamin D supplementation could be useful to you.

Many of us find that spending some time in the sunshine is very healing for the mind and helps to reduce perceived stress-levels too.  It really does seem like the sun is important for the health of the body too!

(1)Ng K et al.  2008.  Circulating 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Levels and Survival in Patients With Colorectal Cancer.  Journal of Clinical Oncology.  26(18):2984-2991
(2) Stewart B. Leavitt, MA, PhD, Pain Treatment Topics, June 2008.  Vitamin D – A Neglected 'Analgesic' for Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain.  An Evidence-Based Review & Clinical Practice Guidance

Written by Ani Kowal