Vitamin D and Breast Cancer Part 2

National Breast Cancer Awareness month comes every year. I wrote a blog last year on this topic and stand by what I said then. We will only find a cure for breast cancer and other cancers when we start looking in the right place.

I am reminded of the story I heard several years ago.

There was a man crawling on the ground under a street light searching for his keys, when stranger approached.

""What are you looking for?"" the stranger inquired.

""I am looking for my keys.""

""Hmm, I don't see them. Where did you say you dropped them?"" the stranger asked.

""Oh, I dropped them over there, but the light is much better here!""

This is the problem with finding a cure for breast cancer, all the funding goes to where the funding already is, with the big pharmaceutical companies. Science is hesitant to look in areas where they have not considered before, such as prevention.

Occasionally medicine considers prevention but it must have a significant monetary outcome such as vaccines, which can be marketed worldwide. A good example of this is the current scramble for a gluten vaccine that will allow celiac or gluten intolerant people to ingest gluten without harmful consequences.

Prevention is an intangible and subjective as far as most research is concerned.

Alternative physicians and nutritionists understand that prevention is key to overall health. Prevention is keeping our immune system strong by eating right, exercising and keeping stress to a minimum. Sometimes that includes supplementing our diet with nutrients we no longer get from our food, or as the case with Vitamin D3 from the sun.

Ancient man worked and lived outdoors his entire life. Each day spent in the sunshine, without sunscreen gave him over 50,000 IU's of Vitamin D3 a day. Modern man is lucky to get 1200 a day. Vitamin D3 is important to every single cell in our body. Vitamin D3 is not really a vitamin at all according to some researchers but a type of hormone that our body needs to stay healthy.

According to an article published in Germany in the Med Monsatsschr Pharm: Vitamin D is a secosteroid which, in its active form 1, 25-(OH)2-Vitamin D3, has hormone activities. Most cells and tissues in the human body have vitamin D receptors that stimulate the nuclear transcription of various genes to alter cellular function. Vitamin D appears to have an effect on numerous disease states and disorders, including osteoporosis, chronic musculoskeletal pain, diabetes (types 1 and 2), multiple sclerosis, cardiovascular disease, and cancers of the breast, prostate, and colon.

Vitamin D--An Old Vitamin in a New Perspective

This author had a private conversation with Dr. Joseph Prendergast about his use of vitamin D in his practice some years ago. Dr. P was a board certified in internal medicine had done some ground breaking work with high dose Vitamin D3 in his clinic in Palo Alto, California. Dr Prendergast recommended his patients take 50,000 IU's once a week. He makes this bold recommendation while most in medicine are in hand wringing mode over recommending 5,000 IU's per day. He also stated that if you are going to take that level of Vitamin D, be sure to cut WAY back on any calcium supplementation because Vitamin D supercharges your uptake and utilization of calcium and the bad side effects that people have tends to be calcium toxicity not Vitamin D toxicity. Dr. Prendergrast stated that many cancers were difficult if not impossible to get when taking D at these levels. It's worth looking into.

There was also an additional study I read on the survivor ability of postmenopausal women that stated women with low levels of vitamin D3 also had lower levels of surviving breast cancer.

Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and postmenopausal breast cancer survival.

Of course there are many factors with breast cancer and taking preventative steps is not a guarantee. You can decrease your probability of contracting different types of cancers, however even if you are genetically predisposed.

We can all make a difference today but just like Gandhi said, ""Be the change you like to see in the world""

Choose to be better at taking care of your health starting this month!