Vitamin D and the Healthcare System December 10th 2009
As readers of my blog will know I am passionate about helping everyone individually take charge of their health and, to this end, I have frequently mentioned the need for adequate Vitamin D to be a part of that process. Well, it seems the message is finally getting through. In the newspaper last weekend there was a large article pointing out the benefits of Vitamin D and, for the first time in years the general health recommendation was to “get more sun on your body” and not the reverse. Also in the local New Age magazine there was a similar article. At last!
Human evolution started in Africa 3.2 million years ago, and until recently, in a evolutionary sense, we ran around without clothes. As we evolved our skin changed color depending on the amount of sunlight we received. In general we find lighter skinned races towards the poles and darker skinned races towards the equator. The lighter your skin the faster you will manufacture Vitamin D when ultraviolet rays from the sun strike the skin. Remember to absorb adequate vitamin D, you need sun on as much of you body as possible. However you must not allow your skin to burn as it is the sunburn that causes skin cancer. A little sun is good, too much is bad.
From the recent studies on the benefits of Vitamin D, it has been estimated that the overall cost of healthcare would be reduced from between 25% to 50% if everyone had appropriate blood serum levels of Vitamin D. This is a fascinating and mind boggling assertion. I consider runaway healthcare costs to be one of the three crises facing human kind in the next 40 years or so and perhaps the first one of these three to really bite. Without addressing healthcare costs in a fundamental preventative manner, many western countries will go bankrupt as the ageing baby boomer populations demand for healthcare services eat up a larger and larger share of the available pie. Don’t hold your breath and expect changes to happen soon. A 50% reduction in healthcare costs would mean that 50% of the doctors would be redundant. In spite of doctors being seen by the general public as somewhere up there with Gods, doctors, with a few exceptions, act in the interest of doctors and not in the interest of their patients, so don’t expect much change.
As an example of the way doctors act in the interest of doctors, let me digress for a moment. I, like many men as they get older, suffer from an enlarged prostate. Interestingly it is not considered an illness but a function of the changing hormones as we age (we are one of the few animals that have the prostrate wrapped around the urethra and not beside it). I am not sure that I accept it is normal and not some malfunction but as yet I have not found a natural solution that works completely. The most effective final stage solution is surgery to “ream” out the prostrate and increase the diameter of the urethra so that it no longer impedes the flow. There are two main ways to achieve this. One is called TURP where the prostrate tissue is removed with elctrocautery. This has been the favored treatment for many years. It requires a 3 day stay in hospital plus there are risks of hemorrhage. It also requires catheterization for at least 24 hours. And it takes a month for the patient to get back to normal.
The other solution that has been developed in the last few years uses a laser to remove the tissue. This can be done often without an overnight stay in the hospital, usually does not require catheterization and you are back to normal in a few days with very few after effects. The laser treatment also costs about 40% less than TURP. I visited an urologist recently for a check up and he recommended I have the TURP operation. It turns out that he knew the statistics comparing the two techniques but he was unwilling to recommend the laser operation. In discussing it further with him, it was obvious that he made more money doing TURP and he did not want to have to learn a new technique. He will go on doing TURPs to patients who know no better until he retires in 10-15 years. Why is this allowed? Why is the patient’s welfare, and the cost of the process, not of greater importance than the preferences of the doctor in maximizing his/her income and convenience? There are many ethical doctors who put the patient’s welfare first but there are many who don’t.
Back to Vitamin D. It is important to keep your Vitamin D levels at the level that is the new normal. As of today the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) of vitamin D is 200IU for infants, children and adults up to age 50, 400IU for adults 51-70, and 600IU for those over 70. The new normal for a child weighing 40 pounds or 18 kilos would need 1,400IU daily and an adult weighing 170 pounds or 77 kilos would need nearly 6,000IU daily. You can see the difference! The best way to track this is through the actual concentration of vitamin D in the blood. The optimum value you are looking for is 50-65 ng/ml or in metrics terms 125-162 nmo/l. This applies to all ages. It is recommended that all adults take 2,000IU per day as starters and get the rest from the sun. During the dark winter months you may want to increase this dose by 50%. As different people create different amounts of Vitamin D depending on skin color, season, available sunlight, etc. it is important to get tested.
There is a way you can help bring this to peoples attention and get tested relatively inexpensively. Join Vitamin D-Action and become part of a worldwide study of Vitamin D levels. This is a consortium of scientists, institutions and individuals committed to solving the worldwide Vitamin D deficiency epidemic. Go to http://www.grassrootshealth.net/d-action and for $40US you can have your levels tested at regular intervals and provide valuable information on global Vitamin D levels.
David Gore Graham B. Sc.
Author of Wellbeing Matters – A Personal Guide to Radiant Health and Wellbeing.
Tags: Vitamin D, BPH, medical proffession, RDA.
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