ScienceDaily for January 18, 2011 reported on vitamin D levels.
Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have for the first time shown that reduced vitamin D absorption in patients with quiescent Crohn's disease (CD) may be the cause for their increased risk for vitamin D deficiency. The findings, which currently appear online in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, also showed that the only way to determine absorption efficiency is to perform a vitamin D bioavailability test.
ScienceDaily for October 1, 2010 reported on vitamin D levels in African-Americans.
"We know that darker skin pigmentation acts somewhat as a block to producing vitamin D when exposed to sunlight, which is the primary source of vitamin D in most people," said Susan Steck, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Carolina.
ScienceDaily for January 7, 2011 reported on vitamin D and Tuberculosis.
In a trial led by Dr Adrian Martineau of the Centre for Health Sciences at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry -- and funded by the British Lung Foundation -- 146 patients with drug-sensitive TB were recruited from 10 National Health Service Trusts in London and randomly and evenly assigned to receive either four oral doses of 2.5mg of vitamin D, or a placebo. All participants received standard antibiotic treatment for their condition.
ScienceDaily for January 5, 2011 reported on vitamin D and lung disease.
Researchers evaluated 118 patients from the UC ILD Center database -- 67 with connective tissue disease-related ILD and 51 with other causes of lung fibrosis -- for serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, which indicate levels of vitamin D in the body. Then, they evaluated associations between these serum levels and the patients' conditions.
ScienceDaily for December 28, 2010 reported on vitamin D levels in newborns.
The vitamin D levels of newborn babies appear to predict their risk of respiratory infections during infancy and the occurrence of wheezing during early childhood, but not the risk of developing asthma. Results of a study in the January 2011 issue of Pediatrics support the theory that widespread vitamin D deficiency contributes to risk of infections.
ScienceDaily for November 4, 2010 reported on vitamin D and cancer.
Researchers at Mayo Clinic have found a significant difference in cancer progression and death in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients who had sufficient vitamin D levels in their blood compared to those who didn't.
ScienceDaily for October 24, 2010 reported on vitamin E and Prostate Cancer.
Dr Patrick Ling, whose research will be a centrepiece of the new $354 million Translational Research Institute (TRI) when it opens in Brisbane, is leading a team of researchers who have identified a particular constituent of vitamin E, known as tocotrienol (T3), which can inhibit the growth of prostate tumours.
ScienceDaily for October 20,m2010 reported on vitamin D and lung transplants.
Patients who undergo lung transplants are at risk for rejecting the organ, and 77 percent of these patients are vitamin D deficient. Researchers believe that vitamin D helps the immune system tolerate the organ. Thus optimal levels of this supplement are critical for positive outcomes.
ScienceDaily for October 5, 2010 reported on vitamin D and bone density in children.
The researchers set out to discover whether boosting levels of vitamin D in healthy children encouraged their bones to lay down greater amounts of calcium. They searched existing literature for carefully conducted (randomised controlled trials) research studies that had compared giving children vitamin D supplements with giving placebo. They found six studies that together involved 343 participants receiving placebo and 541 receiving vitamin D. All participants had taken vitamin D or the placebo for at least three months and were aged between one month and 19 years old.
ScienceDaily for October 6, 2010 reported on vitamin D and surgery.
"In the perfect world, test levels, fix and then operate," said Joseph Lane, M.D., professor of Orthopedic Surgery and chief of the Metabolic Bone Disease Service at HSS, who led the study. "If you put people on 2,000-4,000 [milligrams] of vitamin D based on what their deficient value was, you can usually get them corrected in four to six weeks, which is when you are really going to need the vitamin D. If you are really aggressive right before surgery, you can correct deficient levels quickly, but you have to correct it, measure it, and then act on it."
ScienceDaily for September 22, 2010 reported on vitamin D and cancer.
The scientists report in Cancer Prevention Research published online September 21 that 25 percent of obese mice fed a vitamin D supplemented diet developed endometrial cancer, while 67 percent of obese mice not treated with the vitamin developed cancer. They also report that vitamin D offered no protective effects for normal weight mice; whether or not they used the vitamin, about 60 percent of these mice developed cancer.
ScienceDaily for August 27, 2010 reported on vitamin A and breast milk.
Vitamin A and beta-carotene supplements are unsafe for HIV-positive women who breastfeed because they may boost the excretion of HIV in breast milk -- thereby increasing the chances of transmitting the infection to the child, a pair of new studies suggest.
ScienceDaily for August 24, 2010 reported on vitamin D and our genes.
It is estimated that one billion people worldwide do not have sufficient vitamin D. This deficiency is thought to be largely due to insufficient exposure to the sun and in some cases to poor diet. As well as being a well-known risk factor for rickets, there is a growing body of evidence that vitamin D deficiency also increases an individual's susceptibility to autoimmune conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes, as well as certain cancers and even dementia.
ScienceDaily for August 18, 2010 reported on vitamin D and mold.
Research conducted by Dr. Jay Kolls, Professor and Chair of Genetics at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, and colleagues, has found that vitamin D may be an effective therapeutic agent to treat or prevent allergy to a common mold that can complicate asthma and frequently affects patients with Cystic Fibrosis. The work is scheduled to be published online August 16, 2010, ahead of the print edition of the September 2010 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
ScienceDaily for August 17, 2010 reported on UV-B treatment for low vitamin D levels and for Psoriasis.
Psoriasis affects 1.5 percent to 3 percent of the population, according to background information in the article. Abnormalities
in vitamin D metabolism may be partly responsible for the development and worsening of this skin condition. "Most vitamin D is obtained by skin production following exposure to solar UV-B, while less than 15 percent is obtained from dietary sources such as oily fish and fortified foods," the authors write.
