Thankful for the Changes in the US
Let's take a few minutes to look back to when we founded GrassrootsHealth in 2007. We hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane.
Vitamin D Research
 A search of PubMed reveals that there were only 749 research papers published in 2007 concerning vitamin D. Most of those papers dealt with bone and skeletal health - not disease prevention.
That same search reveals 2051 papers published in 2014, and we are not even done yet! (2186 in 2013).
Also, there is increasing research and acceptance to the findings that vitamin D can indeed promote health, as witnessed by doctors now encouraging their patients to take vitamin D supplements and some even being pro-active with vitamin D testing (in 2007 many doctors denied their patients vitamin D blood tests when asked, citing it was a waste of money).
GrassrootsHealth Scientists' Call to Action
 One of the cornerstones of GrassrootsHealth is its panel of 42 scientists and the first published press release of GrassrootsHealth - our Call to Action. We wanted to attack this prevention problem from a different direction, and it has been very successful. 42 scientists agree that:
- 40-75% of the world is vitamin D deficient.
- 4000 IU vitamin D per day can be considered a safe upper intake level for adults aged 19 and older.
- The public should have vitamin D serum levels between 40 and 60 nanograms/milliliter (100-150 nanomoles/liter) to prevent disease.
This consensus is now commonly accepted by many in the medical community and has been quoted in books, such as The Vitamin D Solution by Michael Holick, PhD, MD. It is also included as part of a recommendation from The Vitamin D Society, an advocacy group in Canada.
Specific Findings Yield Big Results
When we started GrassrootsHealth most of the research with respect to vitamin D was on bone health and a growing amount on cancer. Evidence showed that circulating blood levels of 25(OH)D between 40-60 ng/ml could reduce the incidence of breast cancer by up to 77% and other cancers by varying amounts.
We are thankful now for new research on vitamin D during pregnancy that shows some amazing results in a very short time period. One outcome is the reduction of preterm births, potentially by 50% or more when pregnant mothers have a 25(OH)D measurement of 40-60 ng/ml. We are taking steps to move this research into practice in local community centers through our Protect our Children NOW! project. It is a project that can be done quickly, and findings can be reported (there is no speculation whether a baby is pre term or not, it is based on gestation time).
The Protect our Children NOW! project is up and running and we can present it to any interested community center or public health officer in the country. Together, we can make an impact and we are thankful for those that are willing to act with us.
Thankful for D*action
D*action was started in 2009, and we have had over 10,000 participants. 74% of D*action participants come in to their first test already taking some level of vitamin D supplements.
We have 210 participants who have completed 10 or more tests! Thank you for staying with D*action for the 5 years it takes to run those tests and thank you for your data and consistency. It is very helpful for our data analysis and studies to have multiple tests from each participant spread out over time. Ideally, we would like participants to take a test every six months.
We continue to have new people signing up for D*action and we are thankful for participation of any length of time.
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