Video of the Week 

Is Daily Dosing Important?

Bruce W. Hollis, Ph.D.

Professor of Pediatrics, College of Medicine

Medical University of South Carolina

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Dr. Bruce Hollis received his Bachelors of Science and Masters of Science from Ohio State University. His PhD was obtained in Experimental Nutrition from the University of Guelph in 1979. He did an endocrine fellowship at Case Western Reserve University from 1979-1982 and was then appointed to Assisted Professor of Nutrition. In 1986 he moved to the Medical University of South Carolina as Associate Professor of Pediatrics. Today, Dr. Hollis is the Professor of Pediatrics, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The Medical University of South Carolina as well as the Director of Pediatric Nutritional Sciences. He has been involved in vitamin D research for the past 35 years and has published in excess of 200 peer reviewed articles. He has had many National Institute of Health grants and currently has 2 active research project grants under the National Institute of Health.  

In addition to needing the right amount of vitamin D it is important to get vitamin D daily if you want to prevent autoimmune diseases such as cancer. This video explains how vitamin D is used in two different systems:

1. The endocrine system - maintains calcium homeostasis and bone health. This system uses the metabolized form of vitamin D called 25(OH)D which has a half life of three weeks. All the studies on bone health have been successful based on dosage, not frequency, because of this long half life. For bone health, as long as you take a mega dose every three weeks, you will remain healthy.

2. In the autocrine/paracrine system - vitamin D is delivered to non-skeletal systems such as breast, colon, and prostate tissues and helps affect autoimmune disorders, cancer, cardiovascular disease and infections.  In this system, vitamin D goes into a cell and helps regulate cell growth. The vitamin D metabolite responsible for this process, 1,25(OH)D, has a half life of less than 24 hours, meaning frequency of dosing matters when you want to prevent or fight disease.

I had an "aha" moment when writing this newsletter this week. What if the RDA was adjusted, not just to 7000 IU/day - but to require the constituents of government programs (school lunch, elderly, military) to test and achieve blood serum levels of 40-60 ng/ml?

Wow!

Would autism be reduced? Would there be much less disease? Would there be less absenteeism in school and work? Would there be less falls in the elderly?

GrassrootsHealth doesn't want to just study this problem - we want to DO IT! Please come alongside us and tell as many people as possible about GrassrootsHealth. Ask them to join D*action. Find a women's health center near you that wants to participate in our Protect Our Children NOW! project. You are part of the solution!

Thank you for your support,

Susan Siljander       

Marketing Director, GrassrootsHealth

A Public Health Promotion &