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Director's Letter
Carole Baggerly
Director, GrassrootsHealth
With a combination of METHODOLOGY as well as SCIENCE, It's happening! Your participation in the D*action project as well as the implementation of our Protect our Children NOW! project in South Carolina at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) are demonstrating that vitamin D CAN and IS being accepted and implemented in institutional settings as well as with the general public. Whatever your health concerns are right now - pain, cardiovascular disease, cancer, cognitive areas, colds, flu, diabetes, and, of course, pregnancy outcomes - they can be addressed by the 'evidence based information' that you and other groups are now sharing with us using our combination of education, testing, and information gathering. You can see your own vitamin D measurements and you can see how that compares to the total population using our 'Your Data Your Answers' charts. Some key achievements at MUSC that are spreading: - use of vitamin D testing and supplementation for ALL pregnant women, to screen for deficiency and treat appropriately
- providing continuing education for physicians and other medical practitioners about vitamin D from our scientist's panel of experts
- involvement of insurers
- participation of the state government
- providing on-site support to the staff and the participants/patients
- vitamin D testing of the staff (some fun surprises here)
- weekly email updates to all staff regarding snippets of vitamin D information pertinent to the practice based on our research and that of others
- on online forum/chat room for participants
- analysis of the medical record information to track progress of testing, health results, enhanced feedback regarding operational activities
By getting these pieces in place, we can quickly expand to other institutions and to other health concerns. We are now adding special projects like Protect our Children NOW! in other specialty areas. One example is a project in a nephrology center to track the outcomes with vitamin D and cardiovascular disease. These are major milestones demonstrating that in today's technological/communication world, we need new methods to rapidly expand the results of research into yet another major area of evidence based implementation. Next month, we will highlight some new areas with nutrition research that you have been asking for!!! Thanks again for the contribution of your time and information to helping us all live more healthy lives. Onwards. Carole Baggerly
Director, GrassrootsHealth
A Public Health Promotion & Research Organization
Moving Research into Practice NOW!
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Rickets is only the Tip of the Iceberg
Many of you know that vitamin D sufficiency is not just about protecting our bones or preventing rickets. That might have been the start of vitamin D supplementation, but it is not the end. To illustrate that point, GrassrootsHealth created this image. What is this telling us?
After someone sees this iceberg they probably get the idea - that most of the population is just treading water... Please note the number of diseases that are 'grown up' diseases--e.g., cardiovascular disease, cancer--that are associated with a prenatal environment.
But what are the numbers? Our Disease Incidence Prevention Chart shows us:
* 20 ng/ml prevents rickets.
* 30-40 ng/ml reduces the number of falls and fractures.
* 40-60 ng/ml helps prevent other conditions.
Ho Hum... I'll wait and see
No! The time is now - whether for a healthy pregnancy or future disease prevention. Every day you are sufficient gives your body an important tool it needs to stay healthy and prevent disease. Don't wait until you are diagnosed, get ahead of the curve. Don't wait until you are sick, have a problem with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or other health condition, do it now, while you can be ahead.
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 Vitamin D Shown to Help Mice Throughout Pregnancy
One of our panel scientists, Martin Hewison, PhD, University of Birmingham, UK, recently brought to our attention these two papers which use mouse models to study vitamin D and pregnancy. They show what has been found at MUSC... that vitamin D reduces preeclampsia and improves pregnancy outcomes. Vitamin D and the Regulation of Placental InflammationJournal of Immunology April, 2011 Nancy Q. Liu, et al. More than 30 years ago, the placenta was identified as a major site for conversion of 25(OH)D to the active form of vitamin D, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3. Recent studies by this group at Orthopaedic Hospital Research Center, University of California Los Angeles, have shown that autocrine metabolism of 25(OH)D3 to 1,25(OH)2D3 promotes antibacterial and anti inflammatory responses - in other words, vitamin D helps immune function. Using mouse models, they showed that inhibiting vitamin D metabolism or function in fetal cells from the placenta resulted in increased inflammation in response to immune challenges. They found that vitamin D is a potent suppressor of placental inflammation. This study suggests that vitamin D plays an important role in controlling fetal-placental immune responses during pregnancy. Read PaperDietary Vitamin D Restriction in Pregnant Female Mice Is Associated With Maternal Hypertension and Altered Placental and Fetal Development Nancy Q. Liu, et al. Endocrinology April 2013 Epidemiology has linked vitamin D deficiency with preeclampsia in humans. Nancy Q. Liu et al. hypothesized that low vitamin D status in pregnant mice may lead to symptoms of preeclampsia. Using two groups of female mice - those fed a vitamin D-sufficient diet and others on a vitamin D-deficient diet - they mated with vitamin D sufficient males. Pregnancy, blood pressure, birth weight, heart and kidney function were all studied. The data provided evidence that low vitamin D status may predispose pregnant women to dysregulated placental development and elevated blood pressure. Read Paper
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Editor's Letter
Susan Siljander
Marketing Director, GrassrootsHealth
We know that many of you who read these newsletters are not pregnant. But then why do we keep talking about pregnancy? There is something wonderful about pregnancy - it has a short time period relative to other conditions. We know, from our studies, that raising your vitamin D level above 50 ng/ml reduces breast cancer incidence by 50-80% - huge numbers. But, unfortunately, we need 5-10 years to be able to demonstrate that data with volunteers.
With Protect our Children NOW! we enlist pregnant moms and in a year have concrete data on birth outcomes - especially preterm birth. There is no discussion about preterm birth, the baby is either born before 37 weeks gestation or they are not. The studies have shown that raising blood serum levels to 40 ng/ml will have about a 50% reduction in preterm birth. And, equally important, as noted in the iceberg above, it affects the FUTURE of this child for life.
So, by spreading the word and donating to new Protect our Children NOW! projects you are supporting vitamin D. After enough of these projects succeed, medical centers will be more willing to read the studies about vitamin D and other conditions. They will be willing to "risk" prescribing vitamin D and maintaining healthy vitamin D blood serum levels. Pregnancy is a great condition to help tip the scales. It is just the tip of the iceberg.
Next week we will be off, but never fear... we will be back with a newsletter on December 30th.
Happy Holidays!
Susan Siljander Marketing Director, GrassrootsHealth A Public Health Promotion & Research Organization
Moving Research into Practice NOW!
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Vitamin D Council
Interview with Carole Baggerly
A Closer Look at the GrassrootsHealth Project
Protect our Children
NOW!
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Your participation in this project provides information for your answers to D questions and helps fund the GrassrootsHealth projects.
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D*advocate Program
Do you have a passion for vitamin D? Are you wondering what to give your friends and family?
For $300 you will get:
- Six vitamin D test kits
- A letter you can customize for your recipients explaining the power of this gift
- Six 5,000 IU bottles of Bio-Tech Pharmacal vitamin D
Good until 12/31/15
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YOU can help solve the vitamin D deficiency epidemic by throwing a D*party!
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Papers of the Week
Vitamin D and the Regulation of Placental InflammationJournal of Immunology April, 2011 Nancy Q. Liu, et al. Read paperDietary Vitamin D Restriction in Pregnant Female Mice Is Associated With Maternal Hypertension and Altered Placental and Fetal Development Nancy Q. Liu, et al. Endocrinology April 2013 Read Paper |
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