PBEXKRHERCY3
Our friends at the Ostomy Help blog have posted about the benefits of both sunlight and Vitamin D in maintaining your overall health. With the warmth of summer still several months away, we would like to remind our readers of the benefits of taking Vitamin D as well as Calcium, both in the form of daily dietary intake as well as supplements when we can’t get our daily dose of Vitamin D from the natural sunlight we normally do in the middle of winter.
As mentioned in the Ostomy Help article, Sunlight and Vitamin D for your Overall Health and in several medical studies, the case for getting enough calcium and Vitamin D is growing stronger every day. Calcium and Vitamin D are not just needed to strengthen bones, but are both being used to lower the risks of contracting colon caner, premenstrual syndrome (PMS), among other health problems.
A four-year clinical trial involving patients with colon polyps, also known as precancerous growths, showed that patients taking calcium supplements reduced the risks of new polyps by as much as 19%. Researchers discovered that the patients in the study had an even greater reduction of 36% five years after the trial ended. In a separate clinical trial published later, it was found that the reduction in polyp risk was only possible when people consumed appropriate levels of Vitamin D, which is largely responsible for the absorption of the mineral.
Women who consumed adequate levels of both nutrients by eating or drinking at least four daily servings of low-fat dairy products or Vitamin D supplemented orange juice were significantly less likely to develop PMS than those that rarely or never consumed these sources of Calcium and Vitamin D according to an observational study conducted by the University of Massachusetts in Amherst have also shown that supplements can help to relieve the symptoms of PMS.
According to the results of eight different clinical trials involving elderly patients and volunteers with an average age of 81 years of age, taking 700IU-800IU of Vitamin D, roughly twice the recommended daily dose for elderly patients, resulted in a reduction of hip fractures by 26% while the standard dose provided no change or improvement in the same risk. In conjunction with the previous studies, this supports the notion that as we age our need for both Calcium and Vitamin D increases with our age.
Previous research as pointed out in Sunlight and Vitamin D for your Overall Health has indicated that adequate sunlight and Vitamin D may reduce the risk of several cancers and that Calcium has a key role in assisting the body with the absorption of Vitamin D as well aid the body in lowering blood pressure. Despite this evidence of multiple benefits, most Americans fail to ingest adequate levels of these vital nutrients.
