Vitamin D and Disease
I indicated in The Diet Piece of the Dyslexia Puzzle that I suspect that a link eventually will be found between dyslexia and a deficiency of vitamin D, more specifically, vitamin D3. On the next page, I discuss why I think that could be the case. Here, however, I'm going to direct you to professional presentations that cover links that have been made between a vitamin D deficiency and a host of other diseases. They come from a seminar at the UCSD School of Medicine in San Diago CA via YouTube. First, though, I'd like to briefly discuss the nature of vitamin D3 itself.
Where Do We Get Vitamin D3?
Our primary source of vitamin D3 is sunlight. Our skin manufactures D3 when exposed to direct sunlight. Except for fatty ocean fish like salmon, diet is a poor source of vitamin D3 generally. Although milk has been fortified for years with vitamin D, it is often in the form of vitamin D2 and is present in insufficient amounts. Multi-vitamins also will contain vitamin D, but again the form might be D2, rather than D3 and the dosage is constrained by current government recommendations. Otherwise, one has a very difficult time getting dietary sources of vitamin D3 and so the sun's rays provide our main natural source of D3. See Vitamin D3 Questions for a better understanding of the various issues involved in adding vitamin D3 to your diet. Now let's return to the research that's being done.
Vitamin D and Type I (Juvenile) Diabetes
The first video, Vitamin D and Diabetes - Can We Prevent It?, is a presentation by Dr. Frank C. Garland of the Naval Health Research Center. It covers Type I Diabetes, commonly called juvenile diabetes because it occurs in young children, as opposed to Type II or adult-onset diabetes. I put it first in the list because many of you coming to this site are concerned about a child. Granted, it's the child's reading problem that brought you here, but this video should convince you to at least consider supplementing even a child's diet with vitamin D3. The rest of the videos discuss issues more related to adult, or long-term, health issues.
This video is 48 minutes long and I encourage you to watch all of it because of the clarity, and importance, of his presentation. However, I realize that's a tall order in today's hectic world, so watch as much as you can and then jump to the 38:00 minute mark and then watch to 40:30 for his explanation of the graph of the epidemic of Type I diabetes in Finland that he shows earlier in his presentation. Incidentally Dr. Garland is an epidemiologist and does consider the growth of Type I diabetes to be an "epidemic."
Vitamin D and Chronic Diseases
The next video, Vitamin D and Prevention of Chronic Diseases, is a fast-paced presentation by Dr. Michael F. Holick of the Boston University School of Medicine. It's almost an hour long, but once you start watching it, you'll have difficulty hitting the "pause" button.
The first thirty minutes cover a broad history of vitamin D3, going back, literally, to the dinosaur age and before, and is very informative. At the 29:50 mark on the video he starts discussing the various diseases that researchers are associating with a vitamin D3 deficiency. The entire video is a good introduction to vitamin D3 and the issues involved.
Vitamin D and Various Cancers
This video, Vitamin D and Cancer Prevention, features Dr. Cedric F Garland, a professor at the University of California San Diego, and goes into much more detail about specific research results concerning various cancers.
At the 20:00 mark of the video, Dr. Garland goes over a hypothetical model of how vitamin D3 works at the cellular level and how a deficiency can permit the initiation and spread of cancerous cells. That discussion goes to about the 28:00 minute mark and then he summarizes the various cancers that have been linked to a vitamin D3 deficiency. This is the video that will likely convince you that a great deal of serious science is being done regarding vitamin D3 and that the results are extremely promising.
Vitamin D and Heart Disease
Dr. David C. Sane is an associate professor at Wake Forest University Health Services. His presentation, Vitamin D and Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, is quite technical at times, and he's careful at the end to point out that the studies he's discussing are association studies, not prospective studies. That is, researchers have found strong associations between vitamin D3 status and cardiovascular status, but randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies still need to be done to determine whether a deficiency of vitamin D3 actually causes heart disease. I include it here to emphasize the broad range of diseases that are associated with vitamin D3 status.
Meet Dr. John Cannell
The last video I want to link to is a short discussion of Vitamin D by Dr. John Cannell of the VitaminDCouncil.org. Dr. Cannell is one of the key people working to inform the general public about developments surrounding vitamin D3. He is also the author of the initial paper that hypothesized a link between autism and a vitamin D deficiency. It was that paper that got me thinking about a potential link to dyslexia as well.
On the next page, Vitamin D and Dyslexia, I attempt to explain why I believe a link between dyslexia and a vitamin D3 deficiency might exist.