NY Times follows up on my Vitamin D story

The New York Times did a follow-up story to my earlier post about the dangers of too little vitamin D.

According to the Times, medical types have noticed an increase in the number of babies with problems they suspect are the result of too little vitamin D, including rickets, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and cancer.

Doctors suspect multiple causes, including exclusive breastfeeding (since the mothers are vitamin D deprived themselves), children drinking soda and juice instead of milk, and not enough time spent outdoors in the sun. Because we know that exposure to the sun will cause instant death, the recommended solution is to feed your baby vitamin supplements and cod liver oil.



But wait! According to Sydney Spiesel, a pediatrician and professor at Yale University School of Medicine, too much cod liver oil will actually do damage to your bones. Overdo the cod liver oil and you're likely to get too much vitamin A, which can lead to "liver damage to nervous-system symptoms that resemble the effects of a brain tumor," as well as bone mineral loss leading to osteoporosis.

Well, that certainly clears things up.

Too little vitamin D will kill you

Something else to worry about.

According to a report by people in white coats, people with too little vitamin D in their bodies will die horrible, horrible deaths. In a study following 13,000 initially healthy men between 1994 and 2000, those with low levels of vitamin D were 26% more likely to die. Insufficient vitamin D was also linked to higher rates of breast cancer, depression in the elderly, and possibly to cardiovascular disease.

The somewhat shocking thing is that, according to the reports, all you need to get the required amount of vitamin D is to get 10-15 minutes of sunshine a day, however 50% of adults age 50 and over, and a large share of younger people, are under-D'd.