Vitamin D
400 iu Softgel Capsules
| $3.99 | 100 Count Bottle VP1044R | Retails for $4.90 | |
| $8.49 | 250 Count Bottle VP1044U | Retails for $10.90 | |
| $84.99 | 12 Bottles 250 Count Each | Retail Value $130.80 | |
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Display An Attractive 12 Bottle Case On Your Counter for Patient/Client Convenience. Additional Wholesale Discounts Available |
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From Fish Liver Oils
Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium and phosphorus so it is essential to proper bone and tooth formation. It also plays an important role in nerve and muscle function. Assure proper Vitamin D intake with this easy-to-take natural supplement from Vitamin Power ®.
Formulated without caffeine, corn, gluten, milk or egg derivatives, sobium, soy, starch, sugar, wheat or yeast. No artificial colorings, flavorings or preservatives added.
Find Vitamin D Supplements at a Featured Merchant (below)
The major biologic function of vitamin D is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus. Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium, helping to form and maintain strong bones. It promotes bone mineralization in concert with a number of other vitamins, minerals, and hormones. Without vitamin D, bones can become thin, brittle, soft, or misshapen. Vitamin D prevents rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults, which are skeletal diseases that result in defects that weaken bones.
Reports Confirm Heart Health Protected By Vitamin D
Vitamin D is known to be essential for maintaining strong bones, a healthy immune system and protection against some types of cancer. Now, important new studies suggest there's another major benefit Vitamin D provides...It helps protect the heart.
Recent studies report treatment with activated vitamin D (Calcitrol-vitamin D3) can protect against heart failure. Their results appear in the July issue of the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology.
In the study, activated vitamin D prevented heart muscle cells from growing bigger - the condition, called hypertrophy, in which the heart becomes enlarged and overworked in people with heart failure. The treatments prevented heart muscle cells from the over-stimulation and increased contractions associated with the progression of heart failure.
About 5.3 million Americans have heart failure, a progressive, disabling condition in which the heart becomes enlarged as it is forced to work harder and harder, making it a challenge even to perform normal daily activities. Many people with heart disease or poorly controlled high blood pressure go on to experience a form of heart failure called congestive heart failure, in which the heart's inability to pump blood around the body causes weakness and fluid build-up in lungs and limbs. Many people with heart failure, who tend to be older, have been found to be deficient in vitamin D.
The researchers conclude vitamin D retards the progression of heart failure and protects the heart.
The research team has explored vitamin D's effects on heart muscle and the cardiovascular system for more than 20 years. A number of studies worldwide attest to the vitamin D-heart health link.
The heart health-vitamin D link research adds to the growing awareness that widespread vitamin D deficiency, thought to affect one-third to one-half of U.S. adults middle-aged and older, may be putting people at greater risk of many common diseases.
Pharmaceutical companies are now developing anti-cancer drugs using vitamin D analogs, which are synthetic compounds that produce vitamin D's effects. There's also increasing interest in using vitamin D or its analogs to treat autoimmune disorders.
In a wide range of tissues and cells in the body, activated vitamin D acts as a powerful regulating hormone. In the heart, the research team has revealed precisely how activated vitamin D connects with specific vitamin D receptors and produces its calming, protective effects. Those results appeared in the February issue of Endocrinology.
Sunlight causes the skin to make activated vitamin D. People also get vitamin D from certain foods and vitamin D supplements. Taking vitamin D supplements and for many people, getting sun exposure in safe ways, are certainly good options for people who want to keep their hearts healthy. However, it is important for people with heart failure or at risk of heart failure will likely require a prescription drug made of a compound or analog of vitamin D that will more powerfully produce vitamin D's effects in the heart for improvement in their symptoms.
Vitamin D analogs already are available for some conditions. One present drawback of these compounds is that they tend to increase blood calcium to undesirable levels, so efforts to develop a vitamin D- based drug to treat heart failure are moving a step closer to initial trials in people.
Funding for the study came from the National Institutes of Health.
University of Michigan Health System (2008, June 12). Vitamin D: New Way To Treat Heart Failure?
Getting enough vitamin D may be a matter of life or death. An important new study suggests it plays a significant role in surviving lung cancer.
Doctors have long searched for therapies that could improve the survival rate among lung cancer patients, and new research out of Harvard Medical School may point them to the answer. According to a study of nearly 500 lung cancer patients, daily vitamin D intake can improve survival rates dramatically. Among the subjects of the study, those with the lowest vitamin D intake showed only a 29 percent survival rate over eight years. However, those lung cancer patients with the highest vitamin D intake experienced a 72 percent survival rate over the same time period.
People can get the nutrient from certain foods such as: fish, fortified milk, egg yolk, beef, cod liver oil, etc., vitamin supplements and being out in the sunshine. Researchers found that the lung cancer patients with high intake who had lung cancer treatment during the summer were more than twice as likely to be alive five years later than those with low levels who had operations in the winter.
The study has many features that could explain its possible benefit against cancer, such as stifling cell growth. Doctors had seen evidence suggesting it prevents some cancers, and wanted to know if it also affected survival. Patients were interviewed about diet, supplements and timing of their cancer surgery, which was thought to be another indicator of their vitamin D levels.
Low Vitamin D Levels = Insulin Resistance
Vitamin D is found in foods such as milk and cheese, but it’s also made in the body after exposure to ultraviolet rays from the sun. It helps maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus, which are critical for healthy bones.
Vitamin D levels have been falling in Americans because they are getting less sun and consuming fewer dairy products. Dermatologists have encouraged us to stay out of the sun and wear sunblock to prevent skin cancer, while obesity experts have advised us to cut down on milk and cheese in our diets to reduce calories.
Consequently, low vitamin D levels may be hurting more than our bones. UCLA scientists found that people with low vitamin D levels were resistant to insulin. This means it takes more insulin than normal to regulate blood sugar. Insulin resistance is related to high blood pressure and cholesterol, diabetes, abdominal obesity and blood cell clotting problems.
When sunbathing, wait 15 minutes before applying sunscreen so your skin can produce the body’s own vitamin D. Now, health practitioners are recommending that we try to get a little sun every day, consume non-fat dairy products and take a vitamin D supplement. (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition).
Vitamin D Deficiency Is Related To Increased Inflammation In Healthy Women
According to a recent study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, 75 percent of Americans do not get enough Vitamin D. Researchers have found that the deficiency may negatively impact immune function and cardiovascular health and increase cancer risk.
Now, a University of Missouri nutritional sciences researcher has found that vitamin D deficiency is associated with inflammation, a negative response of the immune system, in healthy women.
Increased concentrations of serum TNF-α, an inflammatory marker, were found in women who had insufficient vitamin D levels. This study is the first to find an inverse relationship between vitamin D levels and concentrations of TNF-α in a healthy, non-diseased population. This may explain the vitamin's role in the prevention and treatment of inflammatory diseases, including heart disease, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.
The study's findings reveal that low vitamin D levels negatively impact inflammation and immune response, even in healthy women. Increased inflammation normally is found in people who suffer with obesity or chronic diseases; a small decrease in vitamin D levels may also aggravate symptoms in people who are sick.
The results support the need to re-examine the biological basis for determining the dietary reference intake (DRI) of vitamin D. The Institute of Medicine's DRI for vitamin D is 200 IU for people age 50 and younger and 400 IU for people 50 to 70 years old. The guidelines, created in 1997, are being revised to reflect new research, and nutrition researchers are confident the DRI for Vitamin D will be increased.
Adequate vitamin D levels identified in this study are consistent with recent research and to improve vitamin D status in most people. To achieve its related health benefits, most should get at least 1000 IU of vitamin D per day. Sunlight is a readily-available, free source of vitamin D. Exposing 25 percent of the skin's surface area to 10 minutes of sunlight three days per week will maintain adequate levels in the majority of people; However, people with darkly-pigmented skin, as well as people who avoid the sun need more.
Only certain foods contain vitamin D naturally, such Cod and other fatty fish; The best other sources are dietary supplements and vitamin-D-fortified foods, including milk and orange juice.
In future studies, the research team will determine the effectiveness of Vitamin D in reducing disease symptoms and reducing blood glucose levels in diabetics.
The study, "Serum tumor necrosis factor-alpha concentrations are negatively correlated with serum 25(OH) D concentrations in healthy women," was published in the July, 2008 issue of the Journal of Inflammation.
Insufficient Vitamin D Increases Asthma Risks
Children With Insufficient Vitamin D Levels May Be At Higher Risk of Developing Asthma, Suggests a New Study
Vitamin D levels were also associated with increased frequency of hospitalization, according to a study with 616 children in Costa Rica with asthma published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
The researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School concluded: "In these children, lower vitamin D levels are associated with increased markers of allergy and asthma severity."
The research team sought to build on previous evidence that low maternal vitamin D intake during pregnancy may adversely affect the respiratory health of their children and increase the prevalence of asthma symptoms in early childhood. Vitamin D levels were measured in 616 asthmatic children in Costa Rica aged between 6 and 14.
Vitamin D insufficiency was documented in 175 children. Vitamin D deficiency is when 25(OH)D levels are below 15 ng/ml (37.5 nmol/L).
25(OH)D levels were inversely associated with levels of immunoglobulin E (IgE), the predominant antibody associated with an allergic response, said the researchers.
Furthermore an increase in vitamin D levels was associated with reduced odds of any hospitalization in the previous year, any use of anti-inflammatory medications in the previous year, and increased airway responsiveness. The study's results suggest that vitamin D insufficiency is relatively frequent in an equatorial population of children with asthma.
The study adds to an ever growing body of science supporting the benefits of maintaining healthy vitamin D levels. While our bodies do manufacture vitamin D on exposure to sunshine, the levels in some northern countries are so weak during the winter months that our body makes no vitamin D at all, meaning that dietary supplements and fortified foods are the best way to boost intakes of vitamin D.
In adults, it is said vitamin D deficiency may precipitate or exacerbate osteopenia, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, fractures, common cancers, autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases and cardiovascular diseases. There is also some evidence that the vitamin may reduce the incidence of several types of cancer and type-1 diabetes.
Source: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine
