Originally published October 27 2005
Naturopathic medicine believes in the curative powers of vitamin D
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Stephany Porter, N., discusses the benefits of taking vitamin D, including its ability to strengthen bones and kill cancer cells.
Due to recent research, we are rethinking our definitions, views and recommendations concerning vitamin D. Most of us are familiar with the correlation between vitamin D and bone health.
What you may not know is that these receptors have also been found in the brain, breast, prostate and on lymphocytes (an important part of our immune system).
The implications here are far-reaching, because research indicates higher levels of vitamin D in our system help protect from breast and colon cancer, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and depression.
Research may be proving that vitamin D is not a vitamin at all, but a hormone.
The definition of a vitamin is an organic substance other than a protein, carbohydrate, fat or organic salt essential to the body for normal metabolism.
A hormone, on the other hand, is a substance originating in an organ gland or body part conveyed through the blood to another body part, stimulating it to increase or decrease a functional activity.
Recent research may have identified one of the pathways that vitamin D uses to effect breast cancer cells by causing cell death, or apoptosis.
Another possible mechanism that has been studied is the fact that calcitriol (a metabolite of vitamin D) sensitizes breast cancer cells to reactive oxygen species dependant cell death.
What this means is breast cancer cells are easier to destroy by our own internal mechanisms when exposed to calcitriol.
Each morning we wake to the sun.
When sun rays come in contact with skin, the process of creating vitamin D begins.
We start with cholecalciferol, which journeys to the liver, interacts with 25-hydroxylase enzyme to become calcidiol, proceeds to the kidney, finds the 1OHase enzyme to become calcitriol, the most active form.
Calcitriol is responsible for beneficial actions produced in our body.
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