The Importance of Vitamin D for Optimal Health August 18, 2010

Vitamin D is the star health molecule of the decade. Higher levels of vitamin D have been found protective against 15-20 types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, both type 1 and 2, infectious diseases including influenza, pneumonia, and sepsis, autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis, brain deterioration such as cognitive impairment and dementia, bone health, muscle strength, and adverse pregnancy outcomes. The currently recommended daily dose of 400 IU prevents rickets but nothing else. The Institute of Medicine is due to release new vitamin D and calcium recommendations in October or November. But why wait when you can hear Carole Baggerly, Director of GrassrootsHealth, address the Commonwealth Club on the importance of vitamin D for optimal health? Ms. Baggerly formed GrassrootsHealth in 2007 as a way to promote research and education on vitamin D. This nonprofit organization has on its advisory board many of the leading vitamin D researchers in the world, from the US and Canada to Japan and Germany. Among the programs sponsored by the organization are vitamin D testing kits through the mail, enrollment of those tested in a five-year study of health outcomes in relation to vitamin D levels, all-day seminars on vitamin D by vitamin D experts, and intensive vitamin D supplementation and disease outcome studies in selected communities. The organization's website, www.GrassrootsHealth.net has PowerPoint presentations on various benefits of vitamin D as presented at the seminars.

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