A new study is examining the role of vitamin D, often called the ’sunshine vitamin’, in lowering the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Two factors are already known: levels of vitamin D increase when the skin is exposed to sunlight, and higher vitamin D levels are associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes. However, there is as yet no evidence that explains the direct causal link between the two.

To further our understanding of this relationship, researchers from the University of Glasgow, University of Bristol, University College London and St George’s, University of London hope to determine whether individuals genetically disposed to higher vitamin D levels also have a reduced risk of suffering from type 2 diabetes.

Dr Iain Frame, Director of Research at Diabetes UK, said “Currently we know that, while some of the risk factors associated with Type 2 diabetes are out of someone’s control, other risk factors, such as being overweight, can be acted on to reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. The results of research into vitamin D, if shown to be effective in reducing Type 2 diabetes risk, will add to an armoury of existing preventative measures such as weight-loss, keeping active and eating a healthy balanced diet.”

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/news/2010/Aug/vitamin-d-may-help-diabetics-97763231.html

Diabetes UK also hope that the study will establish if further research is needed to test whether vitamin D supplements can reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in conjunction with exercise and diet . However, it is recommended that people shouldn’t increase their exposure to sunlight, as this can be harmful, or increase their intake of vitamin D supplements until the research is verified.

The Scottish Diabetes Action Plan sets out a course of action over the next three years which will support prevention and detection of diabetes and help improve NHS care throughout Scotland. Diabetes UK Scotland has welcomed the plan and, in particular, the commitment to tackling the growth of this life-threatening condition.

58,000 more people with diabetes in Scotland since 2006

On the launch of the new Scottish Diabetes Action Plan, Jane-Claire Judson, Director of Diabetes UK Scotland, said: “In 2006, when the last Diabetes Action Plan was published, 170,000 people had diabetes in Scotland. In four years that figure has increased to 228,000 and unless improvements in detection and prevention take place, we could see tens of thousands more people diagnosed over the lifetime of the new action plan.

Crucial for patients and NHS staff

“At a time of uncertainty for many as a result of the recession and looming budget cuts, a clear roadmap setting out the priorities for providing high-quality care and support, reducing the rate of increase, and diagnosing people earlier to help avoid complications, is crucial both for patients and for NHS staff delivering and developing services. Diabetes UK Scotland is delighted to see the Action Plan set out the strategies for care, prevention and detection that the NHS in partnership with patients will work to deliver over the coming years.”

Diabetes UK Scotland has also welcomed a new commitment to reducing the rate of emergency admissions for Type 1 diabetes. Scotland has one of the highest rates of childhood diabetes in the world and there is a pressing need to deal with avoidable admissions to hospital.

Read the Scottish Government Diabetes Action Plan 2010.

source Diabetes UK

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Vitamin D surfaces as a news topic every few months. How much daily vitamin D should a person get? Is it possible to have too much of it? Is exposure to the sun, which is the body’s natural way of producing vitamin D, the best option? Or do supplements suffice?

In the July 2010 issue of Endocrine Today, a monthly newspaper published by SLACK, Inc., to disseminate information about diabetes and endocrine disorders, Anthony Norman, a distinguished professor emeritus of biochemistry and biomedical sciences and an international expert on vitamin D, notes that half the people in North America and Western Europe get insufficient amounts of vitamin D.

Anthony Norman is a distinguished professor of biochemistry and biomedical sciences (emeritus) at UC Riverside, and an international expert on vitamin D.

“Elsewhere, it is worse,” he says, “given that two-thirds of the people are vitamin D-insufficient or deficient. It is clear that merely eating vitamin D-rich foods is not adequate to solve the problem for most adults.”

Currently, the recommended daily intake of vitamin D is 200 international units (IU) for people up to 50 years old; 400 IU for people 51 to 70 years old; and 600 IU for people over 70 years old.

“There is a wide consensus among scientists that the relative daily intake of vitamin D should be increased to 2,000 to 4,000 IU for most adults,” Norman says. “A 2000 IU daily intake can be achieved by a combination of sunshine, food, supplements, and possibly even limited tanning exposure.”

While there is now abundant data on vitamin D and its benefits, Norman believes there is room for more study.

“The benefits of more research on the topic justifies why this field of research deserves additional governmental funding,” he says. “Already, several studies have reported substantial reductions in incidence of breast cancer, colon cancer and type 1 diabetes in association with adequate intake of vitamin D, the positive effect generally occurring within five years of initiation of adequate vitamin D intake.”

Because vitamin D is found in very few foods naturally (e.g. fish, eggs and cod liver oil) other foods such as milk, orange juice, some yogurts and some breakfast foods are fortified with it. The fortification levels aim at about 400 IU per day.

Norman, who holds the title of Presidential Chair in Biochemistry-Emeritus, has been researching vitamin D for nearly 50 years. In 1967, his laboratory discovered that the vitamin is converted into a steroid hormone by the body. Two years later, his laboratory discovered the vitamin D receptor (or VDR), an essential receptor for the steroid hormone form of vitamin D that is present in more than 37 target organs of the body that respond biologically to the vitamin.

“There is now irrevocable evidence that receptors in the immune, pancreas, heart-cardiovascular, muscle and brain systems in the body generate biological responses to the steroid hormone form of vitamin D,” he says.

Study to probe health benefits of vitamin D, fish oil

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital are leading a five-year nationwide trial to find out whether the dietary supplements vitamin D and fish oil can boost the immune system and fight cancer, heart disease, and a host of other ills.

The “Vitamin D and Omega-3 Trial,” or VITAL, aims to sort out inconclusive and conflicting evidence from earlier research on the effects of the two compounds on human health.

Previous studies have turned up tantalizing clues that the two nutrients can have considerable protective effects. But JoAnn Manson, the VITAL study’s principal investigator, said those trials — and others showing no protective effect — either involved specialized populations, such as those suffering heart disease, or used low dosages, which may have prevented finding a conclusive answer.

The VITAL study is a large-scale, randomized trial involving 20,000 people across the country with no previous history of cancer, heart disease, or stroke, and is designed to test whether vitamin D and the omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil can help to prevent cancer and heart disease. Though cancer and heart disease are the study’s primary therapeutic targets, Manson said the study will also provide information on other ailments, such as diabetes, cognitive decline, depression, and respiratory diseases.

Scientists already know quite a bit about how these nutrients work in the body. Both have powerful anti-inflammatory effects. Vitamin D appears to benefit blood pressure and glucose tolerance, while working to prevent blood vessel growth that allows tumors to enlarge and spread. Omega-3 fatty acids have anti-clotting effects and have been shown to protect against irregular heart rhythms.

Manson, the Elizabeth Fay Brigham Professor of Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School and chief of Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Division of Preventive Medicine, said the trial will enroll men age 60 or older and women age 65 and up. The older study population was selected because people of those ages are more commonly afflicted with the ailments the study seeks to test.

Researchers began seeking participants in January and will eventually send mailings to more than 1.2 million Americans, including health professionals and members of AARP. Potential participants will undergo a three-month screening before enrolling in the full trial. Participants will be divided into four groups and receive blister packs of daily supplements, along with questionnaires to complete and mail back to researchers. Though some participants may opt to visit nearby clinical centers for more-detailed assessments and to provide blood samples, most can participate entirely by mail.

The groups will receive supplements containing vitamin D, omega-3s, both, or placebos, allowing researchers to examine the effects of vitamin D and omega-3s independently as well as together.

The study’s vitamin D supplements will contain 2,000 international units (IUs) per day, five times the 400 IUs that the U.S. government currently recommends. Manson said most Americans get only about 300 IUs of vitamin D per day through their diet, and even with supplements few get more than 500 or 600 IUs. The human body can manufacture vitamin D when exposed to sunlight — more than 2,000 IUs for someone working lightly clothed in the sun all day — but the increase in people wearing sunblock to ward off skin cancer and the decreased prevalence of children playing outdoors have reduced the amount of vitamin D that many people get from sunlight.

Several other factors are working to further reduce the amount of vitamin D that people get. The increase in children drinking sugar-sweetened beverages instead of milk cuts vitamin D intake. Also, because vitamin D is fat soluble, the obesity epidemic is increasing the amount that is stored in fats in our bodies instead of being freely available.

The supplements will contain about one gram of omega-3s, Manson said, or about twice the amount people would get if they followed the government’s recommendation of two fish meals a week, and about five to 10 times what the typical American usually eats. It’s also about equal to the level in a typical diet in Japan, where heart disease rates are lower.

Manson said it would be unwise for the public to start taking megadoses of the two compounds before the study’s results come out, citing the examples of earlier large-scale trials of vitamins E and C and beta-carotene that showed little benefit of those vitamins in large doses and even suggested some risks. Should the trial turn up protective benefits to vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids, it would open the door to greater therapeutic use of the compounds, which are easily accessible, unlike a new exotic drug that would require extensive testing.

Manson also plans to explore the role of vitamin D in reducing racial health disparities. The study will seek to enroll enough African Americans to make up a quarter of the study population in an effort to see whether low levels of vitamin D in African Americans are linked to higher incidence of diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic diseases and whether treatment with vitamin D can reduce these risks.

“It’s exciting to get started with this trial,” Manson said. “We’re really hoping it will provide important answers.”

Those who had higher levels of vitamin D – produced by the body in the presence of sunlight -when diagnosed with colon cancer were 50 per cent more likely to survive than those with low levels, researchers found.

A separate study also found that patients who had high levels of the vitamin when they were diagnosed with skin cancer were more likely to have thinner tumours.

Vitamin D, which is also present in a small number of foods, such as fatty fish, is thought to be important in protecting against a number of other conditions, including osteoporosis, diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure, depression and Multiple Sclerosis.

Earlier this year scientists cautioned that health warnings about the damaging effect of the sun could be causing vitamin D levels to drop.

Prof Kimmie Ng, from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in Boston, who followed 1,017 patients with colon cancer, also called colorectal cancer, for around nine years, said: “Our study shows that levels of vitamin D after colorectal cancer diagnosis may be important for survival.

“We are now planning further research in patients with bowel cancer to see if vitamin D has the same effect, and to investigate how vitamin D works.”

The findings were published in the British Journal of Cancer and Journal of Clinical Oncology.

A second study found that skin cancer patients who had the lowest levels of vitamin D in their blood when they were diagnosed were almost a third more likely to relapse than those with high levels.

Prof Julia Newton Bishop, from Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine, who led the study, said: “It’s common for the general public to have low levels of vitamin D in many countries.”

She added that skin cancer patients tended to avoid the sun as sunburn is known to increase the risk of the disease.

The findings suggested that they should increase their vitamin D levels by eating more fatty fish or taking supplements, she said.

Sara Hiom, from Cancer Research UK, said: “Both these studies support the theory that higher levels of vitamin D can improve the chance of surviving cancer.

The key is to get the right balance between the amount of time spent in the sun and the levels of vitamin D needed for good health.

“But protection from burning in the sun is still vital.”

Story by the Telegraph.co.uk