Vitamin D Quiz
02 November 2011
This quiz takes you through some of the latests vitamin D research findings
1. Vitamin D reverses inflammatory changes associated with age-related memory impairment.
a) True
b) False
True. Researchers from Ireland were the first to demonstrate that vitamin D3 acts as an anti-inflammatory agent and turns old brains into young brains--at least as far as inflammatory cytokines are concerned. This research suggests vitamin D may prevent, or even treat, age-related cognitive decline!
Biochem Soc Trans. 2005 Aug;33(Pt 4):573-7.
2. Your blood sugar is closely associated with your vitamin D level.
a) True
b) False
True. Researchers in
Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 2005 Jun;62(6):738-41.
3. In July, a group from
a) True
b) False
True. The authors found that women taking supplemental vitamin D had average levels of 16.4 ng/ml while women not taking supplements had levels of 11.9.ng/ml, both dangerously low. None of the 82 women got enough sun or took enough vitamin D to obtain a level of 40 ng/ml. These were fragility fractures, not fractures caused by unusual trauma. That is, their bones just sort of fell apart.
Curr Med Res Opin. 2005 Jul;21(7):1069-74.
4. Women with the lowest vitamin D levels had five times higher risk for breast cancer.
a) True
b) False
True. Women with 25(OH)-vitamin D blood levels less than 20 ng/ml were more than five times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than were women with levels above 60 ng/ml. That is five, repeat five, times more likely!
Eur J Cancer. 2005 May;41(8):1164-9. Epub 2005 Apr 14.
5. Avoiding the sun doubles the risk of prostate cancer.
a) True
b) False
True. Again, the risk of avoiding the sun is clear, this time in another study with prostate cancer. However, the authors pointed out that sun exposure increases the risk of skin cancer and believed that proper vitamin D supplementation "may be the safest solution to achieve an adequate vitamin D status."
Cancer Res. 2005 Jun 15;65(12):5470-9.
6. South Korean researchers associated vitamin D deficiency with Parkinson's disease.
a) True
b) False
True.
J Korean Med Sci. 2005 Jun;20(3):495-8.
7. Researchers discovered that patients with chronic pain have phenomenally low vitamin D levels.
a) True
b) False
True. Researchers added to the evidence that severe vitamin D deficiency is associated with chronic pain. They found that 88 percent of their patients with chronic pain had levels less than 10 ng/ml. If they treated their patients, they did not report it. However, Swiss researchers recently treated chronic pain patients with vitamin D and reported the pain "disappeared" within one to three months in most of their patients. This is the second open study that showed adequate doses of vitamin D dramatically improved chronic pain.
Ann Rheum Dis. 2005 Aug;64(8):1217-9.
BMJ. 2004 Jul 17;329(7458):156-7.
Spine. 2003 Jan 15;28(2):177-9.
8. Severe vitamin D deficiency is common in TB patients.
a) True
b) False
True. First, the authors reviewed the impressive animal evidence that vitamin D can help treat TB. Then they reported that most of their immigrant TB patients had undetectable vitamin D levels.
J Infect. 2005 Jun;50(5):432-7.
9. Virtually all nephrologists give renal failure patients a vitamin D-like drug.
Virtually all renal failure patients are severely vitamin D deficient.
a) All are true
b) All are false
c) Some are true and some are false.
All are true. Finally, the truth about renal failure patients: most of them are vitamin D deficient despite taking vitamin D analogs! Most nephrologists prescribe activated vitamin D (calcitriol) or vitamin D analogs but not vitamin D. Calcitriol and vitamin D analogs do nothing to prevent vitamin D deficiency. Renal failure patients need both vitamin D and a calcitriol-like drug. Moreover, 400 units a day of vitamin D will not correct their deficiencies. As you will see below, they need up to 4,000 units.
Am J Kidney Dis. 2005 Jun;45(6):1026-33.
Modified from Dr. John Cannell's Vitamin D quiz.