British Medical Journal’s ‘Lesson Of The Week’ Is Vitamin D

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A case reported as the British Medical Journal’s “Lesson Of The Week” vividly illustrates why vitamin D is called the "sunshine vitamin." It recounts the severe health problems experienced by a woman of Pakistani origin whose doctors took several years to diagnose severe vitamin D deficiency.

The 53-year-old woman had been treated for breast cancer, and visited her doctors regularly over the two years following the treatment complaining of severe, widespread musculoskeletal pain. That pain was diagnosed as metastatic bone disease, and the woman was prescribed the usual drugs for that condition.

Unfortunately, her pain worsened. However, prior to going on a planned, combination-chemotherapy treatment, she took a six-week summer trip to visit her family in Pakistan. When she returned to the U.K., her symptoms had completely vanished. Chemotherapy was delayed, and a whole-body CT scan showed no evidence of metastasis. Then, after winter, symptoms reappeared. Eventually, doctors realized their misdiagnosis and began treating the woman for severe vitamin D deficiency.

In the editorial that accompanied this report, Michael F. Holick, MD, a professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at Boston University Medical Center, observed that people with vitamin D deficiency have no obvious symptoms until it is so severe they develop osteomalacia (softening of the bones). He also says that vitamin D deficiency often is misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome or degenerative arthritis.

Holick, who is a leading vitamin D researcher, notes that vitamin D has many health benefits because all tissues have vitamin D receptors. He also says that people who live at higher latitudes tend to be deficient in vitamin D due to a lack of sun exposure and the fact that most North Americans only eat a few foods that naturally contain vitamin D. Recently, a Workshop Consensus for Vitamin D Nutritional Guidelines estimated that about 50 percent of older people living in North America do not have satisfactory vitamin D status.

Source: LOOKING FIT