Wednesday, March 17 2010

Diet & Fitness

Take vitamin D and calcium

Monday October 26 2009

take vitamin d and calcium

In 2008, The American Journal of Cardiology said that vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent, present in approximately 30-50pc of the population.

Vitamin D has important benefits in reducing the risk of many conditions including types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, several bacterial and viral infections, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

In 2003, researchers found that it is best to use calcium and vitamin D together to prevent colon cancer. Calcium helps to metabolise vitamin D.

This work on colon cancer followed previous work done at John Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, which confirmed that colon cancers happen less in the summer climates and incidences of colon cancer are four to six times higher in Europe than in places close to the equator.

It is not just in health that vitamin D has benefits, but also in performance. It has been shown to increase the size and number of fast-twitch muscle fibres. It can help make you faster, stronger and help improve balance and timing but the degree by which you see an improvement depends on how big your deficiency was.

Irish Independent