Mercola - Natural Health Products & Articles

Trying to protect yourself from breast cancer? Get a little sunshine.

Studies show that Vitamin D – a health gem that you can directly obtain from healthy amounts of sunshine – can help you ward off breast cancer, a disease afflicting about 200,000 women annually and causing around 40,000 deaths each year.

Top natural health expert Dr. Joseph Mercola says that Vitamin D, it appears, is produced to try to combat the spread of breast cancer. The good news, he says, is that the sunshine vitamin holds the same potential of fighting other diseases such as colon, prostate and skin cancers.

Bathe In Sunshine, Get Calcitriol
Calcitriol, an active form of Vitamin D, is found by research to be a powerful anti-cancer agent. It was previously thought to be produced in the kidney, but later developments have revealed that an enzyme activates Vitamin D and generates calcitriol in breast tissue.

Various studies have shown that Vitamin D can boost the natural defense against cancer, as illustrated in sunny Mediterranean countries with ample amounts of sunlight and lower cases of breast cancer.

While the breast maintains its own ability to anti-cancer Vitamin D forms, women in cloudy countries may not be getting enough of the vitamin and are thus unable to receive the natural benefit.

Dr. Mercola mourns the fact that while Vitamin D “works quite powerfully for preventing many cancers” and the need for it has already been established, most people have levels that need to be addressed because of being far too low.

Vitamin D: Enhancing Radiation Treatment for Tumors?
Another study implicates a form of Vitamin D in greatly enhancing radiation treatment for tumors associated with breast cancer.

The research shows that vitamin D analog EB 1089, when paired with radiation therapy (usually conducted after surgically removing a malignant tumor), can destroy the radiation-resistant cells that cause recurrence of cancer.

The study experimented on tumor growth in mice, concluding that those irradiated with Vitamin D derivative EB 1089 had about 50 percent lower final tumor volume than mice that received radiation alone.
Dr. Mercola is far from surprised: drug companies are very much willing to combine “expensive chemical derivatives of natural substances” to produce an effective treatment for cancer. He says that while the research is promising, it will still take many years to be tested and proven.

Still the best way to obtain Vitamin D, Dr. Mercola adds, is a healthy and ample amount of exposure to sunshine.

Get a Little More Sunshine
Dr. Mercola says that Vitamin D isn’t really a vitamin, but a steroid hormone precursor formed when skin is exposed to sunshine.

He then encourages people to go out and get healthy amounts of sunshine, preferably an hour of sun exposure a day. For those who live in places with little sunshine, good Vitamin D levels can be acquired from a combination of sun and other sources.

Looking for a good Vitamin D source? Dr. Mercola recommends the Vitamin D spray, which provides 1000 IU of Vitamin D3 in every dose. Compared to pills, capsules or tablet, this spray enables your body to use and absorb Vitamin D immediately.

Dr. Mercola also considers cod liver oil, which contains essential omega-3 fatty acids that are beneficial in preventing heart disease, cancer and many other diseases. He also recommends Carlson’s cod liver oil, which has high-quality formula.

Dr. Mercola adds, however, that if you are taking Vitamin D supplements or cod liver oil, you should check your Vitamin D levels to avoid overdose. He suggests that you should “customize” supplementation with your physician and not rely on a dangerous one-size-fits-all approach.

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