Knowing Your A, B, C’s…and D!

One of my pet peeves is when the media thouroughly confuses the masses when they report on health news.  Sometimes we just don’t learn lessons from the past.

Recently the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its new Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) for Vitamin D and Calcium. The IOM press release was poorly written to begin with. After reading the media reports about IOM’s new DRI’s, it was obvious that everyone is confused.

The Wall Street Journal reported that we should take more Vitamin D and calcium, while the New York Times reported that Vitamin D is harmful and calcium is not needed. Who should I believe now?

I want to remind you of a similar situation that happened 10 years ago with Vitamin C.

In March of 2000, research by Dr. James Dwyer found that Vitamin C thickened arterial walls and may be tied to increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Vitamin C helps make collagen, a matrix of proteins that help support artery walls. Vitamin C thickens arterial walls to make them stronger.

Dr. Dwyer confused arterial wall thickening with the inside diameter of the artery where the blood travels through.

He corrected his mistake four years later by determining that Vitamin C prevented atherosclerosis by thickening arterial walls, preventing heart attacks and stroke.

Unfortunately, the media reported on the dangers of Vitamin C but never investigated the validity of the study or followed up on the new study.

Now, back to the IOM report. They were mainly trying to establish safe lower, average, and upper limits because of the amount of fortified and enriched foods, supplements, and inaccurate blood tests.  They didn’t want us to take none or more, but they did warn about taking too much of both Vitamin D and Calcium.

They established this for 13 different age groups and lactating women. Vitamin D and Calcium daily intake levels were increased for some and lowered for others.

Still confused? Now you know why. The best advice is to just don’t take more than the upper limits. I recommend that you don’t just read headlines when it comes to your health and look up all sources of information.