In a year that saw a plethora of papers published on vitamin D deficiency as a cause of most internal cancers, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, autism and even flu, one paper putting the D deficiency epidemic in full perspective stood out as my pick for “Study of 2009.”
Dr. Adit Ginde’s paper published March 23, 2009 in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed that:
• Three out of four of Americans are vitamin D deficient today — a 50 percent increase over D deficiency levels just one generation ago.
• 97 percent of black Americans today are vitamin D deficient — which can only be blamed on sun-avoidance and sunscreen usage amongst those whose darker skin needs the most sunlight to make adequate vitamin D.
• Severe vitamin D deficiency in blacks increased from just 9 percent a generation ago to 29 percent today.
What Ginde’s paper did was to make it indisputable that sun avoidance is causing vitamin D deficiency. According to 275 epidemiological studies, 338,000 Americans will die from vitamin D deficiency related diseases in 2010.
Ginde’s paper shows not only are these vitamin D deficiency diseases iatrogenic, that is medical advice to avoid the sun has caused the diseases, that same medical advice is racially biased against people of color. That’s why— in a year with so many research papers on vitamin D published— I think this one has the biggest impact.
Don Kermath,
UI graduate
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