This article refutes the recent study by a New Zealand researcher claiming that vitamin D is useless. [Note: Lots of good information in the full article. Click on one of the links below to access.]
Stop Vitamin D, Surely You Must Be Joking?
by Jeffrey Dach MD
A study proclaiming Vitamin D is useless and you should just stop taking it was published in Lancet this week and “went viral”. The news story was picked up and amplified by the media Here it is:
“The take-away message is that there is little justification currently for prescribing vitamin D to prevent heart attack, stroke, cancer, or fractures in otherwise-healthy people living in the community,” says lead study author Dr. Mark Bolland, a researcher at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Randomized Controlled Trials vs Other types of Studies:
A common gimmick used by Drug Company sponsored studies is to claim that only RCT (randomized trials) are to be included as “evidence”. The Bolland report selected forty RCT studies to conclude Vitamin D is useless.
Dr Bolland conveniently excluded all the other basic science and observational studies. There are thousands of observational studies that show health benefits for Vitamin D. A search for Vitamin D in Google Scholar yields 2.2 million published articles. Mark Bolland has excluded 99.9% of the available information on vitamin D to arrive at his conclusion that Vitamin D has no health benefits.
Michael Holick MD:
Dr. Michael F Holick, a vitamin D expert and author of the Vitamin D Solutionbook, says this is just “silly”.
He points out that many of the studies in Bolland’s Lancet paper used doses of vitamin D that were too low to be effective.
Original article:
http://jeffreydachmd.com/2014/01/stop-vitamin-d-joking/ http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...ciples-editors