Vitamin D- Is This the Miracle Vitamin
Page 12
A smaller randomised study of fifteen Crohn’s patients in the US who were not in remission, found high-dose vitamin D (10,000IU daily for 26 weeks) not only raised vitamin D levels substantially but it began pushing patients towards remission faster than those receiving only 1,000IU a day.[3]
“This one nutritional supplementation actually made a real clinical impact without any toxicity,” lead researcher Brian Bosworth told an American College of Gastroenterology meeting.
One of the ways that vitamin D is believed to work is anchored in its role as an immune system stimulant. It has the capability to force the human body to produce large amounts of natural antibiotics that can be used by the immune system and a type of white blood cell – macrophages – in their attacks on invading organisms.
“The net effect of these actions is to support increased bacterial killing in a variety of cell types. The efficacy of such a response is highly dependent on vitamin D status,” reports researcher Martin Hewison in the journal Nature. “The potential importance of this mechanism as a determinant of human disease is underlined by increasing awareness of vitamin D insufficiency across the globe.”[4]
The fact that Crohn’s is an immunity disorder, that sufferers almost invariably have low levels of the vitamin, and that the vitamin is crucial to regulating our immune systems, gives what is called “biological plausibility” to the idea that 25(OH)D can impact Crohn’s.
Clearly, it does. The ‘why?’ of it remains under investigation.
DIABETES
Another autoimmune disorder linked with low vitamin D is Type I Diabetes. This is the variant that often begins in childhood, what we used to call “sugar diabetes” because the body loses its ability to produce insulin, and children require daily injections.
Like Crohn’s, MS and other similar disorders, Type I Diabetes likewise shows geographical and seasonal distribution patterns. Those clues now on the table, what have scientists learned?
For a start, there’s clear evidence that giving your children regular vitamin D – either through sunlight or supplement or a combination of both, significantly reduces their risk of becoming diabetic. One study published in the Lancet found parents who regularly gave their kids 2000IU of vitamin D cut the prospect of Type I Diabetes by 78%.[5]
In another meta-analysis study, which did not break down dosages, children supplemented with vitamin D of any kind and amount reduced their risk of diabetes by 29%.[6]
The protective effect should, ideally, begin in pregnancy. A just-published study reveals women with low vitamin D levels while pregnant have double the risk of giving birth to a diabetic child, when compared with mothers whose vitamin D levels were high.[7]
“Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that is one of the most common chronic diseases during childhood. With the exception of certain susceptibility genes, the causes of type 1 diabetes are essentially unknown,” reported the study.
It’s the first study in the world to directly link a lack of vitamin D during pregnancy to a significant risk of Type I Diabetes, and flies in the face of some earlier research, but the study authors say their process was more thorough:
“These previous studies are not directly comparable with ours, because we have not only measured maternal 25-OH D but also followed the children until they were 15 years of age, with respect to the onset of clinical type 1 diabetes.”
And the size of their study was formidable. Blood samples taken from more than 30,000 Norwegian mothers twenty years ago and stored, were reanalysed and matched against outcomes from those babies. Being a notifiable disease in Norway, it was easy for researchers to identify virtually every child who had developed diabetes by the age of 15, and track them back to their mothers’ blood samples.
[1] “Higher Predicted Vitamin D Status Is Associated With Reduced Risk of Crohn’s Disease,” Ananthakrishna et al, Gastroenterology, Volume 142, Issue 3, March 2012, Pages 482–489
[2] “Clinical trial: vitamin D3 treatment in Crohn’s disease – a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study,” Jorgenson et al, Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Volume 32, Issue 3, pages 377–383, August 2010
[3] “Vitamin D may be easy, low-risk way to relieve symptoms of Crohn’s disease,” by Monica Smith, Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News, June 2012, Vol 63:6
[4] “Antibacterial effects of vitamin D,” Hewison, Nature Reviews Endocrinology 7, 337-345 (June 2011) | doi:10.1038/nrendo.2010.226
[5] “Intake of vitamin D and risk of type 1 diabetes: a birth-cohort study,” Hypponen et al, Lancet 2001;358:1500-3.
[6] “Vitamin D supplementation in early childhood and risk of type 1 diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” C S Zipitis & A K Akobeng, Arch Dis Child 2008;93:512-517 doi:10.1136/adc.2007.128579
[7] “Maternal Serum Levels of 25-Hydroxy-Vitamin D During Pregnancy and Risk of Type 1 Diabetes in the Offspring,” Sorenson et al, Diabetes, January 2012 vol. 61 no. 1 175-178, http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/61/1/175.full
CHAPTER 13
SUNSCREENS:
A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER
“Using sunscreen has not been shown to prevent melanoma or basal cell carcinoma”
– American Academy of Pediatricians, 2011
It seems such an easy message to sell: Slip, slop, slap. The idea of using a chemical lotion to block harmful UV rays as a primary method of sun protection has a lot of simple appeal. Clearly, people using sunscreen don’t burn and they can easily spot the convenience and health benefits of that particular outcome. To that extent, sunscreen sells itself as users become reliant on it to help maintain an outdoor lifestyle for themselves and their families. But here’s the rub: there’s strong scientific evidence that sunscreens don’t actually work against the most dangerous skin cancers, and there’s strong emerging evidence that sunscreens may actually contain toxic particles that cause cancer and other genetic damage.
First, however, a little history.
In 1935, your chance of developing melanoma in your lifetime was around 1:1500. Today, melanoma risk has ballooned to 1:33 for a baby born now.[1] Why such a huge rise in risk?
The first commercial sunscreen was invented in 1938 by chemistry student Franz Greiter, who allegedly received a sunburn while climbing Piz Buin in the Swiss Alps that inspired him to develop a protective lotion.
Also from the necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention file, US WWII serviceman Benjamin Green – apparently sick of getting sunburnt while fighting in the Pacific – developed his own sunscreen independently in 1944 based on red petroleum jelly, which later became the stepping stone for Coppertone to develop its range of sunscreens.
You won’t find the ingredients used in those first sunscreens in any products available today. Para-aminobenzoic acid, or PABA, for example, was patented in 1943 and whilst being a good UVB barrier, often used in sunscreens and women’s cosmetics, it has subsequently been found to degrade when exposed to sunlight and may be carcinogenic under certain circumstances[2], which somewhat defeats the purpose. It is banned in Europe, and no longer used in many other regions.
Sunscreens have gone through a multitude of formulations in the attempt for the perfect lotion, but so far no one has cracked it. There are two varieties available to consumers, organic-based lotions or mineral based. The organically-derived sunscreens rely on the following FDA-approved[3] chemical compounds:
Cinoxate
Ensulizole
Homosalate
Octinoxate
Octocrylene
Padimate O
Para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA)
Trolamine
Those compounds just listed are only effective against UVB radiation. They will not block any UVA radiation at all.
There are a further subset of organic molecules that sunscreen manufacturers have found have some limited effect on UVA rays:
Dioxybenzone
Oxybenzone
Sulibenzone
Those chemicals are effectiv
e against UVB and UVA-2 radiation frequencies, but not effective against UVA-1 frequencies. L’Oreal has developed a couple of chemicals that are only effective against UVA-2 radiation (again, to a limited extent), but there is only one organic compound approved in the US that is effective in any way against UVA-1 radiation: Avobenzone.[4]
The problem with many of these organic (mostly benzene-based) sunscreen compounds is that they are prone to “photodegradation”, or breaking down when exposed to sunlight.
“Controversy,” reports one recent scientific study, “has also developed regarding the possibility of adverse biological effects from various ingredients in sunscreens. Oxybenzone, an ingredient widely used in sunscreens, is purported to have a potentially disruptive effect on hormonal homeostasis.”
What scientists have found is that Oxybenzone (aka Benzophenone-3) is well and truly absorbed into the human body through the skin, after being applied in sunscreens. It has turned up in the urine and blood of 96.8% of people tested, and is believed to accumulate in vital organs like the kidney, liver, spleen and male testes, but also in the intestines, stomach, heart and adrenal glands. It has been linked in one scientific study to low birth weight in babies.[5]
What does it do? We know it has an estrogen like effect and has been scientifically shown to stimulate human breast cancer cells[6] – not necessarily a good thing if you are at risk of developing breast cancer, as many women are. It also gives men an extra tweak of estrogen and displays – at a biochemical level – what scientists call “anti androgenic” or feminising hormonal effects.
A study of 15 young males and 17 post-menopausal females over two weeks measured statistically significant hormonal changes after using oxybenzone, but not enough to cause what scientists call “clinically significant perturbations”. In other words, while the sunscreen chemical is affecting our bodies, this tiny study of 32 people didn’t detect anything requiring treatment or intervention. What of the effect on babies or children, however? We don’t know. We do know that sunscreen ingredients are now being found in human breast milk.[7]
One scientific study on human wastewater outflows into rivers has found however that all that oxybenzone we are absorbing and excreting is having a horrific effect on marine life, dramatically reducing the fertility of trout and other fish species exposed to oxybenzone.[8]
In the interests of balance, a further analysis has worked out it could take up to 277 years for a woman using sunscreen every day to finally get enough of a build-up of oxybenzone to harm her, pointing out that what is toxic to small animals is not necessarily so to humans.[9]
What we do know, however, is that oxybenzone may become ineffective and even toxic under normal sunscreen use conditions. A just-released study has tested what happens to oxybenzone sunscreens when their users jump into chlorinated swimming pools or spas. The chlorine reacted with the oxybenzone and “caused significantly more cell death than unchlorinated controls…Exposing a commercially available sunscreen product to chlorine also resulted in decreased UV absorbance, loss of UV protection, and enhanced cytotoxicity [meaning it becomes poisonous to human cells].”[10]
There are question marks about the safety of other ingredients in organic sunscreens.
“Retinyl palmitate, a compound used extensively in various cosmetic and personal care products, has received wide attention as a potential photocarcinogen (light-activated carcinogen).”
This chemical has been shown to have carcinogenic properties in animal testing, and it also has been shown to create harmful free radicals[11] in the skin as a result of breaking down under UV exposure. Scientific reaction is mixed however, with some suggesting that other antioxidant compounds in the human skin should be capable of protecting against damage caused by retinyl palmitate generated free radicals,[12] and they also argue that the mice in the cancer tests were prone to skin cancer anyway.
Like oxybenzone, in the absence of seriously hard evidence showing the compound is definitely harmful, retinyl palmitate will remain in sunscreens used by adults and children.
In 2005 a series of experiments using sunscreen containing octocrylene, octylmethoxycinnamate and benzophenone-3 revealed that within one hour of application according to manufacturer’s instructions, the chemicals were generating more “reactive oxygen species”(ROS) in the skin than people wearing no sunscreen were getting via direct UV radiation. In other words, the sunscreen was acting like oil in a frypan in terms of its effect on users’ skin and resultant ROS damage.[13] It’s one of the reasons health authorities now seek regular re-application of yet more chemicals every hour or so, locking sunscreen users into a vicious circle.
The second category of sun screens, the mineral-based ones, have issues of their own. These are the Zinc Oxide and Titanium Dioxide sun blocks. Unlike the organics, the Zinc and Titanium formulations were not thought to break down in sunlight and cause damage on the skin, meaning they stay protective for longer. However, in the race to become more effective these sunscreens deliver their active ingredients as nanoparticles – molecular compounds so small they can potentially pass through barriers like the human skin. Researchers have shown that when Titanium dioxide is stimulated by UV rays, its electrons become more energised and can “react with nearby oxygen and hydrogen compounds to produce highly reactive free radical compounds…when in contact with our skin these radicals can oxidise and reduce compounds including DNA, resulting in significant mutagenesis [causes mutations at a cellular level].”[14] Additionally, the resulting free radicals can react with organic sunscreen ingredients to create acids.
All of this is happening on and possibly under your skin unseen, of course, whilst you and your children happily sunbathe or play on the beach.
More than one research team has pointed out that the race to nanotechnology in sunscreens and cosmetics has been done “with no regard to the potential health risks.”[15]
“Much concern has been voiced that the integration of nano-material technology into everyday formulations has outpaced the body of research evaluating their safety,” echo Burnett & Wang, who nonetheless reach the conclusion that sunscreens should still be used regardless.[16]
Sadly, health agencies in Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand have been so keen to promote sunscreens that they have allowed products to go to market untested in regard to whether their ingredients may in fact cause cancer in their own right. Even in the US most ingredients have not been required to pass official safety tests.
Scientists now know that Zinc Oxide does in fact break down under UVB light, shedding zinc (Zn2+). One study found “a reduction in cell viability” as a result and that Zinc oxide breakdown “causes cytotoxicity and oxidative stress [the generation of free radicals].”[17]
Another recent study paints an even more disturbing picture – actual genetic damage resulting from nanotechnology in sunscreens and makeup. Remember, it is DNA damage that leads to skin cancer and melanoma, so this is where speculation about sunscreens possibly causing skin cancer is focused.
“Due to the extremely small size of the nanoparticles (NPs) being used, there is a concern that they may interact directly with macromolecules such as DNA,” notes the study, published in the journal Toxicology Letters.[18]
“The present study was aimed to assess the genotoxicity of zincoxide (ZnO) NPs, one of the widely used ingredients of cosmetics, and other dermatological preparations in human epidermal cell line (A431). A reduction in cell viability as a function of both NP concentration as well as exposure time was observed.”
The findings warn that Zinc oxide nanoparticles, “even at low concentrations, possess a genotoxic potential” capable of genetically mutating or harming human skin. “Hence, caution should be taken in their use in dermatological preparations as well as while handling.”
This again raises valid questions about whether sunscreens are safe to use on infants and children, let alone adults.
“Although toxicity in infants or young children resulting from sunscr
een absorption has not been reported,” writes Dr Sophie Balk, “skin permeability to topically applied products is of concern in the very young, especially in preterm infants. Absorptive and other properties of children’s skin may differ from those of adult skin until children are at least 2 years old.”[19]
Thomas Faunce, a biomedicine legal expert based at Australian National University in Canberra, says authorities may need to step up.
“It may be time for Australian safety regulators to apply the precautionary principle in this contact and increase labelling requirements about the use of nanoparticles in sunscreens.”[20]
The problem is, how do you tackle the problem when health authorities, manufacturers and cancer charities are all financially in bed with each other?
Australia and New Zealand’s cancer societies, for example, earn millions of dollars a year marketing their own range of sunscreen products. One of those, like similar products in the US and elsewhere, is a combination SPF30+ sunscreen and insect repellent. It contains the insecticide “Deet”, known to science as diethyl toluamide, and the sunscreen octyl-methoxycinnamate. Ignore the fact that these two chemicals or their derivatives, when mixed together, can be potentially harmful.[21] Instead, note that the combo also lists an ingredient called piperonyl butoxide,[22] otherwise known as PBO, which is often added to “natural” insect sprays.
A 2011 study – the first of its kind – found this supposedly environmentally friendly chemical PBO appears to be as toxic to infants and children as letting them lick lead paint. The study found a four point drop in mental development levels for children whose homes are exposed to piperonyl butoxide in insect spray dispensers.[23]
Whilst that particular study was looking at the toxicity of PBO inhaled from automatic household spray dispensers, the application of the product directly on the skin in a sunscreen could also possibly leach it into the bloodstream, particularly of pregnant women or children. You are also likely to find PBO in headlice treatments for children.