Well, after being gone all year with Shine The Light On Kids, I am home and attended my first Commonwealth Club meeting all year…and I am co-chair! ( very nice of Dr. Grant to let me keep my title of co-chair while I was gone) It was good to be there and to be learning again. Actually, I learn something new everyday as I read many articles and studies constantly, which is what I must do to keep up with ever changing information.

So the woman who was speaking, Carol Baggerly, discovered some years ago that she had breast cancer and subsequently found that she was very, very low on vitamin D. She and her husband Dr. Garland Baggerly, founded ‘Vitamin D Action’ and traveled the country (sound familiar?) speaking to various doctors and scientists about the correlation between the two. What they discovered is that many cancers/diseases may be negatively affected by a lack of vitamin D; such as breast cancer, ovarian cancer, colon cancer, type 1 diabetes, MS, and rickets, to name just a few.

They stated that anywhere from 40-75% of the world’s population is vitamin D deficient. They suggest that your serum levels of vitamin D be between 40 and 60 nanograms/milliliter (100-150 nonomoles/liter) to prevent diseases.

I personally have some experience with this because I discovered a couple of years ago that I was vitamin D deficient. This was so surprising to me because not only do I live in California where we have lots of sun, but I exercise outside and am a little fearful that I get too much sun! Now I take 4000 IU’s at night with my calcium/magnesium. I haven’t had my levels checked since before I left on my Shine The Light journey, so I hope my levels have improved quite a bit.

As always, do your own research and speak with your doctor. I do suggest you get your levels tested!