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Monday, March 19, 2012

March 19, 2012

Can you stop trauma before it happens with an inexpensive vitamin?

Accidents happen! Cars crash, people fall, and acts of God happen to the best of us. The resulting trauma can radically change our lives. But what if you could stop the trauma from happening in the first place? A new study says a common vitamin might make it possible. And if it doesn't stop the trauma from occurring, it can reduce the damage it does and help you recover faster.

This new study says that 77% of trauma patients have a vitamin D deficiency. Researchers from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons studied the medical records of 1,830 people. All of them were over the age of 18. And all of them visited a level one trauma medical center in 2009 or 2010.

The researchers found that 39% of these patients had a vitamin D deficiency. And more than 38% had insufficient levels. What's amazing about this study is that 54.7% of those under 25 years old were deficient. The older the patient, the more likely they were to be deficient.

The only conclusion the researchers could draw from the information was that we needed to increase the efforts to ensure people aren't deficient. Of course, we do. Alternative-minded doctors have said this for years. They didn't need this study to tell them that. I think there are more useful conclusions we can draw.

First, I suspect the level of deficiency is much greater than these researchers found. The researchers in this study said anything below 20 ng/mL were "deficient." They considered levels between 20 and 32 ng/mL as "insufficient." Those with levels between 40 and 70 ng/mL were "healthy." Frankly, anything below 50 ng/mL is deficient enough to cause problems.

Second, with 77% (or more) of the participants clearly deficient, we have to ask some questions. Does the deficiency cause the trauma? Does the deficiency make the trauma worse? And, does the deficiency affect recovery? I think the answer to all three questions is yes.

Could the low levels increase our risk for having preventable accidents? I think it's very possible. We know that low vitamin D levels affect the brain and they can lead to fatigue. Accidents are more likely to happen when we're not thinking clearly and when we're tired or fatigued.

We also know that low vitamin D levels weaken muscles and bones. This alone would make you more likely to have an accident. But it would make you more likely to break a bone as well. So, yes, the deficiency can make the trauma worse.

And, finally, does a deficiency affect recovery? Studies say this definitely happens. One study in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery found surgery patients recovered much faster the higher their vitamin D levels were.

So the clear conclusion these researchers should have made is this: If you want to increase your ability to avoid accidents, reduce your trauma when accidents do happen, and recover faster from the trauma, then you have to correct a vitamin D deficiency before it happens. The easiest way to do this is to take 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 every day. This dose will quickly get your levels into the real healthy range over 50 ng/mL. You can order vitamin D in this dosage by following this link.

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