Take your Vitamin D! Good for chronic back pain and fighting dementia

Two new studies give even more reasons to be sure to take your Vitamin D.
In an article in a Family Medicine Journal (JABoard Fam Med 2009 Jan-Feb;22(1):69-74 they review 6 selected cases of improvement/resolution of chronic back pain or failed back surgery after vitamin D repletion in a Canadian family practice setting. They concluded "Vitamin D insufficiency is common; repletion of vitamin D to normal levels in patients who have chronic low back pain or have had failed back surgery may improve quality of life or, in some cases, result in complete resolution of symptoms."

In other Vitamin D news, on 2.23.09 New York Times reported that British Researchers found a correlation between low levels of Vitamin D and dementia.
"Scientists measured blood levels of the vitamin in a representative sample of 1,766 people over 65 and assessed their mental functioning with a widely used questionnaire. About 12 percent were cognitively impaired, and the lower their vitamin D level, the more likely they were to be in that group. Compared with those in the highest one-quarter for serum vitamin D, those in the lowest were 2.3 times as likely to be impaired, even after statistically adjusting for age, sex, education and ethnicity. Men showed the effect more strongly than women."

Obviously, in both conditions, back pain and dementia, the causation is multifactorial, but this is a cheap, easy, and safe thing to try. I think it's of note that both studies took place in countries with less sunshine and more cloud cover than we have in California. Studies have shown that Vitamin D deficiency is somewhat common in Canada. Of note is that it is particularly common in Muslim women who remain covered in the northern climes.
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