The mighty “sunshine vitamin” could reduce heart attacks
More good news about vitamin D! Not long ago, I told you that the vitamin D you get from sunlight can help to battle cancer. Now there’s yet another killer that this mighty “sunshine vitamin” can help to combat: heart attacks.
According to a new study, men with lower levels of vitamin D are two and a half times as likely to suffer a heart attack. Dr. Edward Giovannucci of the Harvard School of Public Health authored the study and said, “Those with low vitamin D, on top of just being at higher risk for heart attack in general, were at particularly high risk to have a fatal heart attack.”
For 10 years, Dr. Edward Giovannucci studied nearly 500 health professionals between the ages of 40 to 75 who’d survived a heart attack. During the same period, he also studied about 1,000 other men who had no history of cardiovascular issues. What he found was that the men who consistently had low levels of vitamin D were the ones most at risk for heart ailments.
“Perhaps having these chronically low levels of vitamin D may be having these subtle physiological changes in a lot of tissues,” Dr. Giovannucci said. He added that there are other ways vitamin D can defend against heart diseases: it might lower blood pressure, regulate inflammation, and or reduce respiratory infections in winter.
Of all the vitamins I’m always telling you to pump into your body, vitamin D is one of my all-time favorites. If you’ve been with me for some time, you already know the highlights of what it can d it prevents falls in the elderly, helps increase lung cancer survival, prevents multiple sclerosis, and helps treat steroid resistant asthma. I imagine the list is only going to get longer as time goes by and more research is done.
As for me, I need no further convincing. I’m heading outside right now.
NYC herpes rates soar above national average
Even though New York may be the “City that never sleeps,” there seems to be an awful lot of sleeping around. According to that city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, more than one quarter of adult New Yorkers are infected with herpes simplex virus 2 – that’s genital herpes. With 26 percent of its adults infected, New York is well above the national average of 19 percent.
As you may have guessed, there is one way and one way only to get infected with genital herpes: sex. Herpes simplex virus 2 has some nasty accompanying side symptoms like genital ulcers and sores. It can also lead to infections in the brain lining of adults, and in the brain itself for newborns. So while genital herpes is often a punch line, it’s no joke.
New York’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is concerned about what these shocking numbers can mean about the potential spread of other sexually transmitted diseases such as H.I.V. As for me, I’m just concerned that this is yet another mile marker along the highway of moral decline that all of America seems to be traveling.
The breakdown of the genital herpes statistics in New York showed that the virus was more common in women than men (36 percent compared to 19 percent), more common among blacks than whites (49 percent compared to 14 percent), and more common among – and I love the politically correct way that the article phrased this – “men who have sex with men than those who don’t.” (32 percent compared to 18 percent).
As I’m always telling you, these “social diseases” have one sure-fire cure: keep your pants on.
