http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2015/14_0395.htm
This map describes causes of death that stand out as more common than you would expect compared to national averages. Most of them have a moderately obvious connection. If you live in Alaska, you’re more likely to die flying your plane or drowning when your crab fishing boat sinks. If you live in Miami or Key West, you die from HIV. If you live in coal country, you die from black lung disease. North Carolina gets nutritional deficiencies (but it is only 103 people, so don’t read too much into it). The Coastal plain of Eastern NC is largely occupied by poor black farmers who eek out a marginal living by growing peanuts.
Diets high in corn (corn bread, hush puppies, grits) can cause Pellagra, which affected millions of poor Southerners (mostly blacks) before the connection was made and the Yankees “forced” flour mills to fortify wheat flour with Niacin
Slightly related, my recent trip to the dentist wound up with (more or less) “I don’t want you as a patient, but I’m not allowed to say that”. Things immediately went South [interesting expression] when I stated that I believe vitamin D deficiency is a cause of some of my problems. She immediately got a “oh, you’re one of those wackos” look.
Black Americans live substantially shorter lives in the United States. There is a pretty direct reason for that, particularly blacks that moved North during the great Northern Migration. Because blacks have dark skin (duh!), the melanin blocks the creation of adequate Vitamin D, especially with shorter days, decreased time outdoors and low intensity of the sun.
http://www.livescience.com/20910-vitamind-black-americans-cancer-disparity.html
Most people fend off Vitamin D deficiency by drinking fortified milk, but most black people are lactose intolerant. Adults being able to consume milk without getting sick was a genetic mutation primarily to people who settled in Europe.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19182816
As that abstract hints, one of the consequences of melanin blocking Vitamin D synthesis is autoimmune disease. Lupus is a common autoimmune disease that affects primarily blacks, Native Americans and Asians – but few Europeans, which coincidently are the same groups that can’t digest milk sugar. The issue isn’t the lactose, but that we don’t fortify other dairy products like cheese with Vitamin D. Some orange juice has D added, but not most.
If you still think I’m a kook,
Even on the broad plain of health – Vitamin D is essential in the winter months in locations with little or no sun (Cleveland, anyone?) and the USDA recommendation of 1000 IU is farsical at best. Low or no Vitamin D leads to any number of diseases and I have found that depression can also be a symptom in the Winter months especially. It is always best to get it in foods, but supplementation is always a viable option.
That’s so depressing!
I firmly believe SAD is a direct result of low vitamin D. The problem with D and nutrition is that few foods contain it. Egg Yolks is one of the few things. Part of the problem is that D doesn’t circulate in the blood, only the precursor – so blood levels are not a reliable. way to measure. It explains why people in Alaska are nuts
Here is the authoritative info from our government
http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/
It is disconcerting how many times it says “we don’t know…” With so much of research spending chasing worthless science.
The basic things to know (some of which I heard from less reliable sources). The best and most useful way to get D is uV light hitting your skin. Vitamin D3 is produced, but the fallacy/flaw in the medical approach is that measuring “D” in the bloodstream is close to pointless. Once produced (or consumed in the diet or supplements), D goes through two transformations – first in the liver, then the kidneys. The actual vitamin D is stored in your body fat. The two blood tests are either measuring something with a 15 day half life or a 15 hour half life.
The storage of D in fat cells is how we cope with the variability of the sun. It takes quite a while to deplete the D stored in fat, but there is no “empty” meter other than the symptoms of disease that appear.
The government says around 600 iu is the recommended daily intake. Above 4000 iu, calcium absorption gets too intense, leading to kidney stones and calcification of joints. You can’t overdose on D3 from sun exposure as your body slows down production once you have enough. A self-regulating feedback mechanism that doesn’t require a federally licensed Obamacare professional to monitor. Thank God.
Or pony up and pay the Obamacare “tanning tax”. Did he ever expain why he wanted to discourage people from producing Vitamin D and from buying the medical devices they need, sometimes to save their lives?
One of those sources points out something Dr Dean Edell was preaching a decade ago to the deaf ears of the medical establishment. Using sun blockers causes melanoma (skin cancer). In addition to blocking the Vitamin D production which is essential to the immune system fighting cancer, when people lather up with SPF they think they are “safe” to stay in the sun for hours.
If I suggested black people with really dark skins would be healthier living in the South, working out in the fields, I can’t imagine that being heard in any positive way.
They wouldn’t need to work out in the fields if more Americans would become Breatharians.
I suggest Al Gore and his environmental friends convert to Breatharianism because it will be helpful to the environment and eliminate all our globlal warming concerns.
My theory is they wanted to punish John Boehner, but he’s probably exempt.
That is a good theory. I noticed that Sen Sanders is getting some traction in the Dem primary race, but that former MD governor Martin O’Malley is not.
To try and level the playing field, I wrote a short campaign theme for the former governor. Hope it helps him:
Ode’ to O’Malley by CC
I’ll tax coal and I’ve taxed rain
I’ll tax sunny days so much that they will soon abend
I’ll tax Koolaid stands and the kids I’ll apprehend
Boy I always thought, “Tax Maryland again”
Is the tune “I’ve seen Fire, I’ve seen Rain” by James Taylor?
Yes, but I think I am covered by the Fair Use Doctrine. He really did tax the rain.
Was abend an autocorrect translation error?
Siri – divide zero by zero
I wonder how many people who have convinced themselves the are “Gluten Sensitive” will end up without niacin in their diet