Health Benefits of the Sun, Beyond Vitamin D
May is Sunshine Month, and during this month we will be providing important information on how to fully reap the health benefits from the sun through proper, safe exposure. While many may avoid the...
Why are African Americans so much more deficient in vitamin D?
Our last two posts highlighted the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among blacks and demonstrated the immense health potentials of correcting the deficiency. Today we answer one of the key parts of the question...
Could Correcting Vitamin D Deficiency Among Blacks Reduce Health Disparities?
In our last post, we began the discussion about racial disparities in health, specifically that some of the same health problems that are more prevalent among blacks are also associated with vitamin D deficiency....
Why are African Americans at Greater Risk for Some Health Problems?
There is a branch of the National Institutes of Health, the medical research agency of the United States, called the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) whose charter is to lead...
Does Sunlight Have a Role in Immune Health?
In our last post, we discussed a paper by Drs. Grant and Giovannucci on the 1918-1919 Influenza pandemic, highlighting the relationship between northern latitude and UVB, and incidence of pneumonia and case fatalities due...
Could More Solar UVB Exposure Decrease Flu Fatalities?
In a paper published in 2009, Drs. William B. Grant and Edward Giovannucci, both members of the GrassrootsHealth Scientist Panel, reviewed data from the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic in the United States to determine if...
Vitamin D and Incidence of Flu – Information You Should Know
With the immune system as a central focus during the recent weeks, GrassrootsHealth has shared several posts about the essential role of vitamin D in immune functioning. Vitamin D has also been in the...
What if you don’t take vitamin D supplements?
In our last post, we revisited the topic of vitamin D in our food. For most people, what we eat simply does not provide us with the amount of vitamin D our bodies need....
Seasonal Vitamin D Levels
Seasonal trends have been observed in several diseases. Vitamin D deficiency is known to be more prevalent during particular times of the year, which may contribute to an increased risk of certain seasonal diseases....
New Study Shows UVB to Affect Intestinal Microbiome
Certain diseases, such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), have a demonstrated link between disease risk and sun or UVB exposure, vitamin D levels, and changes in the gut microbiome. However,...