Billions of people are drugged legally and needlessly throughout the free world, while more simpler, safer and healthier solutions are attacked and ignored, despite their proven efficacy. If that sounds familiar to you, those safer non-drug solutions are a major cornerstone of my vision for reforming the current and fractured health care paradigm.
I stumbled across a great example of an unwarranted attack on natural treatments in a American Academy of Dermatology press release that casts considerable doubt on all the recent studies touting sunshine as your best source of vitamin D.
Two so-called "expert" dermatologists advise patients to get their vitamin D from fortified processed foods and nutritional supplements instead of unprotected sun exposure. Moreover, anyone who says otherwise "is doing a tremendous disservice to the public."
Fact is, sunshine is the best and most natural way to get all the vitamin D you need, so long as you do it in moderation -- starting slowly with 5-10 minutes a day and adding more time as the weeks go by.
And, if you have a tough time getting an ample amount of sunshine every day -- especially during the cold of winter -- rather than lean on health-harming processed foods, take a high quality, vitamin D enriched cod liver oil instead.
Yahoo Finance January 30, 2006