Hello, I'm Monica Rinegal, and you're listening to The Nutrition Diva Podcast.

Welcome.

A new NIH-funded study reports that long-term use of vitamin D supplements reduced the incidence

of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and Hashimoto's thyroiditis

in a large population of Americans 50 and older.

The subjects in this particular study were taking 2,000 international units of vitamin

D3 a day, and those who took them for two years or longer saw the greatest reduction in

risk.

Now, vitamin D is perhaps best known for its role in building strong bones, and there is

a billion dollar market for vitamin D supplements.

However, recent research has cast some doubts on the value of vitamin D supplements in

preventing bone loss or osteoporosis.

So I'm sure this latest finding on vitamin D and autoimmune disease is very welcome news

for those who sell vitamin D supplements.

But it's also a textbook illustration of how scientific research and nutrition research

in particular works to either prove or disprove a hypothesis.

It's usually a multi-step process, and in today's information economy, each incremental

step in that process gets the same degree of fanfare and publicity, but this is not

always warranted.

I think when you can recognize where you are in that process, it can really help put

those endless headlines into context and keep all that information in perspective.

So let's break it down using this latest finding as an example.

...