On last.fm: Check out Lil Wayne's Music for Free
Find Articles in:
all
Business
Reference
Technology
News
Sports
Health
Autos
Arts
Home & Garden
advertisement
advertisement

Content provided in partnership with
Thomson / Gale

Sunny exposition

Science News,  Jan 13, 2007  by Nancy Axford,  J. Ralloff,  Graeme Mcrae

"The Antibiotic Vitamin" (SN: 11/11/06, p. 312) reminds me that in preantibiotic days, tuberculosis patients were put on a fresh-air-and-sunshine regimen. Could the vitamin D so acquired account for the cures this system sometimes produced?

NANCY AXFORD, SACRAMENTO, CALIF.

Researcher John J. Cannell points to TB sanitariums as anecdotal evidence that sunlight fights infections.

Does the vitamin D in milk help protect against infection?

GRAEME MCRAE, PALMDALE, CALIF.

Probably not, according to Michael Holick of Boston University, who has measured the vitamin's content in milk. Far better, he says, would be cod-liver oil, with "a whopping 1,360 [international units of vitamin D] per tablespoon."

COPYRIGHT 2007 Science Service, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning