Vitamin D Monitoring

Low vitamin D increases the risk of:

• Cancer

• Heart disease and Congestive Heart Failure

• Auto-immune diseases

• IBD – inflammatory bowel disease

• Kidney disease

• Allergies / Atopic dermatitis
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Vitamin D plays a big role in preventing and fighting cancer. Vitamin D has been shown to increase the production of several tumor suppressor genes and can promote apoptosis, or programmed cancer cell death. Vitamin D also interferes with insulin-like growth factor and tumor growth factor ( TGFb). Vitamin D indirectly affects growing tumors by disrupting angiogenesis or new blood vessel production – the tumors nutritional supply – and inhibits vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF).

While humans can derive vitamin D from both sun exposure and diet, dogs and cats rely almost exclusively on diet for vitamin D. Amounts of vitamin D in diets both commercial and home-made vary widely, and other factors affecting Vitamin D levels include age, breed, sex, medications given, and concurrent diseases. As vitamin D plays a crucial role in regulating blood calcium, attempts to simply supplement the diet with vitamin D can lead to hypercalcemia, which can be dangerous and potentially toxic. Monitoring serum vitamin D before supplementation and into therapy is critical.

For these and many other reasons, Animal Healing Center encourages you to have your pet’s Vitamin D tested today. Please ask your veterinarian for this test.