Arabic Doctor Stunned By Diagnosis Of Breast Cancer, Touts Mammograms Instead of Sunshine and Vitamin D Pills

Hooded in traditional Arabic garb, Dr. Sami Al-Amoudi receives worldwide attention for her efforts to make breast cancer a national agenda in Saudi Arabia. She was shocked when she was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer herself. Only 10 days after she discovered she had breast cancer, Dr. Al-Amoudi spoke to a support group and admitted her mistake of not getting a mammogram, a typical occurrence in Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Al-Amoudi’s passion is misplaced. She needs to be teaching Arabic women to take vitamin D pills rather than to expose their breasts to radiation and undergo breast trauma during mammograms. Arabic women have much lower vitamin D levels due to their traditional clothing that shrouds the skin. Asia Pacific Journal Clinical Nutrition 2006; 15(1):81-7]. Even though they live in hot, sunny lands, closer to the equator than most other human populations, their vitamin D levels are very low. Dr. Al-Amoudi fails to heed the latest science, that women who took a vitamin D pill (1100 IU) for 4 years reduced their risk for all types of cancer by 60-77%. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 85, No. 6, 1586-1591, June 2007] Population studies show the lowest rates of cancer in the world are in equatorial zones, which produces high vitamin D levels.

Vitamin D levels below 20 nanograms per milliliter of blood represents a frank deficiency. A study in Lebanon, which is a westernized Arabic country, showed 73% of men and women had vitamin D levels below 12 nanograms. Severe vitamin D deficiency (less than 5 nanograms) was observed amoung 62% of veiled women compared to 42% of unveiled women. J Bone Miner Research 2000 Sep; 15(9):1856-62] - © 2007 Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc.