The body makes vitamin D when skin is exposed to sunlight. Getting enough D can be as easy as exposing your face and forearms for 10 to 20 minutes in the noonday sun. You can also get D from milk and cold water fish like salmon. A safe target is 600-800 IUs a day.
The hormone, which helps regulate sleep-wake cycles, may help prevent migraines.
When doctors gave 34 migraine sufferers 3 mg of melatonin before bed for 3 months, 78% said the number of migraines had been cut in half, including 25% whose headaches vanished. Migraine intensity also dropped for most people, from 7 to 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. Melatonin may fine-tune brain chemicals that are out of balance in migraine sufferers, says study author Mario Peres, a neurologist. More study is needed before melatonin can be recommended for migraine.
Now associate professor Anthony Woods and colleagues have identified a compound found in the venom of native snakes, that may stop the growth of malignant tumours. Woods explains that tumours are living tissues and need a blood supply to fuel growth. To do so, tmours develop specialized blood vessels. Many cutting-edge cancer treatments attempt to starve the tumour of this blood supply, so arresting growth. The downside, however, of current therapies such as chemotherapy is that healthy cells are affected as well. But not so with the Australian snake venom. Woods discovered that, used at extremely low doses, the venomous compound kills the cells that line blood vessels in tumours but not healthy cells.
However, more research is needed before it can be tested in humans.