Do-over
You may want to consider getting your vitamin D level tested -- even if you just had one done. Last month, the country's biggest laboratory, Quest Diagnositcs, announced that the results of many of the vitamin D tests it performed between 2007 and 2008 were inaccurate, showing mistakenly high levels. In other words, you could still be at risk for deficiency of this essential nutrient. When they discovered the problem, the lab sent letters to the doctors who had sent patient blood samples to Quest for evaluation -- and there's a good chance your doctor may have been one of them. Quest refused to confirm just how many patients were affected by this snafu, but they also didn't deny that they sent these letters to thousands of doctors all across the country. Each doctor had at least one patient whose vitamin D test was likely inaccurate, and many had dozens. Those of you who have been reading Nutrition & Healing and the Health eTips for awhile know just how important vitamin D is -- to just about every aspect of your health. In fact, it may be THE most important disease-preventing vitamin there is. Even mainstream medicine has started to come around to the idea that we need much more of this critical nutrient than they'd been recommending. So if you're not getting enough, you're shortchanging your entire body. Talk to your doctor about whether the recent testing mistake affects you. Even if he or she doesn't use Quest, getting your levels re-tested (or tested, if you haven't already), just to be sure, certainly can't hurt. Source:
"Quest acknowledges errors in vitamin D test," The New York Times (www.nytimes.com), 1/8/09 | 
