Vitamin D Expert Michael Holick Receives Linus Pauling Prize for Health Research
Dr. Michael Holick, a professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics who has revolutionized the understanding of vitamin D and its role in disease prevention, today received the $50,000 Linus Pauling Institute Prize for Health Research.
The recognizes international leaders in research on the role of diet and nutrition in health promotion and disease prevention, as well as efforts to disseminate knowledge on diet, lifestyle and health to enhance public health and reduce suffering from disease.
Holick was the first scientist to isolate the active forms of vitamin D, and he is responsible for redefining vitamin D deficiency, a concern that's now seen as a national epidemic. He fought against a number of entrenched ideas about sunlight over the past 20 years, warning that abstinence from direct sun exposure through sunblock use was leading to increasing vitamin D deficiency, with serious implications for cancer and other diseases.
Holick's work opened a wide field of investigation that has now demonstrated how vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of cancer, autoimmune diseases, infectious and cardiovascular disease. And studies have concluded that more than 50 percent of the children and adults in the United States are vitamin D deficient.