COVER STORY

Saved by the Sun?

Miraculous vitamin D
by Julia Bloore

For three decades now, we’ve been fed an unwavering message about how bad the sun is for us. Every summer we’re encouraged to ‘slip, slop, slap and wrap’ in order to protect ourselves and our children from its harmful rays: “We have one of the highest rates of melanoma skin cancer in the world, don’t you know? Come on New Zealand, wise up and get with the programme!”

But what if the very thing we’re protecting ourselves from is the answer to those melanomas? Not only that, what if it’s also the answer to other multiple illnesses that dramatically affect our nation? What if, all along, we’ve been making ourselves sicker and sicker, as we’ve been ‘safer and safer’?

Ian Wishart, award winning journalist and author, investigates the research around vitamin D in his book Vitamin D, is this the Miracle Vitamin? As co-editor and publisher of news magazine Investigate, he took some time to find out whether the hype around vitamin D was justified.

Issue 4 2013

FEATURED ARTICLES 

Rest of issue

"The most caring, loving, sensitive, balanced article on MARRIAGE I’ve read in a long time!"

- Brian

"Your magazine should be given to every couple who gets married. I’m sure it would help them – and probably save a lot of divorces."

- Jeff

"My husband never reads this kind of thing, but Grapevine’s cover caught his eye. He sat down, devoured the whole thing, and then said to me, ‘That’s what we’re missing – I think we should get some counselling’ …"

Judith

"Your last edition was so positive and helpful and optimistic – a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel at a time when my life seemed so disappointing. I’m sure other people found it the same."

Lisa

"Your latest edition on DEPRESSION really hit the spot, and helped me with some pressing needs in my personal life. I have never before felt my experience could be understood or appreciated by anyone else. Now I feel no longer alone with that lonely problem."

Valerie

"I find it impossible to read most things that come through my letterbox – but I never miss Grapevine. You reach me because you are real. Thank you for your honesty and your guts to stick with it."

Tessa

"Thanks for all the relationship help you offer in Grapevine. Now that I know I can change old patterns, I feel much stronger inside."

Michael