Monthly Archives: June 2011

Increased Vitamin D Reduces Heart Disease

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So you have been feeling low in energy and have issues with your heart and your doctor wants to put you on statin drugs to help keep your cholesterol low and low dose aspirin.  Maybe you just need a good dose of sunshine.  But how much sunshine do you need or perhaps a better way to ask the question is how much vitamin D do you need?  A newly published report states that just 600 IU of vitamin D per day had a significant impact on reducing heart disease.  So if 30 minutes in the mid day summer sun with sixty percent of your skin surface exposed allows your body to produce 15,000 IU, to get to 600 IU would only take 1.2 minutes or 72 seconds.  Here is the report:  Heart risk lower in men who get enough vitamin D :   Reuters June, 2011 or from a couple of years ago: Low vitamin D level linked to heart disease  US News November, 2009

Now if this were a patentable drug, there would be extreme headlines and multiple commercials on tv every hour touting what a wonderful drug had been discovered.  So what the medical folks are telling us is if we spend less than two minutes in the midday sun we will reduce heart disease.  So how much time do we need to spend in the summer sun to eliminate heart disease?  It seems that if we keep our vitamin D3 25(OH)D level above 70 ng/ml there is significant increase in our general level of health.  So what does 70 ng/ml represent as far as sun exposure?  This is the average of people that live in a sunny country.

So what are the cardiologist saying about all of this?  Two examples:

Dr. William Davis, cardiologist in Milwaukee, writes the five most important things to prevent heart disease:  “The five most powerful heart disease prevention strategies”

Dr. Joe Prendergast, an endocrinologist in California, has reported in the past that by treating his patients with vitamin D and L-arginine, the heart disease reduced in his small town to the point that the three physician cardiology practice moved to another location because of lack of business.  Endocrine Metabolic

So just maybe a proper amount of vitamin D, iodine for your thyroid, eliminate wheat, enough omega 3’s, enough L-arginine or other nitric oxide source like niacin, and some fun exercise and you will have a healthy heart.  Where is all the stuff about the drugs and medical procedures that you need?  Find a cardiologist or endocrinologist that understands the science and you are on your way to health.  What about the government agencies that we pay to protect us?  You have to decide that one on your own. – Pandemic Survivor

Bisphosphonate and Vitamin D Interpretation makes me LAUGH

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The article in the LA Times from June 6, 2011:  “Vitamin D levels should be higher in people taking certain osteoporosis drugs, experts say.” 

Experts really have a way sometimes of justifying just being.  I AM AN EXPERT they shout at the top of their lungs when in reality they are no better than the average Joe.  The only thing that makes them an expert is the amount of time that they have spent on a particular subject.  This does not however improve their ability for logic.  This ‘blinders on’ focus can sometimes yield results that they want rather than what is observed.

The logic behind the statement that vitamin D levels need to be higher to allow the drug to work is absurd.  It is not that the drug is working better; it is that vitamin D without the drug is giving you stronger bones at a higher density.  Take our drug with vitamin D they say when all you need is an adequate amount of vitamin D.  Now you know why the IOM FNB on vitamin D and calcium reported such low requirements for vitamin D.  It was about being able to give you drugs.

Last October I reported on the warning about bisphosphonate drugs and how dangerous they are per the FDA warning.  “Bone Fractures Suspected with Anti-osteoporosis Drug”  In that report I show where Veronica Mocanu reported an average of 28 percent increase in bone density when women took 5,000 IU of D3 per day for a year.  Typical of a bisphophonate drug is less than 3 percent increase in bone density per year.  Now which component of the combination is increasing bone density.  It is obviously the vitamin D.  The bisphophonates will just cause you health problems.  I would like to confirm that finding of twenty five plus percent yearly increase in bone density as I have had two different women report to me that is exactly what happened to them.  The good part of this is that their doctor stopped hassling them about taking bisphophonates.

I am always in for a good laugh!  – Pandemic Survivor

Endocrine Society ‘Thumbs Nose’ at IOM for Serum Vitamin D Levels

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Endocrine Society ‘thumbs their nose’ at the IOM in announcing new clinical practice guidelines for vitamin D.  The IOM’s Food and Nutrition Board for vitamin D and calcium announced in November 2010 that the population had adequate vitamin D as long as the level of 25(OH)D was maintained at or above 20 ng/ml.  The new minimum by the Endocrine Society was established at or above 30 ng/ml for bone health.  The IOM made a big deal of the fact that they considered bone health only, but obviously got that wrong.  The Endocrine Society was initiated in 1916 to “to promote sound development and curb abuses” in relation to the new developments being made for the endocrine system.

Press Release:  Endocrine Society Announces New Clinical Practice Guidelines for Vitamin D

Medscape Article: Endocrine Society Issues Practice Guideline on Vitamin D

The Paper in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism:  Evaluation, Treatment, and Prevention of Vitamin D Deficiency: an Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline

I am very concerned that the Endocrine Society perpetuated the myth that vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 are acceptable for deficient patients.  This was done obviously to protect themselves from years of saying that D3 and D2 were equivalent in the human body.  This position has been firmly held by Dr. Michael Holick for his work in bone health.  It may be okay when considering bone health at serum levels below 50 ng/ml.  However, when getting the body up to levels of vitamin D found for people in a sunny country or levels necessary to protect against chronic disease like cancer and heart disease, vitamin D2 can begin to cause damage to the body, and this is the confusion in the literature.

The good news is that empathy for the patients being treated has been considered and not just the economic farming for the medical institutions.  This war of words that are played out in press releases and medical journals has now been going on for over eighty years.  We will get to the correct understanding eventually, but how many people have to die to maintain the profits of the medical/medical insurance industry?

For the best results in preventing disease, kept your serum 25(OH)D above 60 ng/ml.  There have been no cases of toxicity with a level below 200 ng/ml or people taking less than 30,000 IU of  D3 per day.    – Pandemic Survivor