Monthly Archives: May 2012

Perpetuating the Myth – Negative Studies for Vitamin D Keep Coming

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A study of blood test results from Denmark has shown that too little vitamin D as well as too much vitamin D is not good for you health.  The study was done on 247,574 blood samples that were taken from doctor visits.  The researchers were not surprised by too little vitamin D as not healthy, but had no answer for why the higher levels showed a higher mortality.  For levels at 10 nmol/L(4 ng/ml) or less presented mortality at 2.3 times of normal at 50 nmol/L(20 ng/ml).  What surprised the researchers was at 140 nmol/L(56 ng/ml) there was a mortality that was 1.42 times higher than normal.

I suspect there are two major reasons for a higher mortality at the higher level of vitamin D.  As we have discussed before, high levels of vitamin D2 are dangerous and can cause serious disease in the body.  This is the reason for the concern about vitamin D that goes back to the 1930’s when the medical industry said that vitamin D3 was equal to vitamin D2.  There were few cases of toxicity in the 1930’s with D3 and then they started coming at several per month when D2 was declared as equal. There was no distinction made in the study between 25(OH)D2 and 25(OH)D3.

The second reason is intimately tied to the first.  That is people that feel bad and know that they are ill will do almost anything to feel better.  This includes looking at ‘alternative medicine’ for results.  When they discuss their low vitamin D level with their doctor, the normal reaction is to write a script for 50,000 IU of D2 per week.  This amount of vitamin D would translate into a 25(OH)D level of 50ng/ml or higher in most people.

The only reason that I can think of that has prevented the separation of study results between the two types of vitamin D is because the myth of equality is perpetuated. There may also be a factor of laziness in how difficult it would be to separate the two.  Well, there may actually be another reason.  As long as the confusion persists, the money for research will kept coming.  I know that this may not be at the top of consciousness, but it always resides in the minds of managers in how to sustain employment.  As you note in the article sub title, “More studies are needed.” 

I would take the positive advice of Bill Sardi, a medical writer for over thirty years, in this article written for the Huffington Post, Getting Ahead of the Vitamin D Revolution Curve.   – Pandemic Survivor

Memorial Day Irony at HHS

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Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services, has a difficult and daunting job.  Every day she must balance between your health and the health of the economy.  As with any other job she has to do what the boss tells her to do.  With HHS and its eleven divisions, that sometime contradict each other’s efforts, decisions must be precise.  HHS has done a reasonably good job since 1960 with life expectancy moving from 69.77 to 78.9 in 2009.   Also during this same time period the rate of death has moved from 950 per 100,000 in 1960  to 794 per 100,000 in 2010. The growth of the medical sector of the economy has done well also.  It has moved from five percent of GDP in 1960 to over 18 percent now.  So giving you ten more years of life expectancy and reducing the death rate by 150 per 100,000 has had significant impact on keeping Americans employed.

On this Memorial Day, we should all remember with great appreciation the effort of many fallen Americans to protect our country against foreign attack.  We also should remember the effort of many Americans that never picked up a gun or joined the military but died so that we may have a better life.

Women’s Choice: According to the CDC -50 million abortions since 1970
Failure by the HHS to treat nutrition with the same importance as drugs:  250,000 unnecessary deaths per year.

If you factor in the above additional deaths, it changes our death rate to about 1350 per 100,000 or where we were in 1910.

Remember the efforts of many brave Americans to protect our “way of life.”  – Pandemic Survivor

Obesity and Chronic Disease – A Perfect Storm

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Obesity has become a huge issue as the medical economy sees this as a threat to its existence.  That is there is more illness than the population can sustain.  At some point the health industry’s percentage of GDP will reach break point.  We are now close to twenty percent of GDP and I suspect very close to the break point.  So how did we get here?  It is very simple when we decided that nutrition cannot heal, treat, cure, or diagnose disease.  A well managed chronic disease state will fail as the overreach to sustain the economy loses control to biology.

  • Vitamin D Deficiency rages about as government science struggles for economic reasons on how to tell the population.
  • Our soils have become deplete of necessary magnesium and medicine has turned its head as there is no easy test to determine if the body has enough.
  • Iodine has been replaced with halogen confusion as the human body has become a toxic waste dump.  Bromine, a known carcinogen, and fluorine have been substituted for our body’s iodine requirements.  Fluorine has been put in our water supplies as a lie to give us better teeth because it is now a chemical used in a process and not a hazardous waste that needs disposal.
  • Sulfur has been ignored in its importance in our biological systems because it is ubiquitous in the body.  However, water sources have had the hardness removed thus removing the very sulfates that are essential for health.  This elimination of sulfates from our water supplies has reduced the body’s ability to create water soluble esters that take waste from our bodies.  This is to say nothing of the other biological importance of sulfur.
  • A misunderstanding of the importance of fats in our bodies has lead to very serious disease.
  • Other nutrients like vitamin C have been negated by the medical industry’s mantra – it’s just a vitamin!

By Henry Lahore Vitamin D Wiki with more on vitamin D, iodine, and magnesium

So then comes along obesity to destroy the perfect control that our science community felt it has over chronic disease to sustain its economy.  Obesity as an unsuspected consequence of genetically engineered wheat and air conditioning threatens to wreck the perfectly controlled system.  Sound like science fiction?  A science fiction that has made you just another laboratory test animal – and now we enter another episode of the Twilight Zone!  – Pandemic Survivor

The Cause of Obesity

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Chill in the air sends excitement with goose bumps on the arms and warmth in the heart.  The first frost of October signals preparation of the smokehouse to receive the hickory wood for preservation of hams and shoulders.  After all, what would holidays or for that matter any winter morning be without the smell of fresh bacon cooking.  The thought of just cut tenderloin in hot homemade biscuits fosters  love in a warm household.  In the chilled morning air a large black iron kettle cracks and pops above the flickering fire as the fat is brought to a liquid state in preparation of lard.  The cracklings remains after the fat is removed are just begging to be placed in hot cornbread and hush puppies that will quiet even the most disturbed temperament.  Across the land the harvest is abundant as the above scene is played out many times with different types of food in anticipation of winter.

This historically has been and continues to be the inheritance of a successful nation.  An abundance of inexpensive food that has been processed over and over is now available as a replacement for a time when the family came together to bring in the harvest.  The chill in the air was all about the stimulation of appetite that is part of us just being mammals in anticipation of a hard cold winter.  Cold drives appetite.  With the introduction of air condition and food designed by profit hungry food companies to stimulate appetite, every morning is a chilled October morning.  This has been the condition of my house every since the first one I bought in the mid-seventies.  There was always appetite pleasing food and a cool ac environment, even on the hottest August day, you could hang meat for chilling.

For those of you who are regular readers, you know my discovery of being vitamin D deficient was stimulated by the finding there is a direct correlation between obesity and air conditioning in the US over the last fifty years.  I had always thought the correlation was driven by fat people who were hot and wanted to be cool.  As they became fatter they turned down the thermostat and installed more air condition for the comfort factor.  I then thought as a nation we had spent more time inside and the reduced vitamin D was the cause of obesity as it was plainly implicated in diabetes and metabolic syndrome.  However, it has been a “eureka” movement as I now believe air conditioning is directly responsible.  More air condition with unlimited amounts of chilled air drives an unlimited appetite.  Add to that processed food designed specifically to drive appetite after eating and you have an obese nation.

In those familiar words to scientists and engineers, a correlation does not mean causation.  However, without correlation there cannot be causation.  So how do we test this hypothesis that air conditioning has driven the obesity problem?  Of course an overweight nation seeking comfort will just immediately dismiss this as woo; defined by my European friend Henk Poley.  “Woo, a term used by scientific skeptics for pseudoscience, alternative medicine and New Age beliefs, or a person who holds such beliefs.” So if you want to test this woo yourself and need to shed a few pounds this summer then turn up your thermostat or just turn off the AC and open the window.  Hot, sweaty, thin, and healthy?  – Pandemic Survivor

NCI Fights for its Life in the War on Cancer

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The National Cancer Institute was established August 6, 1937 by Congress when it passed the National Cancer Institute Act. It was later made part of the National Institute of Health by the Public Health Service Act of July 1, 1944.  Its powers were later broadened in 1971 when Richard Nixon declared “war on cancer” (“in order more effectively to carry out the national effort against cancer”) by signing the National Cancer Act. It is now one of eleven divisions of Health and Human Services.  The funding for NCI for 2012 was roughly 5.2 billion dollars.

In 2008, Senators Biden and Obama issued a plan to double the funding for cancer research in five years that focused on the NIH and NCI.  The US Senate on March 26, 2009 issued the 21st Century Cancer Access to Life-Saving Early detection, Research and Treatment (Alert) Act.  (Wow, sounds really impressive).  The “stimulus package of 2009” included 10 billion dollars for the NIH for funding cancer research.  Thinking of his mother’s battle with ovarian cancer, President Barack Obama stated: “Now is the time to commit ourselves to waging a war against cancer as aggressive as the war cancer wages against us.”  Then in September 2009 Obama announced an additional 1 billion dollar package for genetic causes of cancer and targeted research.

So let’s look at the report card for the government’s funding of the war on cancer.  Deaths rates for cancer since 1970:

  • 1970 – 162.8 deaths per 100,000 in population
  • 1990 – 203.2
  • 1997 – 210.0
  • 2010 – 184.5

I am sure that the NCI has done a lot of good in the forty-two years since 1970 in things like drug development and genome mapping.  However, if you just look at the effect the government spending has had on death rates for cancer, then our efforts have been a miserable failure.  What is the solution?  Eliminate the National Cancer Institute.  With all of government funding for cancer in the HHS and its eleven divisions, the NCI has become a useless blight.

Does NCI hear the footsteps of the grim reaper?  Consider the paper they published in their own journal in April this year and read about the fear of supplements:  “Dietary Supplements and Cancer Prevention: Potential Benefits Against Proven Harms” – Martinez, et. Al. April 25, 2012.

Abstract

Nutritional supplementation is now a multibillion dollar industry, and about half of all US adults take supplements. Supplement use is fueled in part by the belief that nutritional supplements can ward off chronic disease, including cancer, although several expert committees and organizations have concluded that there is little to no scientific evidence that supplements reduce cancer risk. To the contrary, there is now evidence that high doses of some supplements increase cancer risk. Despite this evidence, marketing claims by the supplement industry continue to imply anticancer benefits. Insufficient government regulation of the marketing of dietary supplement products may continue to result in unsound advice to consumers. Both the scientific community and government regulators need to provide clear guidance to the public about the use of dietary supplements to lower cancer risk.

If you think about the cancer death rate at 162.8 in 1970 when the population smoked like a 19th century steel mill it makes one wonder. It seems to have increased to a peak in 1997 at 210.4.  It was in the late 90’s that the researchers for vitamin D got really active in promoting vitamin D for cancer prevention and cure.  Since that time the death rate has reduced to 184.5 in 2010.  It was in the 60’s when the promotion of sun fear and the dangers of the sun causing skin cancer really started being promoted.  I believe this was responsible for the increase in cancer to its peak in 1997.  Could the impact of our connection with the sun and the change in vitamin D production in the body be solely responsible for the change in cancer rates?

Based on the fear of supplements by the NCI as it fights for its life, I believe the answer is yes.  The above article was bad enough, but to send out its shills to promote the misinformation is outrageous.  Consider this article in EmaxHealth by Timothy Boyer – “Dr. Oz Vitamin D Dose Advice Supported by Vitamin D Megadoze Warnings”    Look at the fear promotion from this extract as Mr. Boyer promotes some significant miss-truths: A past National Cancer Institute study reported no cancer protection from Vitamin D and the possibility of an increased risk of pancreatic cancer in people with the very highest Vitamin D levels. Megadoses of and above 10,000 IUs a day are also known to cause kidney damage.  And by the way, vitamin D will make your hair turn grey and hairs grow on your nose.

The sound of your footsteps is scaring the crap out of NCI.  Do not become collateral damage in this war on cancer.  Keep your 25(OH)D above 60 ng/ml and watch the NCI squirm.  – Pandemic Survivor

The Danger of Vitamin D!

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I have read estimates that range from one hundred fifty thousand deaths per year to over one million in the US alone from being vitamin D deficient.  The lack of vitamin D is a serious killer. There are over two hundred diseases that have been associated with vitamin D deficiency, but the ‘big three killers’ are mostly responsible, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.  Of course the numbers that are in pain from vitamin D deficiency and the resulting diseases are huge.  The question occurs to me how does this compare to other things that you can get over the counter.

The number of deaths that are caused each year by non-steroidal NSAID’s is alarming.  I am including here aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen.  It is estimated there are over one hundred thousand hospitalizations and seventeen thousand deaths each year from these over-the-counter analgesics.  The number of deaths that are caused each year from cirrhosis of the liver is typically around thirty thousand.  Now only four hundred fifty deaths per year have been attributed directly to acetaminophen (the deaths that are paid out in the courts – about one third of liver failures are the result of acetaminophen use).  If you combine alcohol and acetaminophen, you are playing a deadly game with the liver.  The new habit of college students that eat low calorie during the day so they can drink at night and then pop a couple of acetaminophens for the headache is a sure ticket to a slow painful death.

There is concern taking too much vitamin D will cause you problems.  The numbers of deaths that have been caused by taking too much vitamin D typically range year to year at zero.  Since the amount of iron has been reduced in vitamin supplements, this is true for all supplements year to year death rate of zero.  So what about the news articles of the possibility of causing harm from too much vitamin D?  Too much is more than 30,000 IUs per day and there is no toxicity in the medical record for less than 40,000 IUs per day.  So the 5,000 to 10,000 IUs per day to keep you healthy has a safety factor of four.

The danger of vitamin D is not getting enough!    – Pandemic Survivor

Vitamin D Yields Happy Mother’s Day

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I am the proud grandfather of a baby boy.  My daughter gave birth to Lee Isaac yesterday afternoon.  Mother and baby are doing great.  What a great Mother’s day gift.

My daughter, a pharmacist at a local state university hospital, took vitamin D regularly during her pregnancy.  She took five thousand IU per day and typically took an additional five thousand IU every third day.  This averages out to about sixty five hundred IU per day.

She had irregular contractions throughout this past week.  She slept fine on Thursday night and woke up in labor about five thirty on Friday morning.  She was in the hospital by ten o’clock after a visit to her doctor’s office.  During the week, her blood pressure remained low.  Readings were typical of 110/65 with no danger of preeclampsia just as recent studies have shown.  There were no need for pain meds during labor and the baby was born at 2:15pm.

This is my daughter’s second child and she took vitamin D with her first child as well.  What are we to make of all this?  If you are pregnant and want to have a happy Mother’s Day, then you should also assure that you are getting enough vitamin D.  There is no guarantee that your pregnancy and birth process will go as well as my daughter’s, but why take the risk of being vitamin D deficiency?   – Pandemic Survivor

Time for the Sun – Protection

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“With the introduction of sunscreen, our relationship with the sun has changed forever.”

In the last several posts we have discussed the issues with sunscreen.  To be clear, sunscreen will somewhat protect you from skin cancer that is not life threatening like basal cell carcinoma, but there is no evidence that it stops melanoma.  Betting you life on a chemical rubbed on the skin is risky business.  If you have to spend a lot of time in the sun, then your best protection is to allow your skin to become tan and wear clothing and hats to protect yourself.  If you must use a cream to protect your skin, then use the type that has titanium dioxide or zinc oxide to reflect the UV away.

The use of sunscreens does not stop melanoma.  This is the reason that the melanoma rate is so high in Australia.  The ozone layer thickens over that area of the earth and acts just like the older sunscreens in allowing all the UVA through and blocking the UVB.  In other words, the amount of vitamin D production is reduced and the opportunity for skin cancer has increased.  This is our current relationship with the sun because of sunscreen use.

Annesofie Faurschou, M.D., Ph.D., of Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark, and colleagues conducted a study on vitamin D production when using sunscreen.  They used the recommended amount suggested by the World Health Organization to prevent burning of 2 mg/cm­3. (if I did the math right that would be about 1250 mg/in2 – sorry about the mixed units – about a tenth of an ounce for every three square inches)  At the recommended amount there was no significant increase in serum vitamin D.  The article was published in April online in the British Journal of Dermatology.  Here is a summary from the DoctorsLounge.com 

Using sunscreen is like a double whammy for your health.  It will not stop melanoma unless it is the type with mineral filler.  It prevents you from making vitamin D that is required for health.  This has been the condition of the population for the last fifty years.  To think that fair skin populations have had a ten-fold increase in the melanoma rate over the last fifty years is very concerning.  Australia’s promotion of sun protection did not seem to help the problem because of misinformation about chemical sunscreens.  Your best experience in the sun is to not burn first and do not depend on sunscreen to prevent cancer as it may make it worse.

Do go into the sun when the UVB is the highest for the best results for vitamin D production between the hours of 11 am to 2 pm.  Do not allow yourself to be burned by the sun.  After an adequate time for vitamin D production, protect your skin with clothes and hats.  Embrace our long heritage in receiving life from the sun – enjoy it.  – Pandemic Survivor

Time for the Sun – The FDA Intrudes

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Before I begin, I would like to apologize for the errors and bad writing in the last post.  I was uploading from McDonald’s at the beach and didn’t finish editing before I lost the connection.

By the late nineties, the scientific evidence was clear that sunscreen and sun-block were not preventing skin cancer.  The UVA rays were not being stopped from penetrating the skin was a skin cancer issue.  Also the many claims by the pharma’s that their products would stop skin cancer were not confirmed so the FDA asked for label changes to drop the cancer prevention claims.  There is no scientific evidence that sunscreen stops melanoma.  The FDA’s request failed in the courts in 2000 as John Roberts, present Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, ruled that the FDA could not stop the manufacturers from making the outrageous claims about cancer prevention.  This ruling was in direct violation of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994 about no substance can claim it will prevent, cure, or treat disease without it being called a drug and following all the rules for drugs.

Move forward another decade, the FDA has been able to get the sunscreen industry to make label changes.  You may view the detail of the changes and even watch some video shorts of their reasons for making the changes at the FDA website.  The videos deal with the two types of frequencies and how the sunscreens will now be required to reduce the UVA rays as well.  Also the word ‘sun-block’ will no longer be allowed for use on the label because this is a complete exaggeration, or if you prefer – lie.  Also the word waterproof will no longer be allowed because all lotion will eventually lose its integrity.  The words ‘Broad Spectrum’ in addition to the SPF number will be required to show that the sunscreen slows UVA rays as well UVB.  These changes take place in June of 2012, this month.

Dr. Gorham in his video that we have been referring to, Skin Cancer/Sunscreen – the Dilemma, shows that the chemicals used to slow UVA only works in the frequency range that is closer to the UVB.  It does not work in the more intense energy frequency range of UVA that is closer to the violet spectrum of visible light. This means that the slowing of the UVA energy by new ‘Broad Spectrum’ sunscreen may not be adequate to prevent skin cancer.  The visible spectrum then continues into the color ranges of indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red.  To remember the light spectrum you may use the mnemonic name Roy G. Biv.  Of course going in shorter wavelength of spectrum you have UVA, UVB, UVC, x-rays, and gamma radiation.

My question is what happens to the energy of the UVA that is being slowed by the chemicals.  Does it re-radiate into the longer UVA wavelengths.  It is my belief that the only way the sunscreens will ever protect us is to have a lotion that will radiate the UV energy into the visible spectrum.  This would be a really ‘cool’ product as well as you could see of the person glow in violet and indigo as they are exposed to UV radiation.  The kids would love this.  Let’s see how long before this suggestion finds its way onto the shelves.  Of course there are sunscreens that reflect the UV radiation with products that have either titanium dioxide or zinc oxide.  These typically look white on the skin and are not consider pleasing to the eye.  However, they may be even more effective than dark pigmented skin in preventing melanoma.  All UV reduction products prevent the formation of vitamin D!

As a last thought on the FDA, why did the label changes not include a warning that UVB reduction products will prevent an essential nutrient from forming, vitamin D, or more importantly an essential hormone? -1 It would seem that if the government was really concerned about health, especially with the high incidence of osteoporosis it would not want vitamin D in the population reduced.

Now as I am thinking about it there are many other oddities by government in the vitamin D arena.  The IOM’s Food and Nutrition Board totally discounted all the evidence pointing toward the prevention of over two hundred other diseases and said there was enough vitamin D in the population to prevent osteoporosis and plainly stated they only considered bone health. -2 The FNB violated the National Academy of Science strict conflict of interest policy without action by the US or Canada for breach of contract.  -3 The division of HHS for Research and Health Quality did not separate the studies provided to the FNB for vitamin D3 versus vitamin D2 (confusion by complexity). -4 Our now Chief Justice, John Roberts, ruled in 2000 that the FDA could not stop the outrageous lie that skin cancer was prevented by sunscreen thus increasing the use of sunscreen. -5 Why was this ruling not challenged in the Supreme Court as a violation of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994? -6 Health and Human Services will not allow the use of mandates in the health industry because markets are more important than your health – former Secretary Leavitt’s words.  -7 The class action lawsuit of 2006 against the sunscreen industry for their lack of truth about sunscreen was basically dropped with a small payment (less than fifty thousand) to the National Cancer Institute, a US agency – odd as NCI did not initiate the lawsuit.  – 8 Does the US health industry increase from five percent of GDP in 1960 to over eighteen percent of GDP in 2009 without the manipulation of a large sick population? -9 Is there a conspiracy going on?  Yes I used the word and this is not the first time it has been used in relation to vitamin D.  The US Government used it when they took 16 multinationals to court for conspiracy in manipulating the vitamin D market in the 1940’s.  Now is that same government intimately involved?  Just asking the questions – I know vitamin D professionals cannot ask the questions without fear of their careers.    – Pandemic Survivor