Author Archives: Mark Pegram

Inorganic Sulfate and the Nervous System

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We had established earlier that inorganic sulfate has many roles for health in this post:  Human Health – Sulfur and the Vitamin D Connection

We also found that the sodium-sulfate co-transporters are controlled by vitamin D.  “Critical role of vitamin D in sulfate homeostasis: regulation of the sodium-sulfate cotransporter by 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 ” Bolt, et.al. Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, May 27, 2004. 

I would now like to consider what effects sulfate has on the central nervous system.  In the article found on the USDA website, “Sulfate” (pdf),  there is a list of many compounds that are critical to health that are formed out of the energy cycle ATP-ADP in combination with inorganic sulfate.  One of the listed compounds is cerebroside sulfate.  A variation of this compound (galactose) makes up two percent of grey matter and twelve percent of white matter.  The glucose variation is found in many organ cells, neurons, and skin where it acts to maintain water permeability.

The galactose variation is the major component of the myelin sheath that protects your nerves throughout the body.  The health of this sheath also dictates the speed and proper response of nerve signal transmission by maintaining a local reservoir of sodium and potassium.  I think that this is the major pathway of vitamin D that reduces pain all over the body.  Galactoslycerimides are not found in plants.  I guess since there is not a nervous system there is no need.

I may have related a story to you earlier by a pharmacist that had difficulty in controlling a patient’s pain without having the patient pass out from the meds.  At the insistence of a relative of the patient for a change in meds, the pharmacist decided to try adding a significant amount of vitamin D.  With the addition of the vitamin D3, the patient was able to have the meds reduced by half and remained lucid.  To me this is an amazing story that says generalized pain can be significantly reduced just by the addition of vitamin D3.

In the morning, I notice a significant clearing of the brain after drinking a mineral water that has a significant amount of sulfate added as magnesium sulfate.  I go many times without any coffee because it is not needed with the mineral water.

There are two things that we do as a society that really bothers me.  First, we spend huge amounts of money to take the hardness out of the water.  The hardness is normally caused by calcium and magnesium sulfate and/or chloride.  This water is not harmful to human health, but beneficial to human health.  It has been promoted as theory that the reason the low death rate for heart disease in both Greece and Japan are because of the high sulfate in the water.  This hardness is not a problem for water systems as long as carbonate is not introduced.  If carbonate is introduced or occurs naturally, then the calcium carbonate precipitates out of solution fouling the water system.  Our water supply systems should remove the carbonate and leave the rest of the minerals.  Of course, we would not get many suds formation when washing.  This could actually be a good thing in washing.

Second, when you have a blood test only three of the four major anions in the blood are measured routinely.  Phosphate, chloride, and bicarbonate are routinely measured and the levels used as markers or indicators for various biological functions.  However, the fourth, sulfate, is not measured.  To me this is an extremely necessary part of health and standards should be developed for serum sulfate levels.  It most likely could be used as a marker for various disease states like heart disease or the ability to cope with pain.

In whatever way you decide through diet, supplementation, or soaking in an Epsom salts bath; be sure that you are getting enough sulfates.  – Pandemic Survivor

Cooked Pork and the Flu

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I had decided earlier the incidence of the flu would be low in the US this year.  I was wrong.  There has been an early spike in the incidence of the flu that occurred in the southeast starting in mid-October.  This is very unusual for the flu as most of the time the highest incidence starts in the northeast and northwest and spreads across the rest of the country.  The timing was odd as well as normally the spike occurs in January and February.  I was struggling for an explanation and then this interesting thought struck me.

It was the Saturday before Christmas and we had gathered at my youngest daughter’s house to celebrate.  My daughter had just had a baby two weeks earlier and was stuck at home for Christmas because of the premature birth.  My other daughter and her husband and two children joined us as well.  What a great time.  My son-in-law decided to have pork tenderloin; roasted on his shinny new grill.  I love pork tenderloin.

As he started to cook he stated that it would not be long as the pork only needed to get to 145­­ 0F.  Having grown up on a farm where we slaughtered hogs every year I was alarmed.  Surely he understood the warnings in the Old Testament about eating pork to say nothing of the billions of Muslims that also have a prohibition against eating pork.  The reason, I believe, pork has historically caused disease when not being properly prepared.  He also had not been inside of the large slaughter houses that I have seen in Smithfield, VA and Tarheel, NC.  I inquired and was informed that the Government said that 145 degrees was high enough temperature for cooked pork.  I was tense.  It was his house and I did not want to insult him as he seemed very trusting of Government and it bastions of institutions and the scientist.

In came the pork and it was blessed and my mouth was watering as I will say it again, there is no better tasting meat than pork tenderloin.  I cut into the pork and there were the pink centers and that smell of pork that says, “I have not been properly cooked.”  I ate the side dishes, feigned swooning over a grandchild, and left the pork on my plate.  I love pork tenderloin.  As I rocked the baby boy to sleep, I whipped out my smart phone and sure enough in May, 2012 the USDA had changed the cooked temperature to 145.  It stated that expert chefs had always insisted that 145 was the ideal temperature for pork.  You know, I am one of those expert chefs when it comes to cooking pork and I like mine well done.  However, if pork is slow cooked on a grill or smoker, I am just fine with the temperature at 145.  But slow cooking means that the meat is held at that temperature for four to six hours which allows the proteins and fats to convert to that extremely pleasing flavor.  I have gotten up many mornings at four am to fire the hickory down to embers and start cooking the pork shoulders for consumption in the evening.  It usually takes at least eight hours by this method to allow the pork to develop to a proper delightful taste.  Pork roasted on a grill at 300 or above should not be eaten until the pork internal temperature reaches 170.  You have to be careful when using this fast cooking method as it is easy to dry the pork out.

I was struggling yesterday with why the flu outbreak had started in the southeast when that ‘light’ went off in my head.  A quick look at the temperature required to kill the flu virus and I found that most viruses die instantly at a temperature between 163 to 170 0F.  One source said that most flu virus could withstand a 145 degree temperature for thirty minutes or more.  A quick review of the USDA websites and the CDC shows that most bacteria die off at under 140 but for poultry, it is necessary to be sure that poultry reaches 165 so that viral contamination is properly controlled.  WHAT?  All other meats except poultry are required to reach a temperature of 160 according to the USDA.  How could the USDA come to the conclusion that 145 is okay for pork, but poultry must reach the temperature of 165 to make sure all the viruses have died.  Control against the bird flu but not against the swine flu?  Has our GOVERNMENT made the same mistake it made in scaring us out the sun for fifty years?  Swine have long been known to carry many types of viruses that can be easily transferred to people.

Nobody loves their pork better than people from the southeast.  If restaurants are now cooking pork quickly at higher temperatures, then eating pork at a restaurant may be like playing roulette with you health – some is virus free and other may not be.   The USDA and CDC say there is no danger of getting the flu from eating properly prepared pork or poultry.  Could twenty degrees difference in final cooked temperature be the cause of the flu outbreak this year in the Southeast?

Vitamin D will protect you from the flu.  However, when your exposure to virus is extreme, then your increased immunity can still be compromised.  Thank you son-in-law; informing me of the cooked temperature change by the USDA is the best Christmas present ever.  I am wondering now when I went for seven days without vitamin D and contracted a severe cold if eating pork twice that week had anything to do with it. You can bet I will not be eating any pork until the USDA changes the temperature for pork back to at least 160 like the rest of meat.  I will still be enjoying pork, but only pork that I know has been properly prepared.  – Pandemic Survivor

The Great Vitamin D Versus Cold Immune System Experiment

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When there are just you, statistical significance relates only to you.  This is an odd kind of statement, but when you are considering whether to take a measure against something that may happen to you, the only thing that concerns you is whether it happens to you.  Of course you can always commit a type 1 error, or believe that something is present when it is not.  When given multiple possibilities, the one that makes the least assumptions is the correct one – you may know this as Occam’s razor.  My simple hypothesis is that we seldom get colds or the flu in the summer because of exposure to the sun which gives us more vitamin D.

Since I started regularly taking vitamin D in November of 2004, I had only one incidence of the sniffles that could be considered a cold.  Last year, I had the sniffles that lasted approximately thirty six hours and may have been related to my allergy to wheat and not a viral infection.  So had the vitamin D along with the several grams of vitamin C and the 25 mg of zinc that I take per day prevented me from having a cold for over eight years?  The only way to tell was to test.  I stopped taking my normal 10,000 IU of vitamin D3 per day.

It was the first of November and a great time to test as my children and my grandchildren seem to all have colds.  I stopped taking the vitamin D one week before Thanksgiving.  On Thanksgiving Day, my nose started to run.  By the next morning, I was completely stopped up and felt terrible.  It only took seven days without vitamin D3 to get my first real cold in eight years.  As far as I am concerned that was proof enough.  In not having a cold for so long, you forget how miserable you can feel with a viral infection that drags out.  I returned to taking vitamin D, but it was not getting better after three days.  I then decided to ‘take a trip to the beach.’

In the winter time, my escape to the Caribbean Islands is to take fifty thousand IU’s of vitamin D3.  I believe this is the amount that I would make in about two days at the beach with a significant amount of skin surface exposed.  The Sunday after Thanksgiving, I took the fifty thousand IU’s.  I did this until Wednesday or for four days.  Finally the symptoms went away and I could breathe again by Thursday.  I will not repeat this experiment again!

To give consideration to the amount of vitamin D that I missed versus the amount of increase to feel better, review this balance.  I went for seven days without D3.  That was a reduction of 70,000 IU that I would normally have taken.  I then started again at 10,000IU per day but my cold was not getting better.  I then went to 50,000IU per day for four days before I got better.  This represents a ‘make-up’ of 160,000 IU (4 days x 50,000 – 4 x10,000  “my normal intake”) to get my immune system to respond.  So in the fourteen day period, I had 90,000 IU (160,000 – 70,000) more than I would normally have taken.  Once your immune system has gone down, it takes more than normal vitamin D to get it to respond quickly.  This should be a lesson in the design of experiments when trying to give a large dose and then measure whether it is effective over a long period.  Vitamin D works best when received every day with an adequate amount.  CNN – “Vitamin D supplements no help for colds, flu”

Ah, eight days at the beach in the Caribbean and my cold went away.  Since I could not afford to take the time to go to the Caribbean, the one dollar worth of vitamin D that I took was a very easy and cost effective solution.  The formula to prevent colds and the flu:  Per day, 40 IU of vitamin D3 per pound of body weight every day without missing.  If you weigh 150 pounds then 6,000 IU per day.  If you miss a day then make it up by taking twice as much the next day.  Take one gram (1000 mg) of vitamin C per fifty pounds of body weight per day.  If you weigh 150 pounds then three grams per day.  Take 5 mg of zinc per day for every fifty pounds of body weight.  If you weigh 150 pounds then 15 mg per day.

Sounds simple, it is simple.  You may say that taking all those supplements really bothers and you don’t want to do it.  I say fine, go ahead and have colds and the flu and feel miserable.  Meanwhile, I will spend my winters in the Caribbean in the sun.   – Pandemic Survivor

I’m Back! Apology to My Readership

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I apologize to my readership for having taken a three and a half month leave from writing.  I have had six deaths in my extended family since last March and the grief has been burdensome.  Add to this tragedy the joy of two new grandchildren and an emotional rollercoaster has presented itself like no other.   I come from a large family – eight siblings.  We have had three mother-in-law deaths including my own this past week, my sister, and a nephew and his wife (they are my age).   The joy is two grandsons that finally make the men in my immediate family outnumber the women.  Two son-in-laws, two grandsons, and myself makes the men outnumber the women by five to four – an end to estrogen hell! – Just kidding girls!

I had to make a decision about what is more important in my life.  There is no explanation for the logic.  The good thing for you is that these tragedies and joys have help me to understand that the most important thing in my life is to help educate the general population to the understanding that nutrition is more important than the way we are currently practicing modern medicine.  This has been made clear to me through my survival of very serious disease.  As stated by the founded of Apple, Steve Jobs, our purpose is defined by death and renewal.  Stanford, June, 2005 commencement speech: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

Where does that leave me with established medical practice?  I am scared.  The DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disease) was just recently changed to include depression from grief to only have an exclusion of two months.  I have exceeded that exclusion by one and half months.  Does this make me clinically depressed?  No I made choices about what to do with my time as responsibilities to my family changed significantly.  Could I have gotten drugs for my crisis?  I am sure that I could have, but that would have been ridiculous because the side effects from the drugs would have been worse than the grief that I have suffered.  This is to say nothing about being put on a new electronic list as part of medical records that seemingly all institutions now have access to.  Article from Wired: Psychiatry’s New Rules Threatens to Turn Grieving into a Sickness http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/12/dsm-5-bereavement/

Only in God and love can resolution be found as His desire for us is spiritual joy, peace, and love.  I leave you with the words of Jim Valvano’s Espy Speech when he was only two months from death with cancer:  “To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Valvano#ESPY_speech

Thanks for continuing to read! – Pandemic Survivor

Taking Out the Cellular Trash

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It is a bright sunny day.  I am anxious with the anticipation of sun on my face and then,

“Mark”

“Yes dear.”

“Will you take out the trash before you go into the sun?”

Our cells just like my wife are constant in their alerting you cells have become clogged with trash that needs to be removed.  You feel down and out or have not waked completely from that long restful sleep.  So how does the body get rid of this cellular trash?  There are many mechanisms that are responsible at the cellular level for removal of left over fragments  from the normal respiration of the energy engines of the cells – mitochondrial bodies.

Over looked in this array of ‘trash removal’ is the need for sulfate to form water soluble esters that latch onto the fragments and remove them through the normal process in the kidneys.  The esters will grab onto anything that is a carbon radical or metal that should be removed.  This includes things like the method used to detoxify the liver when one has taken too much acetaminophen.  The common practice is to use methionine, a high sulfur protein.  Sulfur, as sulfate, also acts to remove metal from the brain such as toxic aluminum.  Aluminum is one of the toxins implicated in Alzheimer disease.  I suspect that other diseases that are hard to define are also a result of the clogging of energy engines in the cells like fibromyalgia.

Municipalities spends millions each year in removing the hardness from our water that most commonly occurs as sodium and calcium sulfate.  If the content of this ‘essential’ mineral is too high in the water, above 500 ppm, it will lead to an uncomfortable taste.  If the high mineral water comes into contact with a carbonate, it will precipitate in the pipes as a hard calcium deposit.  This is not that dissimilar to what happens in your arteries when you develop plaque, which is mostly a calcium plaque.

Vitamin D controls the balance of minerals in our bodies.  Vitamin D3 and its metabolites along with vitamin K2 act to help the body take care of calcium in the metabolic process of the body.  Vitamin D is particularly beneficial in controlling the sodium sulfate co-transporters that can be found in the dermal linings of all parts of the body as well as all the organs.    “Critical role of vitamin D in sulfate homeostasis: regulation of the sodium-sulfate cotransporter by 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 ” Bolt, et.al. Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, May 27, 2004. 

Are you getting enough sulfur as inorganic sulfur?  The science is very thin on this subject.  You may find this article helpful from the USDA website:  “Sulfate” (pdf) The authors state that most of the sulfur in our diets comes from the turnover of sulfur rich proteins both from plants and meats.  However, it also describes the body’s need for the inorganic sulfate.   How can you assure that you are getting enough sulfur?  Many nutritionist that ascribe to the paleo diet suggest you need at least three cups of cruciferous and allium vegetables per day in addition to the other proteins that you get from your normal diet.  Here is a helpful post from the Dr. Mercola website:  “Dr Reverses MS in 9 Months by Eating These Foods”    Also this full free text article from Pub Med “Allium vegetables and organosulfur compounds: do they prevent cancer?”     Please note the volatile compounds listed in this article are all sulfates.  This is what causes your eyes to tear when you cut into an onion.  The volatile sulfate forms sulfuric acid in your eyes and results in the ‘burn.’

Listen to your Mom when she says, “Eat your vegetables.”   If you want to become fully awake in a hurry or get over a handover, try an onion.   – Pandemic Survivor

“Excess Vitamin D Linked to Retardation” – November 25, 1964

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What started the scare of vitamin D supplementation?  It was a fear campaign that was started by doctors from worry of vitamin D causing mental retardation.  It was just bad science, and worse, it was extremely bad medicine.  Dr. Robert E. Cooke, Pediatrician from John Hopkins, seems to have been at the lead of making the announcement public.  This bit of bad news may be solely responsible for the suffering and deaths of millions of people from 1964 until the present day.  Consider this summary paragraph at the end of the article in the Spokane Daily Chronicle: “In addition to mental retardation, Dr. Cooke said, an excess of vitamin D apparently causes narrowings of major vessels of the body, kidney ailments, heart murmurs, and high blood pressure.”  This last sentence makes me think that the good doctor knew better.   This sounds like someone just throwing out fear statements with an agenda.  Of course, modern research has shown just the opposite of everything that was stated except you may get heart arrhythmias if you are not getting enough magnesium.

I am sure that the thalidomide scare of birth defects also drove the misinformation of Dr. Cooke about vitamin D.  Huge numbers of mothers had been misinformed about thalidomide.  There were many cases of birth defects and lots of pictures in the press of malformed babies.  No one wants malformed babies!  The drug was used as a sedative for anxiety and morning sickness – ouch.  There were over 10,000 cases of malformed babies around the world.  Pictures of babies with missing limbs were horrific.

This was the end of the use of cod liver oil, CLO, as a supplement on a scale of any size.  I was thirteen at the time and was a happy guy because I did not like the taste of the cod liver oil.  I remember well my mother remarking that it was odd that she had been told all those years that the CLO was good for you and now the medical profession was telling us to stop.  Sound familiar?  It is no wonder the public does not know who to trust when we have been told lies for over fifty years for profit in the name of not harming the population.  If you don’t believe this is still going on, consider the three billion dollar fine that GSK just agreed to pay for misrepresenting drugs.  Of course in those days, there was more trust of the medical profession than today.  The public has become weary.

The question becomes, how close was Dr. Cooke tied to politics?  He was friends of Eunice and Sargent Shriver.  Mrs. Shriver is the sister of President John F. Kennedy. I am sure there was some good that came from this relationship.  The Kennedy institute that was formed for children with developmental problems.   And then there was the Wisconsin connection as he married a colleague from there.   The University of Wisconsin is ground zero for the science of vitamin D and analog development.  There has even been admission by UW researchers that beneficial vitamin D science was withheld to prevent the competition from beating them to drug development.

I am not saying there was anything out of the ordinary in these relationships, but it seems odd to me.  I am sure the press put extra emphasis on his announcement because of his relationship with the Kennedy’s.  With one statement, Dr. Cooke changed the face of medicine.  And now, it will take decades to correct.  Dr. Cooke is enjoying his retirement in the sun in Florida – odd.  I hope his grandchildren don’t spend too much time in the sun, we wouldn’t want them to get all those illnesses he described.

To keep alive a Coppertone slogan from that time – ‘Don’t be a Paleface’.   – Pandemic Survivor

Least Expensive Vitamin D Supplementation

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While writing a recent post, the thought occurred as to what the cost would be for the entire population to obtain their vitamin D3 through supplementation.  Obviously, this is not the best way to obtain vitamin D3, naturally from the sun, but it helps to think about the cost/benefit of vitamin D3.  If the entire population were replete in vitamin D3, it would impact the medical economy by hundreds of billions of dollars.  It would also improve the general economy by productive increase from the wellness.

The least expensive price that I could fine on the web is a company called Vitalady, Inc.  The company was founded for the purpose of helping obesity surgery patients maintain nutritional balance for a healthy life.  Their pricing is very reasonable for all of the nutrients that they provide.

To determine what the cost would for a replete population, I decided to use 7000 to 7500 IU of vitamin D3 per day.  This is a ‘middle of the road’ amount.  At Grass Roots Health, their research has found that the population needs 9600 IU per day to achieve their desired goal of a serum level above 40 ng/ml for 25(OH)D.  I have assumed the normal person would get around 2000 IU per day from the sun and other sources like food fortification as a first approximation.

To supplement once per day using Vitalady brand Tender Dry Vitamin D3 5000 IU 250 count would require three capsules every two days (one and then two every other day).  The cost for this product is $14.80 for a cost of $0.089 per day or $32.50 per year which works out to about 9.7 billion for the entire population for a year.  Tender Dry is manufactured by Bio Tech Pharmacal for distribution by Vitalady, Inc.

If we use Tender Dry Vitamin D3 50,000 IU 100 count, we would require one capsule per week to achieve about 7000 IU per day.  The cost of this product is $23.75 and would represent a two year supply or $11.87 per year.  This would then require 3.6 billion dollars to get the entire population replete.

So for less than three and half cents per day, you can become vitamin D replete.  What is even more amazing is that the entire population can become replete for less than four billion dollars.  How much is four billion in the grand scheme.  For production of Tamaflu, the US spent seven billion dollars to stockpile enough for a year.  Not only would you get protection from the flu for the entire population with D3, you most likely would reduce all chronic disease by at least fifty percent if not more – a truly well population.

This is a goal worth pursuing.  Please try to be replete with vitamin D3.  About 40 IU per pound of body weight per day of D3 should allow you to reach the goal set by Grass Roots Health for a healthy serum level.  (full disclosure – I have no association with Vitalady, other than to inform them that I was going to highlight their website for the least expensive vitamin D that I could find)  – Pandemic Survivor

All Governments Should Promote Vitamin D3 Supplementation

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The best and most effective way to immediately reduce the cost of healthcare, have a more effective medical system because of less chronic disease, a healthier population where wellness will increase productivity, and a better economy is to promote the supplementation of vitamin D3 and sun exposure without sunburn.  All citizens could be given free vitamin D3.  This program would be by choice of the individual so as to not force government on the people.

This would be very effective for all countries of the world except for the US.  For countries with single payer medical insurance or government medical insurance for the entire population, this would be particularly beneficial for cost reduction in healthcare.  Also, it would solve a lot of problems with doctor shortage because physicians would be freed up from treating as much chronic disease.

Mary Meeker, in her report to promote general discourse on economic conditions in the US, USA, Inc. (image below is plate 315 from the slides– for full report visit KPCB where Mary works: http://www.kpcb.com/insights/usa-inc-full-report ), had very interesting suggestions in how to bring a dying US economy back to life.  This report suggests treating the US as a company and handle revitalization in a similar manner as a corporate rescue.  She suggested that the largest drain on the economy of the US is entitlements, in particular Medicare and Medicaid.

And then there is this graph that is most startling from her discussion of healthcare cost in the US:

The thing that is blatantly obvious about this graph is that we are not getting the benefit from our healthcare dollar as the rest of the world.  Why is this?  There is approximately $4000 per capita that goes as the cost of medical insurance (!?) every year and not medical treatment.  We truly have given up freedom for security.  The medical industry has become this bloated by extremely poor government policy that allows insurance companies to profit without providing wealth creation to the population.  If the US was being treated as a company, the CEO and board of directors would be replaced by the stock holders (or citizens should vote to replace all of our present leaders – congressmen and president).  I believe the Affordable Health Care Act was designed intentionally to fail in an effort to force all medical insurance under government control, but not necessarily to correct this blotted system.  It certainly has driven the cost of healthcare higher.  Just imagine what we could do with national debt if we used 1.2 trillion dollars ($4000 x 300 million people) each year as an investment in things that would create wealth (insurance does  not create wealth – just imagine if you were paying a third party to pay for your oil changes – why you do this with preventative healthcare?).

To President Barack Obama and the Congress:  If you want to solve the healthcare dilemma, then, create a healthy population by being sure we have enough proper nutrition to prevent disease and allow a long healthy life through your administrative departments.  This includes in particular magnesium, sulfur, iodine, vitamin C, and vitamin D3.  Limit the things that cause disease as most of the rest of the world has already done – ban fluorine in our drinking water, stop the use of bromines in food and citrus drinks, limit the use of genetically modified plants and animals until complete assessment of safety and efficacy can be made, and require labeling on existing genetically modified foods so that we know what we are consuming.  Yes, there would be a struggle as people in the healthcare insurance industry, a non-wealth creator, find new jobs, but poor government policy has already slammed the economy as manufacturing, a wealth creator, has been run out of the country.  If your beliefs are; we have limited resources in the world and population should be controlled, then continue to allow us to die off for the benefit of the elite.  You still have time to act even if the ‘stock holders’ kick you out of office in January.    – Pandemic Survivor

Vitamin D3 Usage in the US

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How much supplementation and by how many people is a difficult number to determine. There have been several articles recently on how many people understand vitamin D3 importance, how the body makes vitamin D3 from the sun, and how much supplementation is required.  Everyone in the US has some form of supplementation because of the number of different products that are now having vitamin D added.  Of course, our natural connection to the sun and the production of vitamin D3 in the skin has forever been changed because of sunscreen products, mainstream medicine constant warnings about staying out of the sun for the last fifty years, and the lack of sun exposure because of air conditioning and electronic devices that trap us inside.

The question becomes – When our understanding of vitamin D3 finds its way through the bulwarks of the insurancemedicalfoodindustrial complex that is in opposition to a healthy population?  The answer to this question will be found when the population has enough vitamin D3 and other nutrients in which we are deficient that the occurrence of chronic disease starts to diminish.  As I have stated in earlier post, it is my belief that the first realization will be in a reduction of infectious disease like the common cold and the flu.  The second realization will come with the reduction in cancer incidence and death from cancer.  We will then see a reduction of heart disease by fivefold to the levels of Japan and Greece when it becomes common knowledge that the major cause of heart disease is the combination of vitamin D3 and sulfur deficiency.

So where are we now in assurance we are getting enough vitamin D3?  There is so much confusion on vitamin D testing (what type of test, the mixing of data between D3 and D2, and not including all forms of epi-D) and how much sun exposure the population is getting leads only to more confusion.  I believe the best way is simply to determine how much supplementation is occurring.  We know that food additives are targeted to give us about 100 to 400 IU of additional vitamin D per day or equivalent to about five minutes or less in the midday summer sun.  To reach a level where infectious disease (colds and the flu) remain at summertime levels will require at least two thousand IU per person per day of supplementation during the winter months.

According to a recent article in AARP, sales for vitamin D have jump from forty million dollars in 2001 to over six hundred million in 2011.  I have found the cost of vitamin D3 supplementation to range from less than a half cent per one thousand IU all the way up to around five cents.  We can determine the amount of supplement per person by using the following conditions.  1 – Most people will not supplement during the summer because they feel good and don’t see the need.  We will then say that vitamin D3 is supplemented October through February or for one hundred twenty days.  2 – We will use the cost of vitamin D3 supplementation at two cents per one thousand as a first approximation.  3 – The stated vitamin D sales are vitamin D3.  Without boring you with the math, this allows enough for 125 million people under the above conditions or about forty percent of the population.  Whether there are 125 million people getting two thousand IU per day or 250 million people getting an additional one thousand IU per day, this is enough to have a significant effect on colds and the flu.  I also believe that people are more significantly increasing their vitamin D3 levels by exposure to the sun because of the reduction in the fear of sun exposure by the media.

So when will vitamin D3 sales reach a level for cancer reduction?  I suspect the population would need to have enough additional vitamin D3 so that the year round supplementation is two thousand IU per person per day.  If we use one cent per thousand IU because of competitive price reduction at this level of supplementation, we would need to reach sales of 2.2 billion dollars per year for vitamin D3.  Okay vitamin D3 marketers, there is your first goal.  You cannot claim that it cures, prevents, heals, treats, or diagnosis disease in your marketing.  You, however, can state that it will promote WELLNESS as any other nutrient or food.

You may think there are too many assumptions for this article to make sense.  However, someone has to speculate for the wellness of the population.  From your speculator-and-chief promoter – Pandemic Survivor

The Coming Flu Season

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Summer seems an odd time to talk about the flu, but there have been several really great years with low incidence of the flu.  I like to watch the CDC’s outpatient illness surveillance.  Here they record the percentage of patients that have influenza like illness (ILI is defined as fever (temperature of 100°F [37.8°C] or greater) and cough and/or sore throat.) as a percentage of visits. This is great information as they look at around thirty million patient visits per year.

This past year was of real significance as this is the first year in fourteen years that the percentage of hospital visits did not exceed the CDC’s baseline.  The baseline is a number set by taking the average of the percentages of non-flu season visits and going two standard deviations above that.  What this means in laymen’s terms is the 2011- 2012 season was like summer all year round.  Because vitamin D is a very potent disease fighter and seems to be the most effective against viral infections, I have theorized that the increase in the amount of supplementation of vitamin D has already had an impact on the rate of flu incidence. Flu Hits Fourteen Year Record Low  also  Flu Vaccine Versus Innate Immunity, and  All post on the flu that includes my prediction from last January. 

So what does the future hold for the flu?  There are no real crystal balls but we can certainly speculate based on existing trends.  Based on the downward trend of the flu, we are going to have another great year.  That is if the effect is indeed based on the increased supplementation of vitamin D.  The way vitamin D works by building up your innate immunity, its actions are much better than a flu vaccine which is only targeted to existing strains of the flu.  Vitamin D will work against all mutations of the virus.  Here are my predictions for the coming year shown on a graph from CDC.  I suspect again that we will have another year where it appears that it is summer all winter.

Your part in this test of flu vaccine versus innate immunity is to assure that you maintain a serum level above 40 ng/ml or the level of 25(OH)D3 where innate immunity starts to perform at its best.  Of course higher levels will even give you better protection. Everyone seems to reach different levels of the 25(OH)D3 versus how much vitamin D they are taking and their sun exposure.  As a rule of thumb, to maintain a healthy level of vitamin D, you should supplement every day that you are not in the sun with 40 IU per pound of body weight, i.e. if you weigh 100 lbs then supplement with 4,000 IU of D3.

What do you get in return for your efforts of taking vitamin D3 regularly?  No colds or the flu during the winter.  Of course the cold remedy manufacturers and flu vaccine manufacturers will not be happy.  – Pandemic Survivor