Author Archives: Mark Pegram

Vitamin D Quality Alert

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As with all consumer products there are sure to be issues that need to resolved.  Dr. Davis who writes the Heart Scan Blog has warned us before that all vitamin D is not created equal.  That is some of the vitamin D will not give you the expected result of serum 25(OH)D.

His earlier warnings was that dry vitamin D in tablet form was not as potent as vitamin D in capsules.  This time he has found through five of his patients that Vitamin D of the Nature Made brand has not given the expected serum 25(OH)D.  Here is the article: Is it or isn’t it Vitamin D

The importance of this warning is that TESTING IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to assure that you have an adequate amount of vitamin D in your body.

Food and Nutrition Board Delay

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During a recent visit to the Food and Nutrition Board website for vitamin D and calcium I was alarmed to find that the report had been delayed from May of this year until the end of the summer.

Most likely this will continue until the boards deadline of 24 months has ended.  That would put the report to sometime in the fall of 2010.  I would not be so concerned except for the 100,000 or so deaths each month that we delay because of vitamin D deficiency to say nothing of the suffering.

A. Catherine Ross, a vitamin A researcher, as chair most certainly is having a very difficult time in resolving the issues of a board that ultimately could have a huge effect on health as well as more of an impact on the medical economy than the recently passed health care bill.  Don’t you find it strange that a board for the Institute of Medicine that was seated to set standards and guidelines for vitamin D is chaired by a person who’s life’s research has been vitamin A?

I hope this is science and not politics at work.  It is for your health that I am concerned.  The scientist are saying that an upper limit of 10,000 IU per day needs to be set and I say that this may not be enough for an obese person.  However, anything less than this and we know that is more concerned with the medical economy than your health.  It would seem that the best DRI or daily required intake should be set for IU’s/per body weight.  It is the only thing that makes sense.

Doctor’s should also be instructed that long term levels of less than 200 ng/ml is safe for 25(OH)D.  This information already exist in the NIH Fact Sheet on Vitamin D in Table 1. It is also stated that no toxicity has been found in levels of less than 400 ng/ml.  Even though these numbers sound large they are still very small numbers.

Typically an intake from all sources of about 35 IU’s per pound of body weight should get your 25(OH)D above 50 ng/ml.  However, there is no way of knowing for sure without testing and because of the serious health consequences of vitamin D deficiency, testing should become a standard and doctors required to take enough CME’s to understand the complexities.

The longer we delay in not having a national intervention for vitamin D deficiency the suffering will continue.  Number one in this issue is that doctors need to be educated.

Pelvic Floor Disorders

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Pelvic floor disorders have been linked to low levels of vitamin D.  Here is an article from Medscape:  Higher Levels of Vitamin D Linked to Lower Risk of Pelvic Floor Disorders.

It seems that vitamin D can improve pelvic muscle strength and reduce pelvic floor disorders including incontinence.

I know my mother had this issue.  It seems that women who have more children, mother had nine, and are obese are more likely to have pelvic floor disorders.  She also did not spend much time in the sun when she was not completely covered up.

Vitamin D is Toxic?

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Toxic – Having a chemical substance that is harmful to health or lethal if consumed.   – Wiktionary

I went for my lab test this past Monday in preparation for my physical this coming Monday.  On late Tuesday afternoon there was a message from my doctor’s office that I should call and ask for ‘Buffy’.   (believe me the real name was even better but we most protect the innocent).

Buffy said, “Mr. Pegram your serum vitamin D level is over 100 ng/ml and you most stop taking vitamin D immediately!”  “Okay, I will to talk to the doctor when I come in Monday,”  I said.  “Does that you mean that you are not going to stop taking vitamin D?” inquired Buffy.  “I will talk the doctor when I come in on Monday”, I repeated.  “You most stop taking vitamin D NOW,”  Buffy demanded.  “What is this,” I asked, “has the doctor insisted that you have to get me to say that I am going to stop taking vitamin D”  “Yes”, curt and to the point.  “What was the actual reading and do you use Quest or Labcorp to do your testing,”  I inquired.  “I do not know the exact reading but it is over 100 and we do our own testing in house,” Buffy replied.  I then asked, “what was my serum calcium”.  “They did not run a calcium”, Buffy responded and I knew this was not so because they drew three vials of blood for my annual physical exam.

At this point I realized the conversation was going no where so I again repeated, “Okay, I will just talk to the doctor on Monday”.  Buffy, “Vitamin D is toxic and you most stop now.  It is TOXIC!”

Now from the definition from the start of this post you know and your normal response to toxic is that you have taken something that is about to kill you immediately.  I decided not to have fun with Buffy because my wife, director of a clinical lab of a major hospital, was yelling at me to stop.  “Don’t yell at her she is just the messenger,” my wife scowled.  I guess she could see the ‘evil’ gleam in my eye.  I was indeed angered.

The thoughts that were running through mind was if I stop could you tell me when to start taking vitamin D again.  How long before my hypertension, back pain from degenerative disc disease, sleep apnea, and heart issues come back to kill me?  I knew that she nor the doctor would know how to respond.  This medical practice in particular has benefited financially from vitamin D because they have their own testing equipment.  The patients in this practice have benefited because everyone that walks through the door gets a vitamin D test which is the desire of Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D Council.  I feel significantly responsible for this as I am vitamin D patient zero at this practice.

However, testing without knowledge of what vitamin D does to the human body is not acceptable clinical practice that leads to successful outcomes of patient health.  A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

The thought of an emergency call to a patient telling them that they are taking a toxic substance is outrageous when it involves vitamin D.  It could certainly wait until the doctor was face to face with the patient.  I would bet that there are no emergency calls to patients when they find their serum triglycerides over 1000 to tell them to stop eating sugar and all high starchy foods until it comes down that they are a walking heart attack.

I usually like to think of something that is toxic as having about a 50 percent chance of killing you.  From the Vitamin D Council’s page on toxicity, we find a loading dose that has a 50 percent chance of killing you as 88 mg/kg.  That would mean to have a 50 percent chance of death that I would have to take 7,520 of the 50,000 IU capsules to achieve this level of toxicity at 235 lbs of body weight.  I most likely would gag to death before I consumed that much vitamin D.

I new that my serum vitamin D was not high as I had gotten my test results back from grassrootshealth.net just a couple of weeks before and it was 87 ng/ml or just at the top end of what you would find in a sunny country.  I also know of the issues when testing vitamin D and the necessary processes for quality control to get accurate values.  It will be interesting to find out if that office uses mass spec or Diasorin’s Liaison to do their testing.  Mass spec is so operator dependent according to my wife that accuracy is always a question.

Imagine the average person hearing that they are taking a toxic substance.  Monday’s visit should be interesting.

Meanwhile it is to be 85 here today so you will know where I will be with no clothes on just after noon.  No pain and no health issues and forgiveness will be on my mind as I bask in the sublime sun.  –  Pandemic Survivor

And Pigs Will Fly Out of My B***?

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In early September, 2009 headlines read that 90,000 people could die in the US this flu season.  Get your flu shot!!!  Like this CNN reports that sites this number as well as the worn out typical of 40,000 deaths per year from the seasonal flu.

The swine has truly flown.  We had a very unusual flu season this year.  The peak for the seasonal flu usually occurs sometime between the last of January through the middle of March.  However, this year with the 2009 H1N1 we had a peak that occurred in October and then by the first of January the incidence of all influenza like illness dropped to below the baseline.  You can check out the graph of the hospitalizations for the US here.  http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/updates/us/#iligraph There is more detailed information and graphs on this page: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/ for week 11/2010.

The question arises what happened to the normal spike for the regular flu.  I can see the spike occurring for the H1N1 for people who were susceptible to the virus and it occurring early in the winter.  However, how did that affect the seasonal flu that should have peaked in late February?  Every year up until now the spike has typically occurred in late winter.  What is different?

Perhaps what happened was the fear of people dying from the H1N1 motivated more people to get the regular flu vaccination.  Also if you think about it the H1N1 vaccine was not readily available until November.  People got vaccinated and the flu stopped?  I wonder when President Obama will make a speech taking credit for getting more people taking the flu vaccine and this is what caused the significant reduction and how as you read the following.

More confusion!?  The really interesting thing is that the table for total influenza like illness for hospitalizations shows 41, 551 with 2, 077 deaths. (table below the graph: http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/updates/us/#iligraph).  How do you rationalize these numbers with the totals of what the CDC claims as typical at over 200,000 hospitalizations and 36,000 deaths.  The insurance companies should really be happy this year as they had to pay significantly less to providers because of the low incidence of illness or have we just been lied to by the CDC.  It is truly confusing.  Do hospitals not report death?  I do not believe the federal guidelines would allow this.  Here is what the CDC has been telling you: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm

Since the drug companies or Obama have not taken credit, I think that I will just jump right in.  It is my hope that what really happened was that there was enough in the press about the antiviral affects of vitamin D that people in general took more.  It would not take a lot to make a huge impact in the population.  The one thing that did change this year is that for the first time, CVS, Walgreens, and the local Kerr Drug all carried vitamin D3 in 5,000 IU capsules.  Thank you Dr. Cannell!

I tried to find the percent of the population that took the vaccination for the H1N1 and for the seasonal flu without success.  This seems to be a closely held number.  I know that there are some reports that more than half of the H1N1 vaccines that the US ordered were not used but I cannot confirm.

Taking my D3 and getting a tan in the winter and the blues and flu just fly away.  I just love flying pigs  – Pandemic Survivor

Surviving Prostate Cancer

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Prostate cancer is a very serious disease but may be preventable and treatable with vitamin D.  This of course is true of all cancers.

We have a friend that discovered my knowledge of vitamin D and we were asked how he should consider its use for his problem of stage four prostate cancer (moved to the bladder and other distant organs).  It seems that he had pretty much given up hope because the treatment he was receiving was not working.  I suggested to him that he should find a clinic that would be willing to monitor his serum 25(OH)D and keep it at the level of a sunny country or between 60 to 90 ng/ml by using D3 while continuing his conventional treatments.  He accomplished this with the oncology clinic at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.  Within six months the cancer was completely contained within his prostate and more importantly after four years he is still alive.

Would this have happened if he had not tried the vitamin D?  I suspect there would have been a funeral by now.

It seems there is a law that says you cannot offer any cancer treatment that is not chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery.  I think that treating cancer with nutrition could be considered chemotherapy because the effect of getting whole foods with enzymes that have not been destroyed and proper minerals and vitamins is more effective than something pumped into your body through a drip.

If you have cancer eat as much whole foods as possible that are raw (vegetables and fruits that have had no processing) so as not to destroy the enzymes and be sure that you are getting enough of the proper minerals like calcium, magnesium, iodine, and potassium.  Do not die of cancer while you are vitamin D and iodine deficient!

Here is a review of prostate cancer and the impact of vitamin D by Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council.

Iodine is extremely important as it is the trigger for apoptosis or cellular death (causing tumors to shrink).  The body rids itself of excess iodine through the urine.  What if the supply to the renal system of iodine was cut off because of iodine deficiency and this in combination with vitamin D deficiency was the cause of prostate cancer?  If I had prostate cancer, I believe that I would ask my treating physician for an iodine challenge test to assure that I had enough iodine in my body.  I would not take no for an answer.  Resource articles for iodine

Living easy in the sun while eating raw fresh fruits and vegetables seems like the life that we should have.  –  Pandemic Survivor

Tanning Tax

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The new health care reform act has in it the provision for a ten percent tax on the indoor tanning industry.  This revenue stream was originally placed on Botox treatments and was called botax.

“We suggested that the tanning tax would be a better alternative to the cosmetic tax and hopefully will reduce the incidence of skin cancer down the road,” said David M. Pariser, president of the American Academy of Dermatology Association.  WSJ Online

How is it that the AADA has such power over the practice of medicine?  They like every other institution try to protect its own interest in business.  Intended consequence or unintended result?  Usually when the government places a ‘sin tax’ on some specific article the intent is to discourage people from using that particular thing with the justification that it is a burden on society like the taxes on tobacco and alcohol.

Now what was in the ‘Sick care’ Bill originally was a 5% tax on using Botox which would have raised twice as much money as the 10% tax on tanning beds.  I am sure that the AADA was not happy with the ‘Botax’ because it would have discouraged people from using cosmetic enhancements that could only be delivered by the dermatology industry, thus cutting into their total revenues.  The other interesting thing about changing to tanning beds from cosmetic items is that it put the tax on the middle income people instead of placing the tax on higher income people which has been the goal of the Obama administration.

I guess you know where I am going next.  The amount of disease created by people making less vitamin D when not using tanning beds is going to put a greater burden on our sick care system.  Intended or unintended consequence?  Ah, institutional manipulation for the interest of making money and not for truly serving people’s health.  Over the last 40 years the AADA has done its best to keep people out of the sun or to use sunscreen.  This has really caused a very serious epidemic of chronic disease under the guise that spending more time in the sun increases your opportunity for skin cancer.  Take the facts and manipulate them for profit.  What a great country!

Now if they really wanted to do something that would create a significant revenue stream and reduce the burden of disease they could put a ten percent tax on the use of high fructose corn syrup.  Who knows, maybe it would even improve our relationship with Cuba as we used more cane sugar.

Have you missed me?  Been spending too much time in the sun!  –  Pandemic Survivor

Expectation of Medicine

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Meeting expectations has always been the meaning of quality.  The understanding of quality has long been what drives business.  Give the customers what they expect and they will knock down your door down for you to serve them and will reward you for your efforts.  Medicine has lost its way in this understanding.

I am not one to really knock allopathic medicine when I am ill or injured.  I expect them to offer the best solution that science and art has available.  When I do not get this them I really get excited.  Doctors worry more about getting paid than meeting the expectations of their clients.  When a patient wonders off on his own into the study of his illness and finds his doctor has not delivered for him, he either confronts the doctor or just walks away.

Our expectation as consumers of medicine is that now we not only expect our doctors to provide us with the best immediate care that they can but also that they tell us how to prevent disease.  This is an expectation that is not ready to be met by modern medicine.  This has long been the argument inside of medicine that if you practice treatment is it necessary to practice prevention.  What happens with chronic disease is that it falls into the category of prevention and doctors do not know how to deal with it.  If they knew how to treat chronic disease it would not be a chronic disease because you would be healed of the disease.

Anything that truly treats a long developing disease falls into the category of prevention and most that are educated in the field of medicine just believe that if you tell people how to prevent disease that they would not do it anyway.  If the medical profession told everyone that coffee was extremely bad for them would it reduce consumption?  Coffee is the most addictive drug that is on the unregulated market and can significantly impact your health if consumed in too large of quantities.  I found in particular that I drink more than one small cup that it causes a mid morning down turn that is disastrous to my production.  It also causes me to not sleep at night.  I am particular sensitive to coffee and just maybe everyone else is too, but they really like the rush it provides.  It recently took me a whole month to detox from coffee or a full two weeks longer than it took to detox from opiate pain meds.  The withdrawal symptoms were not the same, but were equally negative to my health.

Now that I am off of coffee I have been sleeping much better and do not even need that morning burst as I did when I was drinking coffee.  I am extremely more productive.  Coffee houses are nothing more than addictive drug deliver sites that bring people back to continue in their addictive habit.

Doctors will tell you that if you do not sleep that it causes all kinds of bad things to happen to your body.  They will just casually mention that it may be the coffee that is really affecting your well being.  A typical comment by a doctor is, “they would not stop drinking the coffee anyway if I told them.”  All of the above applies in particular to the current problem with obesity.  We have been lied to over the years about our diet and high fructose corn syrup is nothing more than a liver toxin that does not affect our brains so it is ‘generally consider safe’ or meets the standards of the FDA. Would you just as willingly give your 6 year old a can of beer as you would a soft drink loaded with high fructose corn syrup?  Both are equally toxic to the liver.  Is there any doctor that is going to tell you this?  Most likely not!

This is all that we expect from our doctors.  That is that they tell us the truth about how substances will affect our long term health.  This is our expectation and we are not having our expectations met.  The quality of our medical system is a failure for chronic disease.  It is great for immediate needs like having your broken bones cast or that thing that you need to have cut from your body or the latest antibiotic delivered to knock out the most recent infection.

This is not so much a problem with the doctors as it is with our medical institutions in general.  Poor health feeds a large economic sector and herein lays the rub.  How do I know this?  Name one single study that has been sponsored by an insurance company for disease prevention and you win the prize.  Disease prevention and especially chronic disease prevention would take huge profits away from the insurance companies because of a decrease in sales.  Every CEO that is worth a damn does not want decreased sales, then no studies sponsor by insurance companies.

If you, you are the government because our constitution says so, then if you really want health care reform then pass a law that says the insurance companies are going to be required to pay for all of the large scale chronic diseases studies with vitamin D.  After all if there were only well people it would significantly reduce their cost.  They would get of the business so fast you would not even believe it.

Lies or simply ignoring the truth of science and art is not what we expect from our medical providers.  We should be told the truth by our government agencies and then we can decide if we want to keep killing ourselves with high fructose corn syrup, alcohol, tobacco, and coffee.

What a great day it is to go into the sun and get a tan even though my doctor says it will give me skin cancer.  Oh yeah, she forgot to mention that it would prevent fifty other more deadly diseases.

–          Pandemic Survivor