Category Archives: breast cancer

Breast Cancer Survivor Takes on the Issues

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Carole Baggerly had her own experience with breast cancer. She then started to research the reason why. Her discovery; scientists have expressed the understanding that breast cancer is a deficiency disease. That is over her life time, her intake of vitamin D was not adequate. She was so upset and concerned about the issues that she started GrassrootsHealth. This is a consortium of more than forty scientists and doctors that are experts in vitamin D and nutrition. She discovered that it was not only breast cancer, but a host of chronic illness related to deficiencies. Take the time and watch her explain the issues in the first thirty minutes of this video presentation.  Carole Baggerly and Dr. Heaney, September, 2012  Presentation to Direct-MS Canada.

If you are concerned about the health of your children, yourself, your parents, the next hour is Dr. Heaney who has contributed significantly to the understanding of vitamin D. He talks about the longevity issues and decline with chronic disease because of nutritional deficiencies. There are many diseases that have now been linked to deficiencies that number into the hundreds. This is particularly pointed to vitamin D deficiency.

This discussion is fairly non-technical and is understandable by the average person. Dr. Heaney expresses the understanding that “things go better with vitamin D”. That is that vitamin D deficiency may not be the cause of a disease like TB, but not having enough vitamin D will prevent your body from properly healing. However, this understanding falls into the logic of the chicken versus the egg. In other words, if you had enough vitamin D would you have gotten TB in the first place? Dr. Heaney discusses everything from diabetes, heart disease, MS, pregnancy, and cancer to infectious diseases like TB. I give the video presentation six stars out of a five star rating system for understanding of chronic disease and the effect of vitamin D.  Presentation to Direct-MS Canada.

Your take away from this, is you, your friends, and your family should not suffer from vitamin D deficiency.   Standards within the medical industry have long been 20 ng/ml to 100 ng/ml.   There have not been any cases of toxicity below 200 ng/ml or 500 nmol/l.  There does not appear to be any downside at this level of vitamin D.  Some laboratories have decreased the upper number, 100 ng/ml, to whatever they are measuring the population. Best health for you can be reached with a vitamin D serum level, 25(OH)D between 40 ng/ml to 80 ng/ml; note this is still within the normal range as defined by medicine. It is not how much you take; it is where you maintain your serum level. Everyone responds differently to their intake from all sources of vitamin D. The only way to know is to test.  Dr. Heaney says to maintain a level above 40ng/ml will require an intake from all sources of 5000 IU or more of vitamin D3 per day.

Please note this presentation is in Canada. The measurements used are in nanamoles per liter or nmol/l. To convert ng/ml to nmol/l multiply ng/ml by 2.5. So the normal range of 20 to 100 ng/ml is 50 to 250 nmol/l. Get your serum level tested to give your body a chance to thrive. If you choose to do it through GrassrootsHealth, you become part of the study that will help to advance health in the population. – Pandemic Survivor

Test by GrassrootsHealth: banner_ad_long5company postingVideo of how to do the test:  bscvideothumbnailv3web

Grassroots Health Webinars on Vitamin D

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The scientist, researchers, and doctors at Grassroots Health have been presenting webinars on vitamin D and various topics.  This is a wealth of information about how a given disease works with vitamin D as well as the interaction of calcium.

I highly encourage you to go to the website and watch and listen to the webinars.  There is a new one every Tuesday at 1PM eastern time.  Also after becoming familiar with the information, I encourage you to ask your doctor to watch, if he is giving you a hard time about supplementing with vitamin D.  It is important that you maintain your 25(OH)D level above 40 ng/ml.

If you don’t watch and listen to any of the others, I highly suggest that you watch – Why Test Vitamin D!?  The question is always – How much should I take?  This gives you and understanding that everyone responds differently to amounts.  At the Grassroots Health home page you can find a table of how to start supplementing before testing.     There is also a downloadable chart as a PDF.

Here is the link to the Video Page http://www.grassrootshealth.net/index.php/videos

  • Diabetes & Vitamin D
  • The Sun & Vitamin D I and II
  • Pregnancy & Vitamin D  I and II
  • Upper Respiratory Infections & Vitamin DI and II
  • Ethic Disparities & Vitamin D
  • Premenopausal Breast Cancer & Vitamin D
  • The Cost of Vitamin D Deficiency: In Dollars & Disease
  • Vitamin D & Calcium, Fractures, & Kidney Stones  What do we know?
  • Why Test Vitamin D!?
  • Prostate Cancer Positive Core Biopsies Reduced with Vitamin D
  • Prostate Cancer Lesions Reduced with Vitamin D
  • Vitamin D Stops Breast Cancer
  • Vitamin D & Gene Expression
  • Vitamin D & Treatment of Autism
  • Pregnancy & Vitamin D Interview
  • Alzheimer’s Prevention & Vitamin
  • Interaction of Vitamin D and Calcium
  • Vitamin D Requirements for Breast Feeding Mothers
  • Vitamin D & Breast Cancer
  • Vitamin D & Cardiovascular Disease
  • Vitamin D & The Immune System
  • Vitamin D & Cystic Fibrosis

Be well and stay healthy – Pandemic Survivor

Breast Cancer Going Rogue

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Sara Palin does not have a corner on the market for going rogue.  Rogue is an interesting word as my Dad always used it when he was talking about someone that he considered a thief and a scoundrel.  Now it is used to indicate someone that is not holding the ‘party line’.  A better way to state it is someone is telling the truth and to think you have to be outside of the ‘norm’ to tell the truth bodes dread for a society that has gone rogue.

Dr. Cedric Garland and his brother Dr. Frank Garland were telling the truth back in 1980 when they proposed that breast cancer was a result of lack of sun exposure.  This was right at the height of the dermatologist telling us that we would die from cancer if we were exposed to the sun.  Here is one article from December 1990 in the NY Times; ‘Sunlight and Breast Cancer: Danger in Darkness’ Here is an update on the same theme from 2002 in the NY Times: ‘Sunlight, a Cancer Protector in the Guise of a Villain’ This article talks about how the brothers first presented this understanding in 1980.

Here we are with 2009 almost over and 29 years from when the Garland brothers first proposed that lack of sunlight was killing us and our government is still not acting toward the science and much less with compassion toward people that are dying from chronic disease.  How could this happen.  Has specialization so become a bastion of science that we allow evil to flourish.  Who holds the moral compass in our large institutions.  Is it the special interest groups that are just about making profit regardless of what happens to the people that they serve.

Dr. Garland is still singing the same tune but no one seems to be listening.  Such a tragic disease like breast cancer that destroys women’s self image and destroys them with death when the solution is there in the sun is heart wrenching.  Here is a letter to the editor of the NY Times by Dr. Garland saying that the mammogram testing is fine but the real solution lies in getting women vitamin D replete which would eliminate breast cancer.  Here is his open letter:  Mammography or Primary Prevention; An open letter to the NY Times.

In Toronto at a recent symposium on vitamin D, Dr. Garland was so brave as to say that breast cancer could be virtually eradicated with vitamin D.   Eradicate Breast Cancer with Vitamin D? Here we have a doctor that has been studying vitamin D for over 30 years and offers a solution.  What if he is only half right?  Would we still not like to have a 50% reduction in breast cancer?

There is no reason that doctors should let people die when they are vitamin D deficient when there is no harm in having enough vitamin D in your system to be healthy.  In fact it Is difficult to understand when the research on cancer and vitamin D goes back all the way to 1940 and it still has not found its way into general practice.  This has to be more than just ignoring the science.  It is ignoring the science for profit and what would you call that?  Going rogue indeed!

Do not die vitamin D deficient!!     – Pandemic Survivor

Dr. Cedric Garland is a:

Professor
Department of Family and Preventive Medicine
University of California San Diego
Participating Member
Moores UCSD Cancer Center
La Jolla, California

Breast Cancer – Another Pegram’s Perspective

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I am excited about my new blog.  I am so excited that I googled my name and vitamin D thinking that it may have been picked up since I initiated the blog on Saturday.  I was surprised to find another Mark Pegram talking about breast cancer.  I love this guy even though he is not me.  He is my nephew.  He is one of the favorites of all my family.

However, we do disagree on the effect of vitamin D and cancer.  He is a well known woman’s oncologist and has done significant work in the field.  He continues to research as well as clinical practice where he sees patients which I think is extremely critical for a researcher.  Way to go Mark!  I on the other hand only grew three inches taller in less than a year and in 4 years have had a significant renewal of my health.  I have spent every spare minute that I could find since October 2004 reading vitamin D research.

What I found was startling to me.  It was an article by Kelley Dunn at WPTV.com – ‘Does Vitamin D Help Prevent Breast Cancer’  – May 25   There was Mark with this quote:  “Dr. Mark Pegram says what is clear is that vitamin d alone doesn’t significantly reduce the risk of breast cancer.”  He does explain earlier that the amount of vitamin d was only 400 IU which we now know does not significanltly effect serum level- my knowing not his.  If you would like to read the article: ‘Does Vitamin D Help Prevent Breast Cancer’.

Dr. John Cannell has consistently stated that the researchers and mainstream medicine has chosen to ignore the facts of medical research.  Now Mark, I am not saying that because the root of ignore is in ignorant that you are.  However, I am saying that you should be paying attention when I tell you to read the research. And for the other eight medical professionals in my family please read the research!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There have been a number of studies done and many more ongoing about breast cancer and vitamin D.  One lady, Carole Baggerly, that survived breast cancer started her own foundation to help promote vitamin d.  She was able to organize a seminar that was offered free to doctors to help them better understand the new research ‘and the old research’ on vitamin d.  There were a number of scientist that presented and this was in conjunction with the University of California San Diego. You can watch these videos online through UCSDtv at the Grassroots Health website.

In particular you should watch this video presentation by Dr. Cedric Garland, a well respected epidemiologist :  “Dose-Response of Vitamin D and a Mechanism for Cancer Prevention” Mark if you are reading this, I do respectfully request that you go watch the videos at this site so as not to mislead people.  Here Dr. Garland sites a number of epidemiological studies as well as cohort studies.  Toward the end he puts the cohort studies for cancer on one slide and it is very truly amazing.  We are talking about reducing cancer by as much as 80 percent or more depending on the type.

If you have a serious disease or if you are a doctor or medical researcher you should take the time to watch all six of the presentations – about six hours.  You will be rewarded.

A Vitamin D Pandemic Survivor

Go into the sun!