Vitamin D – Hormone or Vitamin?

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Mark Pegram

This question needs to be resolved as medical practitioners determine patient treatment. The complexity in the nomenclature of vitamin D has caused many errors. The general thought in medical practice is that vitamins do nothing for illness and hormones are very effective. Government medical guidelines are not reliable because of the conflicts of interest at the IOM. There are several levels of people writing about vitamin D where people tend to get information. Let’s take four examples: Level one – researchers, level two – medical activists and practicing doctors, level three – new discoverers of vitamin D as practicing doctors, and level four – people that have experienced healing with vitamin D as novices in the world of biochemistry. We will ignore the government for now because they are more concerned about the economy than your health.

Your take away from this discussion is that you should never take or give vitamin D as anything other than high quality vitamin D3 as you may overcome the biological controls of the body and cause illness. If you are an innocent health consumer then do not bother to read the rest of this post as it is technical and may confuse you.

Level One

Reinhold Vieth: A clinical researcher specializing in vitamin D nutrition on faculty at the University of Toronto Canada. Why Vitamin D is not a Hormone The importance of this paper written in 2005 is to help prevent practitioners from making mistakes in the nomenclature and administering the wrong compounds of vitamin D to patients. If you are a doctor or other medical practitioner, then this is a must read. Note that Vieth clearly states that vitamin D is a vitamin and then describes 25(OH)D as a prehormone. He says that prohormone has no place in the vitamin D system.

Anthony W. Norman: A biomedical researcher and Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry & Biomedical Sciences, Emeritus at the University of California Riverside. From Vitamin D to Hormone D: fundamentals of the vitamin D endocrine system for good health. The importance of this paper is to help medical practitioners properly assist patients with vitamin D deficiency diseases. This is a must read for medical practitioners. Written in 2008. Dr. Norman is concerned that the new understandings of vitamin D are not translated to medical practice. Dr. Norman describes vitamin D as a prohormone produced photochemically in the skin from the prohormone 7-dehydrocholesterol and then goes on to describe the importance of its derivatives as hormones. He then describes vitamin D3 as both a vitamin and a prohormone. Note the distinction between vitamin D and vitamin D3. This in essence groups the family of all “prohormone” vitamin D system molecules as vitamin D which includes more sterol derivative molecules than most practicing doctors can imagine. This probably provides more confusion than clarification to practitioners that are not expert biochemist, but read it anyway.

Level Two:

John J. Cannell, MD: Dr. Cannell is head of the Vitamin D Council and has been a general practitioner and psychiatrist. He launched his understanding of vitamin D in 2003 from a paper written by Reinhold Vieth. Cannell describes vitamin D as a prohormone . Note that he does not say vitamin D3. I am guessing that he has adopted the nomenclature of Dr. Norman. In his description of the vitamin D system he shows D2 and D3, pharmaceutical vitamin D, and vitamin D metabolites.

Level Three:

Stasha Gominak, MD: A practicing neurologist in Tyler, Texas that discovered in 2009 the value of vitamin D3 and magnesium in treating neurological diseases, in particular sleep apnea. Dr. Gominak describes vitamin D as a hormone that is made in the skin. She likes to use D hormone as it helps her understand the importance of the vitamin D system and that vitamin D hormone is made in our skin and not something that is obtained from outside her body. She references the Vitamin D Council as her primary source of information. She clearly states that vitamin D is not a vitamin. This is somewhat dangerous because of the confusion that can be created between vitamin D3 and calcitriol with other doctors that she contacts or reads her info.

Level Four:

Mark Pegram, A Vitamin D Deficiency Survivor: Yeah, that’s me, a health activist. I will tell you now that this discussion is complex. The importance of writing about vitamin D is to help you the innocent health consumer and medical practitioners to implement the new understandings of the vitamin D system in combination of other nutrients in which we are deficient. It is never just one nutrient. It is the combination of nutrients and minerals that allows our bodies to be healthy. The expression and control of our genome by the combination of nutrients is extremely important to health. A proper combination of vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates is more important to prevent disease and to heal disease than most pharmaceuticals. Vitamin D3 is a vitamin and I believe the confusion is in the definitions.

Vitamin – One of a group of organic substances, other than proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, and organic salts which are essential to normal metabolism, growth, and development of the body. (Taber’s Cyclopedic Medial Dictionary 13^th edition, yes I am an old guy as this was published in 1977) Please note that in this definition it does not say that it is obtained outside of the body. However, it later says in the definition that a vitamin is not formed in the body, but gives the exceptions of vitamin A, vitamin D, and vitamin K.

Hormone – A substance formed in an organ, gland, or part of the body and carried in the blood to another part of the body, stimulating it by chemical action to increase functional activity. (Taber’s Cyclopedic Medial Dictionary 13^th edition)

Prohormone – A prohormone is a substance that is a precursor to a hormone, usually having minimal hormonal effect by itself. The primary function of a prohormone is to enhance the strength of the hormone that already occurs in the body. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohormone

Prehormone – A prehormone is a biochemical substance secreted by glandular tissue and has minimal or no significant biological activity, but it is converted in peripheral tissues into an active hormone.

These definitions seem to agree with Dr. Vieth and have a historical content in the practice of research and medical practice. I do not think our definitions should be changed and I think that Anthony W. Norman has tried to stick with that understanding. The primary difference is in prohormone and prehormone which are relatively new terms of the last twenty years. They are not listed in my 13^th edition of Taber’s. The confusion is in the second sentence of the definition of prohormone – “enhance the strength of a hormone that already exists”. This seems to contradict the first statement as being a precursor. I believe that Dr. Vieth has it correct in calling calcidiol, 25(OH)D, a prehormone as it is not a hormone itself and is converted in most cells of the body to several steroid hormone forms of vitamin D, the new discovery by vitamin D researchers.

Now, if I could just figure out a way to get doctors to stop prescribing vitamin D2, vitamin D pharmaceuticals like dihydrotachysterol and Alfacalcidiol, and the metabolites; calcidiol(except in the case of liver failure), calcitriol (or Jeff and Geoff as Rich quipped in his comment on last post) then the benefits to health of D3 would be much more apparent and most likely without toxicity except for industrial accidents in manufacturing. Of course, more important at this point is to get everyone replete in vitamin D3. Again: Your take away from this discussion is that you should never take or give vitamin D as anything other than high quality vitamin D3 as you may overcome the biological controls of the body and cause illness. – Pandemic Survivor

Two Eyes, Ten Fingers, and Ten Toes

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Mark Pegram

November 4, 2011 was an anniversary for me. The date represents seven years since I started taking vitamin D3. I remember well what my doctor said when I told him I was going to start taking 10,000 IU per day of vitamin D3. “Your organs will turn to stone, or at least that is what they taught me in med school.” His practice now is the leading practice in the area for helping resolve issues around vitamin D and disease. Thank you Dr. Perini. I have not grown any new fingers, eyes, or toes. My organs have not turned to stones. My body continues to heal confirming a report from the UK from the 1930’s that said: “If you take 5,000 to 10,000 IU of D3 per day, it will take four to eight years for your body to heal.”

My body continues to heal. I have overcome a failed back surgery and avoided three additional back surgeries that would have been required. I have maintained a low blood pressure even though it has spiked many times in the past. I have not had any more trouble with heart arrhythmias. My vision has improved. My skin tone has improved. I have no more “brain fog.” (which I am sure was from the sleep apnea and oxygen deprivation) The most important thing is that I have not died from severe sleep apnea. By the way, I also have not had a cold or the flu in the last seven years. Typical for me was three to four colds per year and the flu every two years.

Even though I grew three inches taller in one year as the spacing in my vertebral disc increased from healing, this is not the most amazing healing that happened to me. The most amazing thing is that I was able to rid myself of my CPAP for sleep apnea. For those that do not know, a CPAP is an air flow device that holds your airways open while you sleep. During my sleep test (nocturnal polysomnagraphy), I would breath for thirty seconds and then stop for thirty seconds. Of course the tech stopped the test after an hour because my blood oxygen saturation had dropped below seventy percent. I was close to death. The neurologist described my condition as severe obstructive sleep apnea. He was wrong; it was severe central sleep apnea from the nerves in my neck being compressed between C3-C4 from vitamin D deficiency. I was even finding myself not breathing during the day when I was wide awake. All of those issues have been resolved. I did not die from oxygen deprivation.

I like to answer the question; ‘Have there been any side effects or toxicity from taking that much vitamin D for seven years?’ Yes – Health! I also like to answer the question; ’Who was the physician that guided you through the healing process?’ – God!

I declare November 4 a vitamin D holiday. November 4, 2004 will forever be remembered as a glad day. – Pandemic Survivor

Color My World Ultra Violet B

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Mark Pegram

“As time goes on, I realize just what you mean to me…..color my world with hope…” Chicago 1970.

This is a familiar song lyric made popular by the band Chicago. Our relationship with the sun has forever changed with the introduction of sun screen and staying inside during the highest incidence of ultra violet B in the summertime because of the introduction of air condition and electronic entertainment. It is a ‘love song’ being song now by many in the world of vitamin D research. However, what I have discovered in writing this blog is that the researchers seem to be talking only to each other. What is the point of this? Until the medical profession embraces the idea that most chronic disease is created by not having enough vitamin D and this embracing is sanctioned by governments, we will continue in a state of severe disease.

The recent release by the Institution of Medicine findings through the Food and Nutrition Board on vitamin D and Calcium has been a major setback for moving forward in resolving disease states. Even though they qualified the findings as pertaining to bone health only, the statements that there was not enough research to support higher amounts to stop disease gave medical institutions and government time. Why is this time needed?

On April 27, Natural News published this article by Dr. John Cannell, Vitamin D Council, describing the need of the medical industry for time to develop vitamin D analogs. Betrayal of a Nation: Why U.S. health authorities are keeping you deficient and who stands to gain. http://www.naturalnews.com/032202_vitamin_D_deficiency_disease.html He references an article that I wrote in December, Conflict of Interest at Nation Academy of Science, about the conflict of interest with members of the FNB for vitamin D.

The egregious violations of the National Academy of Science (IOM is a division) rules can only be allowed to occur by the sponsors. The only answer is that both the government of Canada and the government of the US (primary sponsors) stand to gain significantly by maintaining an unhealthy population. These governments did not only allow it to occur, but most likely sanctioned the results. There is no greater institution of science than the National Academy in the minds of the public. However, politics has entered this arena with the thought that a healthy population would lead to a significant reduction in the health care economy. (I am not big into conspiracy theories, but here institutions are moving together with what they perceive is best for them without empathy for the individuals they serve.) If you had to make the decision between a healthy population and a healthy economy, which would you chose. A thirty percent reduction in the healthcare economy from a healthy population would mean a five percent reduction in the total economy. What would happen with all these additional unemployed people? There is no simple answer.

With that many more people unemployed in the current economy would the economy of the world collapse? Here is the fear by our leaders. There will be no proclamation by the President or by Health and Human Services. Yes the greed of the medical institutions, in particular medical insurance is driving the decision making process. Our government leaders are allowing this to occur, not from lack of knowledge, but from fear of total collapse. It has taken us seventy years to reach this point. Read how the government was involved with vitamin D misadventure through the courts at my post Vitamin D for Profits – 1923 to 1946 https://pandemicsurvivor.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/vitamin-d-for-profits-1923-to-1946/ Will it take us another seventy years to reach a healthy understanding of our relationship with the sun?

Moving institutions is a daunting task, especially when there are significantly large amounts of money involved. My hope is that people of science will stop considering only their individual incomes, the incomes of the institutions that employ them, and start considering the individuals they serve. If not, by definition, they are practicing institutional evil. Until these institutions start to move, our hope is the individual doctors that have embraced the science like my hero Dr. Joseph Prendergast, M. D., Endocrine Metabolic Medical Center. Dr. Prendergast has treated upwards of four thousand people with vitamin D. His take on vitamin D from you tube from 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PYsXQ16Ztg

Of course, my personal physician, Dr. Mark Perini, is my hero because he was willing to listen to me, watched me healed and has fully embraced vitamin D science. His practice has even purchased its own vitamin D testing equipment. The point of this is that the message of the researchers is reaching our doctors and soon, whether sanctioned by government or not, we will move toward health through doctor peer pressure from amazing results. Researchers, you are my hero as well, keep up the great work. Keep reaching the doctors in any way that you can.

Color my world with ultra violet B – Pandemic Survivor

Vitamin D Ignorance, Incompetence, or Conflict of Interest

Posted on December 4, 2010 by Mark Pegram

As vitamin D science has advanced during the last one hundred years, it has stumped many why we do not routinely treat and prevent disease. Some have said it is because we ignore the science of vitamin D for the many other opportunities to treat and prevent disease. Others have thought that it was just incompetence by medical professionals in understanding how the biological processes work with nutrients and especially vitamin D. However, what is really happening is this huge conflict of interest for everyone that makes any income from the medical industry.

I would like to believe ignoring the science and lack of understanding is not possible because of the mountain of published information available to anyone that would like to read the twenty five thousand or so peer reviewed papers on vitamin D that have been published since 1960. I would also like to think that our medical professionals and scientists are very bright people. They have competent understanding of how biological processes work. What is missing is the will to use the understandings to treat disease. The intent of the medical profession is to treat and heal disease as long as it makes economic sense. That is, you perform a task for payment and it sustains or increases the market size. This is the very heart of capitalism.

So what principles drive the everyday operations of medical institutions, whether it is your local doctor, hospital, medical insurance company, pharmaceutical company, government agencies for health, and medical marketing (think insurance ads and pharmaceutical commercials)? This could best be summed up by the principles that were stated by former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Michael O. Leavitt. Of course HHS is the administrative department of government that all medical institutions and individual medical professionals either report directly to or responsible to for medical guidelines, rules, and laws for all the various functions of the medical industry. These principles are:

1.      National standards, neighborhood solutions
2.      Collaborations, not polarization
3.      Solutions transcend political boundaries
4.      Markets before mandates
5.      Protect privacy
6.      Science for facts, processes for priorities
7.      Reward result, not programs
8.      Change a heart, change a nation
9.      Value life

These principles seem in reverse order for someone that is dying of a chronic disease or everyone. To ‘value life’ when you are dying would seem to be a number one goal. However, if you want to maintain a healthy medical economy, then a large sick market is needed. To maintain this market then the first four principles are absolutely necessary. The first three keep everyone in ‘locked step’ for moving toward the goal of a healthy economy. However, number four, ‘markets before mandates’ brings confusions to persons wondering why a miracle medical solution is not implemented.

If you had to give up your job or source of income to save a life, would you do it? This seems almost too simple of a question that ultimately drives the medical industry. It is a huge conundrum for persons in administrative positions including the president of the US. It is a huge conundrum for the individual whether you work for the medical profession or have a number of friends and family whose income is derived from the medical industry. Another way to ask this question: would you be worse off to have a chronic disease that takes 50 years to kill you or no income to sustain a nice life style. As a society we have decided on the former.

So a miracle cure comes along for all chronic disease. One that impacts more than ten percent of the genome and in particular the part of the genome that is responsible for disease – vitamin D. You are the secretary of HHS and you meet with the president of the US to decide whether to implement the solution or try to cover it up to prevent a reduction of eight percent (represents fifty percent reduction of the medical economy or a true miracle cure) of an already failing economy- a reduction that could collapse the economy. What would you do?

Yes everyone has a conflict of interest when it comes to reducing the medical economy by half. If the science had been allowed to come forward as it was discovered and we grew the economy into it, then the decision to ‘value life’ would be number one on our priority. Why didn’t this happen?

‘Markets before mandates’ is sad if you are dying. If you derive your income from medical practice then million dollar houses on South Beach and million dollar yachts on the Chesapeake is the order of the day. Ah character and a moral conscience are truly prized qualities to look for as you are trying to find a doctor to treat your illness with vitamin D. The government, disguised as the IoM Food and Nutrition Board, implemented the principle of ‘markets before mandates’, and has put the responsibility for your health squarely on the character and competence of your doctor. If the doctor cannot tell you his own level of serum vitamin D and how much he gets everyday to get there, and his level is not that of a sunny country or a serum 25(OH)D above 50 ng/ml find another doctor. If your doctor starts to talk about the IoM rules on vitamin D and has a large house and a boat then run – run hard and fast. – Pandemic Survivor

Is Vitamin D Toxic? II

Posted on April 10, 2010 by Mark Pegram

Episode II in the epic journey of Is Vitamin D Toxic?

Well I made that trip to my doctor for my annual physical. I was pleasantly surprised at his laid back attitude of my high serum 25(OH)D. I thought that he would read me the ‘riot act’ instead his first question to me was how my healing with vitamin D.

Here is a doctor who has now been dealing with the benefits of vitamin D in his practice long enough to see how much effect that it is having on his patients. He also knew that I know enough about vitamin D that I would not have a long term high level of vitamin D. He could also see from my labs results that my serum calcium was perfectly normal.

So why was my vitamin D greater than 150 ng/ml? My wife had contracted a serious bacterial lung infection after being compromised by an exposure to soot and ash from an Ash Wednesday service. Yeah, I know. Anyway she passed this infection along to me. On the first Friday night in March my lung started to ‘gurgle’ and by Saturday morning I was coughing up blood. This bug had some very serious drillers that were digging deep into the walls of my lungs. I did not want to go the emergency room on the weekend or any other time for that matter so I decided to take a pharmaceutical amount of vitamin D3. I took 250,000 IU of D3 Friday through Monday. The break came on Sunday afternoon as I started to feel better. Believe me if my fever had spiked or more evidence of fluid in my lungs with that much vitamin D I would have been right to the emergency room.

My wife went the route of conventional medicine and took antibiotics. I went the route of the new understanding of vitamin D and went that route. Do not do this without being under the care of a doctor. It worked in my case, but if it had been a more serious infection like mrsa, I could have been in real trouble.

I did not take anymore vitamin D during March while waiting for my level to return to normal. It just happened that my lab test were two weeks after taking 1,000,000 IU of D3. Did that warrant a toxicity warning. I do not believe so in particular since my serum calcium was not high.

My doctor’s comments to me five years ago when I suggested that I was going to start taking large amounts of vitamin D3 was that he had learn in med school that my ‘organs would turn to stone’. Now they have their own Diasorin testing equipment and try to test everyone that they can. My doctors comment now is that he will be telling his patients about the benefits of vitamin D for a very long time. His concern now is the necessity for a change in the medical practice guidelines so that patients, doctors, and medical insurance can come together.

This doctor says that he has many patients that take vitamin D and has not seen a single high serum calcium level that could not be attributed to other causes. In other words he has not seen any vitamin D toxicity in his practice.

Our doctors are truly starting to learn about vitamin D and that all of their previous practice in medicine was on a vitamin D deficient population. This paradigm will truly change the face of medicine.

This doctor and his practice deserves a champion’s award in the Vitamin D Revolution. YOU ARE CHAMPIONS! -Vitamin D patient zero.

Survived another episode of illness with vitamin D. The sun is shinning today and you know where I will be. – Pandemic Survivor

Vitamin D is Toxic?

Posted on April 1, 2010 by Mark Pegram

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

Expectation of Medicine

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Mark Pegram

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

Vitamin D and the Doctor III

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Mark Pegram

“Hope and Elation – Frustration and Anger – Fear and Loathing: The contrasting emotional responses to the Revolutionary Discoveries in MS made by Dr Zamboni”. – Dr Ashton Embry, Ph. D gives us this quote: “Hell hath no fury like a researcher proven wrong or disenfranchised.” www.direct-ms.org; when discussing the resistance to implementing the new treatment for MS that is a true break through.

Can we get a better grip on the understanding of what doctors are like when facing a completely new radical understanding of health, there is this huge resistance to change. This could very well be a good thing when the possibility of side effects can cause more harm than do good. However, what is wrong with keeping the patient’s serum level of vitamin D to that of a sunny country or at a ‘summer level’ all year. We tend to feel so much better in the summer than in the winter.

Dr. Embry’s frustration above is being described as that of a researcher that has been ‘barking up the wrong tree’ for thirty years or longer. We find a similar episode in vitamin D where one of the super heroes of the vitamin D movement is fired from his job by a dermatologist no less after writing a book for retail. (His book is a great read – http://www.uvadvantage.org/ ) I am referring to Dr. Michael Holick of Boston University. The University had the good sense to keep him on in another capacity. Here is the detail of that battle from Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council in the February 2006 newsletter. http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/2006-feb.shtml

These researchers are putting their careers on the line for your health. There is no money to be made from trying to get the medical profession to change. Their only reward is your health.

Your doctor can only follow the guidelines and if your insurance does not cover the cost of a serum 25(OH)D test your doctor will most likely not follow through. “There is no medical evidence that getting your vitamin D to a summer level will help your illness”, he will tell you. What he means is that the treatment guideline for your illness does not have normalizing the serum vitamin D level as part of the treatment protocol. This means until our heroes of the vitamin D movement get those changes made, you are responsible for being replete.

I have been really tough on doctors and maybe I should not have been. I really am still upset with the researchers that have let the benefits of vitamin D go unpublished in the hopes of making and selling an analog for profit. So why have we gone for so long when there is not just a magic bullet for one disease but there is a ‘magic shotgun’ (Oliver Gillie in Sunlight Robbery http://www.healthresearchforum.org.uk/sunlight.html ) for most chronic disease.

So let’s just list the things that have made this understanding of vitamin D so difficult for doctors:

First, doctors have been trained in med school that vitamin D is highly toxic and to not even consider supplementation because just a small amount of sunshine is enough for strong bones.
Efficacy issues comes from claims that D2 and D3 are equal and maybe this is true if you are only taking D for bone health at 400 IU per day. Part of the issue with D2 is that you radiate fungus to make it, and over-radiation will cause isomers of vitamin D that are highly toxic. D3 is concentrated from lambs wool and fat is less likely to form toxic sterols because there is no radiation involved in the process. Only D2 is available as a prescription med.
The amount of D3 is so small that errors in dosage could easily be made. The suggested upper limit by the researchers is just 0.25 mg or 10,000 IU. The upper limit now is 2000 IU or 0.05 mg or 50 micrograms.
The really confusing thing is that there have been only a hand full of toxicity cases in the last fifty years with vitamin D3 and most of these were manufacturing errors by a factor of 1000 or more. For example instead of 2000 IU; 2,000,000 IU was given. Details on toxicity by Dr. John Cannell from 2003 http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/PDFs/toxicity-of-vitamin-d.pdf
There have been many serious toxicity cases with D2 and in trials when using the steroid form of vitamin D, 1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D, thus causing the fear of toxicity
Vitamin D is not a disease specific nutrient and has an impact on all metabolic diseases or diseases that can be related to the endocrine system. This is really difficult for doctors to believe.

Your local doctor is in general a conscientious professional and will help you though the understanding of vitamin D if you ask nicely. But then again he may not, because his belief that one vitamin has more than a single response in the body, namely bone health is absurd because that is what he learned in medical school. If this is the case, for your health, the responsibility is yours.

I know that this may fly in the face of what you have always believed about your relationship with your doctor, but the truth is modern allopathic medicine has reached a ‘cookie cutter’ state that does not fit individual needs. You have spent years of bad nutrition that has created disease, even if you followed the guidelines for nutrition to the best of your understanding. The doctor tries to bring you back to health using drugs and surgery. Your responsibility is to be sure that your levels of essential nutrients are where they should be.

There are institutional issues with what is the best available nutrition and what is the best available technology for treating disease. I heard one doctor in a talk about 25 years ago say that all chronic disease is the result of poor nutrition. I now believe that he is correct. Institutions have ignored what is the best available understanding of medicine and nutrition for profit. This has happened through specialization. Each member of a research team or a medical institution is assigned a specific task and he does his best to complete the task. The moral obligation for the people that the institution serves falls to the head of the institution? However, the CEO or Director or Administrator believes that their job is the survival and economic health of the institution. Who holds the moral obligation? This type of failure in systems holds true whether it is a three man squad in battle or the NIH. Who holds the moral compass for the NIH? Is it the Secretary of Health or the President? I am sure in the mind of each it is passed on to someone else. Based on that meeting of ‘white coat’ doctors on the White House lawn to discuss health care, I think the feeling is that the moral obligation ends up in the doctor’s hands. I am sure the doctors do not feel this same obligation as long they are following the practice guidelines. The truth is that you hold the responsibility for your own health and can take the advice of professionals for what it is worth.

I remember in 1985 what my doctor said to me when I was using ‘his language’ to talk about my back pain as I had accepted the responsibility. “You are using all of the right words, but do you know what you are talking about.” In other words, he was telling me to just ‘shut the h— up and to take what he was saying at face value.’ I was effective enough for him to send me in for x-ray of my back after seven years of just telling me I had muscle strain. After the x-rays he sent me a letter of apology to keep me from suing him. That was nice. Unfortunately he had not bothered to read the science and did not ask to check my vitamin D level even though Dr. Michael Holick had discovered the mechanisms of how vitamin D worked in the body and published 10 years earlier. It is not too much to expect the best available from our doctors but it is never wrong to verify to the best of your ability. This may include your own review of the current literature regarding your illness to see if the suggested treatment protocols agree with current research. Most doctors will hate you for this.

Living in a world without back pain is wonderful. Take responsibility for your health. – Pandemic Survivor

Note: There was an episode of House where the suggested illness was vitamin D deficiency. My wife, the director of a large clinical lab is telling me that doctors are ordering serum vitamin D test on almost everything. Maybe we are getting there. There is hope and you will not have to suffer pain for 30 years like I did.

Vitamin D and the Doctor II

Posted on October 24, 2009 by Mark Pegram

Digging deeper into the perception that doctors bring on an emerging treatment that could reduce the size of their practice by 25 to 50 percent is an enigma. After all doctors were given the task to ‘do no harm’. This is where the metal meets the road. What is doing harm? This is a cultural question, a question among friends, a question among enemies, a medical question, and a legal question. In what ever form we chosen to engage this question it for sure leads to a quest.

Does withholding information from a patient constitute harm. It has long been the practice of medicine that harm is done when we introduce a substance to the body that causes disease or we do a procedure that causes harm. It has often thought to be wise to hold critical information about the suspected course of a disease from the patient to prevent them from getting discouraged and bringing increase to the negative impact of the placebo effect. So what happens when we withhold information and more importantly withhold a substance that can have a beneficial outcome for the patient.

I am sure that there have been many cases where the air has been withheld from a person and this has lead to a negative outcome. So how is it that the medical profession has been able to withhold sunshine from people without being convicted of committing harm to entire generations. We go after parents that do not feed their children properly and call it child abuse and yet there for 50 years or more are the warnings to stay out of the sun as it will cause you harm.

Going to the doctor and telling them that you want to have a test done to see how much time you have spent in the sun will most likely bring ridicule as we discussed in the previous post with a doctor treating a doctor. And yet there are doctors that know it is their responsibility to bring you the best treatment possible and have kept up with the science. It may be in your best interest to seek another doctor if your present physician ridicules you. This of course is not just about vitamin D as much as it is about doctor patient relationships and how the doctor perceives your own understanding of your body and your ability to read and understand simple medical suggestions.

There is so much ‘junk science’ out there and a lot of it is pushed as modern medical practice simply for the sake of making money. Our medical system is sick and needs to be sent to the doctor for a check up and most likely a surgical procedure for a ‘corruptectomy’. Our government health organization have been bought off and are run by people with too many associations with the companies that they are trying to keep in check. It just blows my mind to think that we can let companies get so far down the road in misadventure that we are able to fine them over a billion dollars like what just happened to Pfizer. Think of the suffering that most have resulted from the need for such a large fine. I believe that some modern medicine has truly fallen into the current day ‘snake oil for healing’ lies.

So what do we do with doctors that just simply follow the modern guidelines for treating patients without keeping up with a more modern understanding. Nothing! If they are following guidelines which is what you want through your government then there is nothing that you can do. In the meantime another patient dies from lack of ‘air’.

The only way that you can tell if your doctor is giving you the best treatment is his willingness to talk with you without treating you like you are an idiot. To take the time to explain what his thinking is about your disease and what he believes is the best course of treatment for you. However, when new emerging technologies come through what do you do. If the technology is believed to cause no harm then what is the point in your doctor not allowing you to proceed. If your doctor is not willing to discuss benefits and possible harms then find another because as far as your doctor is concerned you are just a means of income for him.

This is the case with vitamin D. Populations that live in sunny countries have 25(OH)D levels that typically range from 54 to 90 ng/ml of this storage form of vitamin D and this does no harm. So what is wrong with you taking enough of this natural substance, D3? In particular if it causes a positive outcome for heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and hundreds of other types of chronic disease.

Doctors were told in medical school that vitamin D was a bad thing because it could cause your serum calcium to spike and this would cause as my doctor suggested ‘your organs to turn to stone’. It seems now that after much reading that the toxicity problem is primarily with D2 and not D3 because D2 is made from yeast and other fungus by radiating it with UVB. The problem comes from over irradiation which causes isomers to from that are called toxisterols. D3 is typically made by using solvent to extract it from lamb’s fat and wool so it is not likely to have toxisterols.

So your doctor is a really good guy that does keep up with the research and understands the importance of vitamin D but has not yet reached the understanding that D3 is much better for you than D2. He writes you a prescription for you to take 50,000 D2 once per week. D2 is presently the only thing that your pharmacist can give you unless he is a compounding pharmacist. At this point it would be wise to ask you doctor if you can take D3 and not D2. Then just go buy the D3 from a company like BioTech Pharmacal in the 50,000 IU capsules.

There is more complexity here than just going into the sun for a while to get our vitamin D although this is most likely the best way to become replete. It would be great if we all lived below 30 degrees latitude. However, with modern testing techniques we can be sure that we are within a serum range of D that could possibly give us health and do us no harm.

But above all else — Go into the Sun! – Pandemic Survivor

Vitamin D and the Doctor

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Mark Pegram

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”–Arthur Schopenhauer.

This nineteenth century German philosopher had it right. I believe that we are still in the ridicule stage and that the violent opposition stage will be played out in the courts as awareness becomes more public about the negative impact of vitamin D deficiency. The politicians will allow the court cases because of the masses of people that start become aware of their own disease and the dying and suffering of their friends and family from vitamin D deficiency.

I apologize for not writing more because I had become bitter and downcast. This has not been a more pleasant side of my recovery. Even though I have been through the trials and hard times of serious disease I am now grateful for how it has strengthen my faith and now better understand my responsibility to you to bring you education and understanding. I do praise the spirit of hope, love, and acceptance. I have been trying to write about the emotional recovery side of the disease and it has brought back a lot of ‘emotional’ pain.

So how are doctors reacting to the publicity about vitamin D and its impact on general health. It is a very ‘mixed’ bag. Many have recognized the research and are starting to treat their patients with testing and supplementation of vitamin D. Others are just sure that their patients are all ‘idiots’ after the fashion of the TV character Dr. House. The attitude is, “I have been trained and know much better than you ever will and this stuff in the press is just ‘junk science’.”

I have really been alarmed as we have moved into ‘vitamin D winter’ in the northern latitudes and there has not been a large national discussion about the benefits of vitamin D and its affect on the immune system in particular with the seasonal outbreaks of the flu. See what Dr. John Cannell has to say at the Vitamin D Council. Vitamin D and the Flu. Here you can plainly see an example of a doctor that has reacted and one in the same family practice that has not in Georgia.

Also please read Dr. Cannell’s May newsletter about the flu and vitamin D: I know that I have repeated this many times but it breaks my heart to think about the needless death of children and pregnant women.

I will relay this story of a pregnant woman that I know that is a medical professional. She has been one of the few that has not had flu like symptoms in the large hospital where she works and she has been taking enough vitamin D to be replete.

During one of her regular visits to her doctor, she decided that she should have her vitamin D level tested. She was chastised by her physician for falling into the ‘trap of something not in the medical guideline’. Remember now we are talking about two doctors talking to each other and the person in responsible charge for the health of her patient tells the other doctor that she just does not know what she is talking about. My friend had read the many research papers on vitamin D in particular those by Dr. Bruce Hollis of the Medical University of South Carolina. This is a professor of pediatrics and has done extensive research on pregnant women and vitamin D. Here is some of his work at Google Scholar: Also she is familiar with this newsletter from the Vitamin D Council on pregnancy and gestation. She decided not to engage and just left the office visit steaming mad. She has decided to have another doctor order her vitamin D test.

So here we have two doctors that just results in ridicule of current research. How is this suppose to work with just plain everyday folk that put their trust in the medical profession. You know it makes me think of two things. First consider how long we struggled with the understanding of tobacco and how it affected health. It was ridicule and then finally submission under the weight of government court battles with that industry. With vitamin D there have been large cohort studies and many more epidemiological studies. With tobacco to my knowledge there have not been cohort studies and just a few epidemiological studies. The government acted because of the rich reward that they saw in tax and penalty income from the tobacco companies. Also here there was a substance being put into our bodies and not just the withholding of knowledge by our professionals on research that dates to early part of the twentieth century. If we had been a vitamin D replete population I wonder how the tobacco trials would have played out.

Second it is like an episode of House being played out in real life. I am sure that we will never see an episode of House where the patient is found to have vitamin D deficiency and that is the cause of the failure of their immune systems and endocrine system. Modern medicine has been practiced on a population deficient in vitamin D and this includes all testing, research, and practice guidelines. If this ever plays out on House then we will know as a society that we have overcome this certain tragedy. Also the government will definitely be slow to act because as some researchers have stated that a vitamin-D-replete population would cause a reduction of twenty five to fifty percent of our medical economy. What would happen to all that tax income and how would we pay for all of the older folks that did not die when ‘they were suppose to’.

Hold onto your chairs folks because if this change starts to play out in the courts then it will be just like the tobacco trials except there will many more people affected as in everyone. Just think you can tune into the TV every night and watch your favorite news channel as the court battles are engaged. I am sure the lawyers are just licking their chops, but they are also slow to act because there have not been any trials of significance where a substance was withheld that caused the death and suffering of millions.

More likely the large institutions will control the media and it will be bloggers and face to face conversations with friends that result in a replete population over many decades. However, medical professionals that I know say that this is now moving through the systems faster than any change they have seen previously.

With great hope I look forward to that stage of great health for everyone when we begin to accept the truth of sunshine and vitamin D as being ‘self-evident’.

We are in ‘vitamin D winter’ in the northern hemisphere so take care to be sure that you are replete. Follow the instructions on the home page of the Vitamin D Council.

– Be sure to supplement!!! – Pandemic Survivor

Vitamin D Deficiency Survivor

Changing the Face of Health with Vitamin D

Category Archives: Doctors