Vitamin D Treats Liver Disease

Liver PicVitamin D does treat liver disease. Way back in December 2009, I wrote about how vitamin D had brought myself and one other family member’s liver markers into the normal range. This included a problem with hepatitis—Hepatitis C Cured? By now I have had many tell me that taking vitamin D had cleared up their liver. The commercial that we are constantly bombarded with on TV about you don’t have to have Hep C anymore is a drug that is most likely just a vitamin D mimic or analogue (A manmade molecule or compound that is similar to the natural molecule.).

The Vitamin D Council, Dr. Cannell, has ranted on about how vitamin A is destructive to the level of vitamin D. Strictly speaking this is true. He even had a disagreement with the Weston Price Foundation about the need for vitamin A. Cannell’s contention was that vitamin A build-up in the liver was the cause of chronic liver disease. The truth, vitamin D and vitamin A form a dimer in some of the most important functions in the body. If you are getting enough vitamin D, your liver clears of vitamin A. The important functions that I can think of immediately are cellular differentiation and stimulating the immune system, specifically the start of increasing antimicrobial peptides that are your body’s natural pathogen killer cells. After several months of supplementing with vitamin D, I had to also supplement with vitamin A, retinol palmitate, for the effectiveness of vitamin D. Until trials are run with the combination of vitamin D and vitamin A, there will continue to be confusion over the effectiveness of fat-soluble vitamins. Our forebears were absolutely correct in their supplementation with cod liver oil.

It is the combination of vitamin D and vitamin A that is critical to your health. Our fathers of medicine have long ranted about the dangers of fat-soluble vitamins. The primary reason for this is not a lack of understanding, but the need to sell you pharmaceutical analogues. Eat large amounts of beta carotene as that is not dangerous was the mantra. The truth is that large amounts of beta carotene can be very dangerous to the lungs. The liver does not convert beta carotene until you are already deficient in vitamin A. The manufacturers of vitamins have reduced the amount of beta carotene that was in multivitamins.

Now with nutraceuticals that are available, we can have our cake and eat it too. Dr. P. R. Raghavan has created the nutraceutical Metadichol. This works to bring the body to homeostasis. It works along many pathways included genetic expression and control of the molecular receptors. What is Metadichol and why is it so effective in treating disease and healing wounds? Metadichol is made of policosanol that is commonly found on all plants. The problem in modern nutrition is that we take away the part of the plant where the concentration of the policosanol is the highest. The advantage of Metadichol is it is made by making a small particle emulsion. We did some of this on our own when we used to chew the husk from food. Now, we have the opportunity to assure that we are getting enough policosanol for health. Taking policosanol as a supplement is not the same as the small particle emulsion. Dr. Raghavan has published over ten papers on the matter and is going around the world to lecture and help other researchers understand the importance of the small particle emulsion of policosanol. Metadichol is very important in how it puts the vitamin D receptor into the state that is required for health. The vitamin D receptor is like the conductor of an orchestra in the smooth harmonies of all receptors. Here is a recently published article on how Metadichol is significant for liver disease.

“A Multi Gene Targeting Approach to Treating Liver Diseases with Metadichol®”

Abstract

Liver diseases are becoming a major health concern. In the developing countries it is due to microbial infection. In the rest of the developed world it is due to alcohol abuse. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis are a significant health concern in western countries. It is the fifth most common cause of death, after heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chest disease. The liver is capable of regeneration, but it can be overwhelmed leading to liver diseases like cirrhosis and hepatocellular cancer (HCC).

Vitamin D levels are low in most patients with liver diseases, and this suggests possible therapeutic benefits with use of vitamin D or its analogues. Vitamin D, through the vitamin D nuclear receptor (VDR) plays a crucial role in mineral ion homeostasis. The liver has a central role in vitamin D synthesis and there is a need for an agent that will not lead to hypercalcemia. Metadichol, a nano-emulsion of long-chain alcohols derived from food, is an inverse agonist of Vitamin D can fill this void.

In Diabetic rat studies, it inhibits TNF alpha, ICAM1 (intracellular adhesion molecule), CCL2 (chemokine C-C motif) also referred to as monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP1). All these cytokines, chemokines are known to have important role in liver diseases. We show that Metadichol indeed does work in liver disease patients by normalizing essential liver enzymes ALT, AST and ALP, and GGT. This approach is an example where Metadichol targets multiple genes and via multiple pathways to bring about homeostasis of the liver and is a useful, safe, nontoxic product in treating liver diseases and alleviating a global threat.

Link to published paper: Liver-disease-paper (1)

Mark Pegram

Please note that I have not been writing due to the long-term illness and recent death of my brother from agent orange exposure during his thirty months at war in Vietnam. The mutation of his genes from the dioxin exposure prevented his physiology from reacting normally to modern medicine and nutrition. Interestingly, the doctors and researchers in my family have agreed to this. War and the aftermath is hell.

Hepatitis C Cured?

And another virus bites the dust.  Hepatitis C is a serious virus that infects the liver and can cause scarring, cirrhosis, and even cancer of the liver.  It is a serious disease with only about a 50% cure rate.  Liver failures that result in a liver transplant will typically still have the disease.

Before I jump right into the news story let’s consider an old salty warrior that I know that spent 25 years in the military.  He had multiple tours in Vietnam and spent his career in locations all over the world.  He has suffered many diseases including tuberculosis that in combination of the drugs that were used to cure the TB had a serious negative impact on his liver and his lung capacity.  After being on vitamin D3 at about 6000 IU per day for two years his liver markers are now completely normal.  His lung capacity has also returned to normal.  So what are we to make of this?  I know that my own liver markers were way out of normal and returned to normal after the first year on vitamin D.

Evidently vitamin D is really good for your liver!

This story was reported in Empowher which is a women’s health online site.  In the test that was discuss patients were given vitamin D in a test that was to show the difference in interferon treatments.  At the 12th week of treatment the vitamin D group was 96% HCV RNA negative as compared to the control group which was 48% HCV RNA negative.  “Vitamin D Boost Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C”

This is really good news for people that are suffering from liver disease as it may be that vitamin D has a significant impact on recovery of the liver both from disease and abuse by drugs and alcohol.  Who knows maybe it could even help those people that have taken too much acetaminophen.  In any case there is no reason for people to die that are not vitamin D replete.  Why take the chance of not taking vitamin D when the benefits could be so great and there is no down side.

Here is the research from the Vitamin D Council on liver function and vitamin D. Also on liver cancer.

Get REPLETE!  There are no negative side effects to having enough vitamin D  – Pandemic Survivor