Category Archives: osteoporosis

The Onslaught Against Nutrients for Bone Health

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BoneRecently there have been many articles about the ineffectiveness of vitamin D and calcium for bone health.  Major media outlets that published about the ineffectiveness of vitamin D and calcium for bone health include: ABC news, Reuters, WebMD, Newsweek, LA Times, and Washington Post. I am sure there are more. Why this onslaught on vitamins and minerals?

My personal experience has been significantly different. This includes the recent discovery that my right leg length returned to normal after many years of supplementing with vitamins and minerals. Article It is interesting to note that the IOM (name changed to National Academy of Medicine) reported that we only need 600 IUs of vitamin D3 for bone health in 2010. The IOM took the position that the amount was so small as it was only about bone health. The importance of calcium is that every cell starts biological action with calcium and vitamin D3 controls calcium. It was reported three years ago that an error in the statistics was made by the IOM. The actual amount should have been over 7,000 IUs per day of vitamin D3. The error for the wrong amount of vitamin D was heavily reported in the Canadian press, but not one single major US news outlet reported the error.

I believe we don’t only have a case for fake news. I believe that news about how vitamins and minerals are significantly important for health has been intentionally held from press. The reason is the number of health ads for pharmaceuticals and allopathic treatment are the major source of income for news outlets. Consider this recent post by Grassroots Health about how the cost of health is significantly reduced with higher levels of vitamin D. What if we had an adequate amount of all the right types of nutrients. I believe that healthcare cost would be reduced by fifty percent. This would effectively send us into a depressed economy as approximately twenty percent of GDP is from healthcare.  

What can we do about this? I have tried with congressmen and the response was tepid at best. Government does not want to take the chance that the economy would fail. I understand the need for robust economy and engineered failure. This occurs in everything from auto batteries to your iPhone that is slowed down when the new model is available. But to support the economy off the illness of the population may just be evil. How much lost production do we have from illness? I suffered back and joint pain for three decades to discover that modern medicine was not offering what was available in the science that we had paid for as tax payers.  The real science for nutrients is just being ignored, or worse, being manipulated for the economy. 

Bone health does not only require vitamin D3 and calcium. It also requires the combination of many nutrients that include vitamin D3, vitamin A, vitamin B, calcium, magnesium, boron, vitamin K, iodine, and proteins from animal bones and skin. Iodine is another nutrient in which seventy-five percent of the population is deficient based on present recommendations. If we consume the amount that is present in the Japanese diet, then we are off by a factor of one hundred. The modern paradigm for bone health is to just take a drug, bisphosphonate. This supports the economy but may not do much for your health.

The best solution for your chronic disease is to do your own research in nutrients. The institutions will not be much help as they want to maintain a strong economy. Thanks for reading. –Pandemic Survivor

Remodeling of Bone Length in Old Age

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boneCan a bone increase in length after you have reached sixty years old? This happened to me. I was evaluated by x-ray with a shortened right leg of 3/4 inch in 2003 by an orthopedic surgeon and was verified in 2004 by another orthopedic surgeon. The second surgeon had operated on my low back for a ruptured disc in 1998 and 2003. I was prescribed an adjustment of my right shoe. A visit last week to the surgeon that performed my back surgery confirmed with x-ray that my legs are now normal equal length.

I had noticed over the last two years that there was minor pain in my left hip that became a noticeable limp. Just three weeks ago, I went to pick up the morning paper (I rushed out barefoot) and noticed that my gait was normal. I was confused. Had my right leg increased in length? The next morning on the way to the gym, I stopped at a Walmart and purchased a normal pair of gym shoes. My limp disappeared as I worked out. I made the appointment with the surgeon and found my legs are equal length.

If you are a reader of this blog, you know that I have successfully repaired my cartilage and required no more back surgery. This included a repair of stenosis through nutrition at C3-C4. The stenosis was causing severe sleep apnea as this is the location for the nerve to the lungs. This was accomplished with an increase of all vitamins and minerals. I had no idea that it could affect the bone growth plates to allow my bone length to remodel to my genetic map. It is interesting to note that over a ten month period in 2005 my height increased by approximately three inches. Imagine 23 vertebral discs and each increasing in thickness by about one tenth inch. The cartilage had repaired and freed me of disease.

I believe the remodeling of my right femur was from the increase of several significant factors for bone and cartilage health. This includes vitamin D3, vitamin A (from cod liver oil), methyl folate (not folic acid), gelatin for bone and cartilage protein, iodine, selenium (from Brazil nuts), manganese, sulfate, and magnesium as the key factors. The shoe lift worked just fine until 2014 or eleven years. The change started when I added iodine, selenium, gelatin, and sulfate. I added increased amounts of these in 2013 as I researched the need for cartilage repair. There may have been the factor of Metadichol as well. I started to supplement infrequently with nanoemulsion of policosanol in 2015. Based on the gene studies and intracellular receptor studies of nano-policosanol by Dr. Raghavan, this may have also had an effect.

What are the mechanisms of this action? I don’t have a clue. However, my thoughts from at least ten thousand hours of reading on nutrients has lead me to this belief, without describing actual mechanisms. The methyl folate along with B vitamins as cofactors (methylation cycle) leads to the increase of chondrocytes through stimulation of mesenchymal stem cells. I believe the methylation cycle is one of the most significant repair mechanisms of human physiology, but nothing works in isolation. Vitamin D3, vitamin A, iodine, and selenium act for differentiation of the chondrocytes in cartilage as well as the bone growth plate and the bone remodeling pathways. These same vitamins and minerals act in many mechanisms of repair for our organs. The addition of sulfate acts in many ways with the most important being detoxification, gut lining repair, neuron development, bone mineralization, and cartilage stability. The addition of gelatin assures that the necessary proteins are available. The result, bone and cartilage repair. Iodine and selenium are very significant for hormonal control through the thyroid and associated endocrine actions. With iodine deficiency during pregnancy, the worst case is cretinism and associated bone deformity and mental capacity loss. WHO says that iodine deficiency is the leading cause of mental disorders.

I tried to keep the intake of vitamins and minerals at levels that have been described for health as stated by many research papers. I tried not to exceed levels that are known to cause damage. An example is vitamin D3. I consume 10,000IU/d whether I spend time in the sun or not.  This tends to keep my serum vitamin D level at high normal of 60 to 90 ng/ml of 25(OH)D.  This is much higher than the current government suggestion of 600 IU per day of vitamin D3.  My intake of iodine is much higher than the suggested 150 mcg/d. I take either Iodoral or Lugolâ’s solution for an intake of 12.5 mg/d of iodine/iodide combination. This is one hundred times higher than the recommendation but is consistent with the intake of the Japanese population. There is no suggested intake for sulfate and this is a huge error in medical science. I consume 3 to 4 grams of MSM per day.

I am not suggesting that you try any of this. Research in multivariate vitamins and minerals is very limited as modern science continues in its fallacy of one cure for one disease. Vitamin D3 for only bone health is an example of one that has gotten us into extremely poor health outcomes. Who knows, maybe God has stepped in to help only me recover after three decades of chronic pain and illness. Now at 66 YO, I am grateful every day for this blessing and will continue to communicate with you how to live without drugs for chronic illness and pain. Was my bone-length increasing a miracle?  It certainly is an answer to prayer.  On this Pentecost Sunday when the Holy Spirit first came to Christians two thousand years ago, I am praying for your health, both spiritual and physical. –Pandemic Survivor

My eBook about recovery: Healed from Chronic Pain

Resources for more reading:  Bone Growth in Length and Width, the Yin and Yang of Bone Stability, F. Rauch

Aging and Bone, A. L. Boskey Â

Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoporosis–Vitamin D Pathways

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Arthritis is an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation of the joints.   There are many types of arthritis, but they all seem to come from vitamin D deficiency.  Vitamin D deficiency results in many types of autoimmune diseases. At Vitamin D Deficiency Survivor, we have always encouraged you to be sure that your vitamin D levels are in the high normal range when trying to relieve these very serious diseases.  In this article, we present a case study of a patient with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis that was treated with Metadichol.

Here is the article heading and abstract from the paper recently published by the Journal of Arthritis.

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Here is the link: Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoporosis: A Case Study, P. R. Raghavan, Journal of Arthritis

It is very interesting to note in this article that the patient improved in many markers for health.  C-reactive protein (CRP) is a very important marker and signals an inflammation effect for many pathways of health.   In this study, the patient had a CRP of 1.1 that rose three years later, at baseline before treatment, to 83.  After sixteen weeks of treatment, the patient returned to his normal level—see figure 4.6.  This means that inflammation from all sources was reduced.

The treatment used in this study was Metadichol.  Metadichol is a nanoemulsion of naturally occurring policosanol. The nanoemulsion of policosanol is more easily absorbed and fines its way into the cells where it acts along vitamin D pathways, and the proper expression of many disease related genes (over 700 genes). 

I had arthritis in my pointing finger on my left hand for many years.  With high levels of vitamin D and other vitamins and minerals, it had still not returned to normal.  In three months with treatment of Metadichol, it returned to its normal size and there was no more pain.  Prior, it had been twenty-five percent larger than my right-hand finger.  My sister had significant pain in her knee that she had been told was from arthritis. She described it as very painful.  After treatment with Metadichol for three days, she reported that the pain was reduced by fifty percent.  I know that she was supplementing with a significant amount of vitamin D3. 

The author is very excited about the increase in bone mass density (BMD). This is nothing new to those that understands how vitamin D and minerals work to increase bone mass. Here is a post that I did in 2010 showing that an adequate amount of vitamin D increases bone mass.  The post is about a warning from the FDA for bisphosphonate drugs.  Here is also a link to the paper showing a 23% increase in BMD with vitamin D3 in a nursing home. 

Vitamins and minerals and other nutrients do not work in isolation for health.  It is an adequate amount of all nutrients that is important for health.  We have lost a significant intake of policosanol from processed foods.  Policosanol occurs in the sunny parts of plants, and it occurs at high levels on the husk of seeds and grains.   Think how we have lost access to this vital nutrient by not chewing the husk off foods.  Dr. Raghavan has presented us a solution to this modern problem of processed foods.
–Mark Pegram

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

USPSTF, Government Panel Sends Up Trial Balloon for Negative Vitamin D Findings

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Panel to post menopausal women: Don’t take vitamin D, Calcium – USA Today:  “A government advisory panel’s recommendation Tuesday that healthy postmenopausal women should not take daily low doses of vitamin D and calcium to prevent bone fractures is a wakeup call to millions of Baby Boomer women that more is not always better.”

“In its draft recommendations, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force also said existing research is insufficient to assess the risks or benefits of taking vitamin D — with or without calcium — to prevent cancer in adults.”

Older Women Should Not Take Calcium, Vitamin D, Task Force – Philadelphia Inquirer

Panel: Postmenopausal women shouldn’t take vitamin D, calcium to prevent bone fractures – CBS News

Government Panel Says Calcium, Vitamin D Won’t Prevent Bone Fractures – USA News & World Report

Vitamin D Doesn’t Prevent Osteoporosis in Healthy Women, Task Force Says – Huffington Post

On and on and on and beat me with a stick!  What goes on here?  Why has this government panel come out now and what have they really said?  US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) is sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a division of Health and Human Services (HHS).  Of course this is ultimately your President, but I suspect he does not have a clue as to what is going on with his health agencies.  AHRQ is the same agency that provided the package for the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Food and Nutrition Board that says you only need to take 800 IU vitamin D per day.  As I have warned you in the past to ignore studies that use such small amounts, the USPSTF review as based on 400 IU vitamin D and 1000 mg of calcium per day.

The Endocrine Society (ES) was bothered by the IOM’s suggestions and said the IOM was wrong.  This was based on practice experience where women have much worse osteoporosis and bone fractures with low levels of vitamin D.  The ES suggested that 25(OH)D levels be above 30 ng/ml and not the 20 ng/ml suggested by IOM.   My sister-in-law benefited from this understanding.  She had multiple bone breaks per year and planter fasciitis.  After her endocrinologist went to hear Michael Holick speak, he put her on 4000 IU per day of vitamin D and she healed.

The other thing that is alarming about the USPSTF’s suggestions is that all of the news stories are based on a draft recommendation release.  In other words, the government is sending up a trial balloon and maintains deniability.  I suspect a real recommendation will never come forward.  They have accomplished what they had set out to do – keep people from taking vitamin D because its positive effects are already being seen in the health statistics. Shame on you Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary HHS, for allowing markets before mandates!  The medical economy is not more important than our health.

By the way, there is a study showing better than twenty five percent improvements in bone density in a year with 5000 IU/d of vitamin D.  Beat me with a stick!  Ouch!  – Pandemic Survivor

Bisphosphonate and Vitamin D Interpretation makes me LAUGH

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The article in the LA Times from June 6, 2011:  “Vitamin D levels should be higher in people taking certain osteoporosis drugs, experts say.” 

Experts really have a way sometimes of justifying just being.  I AM AN EXPERT they shout at the top of their lungs when in reality they are no better than the average Joe.  The only thing that makes them an expert is the amount of time that they have spent on a particular subject.  This does not however improve their ability for logic.  This ‘blinders on’ focus can sometimes yield results that they want rather than what is observed.

The logic behind the statement that vitamin D levels need to be higher to allow the drug to work is absurd.  It is not that the drug is working better; it is that vitamin D without the drug is giving you stronger bones at a higher density.  Take our drug with vitamin D they say when all you need is an adequate amount of vitamin D.  Now you know why the IOM FNB on vitamin D and calcium reported such low requirements for vitamin D.  It was about being able to give you drugs.

Last October I reported on the warning about bisphosphonate drugs and how dangerous they are per the FDA warning.  “Bone Fractures Suspected with Anti-osteoporosis Drug”  In that report I show where Veronica Mocanu reported an average of 28 percent increase in bone density when women took 5,000 IU of D3 per day for a year.  Typical of a bisphophonate drug is less than 3 percent increase in bone density per year.  Now which component of the combination is increasing bone density.  It is obviously the vitamin D.  The bisphophonates will just cause you health problems.  I would like to confirm that finding of twenty five plus percent yearly increase in bone density as I have had two different women report to me that is exactly what happened to them.  The good part of this is that their doctor stopped hassling them about taking bisphophonates.

I am always in for a good laugh!  – Pandemic Survivor

Bone Fractures Suspected with Anti-Osteoporosis Drug

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What do bone fractures, damaged jawbones, and esophageal cancer have in common?  It is possible that they may be caused by the anti-osteoporosis drug, bisphosphonates.  The FDA has just released a warning that you should review the usage of these drugs with you health care provider.  Here is the FDA warning and information

Here is a comprehensive article on the issues at Food Consumer.

You know, this is not really news.  There have always been concerns about the effectiveness of bisphospohonates.  Typically the increase in bone density over a year is less than three percent.  I have a friend that was taking the bisphosphonates.  I suggested to her that she may want to start supplementing with vitamin D.  It would not only help her bone density but would simulate her endocrine system in many ways.  She talked with her health care provider and stopped taking the anti-osteoporosis drug and starting taking 5000 IU of D3 per day.  After a year she reported that her bone density had increased by 23%.  So you are asking is there any science to support such an increase.

Paul Stitt, (now deceased, is a champion of the Vitamin D Revolution and we honor him) Natural Ovens in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, sponsored a study for supplementing the diet of nursing home patients with 5000 IU of vitamin D per day in their bread.  He could not get the study accomplished in the US because of the 2000 IU maximum and had the study done in Romania.  Endocrinologist Veronica Mocanu of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Iasi, Romania did the work.  She reported at the 2005 Experimental Biology Meeting in San Diego that the vitamin D deficient patients achieved a healthy level of vitamin D.  What was also amazing is that she reported the bone density increase for their hips at 28 percent.  Here is an article by Janet Raloff that is archived at Direct MS on this presentation: I find  it extremely interesting that just after the report, Merck petitioned the FDA to add vitamin D to their popular osteoporosis drug, Fosamax, spring of 2006.  Now we see on all the biphsophonate commercials to be sure to get enough vitamin D and calcium – huh?

Mocanu has finally had the research paper published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2009.  Here is the link; Long-term effects of giving nursing home residents bread fortified with 125 µg (5000 IU) vitamin D3 per daily serving

The medical profession has done us a real disservice in promoting these drugs when all that we needed was some sunshine.  By taking the drug, it appears that the side effects are worse than the ‘supposed’ treatment.  How many other chronic diseases are results of sun phobia?

Go talk to your health care provided now if you are taking biphosphonates!  – Pandemic Survivor

Osteoporosis and the Battle Begins

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Paradigm change means that someone will ultimately be damaged economically.  It does not matter if you are the manufacturer of the slide rule when calculators were invented or if you are the manufacturer of an osteoporosis drug when it was found that regular amounts of vitamin D would eliminate this problem.

To combat this issue, the best course of action is misinformation.  So determine a way to say that vitamin D does not work.  Here is the latest attempt.

LA Times Blog: Annual Mega-dose of Vitamin D doesn’t reduce fractures, study fines

USA Today:  Women fall more, not less, after a large dose of Vitamin D

Here is the actual journal paper from JAMA: Annual High-Dose Oral Vitamin D and Falls and Fractures in Older Women

I have noticed of late that all the commercials for osteoporosis meds say to take vitamin D and calcium daily.  Is it the drug or the vitamin D that is helping the course of the disease?  I suspect that if you get your serum vitamin D above 50 ng/ml and keep it there that your osteoporosis problems will disappear.  You will also be blessed with improved health in many other areas.  An important part of maintaining healthy bones is to have an adequate amount of magnesium as well.  This turns out to be about 3.5 to 4.5 mg of magnesium per lb of body weight.  Check out what Krispin, a nutritionist, says about magnesium.

The body was designed to have regular, daily doses of vitamin D.  Spiking the serum vitamin D level may be effective in treating disease, in particular infectious disease, but should not be used as a means to affect bone health.

Please beware of the news headlines that tend to mislead the reader to the agenda of the media.  That is to maintain large medical industry advertizing accounts.  Please note that he intent of the study was to determine if a single dose could be used because compliance in the elderly for daily doses is difficult.

If you can, go into the sun everyday for at least 15 minutes  – Pandemic Survivor