Summer Fun in the Sun and Water

Posted on May 31, 2014 by Mark Pegram

There is nothing better than to start the summer with a lot of time spent at your favorite water sport or play in the SUN. It is the continuation of lots of memories that begin in childhood. There is always the excitement of dangers in the waters like sharks at the beach. When I was a child, my parents used to give me a very hard time about not splashing in mud puddles. They told me that I could get a very serious disease that might even kill me. I was sure they just did not want me to not get my clothes dirty and splashed anyway. I should have known that the wisdom of generations of farmers fostered realities that were beyond the grasp of my childhood desire for fun. You should also be very, very aware when enjoying your favorite water fun for the same concerns of my parents – toxins in the water.

You may be familiar with algae blooms and the sometime warnings by your local government to not go into the water. A lot of time you ignore this warning and decide to go into the water regardless of the danger. Or you may have your favorite back water kayak site just waiting your return to explore the dark wonderful pools and bright sun splashed lakes. Before you go on your water adventure, be sure to look for algae blooms or the possibility of algae blooms. Of course I am not talking about algae per se, but blue green algae or cyanobacteria. I know the pools that my parents kept me out of would always get blue green algae tint before they dried. It is not a plant at all but bacteria. This is the same thing that goes on in our water ways, in particular with the higher amounts of nutrients from modern activities.

“The first published report that blue-green algae or cyanobacteria could have lethal effects appeared in Nature in 1878.” Cyanotoxin Wikipedia. Did my parents read Nature or was it experience? I am sure that it was experience. An illness after coming in contact with the blue green bacteria and the rest is holistic knowledge. There are two major concerns with contact of cyanobacteria: liver toxicity and nervous system damage. The liver toxicity and the neuron damage can both cause death. There are many cases of animal deaths in the Midwest after drinking from pools with blooms. As far as human deaths, there are not many documented cases. What is the concern?

New evidence for neurological diseases has been identified from contact with the neurotoxins. The problems were first identified in Guam from a cluster of ALS. It was determine that this cluster was caused from consumption of eating a local food source that was contaminated with cyanotoxins. There have since been clusters of neurodegenerative diseases within ten miles of lakes in the US that are known for blue green algae blooms. Other neurological diseases that have not been completely identified may be from the cyanotoxins. This includes ALS, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and perhaps MS, Guillain Barre, and other neuromuscular and neurodegenerative diseases. Protein or amino acid mimics from the cyanobacteria get incorporated into human biology that the immune system starts to attack. This is sometimes identified as autoimmune diseases. This destroys the myelin sheath of the neurons axon or may cause issues with neurotransmitters.

There is presently a study ongoing for treating ALS with L-serine. It was found that this protein used by neurons may have become compromised from the cyanotoxin. There is even one amazing story of a boy magically getting better after being in a wheelchair for years when treated with L-serine. From my reading of research, the best things you can do if you have issues with neuromuscular/degenerative diseases are to be sure you are getting enough micro nutrients. This includes copper and zinc (presently an ongoing trial for ALS), boron, manganese, sulfate, vitamins D, C (perhaps liposomal C), and A. The minerals are for various biological functions that are absolutely necessary. I am really surprised there is not a clinical trial for ALS and manganese. Manganese is required for the generation of sulfate esters for detoxifying the body as well as making super oxide dismutase for mitochondrial health. ALS sufferers have been identified as having high sulfate content. It is interesting to note that most MS sufferers have low sulfate content. I do believe that the clue is in the manganese, copper, zinc, and iron. Of course and vitamin D3 as this is necessary for the sulfate transporter throughout the body.

I do not mean to go off on cyanobacteria as all bad. There are many healthful benefits from the use of cyanobacteria. It is used by biotech companies to make drugs and vitamins and other nutrients because of its ability to produce proteins and amino acids. This bacterium has also been credited with allowing the earth to develop its oxygen rich atmosphere because of its photosynthesis effects. It was also thought to be a great food source because of the high protein content ( forty percent) in 1930’s to solve the issue of increasing population.

When headed to your favorite water play source, check it out for any signs of “algae bloom”. Also be sure to observe any warning signs including ones from your parents regardless of your age. Also, kayakers should be very careful as some of the most toxic bacteria live at two to three feet below the surface in calm waters and cannot be realized until they bloom and the blooms are forced to the surface. Have fun in the sun and water this summer, but watch out for the sharks and bacteria. – Pandemic Survivor

Breast Cancer Survivor Takes on the Issues

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Mark Pegram

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: Video of how to do the test:

The Change of the Medical Landscape in the Next Ten Years

Posted on June 25, 2009 by Mark Pegram

I submitted the below solution to an Innocentive challenge over a year ago that was sponsored primarily by medical insurance institutions as a way to immediately control cost. I got a nice thank you from Innocentive and of course I did not win the challenge. I imagine that it was frightening to them to think that the medical economy could be reduced by at least 30%.

If you are a medical insurer, health provider, government, or a pharmaceutical manufacturer you will should have great concern when you read this message.

Note, I am neither a doctor nor a nutritionist. I am just someone that discovered a 99% correlation between obesity and central air condition in the US over the last 20 years. When I started looking for cause and effect I found sunshine. I was healed of degenerative disc disease, severe sleep apnea, and after having two back surgeries I avoided three more. All of this healing and reduced medical cost in just four years. My physician tells me that I now have the health of a 25 year old and that is not too bad for a 57 year old man. This was accomplished by simply supplementing with 4000 IU per day during the summer and 10.000 IU per day during the winter (body weight 230 lbs – 38 degrees North Latitude). Without this understanding I would be either incapacitated or dead.

For 70 years now we have been ignoring the advantages of the sun or being replete in Vitamin D. It is even longer if you consider that Niels Ryberg Finsen was given the Nobel Prize in 1903 for curing a form of TB (lupus vulgaris) using UV light. It is amazing that we started to implement the understanding during the first part of the 20^th Century by having the medical profession encourage everyone to take cod liver oil everyday. We then discovered synthetic steroids in the fifties and the desire for profit and allopathic medicine outweighed our desire for individual health and preventative medicine. We then entered the years of sun phobia and the entire population became less healthy and is kept alive with modern medicine. This is great for the medical economy but poor for the individual health. Our institutional ignoring of the facts has lead to the second ‘Holocaust’. Sorry to use this word, but I just do not know what else to call it after personally suffering 25 years of torturous pain and loss of income.

The simple solution to improve health care is to heal the population. The majority of chronic disease can be significantly reduced by changing the health policy of supplementation of vitamin D and the medical guidelines for treatment. That is to encourage the population to get at minimum 3000 IU (adults) of D3 per day either through supplementation or exposure to the sun or other UVB light source with an upper limit of 10,000 IU per day. The medical guidelines should be changed to assure that deficiency begins below 40 ng/ml of serum 25(OH)D3 and insufficiency below 60 ng/ml. Normal range should be changed to 60 to 100 ng/ml for 25(OH)D3 instead of the current 20 to 100 ng/ml.

The present resistance is that there is not enough research to support such a change. I say that this is just wrong as we have already had a public policy that was close to this when the medical profession suggested that everyone take two tablespoons of cod liver oil per day or approximately 2600 IU of D3. It is interesting to note that in 25 years in suffering back pain and other disease that not one single doctor suggested that I might vitamin D deficient when we have a national health policy of supplementing milk for bone disease. How easy is it to ignore the facts when there is no profit motive?

Given the antiviral, antibiotic, antifungal, cellular differentiation, other genetic signaling, autoimmune disease, hypertension, muscle strength, stimulation of the entire endocrine system, and cancer treatment and prevention, the medical industry will most likely shrink by 25 to 50 percent over the next ten years. As the centers of cash flow change there would be a huge shift in the centers of economy. The medical economic segment would shrink from first to about somewhere in the middle of the pack. This would cause great economic concern over a 10 to 20 year period but would significantly improve the productivity and economy of the individual as the population became healthier and in general and an improvement of the economy of the whole.

I know that your goal is to significantly improve medical cost while not impacting medical income. The question that you have to ask yourself is the health of the individual more important than the medical economy. So far lobbying efforts have held government policy in check as is readily confessed by HHS Secretary Levitt in his number four principle of “Markets before Mandates”. It is interesting to note that to “Value Life” is number nine.

You will not be able to stop the growing health benefit of this understanding. Given that the medical publications are already making their way through the general population anything that you do to slow it down will make you look like perpetuators of the second ‘Holocaust’. If you take only cancer and consider Lappe, et. al. study from Creighton University June 2006 that showed a reduction in total cancer of 60% when supplementing with only 1100 IU per day of D3, it becomes clear the ramifications of taking policy action. If policy action is not taken soon the courts will become jammed with tort liability cases against the institutions of health and lead to economic failure in that manner.

Conclusion: Policy Change and Implementation by the US Government on Vitamin D

I will not list resources in this summary as it would take at least 10 pages. However, please consider the Expert Opinion Diagnosis and Treatment of Vitamin D Deficiency by J. Cannell, B. W. Hollis, M. Zasloff, and R. P. Heaney.

Go into the Sun as I see a bright future in your life!

Toxicity of Vitamin D

Posted on June 25, 2009 by Mark Pegram

This is my own opinion about toxicity and how we got to such a state as the doctors were trained to fear vitamin D. It seems there are multiple areas where mistakes were made about the issue of toxicity.

I think that one of the issues that everything that resembled vitamin D was called vitamin D.

There is D2 or ergocalciferol which is made from fungus when it is irradiated with UV light. This version has a higher molecular weight, an additional double bond, and one additional methyl group if that means anything to you. The medical professionals still considers this as equivalent to D3 even though there have been many papers saying that it does not act the same in our body. Rodents seem to thrive on vitamin D2 as they are noctournal animals and eating fungus that has been exposed to sunlight seems to be a reasonable way for them to get vitamin D and their bodies have adapted. I observed a squirrel just really munching down on what I assumed was a morel mushroom this past weekend when I was camping.

Hey researchers! – beware when using rodents for vitamin D test as they most likely do not react the same as humans. The case against using ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) as a supplement – Houghton and Vieth American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 84, No. 4, 694-697, October 2006th

There is D3, cholecalciferol, which our body produces from the sun with cholesterol in our skin. Our bodies love this particular version of D and it is the substance in our bodies that allows the sun to give us energy and health.

There is the storage form prehormone of vitamin D which has been found to correlate with lots of chronic diseases. It is called twenty-five hydroxy vitamin D and you usually see it written 25(OH)D. It can be either 25(OH)D2 or 25(OH)D3. This adds to the confusion when running test in the lab. Let’s say that a hospital runs only the test for 25(OH)D2 becuase that is what is being prescribed by their doctors and yet ignores the 25(OH)D3 that you are getting naturally. The better lab test will give you total and I will write another blog on testing.

Certainly if you take the activated steroid form of vitamin D or one twenty-five di-hydroxy vitamin D (1,25(OH)2D) then you will have problems if the dose is too high or administered over a period of time. This is yet one more form of vitamin D that the body uses as a steroid to do all the good stuff. This form in the blood stream allows our body to absorb more calicium and will ultimately drive your serum calcium too high.

The really cool thing about the understanding of the new research is that each organ cell seems to make the steroid version inside and outside the cell as it is needed. This means that it does not go through your blood and affect your calcium yet it gives you healthy functions. This is one of the things that has always confounded the research as researchers were going right for the best benefit or so they thought by using the steroid form of D instead of given just plain old D3 and letting the body make the steroid as it was needed.

The old paradigm was that the D3 was converted in the liver to the storage form, 25(OH)/D3, and then the kidney converted the 25(OH)D3 into the steroid form, 1,25(OH)2D3 and is still a valid path. However, when every cell that has vitamin D receptors converts its own steroid form as needed most excellant health is achieved. You have to have enough of the D3 in your body to fill up the stores.

Well let me stop here and say that this is most likely very confusing to you and has confused the medical field also. You should go read at the Pharmacology of vitamin D at the Vitamin D Council to get a better description. You can also read at the University of California Riverside as well about Vitamin D.

The amount of vitamin D is also a really large issue because it is active in extremely small amounts. Now lets see, the serum test for 25(OH)D is measured in ng/ml. We take D3 is in units of IU where 40 IU equals 1 microgram – that’s mircogram not milligram. I suspect you are just conformtable using milligrams and do not have a clue about a microgram much less nanograms per milliliter. So to get 1 milligram of vitamin D you would need to take 40,000 IU.

Are you confused yet. To formulate and to test at these extremely small quantaties is extremely difficult and one major lab has alreadly had a recall this year because of this difficulty. So that brings us to the one major case of toxicity with vitamin D3. It was a formulation problem and a mistake on how much should be taken by the person doing the supplementation. Evidently the person was taking over a million IU per day for over a year. It is my understanding that he recovered and was just fine.

To get more of an understanding on toxicity of D3 please visit the Vitamin D Council’s page on toxicity.

So what is the deal and why were doctors told to be extemely concerned about toxicity with vitamin D? It seems that D2 drives toxicity much quicker at lower levels in humans than D3. I found a paper by Moon and Reich at the Orthomolecular library entitled “The Vitamin D Problem An Important Lesson in Orthomolecular Medicine.” This paper was written in 1975. These writers researched the issue of toxicity and found that reports started p0uring in after vitamin D2 began to be used. This particular section in the paper is well titled: ‘Origin of the Vitamin D-Problem: Irradiated Ergosterol is Not Vitamin D’

Irradiated Ergosterol was origianllly used as the fortification of milk. However, in the 50’s and early 60’s most dairies changed to D3 because of the toxicity issues. During my early reading I was finding compounds that were in equilibrium with D3 as tachysterol and ichysterol but D2 seemed to have one called toxicysterol. This should have been a clue.

If all of this was known at least by the mid 70’s why all of the fear of D3. Because D2 and D3 were considered to be equivalent by the medical profession. I would say that this is terrible science or chosen to be ignored by the medical profession because there was no money to be made. Interestingly enough, D2 is what is found in vitamin D prescriptions because it can be protected because it is not a natuarlly occurring substance in the body. You could not obtain D3 in beneficial amounts until a few years ago. To get equivalent to one day in the sun where your body could make as much as 40,000 IU as a supplement you would have to take 100 of those 400 IU tablets.

I was curious as to a statement made by Hector DeLuca in his presentation to the Wisconsin Alumini Research Foundation on Vitamin D: The New Old Wonder Drug. This you tube video gives you the understanding of how vitamin D analogs have been very sucessful in helping to fund the programs at Wisconsin University. The statement that some of the beneficial findings over the years were not published is frightening. This of course was to protect intellectual property rights or dollars.

So does ignoring the facts for profit make the medical profession seem somewhat callous? It happens all of the time and you acting as the government protect these profits to the loss of your health and life. Consider former Secreatary Leavitt of Health and Human Services. On his bio page he listed his priorities. Number four was ‘markets before mandates’ and you had to go to his last to find ‘value life’. Now this is really troubling since I was tortured with pain for 25 years when there was a simple solution.

So is it going to far to say that by scaring people out of the sun and causing a significant increase in chronic disease that we were benefiting the well being of America because of an increased medical economy? Creating disease by selling sunscreen and profiting from the meds to treat the diseases is for another post.

Go into the Sun until you start to turn pink. Being in the pink is a good thing!

Breast Cancer – Another Pegram’s Perspective

Posted on June 23, 2009 by Mark Pegram

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Vitamin D Pandemic Survivor

Go into the sun!

For You and Me and Our Health – The Sun

Posted on June 20, 2009 by Mark Pegram

There is a new paradigm in medicine that I think that the world should be aware. That is that staying out of the sunshine is bad. Yes that’s right not staying in the sunshine but staying out of the sunshine is bad!

We have been scared out of the sunshine for over fifty years. Don’t go into the sun we were warned as it will damage your skin and give you skin cancer. Huge campaigns were created just for this purpose. The medical and medical want-to-be institutions for profits shouted at us if we did not wear sunscreen we would definitely burn and get skin cancer.

You should really think of your skin more as an alarm. You go into the sun and your skin starts to get pink and you should go into the shade. As you spend more time in the sun you start to tan and you can stay out there longer. Staying out there longer is healthy for you.

It turns out that this advice was pure torture for me for more than twenty five years. Yes, that right torture that was worse than any water boarding that we hear about on the news. Imagine having your spine constantly compressed because your vertebral disc are failing. The pain was unbearable as I spent from 1998 until 2006 in constant chronic severe pain.

I starting having pain in 1978 that finally abated in 2006. I will ultimately post my full story in the about me page as this is just the beginning of my blog.

It turns out that vitamin D3 is not only good for you bones like in rickets but also a large host of diseases that we typically classify as chronic diseases that you get as you age. It turns out that most of these diseases have an association with vitamin D deficiency. To give you an idea I will list a few: diabetes, cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, many other autoimmune diseases, and on and on. If we just stop by reducing those first three to 25% less then how wonderful it would be of course unless you are a medical insurer.

Well this blog is because I need an outlet as I begin my emotional healing process and to help educate the general population as to this vitamin D3 deficiency.

I discovered vitamin D in 2004 and I am still in a healing process. My body has physically healed but my emotional response to all of this needs help. I start to get better and then I hear of someone else dying of another disease that is related to vitamin D3. Imagine my dilemma of having been healed and then to watch other people suffer because they have not been informed. Anyway what I am doing here is to inform you.

All things that I suggest on this site are just suggestions and is not medical advice. All medical decisions should be made with you doctor. And while you are making the decisions about how much vitamin D you should take you might help educate your doctor and save someone’s life other than your own.

I have found the Vitamin D Council to be very helpful. Dr. John Cannell is the director and is on a mission so that anytime you walk into a doctor’s office you vitamin D serum level will be checked. I say, God Bless him for this effort. So go visit the website to read about vitamin D and the associated diseases. You may want to think about doing what it says on the home page to assure that you have enough D3.

Other sites that are also very interesting are SUNARC a site by Dr. William Grant where he goes into the epidemiology and Grassroots Health where you can view presentations of the many researchers and join the survey on disease and vitamin D.

You have a great sunny day as I know I will as my daughter has invited me to go camping at a lake where she has a boat for father’s day. Now that sounds like a nice sunny thing to do.

A Vitamin D Deficiency Pandemic Survivor

There is a new light on your health – It is the sun!

Also – Thank you Word Press for making it so easy to start blogging.

Vitamin D Deficiency Survivor

Changing the Face of Health with Vitamin D

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