Tag Archives: vitamin D3

Breast Cancer Going Rogue

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do not die vitamin D deficient!!     – Pandemic Survivor

Dr. Cedric Garland is a:

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

Why Suffer Vitamin D Deficiency?

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During a recent interview Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council kept making the same point over and over.  Here is the approximately one hour audio interview on vitamin D in health and disease.  You may also find the link to this interview on the home page of the Vitamin D Council.

The point:  Why suffer vitamin D deficiency in particular if you have any form of disease when it is perfectly safe to have the serum level of a sunny country?

Now the serum level for vitamin D in a sunny country is 54 ng/ml to 90 ng/ml per Grant and Holick.  To achieve this level takes a different amount of sun exposure and supplementation for everyone as each person’s rate of use of vitamin D is different.  There is no need to wait for some study to come out and say with certainty that vitamin D will treat or prevent this disease or that disease when it is safe at an extremely beneficial level.

Scientist will take many years to make treatment studies show the benefits of vitamin D for a multiple of reasons.  No one wants to fund the studies when there is no profit to be made and government funding for treatment studies can be extremely slow.  However, through anecdotal experiences that are communicated this paradigm shift can move very quickly.

Do not die vitamin D deficient! – Pandemic Survivor

Hepatitis C Cured?

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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

Sunday Morning Musings

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Sunday Morning Musing – November 29, 2009

Targeted for completion and release of a new report on Vitamin D and Calcium requirements the IOM will continue to have closed meetings.  A report is scheduled to be released May 2010.  I can imagine that the pressure is high for this independent organization that is to provide unbiased and authoritative information to the public and decision makers.  I found it interesting when this committee was formed about 12 months ago with no one that was to have bias but I am not sure if that is true.  No one was selected for the committee that has done a significant amount of vitamin D research which I find unusual.  I would hope that these persons after review of the data would come to the conclusion that vitamin D plays an extremely significant role in our health and taking anything less than or equal to 10,000 IU of D3 per day is perfectly safe.  There is no record of any toxicity at less than 30,000 IU per day so this is a safety factor of three.  By the way, have you ever heard of anyone dying from vitamin D toxicity?

There really seems to be more than an adequate sufficiency of data so that we will not read a report that says there is not enough research to support raising the safe upper limit from the current 2000 IU per day to 10,000 IU per day.  Considering the huge number of diseases that vitamin D affects to do less would be a total disregard for the science and empathy for the ill.  I just cannot imagine another 10 years of people suffering the severe consequences of vitamin D deficiency while we wait on research to determine mechanisms.  My own personal journey of 25 years of suffering pain brings their decisions close to home.  By the way, the 2000 IU per day upper limit was based on what is safe for a one year old child from research in the 1960’s.  I still do not understand how this could be translated to an adult that could weigh 5 times or more what the one year old would weigh.

There is a lot to be gained and a lot to be lost.  Imagine being a medical insurer or a healthcare provider and discover that the increased amount of vitamin D could cause a drop of 25 to 50 % in your business.  What would you do with all of those employees and facilities that you have invested?  On the other hand if you have cancer, heart disease, diabetes, a viral infection, degenerative disc disease, or just want to perform at your best at athletics then changing the guidelines on vitamin D would be hugely significant.  Also what could it mean if there was significant reduction in lost work days because of fewer colds and less back pains?  This shifting of the centers of commerce will have significant positive or significant negative effects depending on what is your view.

Suppose you are the CEO of a large health insurer and you have several chronic diseases.  What would your position be?      – Pandemic Survivor

Eliminate the Common Cold!

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The common cold has long been one of the ailments of man that is most times more of a nuisance than anything else.  Of course the remedy manufacturers love it because ‘modern medicine’ has convinced us that there is no cure.  I am sure that many billions of dollars are spent every year in trying to obtain relief from the aches and stuffed-up noses and general lack of the feeling of well being.  It is also responsible for many lost days of work and in general can stop the person from performing normal task for days.  We take aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen for aches and pains and any of many different remedies to help clear the nasal passages.  And yet when winter comes we get a cold and most times two to four colds per year and children as many as six or more.

I would like to stop here with a note of warning for those of you that like to take acetaminophen for your aches.  It is generally recognized that over use of acetaminophen and in particular with alcohol is now responsible for about one third of liver failures.

Have you stopped to think about the name that we have given to the ‘cold’?  I would suppose we have given it this name because we get the ‘cold’ when it is cold.  We just believe that when cold weather comes we will get a cold.  What if this were not true?  How would it be if we could go for many decades without getting a cold?

It is generally reported in medical discussions of colds that there is really no correlation between cold temperatures in causing us to get colds.  It is more about us crowding together in the winter time to pass the viruses to each other.  I say that this is completely upside down thinking.  With modern air conditioning we crowd together just as much in the summer as we do in the winter.  There are two things that happen in the winter time that is different than summer.  First it gets cold and second we do not have as much exposure to the sun’s UVB.

First on the cold:  Airways temperatures do drop during the inhalation of cold air.  For ambient air temperature of 73 F (23 C) we find that the pharynx temperature to be about 96 .8 (35.8 C).  When we inhale cold air at 0 F (-17.5 C) we find the pharynx temperature to be about 93 F (33.5 C).  In general the lower bronchi temperatures stay in the 98.7 F (37 C) to 99.8 F (37.7 C) temperature range.  It is shown that the common cold replicates best at temperatures of 33 C (91.4 F) to 35 C (95 F).  So when the air is room temperature then our upper airway passage temperatures are above the best temperature for replication.  When we inhale cold air our upper airway passages fall to the range of temperature that is best for the cold virus to grow.  It only makes sense that colds will most likely happen when it gets cold outside and hence its name.  It is interesting that the lower airway passages typically stay above 98.6 which is a good thing as it is above the temperature that colds like.

References for the above info:  http://ajrccm.atsjournals.org/cgi/content/full/174/12/1284 American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine – 2006  ‘Rhinovirus Infections More Than a Common Cold’,  Marc B. Hershenson, M.D. , University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan and Sebastian L. Johnston, M.D., Ph.D. , National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

November 1988 Farley and Patel  Journal Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing http://www.springerlink.com/content/014gn23616354312/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10223554 ‘Rhinoviruses replicate effectively at lower airway temperatures.’  Papadopolous, et. Al. J. Med. Virol. May 1999

So from the above discussion you can see that one of our main defenses against the cold is body temperature or more important temperature of the airways.  You know when I was growing up one of my brothers used to call it ‘sweating out a cold’ when he would put on about four quilts and spend enough time there until his cold left.  I do not suggest this but it does seem to help the common cold when I spend time in a dry sauna which is at a temperature of about 120 F.  It is also apparent that when we start to ‘run a fever’ this is our body trying to fight off the infection.  It really makes you wonder about the wisdom of trying so hard to keep the body temperature down using aspirin or acetaminophen. We certainly do not want it to get above 105 F as our brains start to ‘fry’ but there is nothing wrong with 101 F as our body is just trying to fight off the infection and is certainly a signal that we are infected.

So from this discussion it is best to stay warm during the winter to help fight off the common cold.  Of course in the summer we are not exposed to cold air temperatures that are conducive for the cold virus to flourish.  Also do not be so quick with remedies to reduce body temperature when you have a cold.  Of course if it starts to get too high then act quickly to get it down.

Now here is the exciting part the SUN!  This is the second method of our body’s natural response to fight off the common cold.  First the temperatures that prevent the cold from forming and second our innate immunity that is significantly improved when we have enough vitamin D3 in our bodies are our body’s major defenses.  Isn’t it interesting how over the last fifty years we have gotten so good about getting our body’s temperature down and scared out of the sun so that we do not get enough vitamin D.  These things are just wrong for good health.

When I first started taking vitamin D for my back pain I had no idea that there were all of these other benefits.  My thought was that since I had degenerative disc disease and that was so close to rickets then maybe the vitamin D would help to heal my back.  Boy did I hit the jackpot in health.  My back healed but so did the rest of my body.  I have not had a viral infection since 2004 when I started to take vitamin D3.  Before I started taking vitamin C on a regular basis I typically had two to five colds per year.  After vitamin C I would have one to two colds a year and really dreaded it as these colds would be really hard to shake.  And since I have added vitamin D at 10,000 IU per day I have not had a cold or any other viral infection including the flu.

Another ‘survivor story’ is that of a 20 year old college student that had a severe cold that had hung around from Thanksgiving until the week of Christmas.  After being advised that she might be able to help the cold with vitamin D she decided to supplement.  She took a 50,000 IU D3 for three days in a row and the cold just simply went away.  She has not had a cold since and that was three years ago as she has kept her vitamin D level up by supplementing.

I had another friend whose twenty something son had a cold that had been around for three months.  After reading about the vitamin D he decided to supplement and his cold just went away.  My friend also started to supplement and now she tells me it is the first time that she has gone for more than a year without a cold.

Is there science to support this understanding that vitamin D3 formed in our bodies from the sun is a super viral infection fighter.  Yes consider this story released last year in February about how vitamin D reduced the common cold CNN.  Also this article from Dr. Mercola – ‘Can Vitamin D Cure the Common Cold’.

Also these items from Dr. John Cannell at the Vitamin D Council:

Epidemic Influenza and Vitamin D Newsletter.

Research on Vitamin D and Influenza

Research on Tuberculosis and Vitamin D

You know we try so hard to show how vitamin D helps to rid our bodies of the real killers like tuberculosis and the flu that sometimes we just forget about a nuisance like the common cold.  However, when you add things like asthma and COPD in combination with a cold then it becomes a killer also.

Can the common cold be eliminated?  Based on the ‘survivor stories’ from myself and people that I know then absolutely yes.  It appears that vitamin D3’s major gift to us is its ability fight virus infections in addition to other pathogens.  However, it particularly seems to really destroy viruses in the human body.  In fact a near future post will be about how vitamin D can fight the virus hepatitis C from a new study that was just released.

Eliminate the common cold by:

  1. Keeping your serum 25(OH)D3 above 60 ng/ml by UVB exposure or by supplementing.
  2. Stay warm!

Don’t you know the cold remedy manufacturers really hate to hear this!

Ah, warm and in the sun what could better!!!!     – Pandemic Survivor

You may want to check out this comment by John at a recent post.

Super Duper Vitamin D3!!

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Can leap tall buildings with a single bound, stronger than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet, look up in the sky, it’s chemo, it’s surgery, it’s prescription drugs–no-it’s the sun!  It is difficult to set aside what ‘doctors’ are telling us about the sun and how dangerous it is and that it causes skin cancer when it is so beneficial to life.  It provides the energy cycles for life and for people it is – well let’s see it allows the body to make vitamin D and this is our super hormone precursor to eliminate disease.

Everybody loves a good superhero and the above jingle when superman used to come on TV sent chills of excitement through my being.  Now VITAMIN D sends chills of excitement through my body.  It is difficult to imagine that one single thing can give us so much.  It can bring our health to very close to eliminating all chronic disease.  That is really a grandiose statement and you ask does it even have a bit of truth.  THE ANSWER IS YES!  YES I AM SHOUTING AT YOU SO THAT YOU WILL WAKE UP!

Institutions that derive their existence from treating people for illness have an ‘adverse reaction’ every time they hear the words ‘VITAMIN D’ because they know that their industry could just disappear.  Chills race eerily down their spine in fear of our super protagonist.  The medical profession would not disappear because there will always be need for treatment but all of those industries like insurance and special interest nonprofit (yeah right!) groups like American Pick a Disease Institute will fail miserably.   If they do not completely disappear then their size will significantly decrease and all that means for society.  What happens when you have a well population that is not bombarded by another commercial with two people sitting in bath tubs enjoying the view of an alpine forest?  You can bet your bottom dollar that these institutions will fight hard to keep the understanding of vitamin D3 from becoming common practice as if it was always self-evident.

So here is our plot line.  The SUPER DUPER VITAMIN D, our most loved of super heroes, comes to the rescue of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and a host of others including infectious disease like the flu and tuberculosis.  These diseases are not the antagonist but are only a part of the evil that has been allowed to flourish in the population as the villains have kept us from the science of healing with their greatest weapon ‘THE LIE’.  Who are these villains?  These dastardly villains are none other than Phat Pharmer and its pretty promoter Weeping Willomeana Insurance and their sidekick Adverse Tising.  With great fear they stalk you as they prowl on your TV in bath tubs to sell you the latest snake oil for your health.  They have great cloaking systems designed around the lie to keep you from seeing the real light of the sun and your super hero that is waiting to rescue you, VITAMIN D.  And all in this plot is the corrupt government that is trying to maintain a really large medical economy because all of our manufacturing jobs have been sent elsewhere because of the high cost of health insurance.  What a twisted plot!  It is the stuff of comic books and our everyday existence.

AWWWHH my excited friends with your help we can send a signal and the mild mannered UVB rays will step into a phone booth and out will come our super hero VITAMIN D3 to the rescue.

Coming soon:  HOW TO ELIMINATE THE COMMON COLD and its dastardly promoter COLD REMEDIES!

In the mean time my excited friends – go into the sun!   – Pandemic Survivor

Seizures and Electrolytes

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From the Epilepsy Foundation we find that a seizure is: “A seizure is a massive disruption of electrical communication between neurons in the brain—.“  You can find this at their web site and this page defines a seizure and a seizure threshold.

As someone that is not trained in biology or medicine it seems that a seizure occurs when the ‘break-over voltage’ exceeds the resistance of the circuit.  This is how a semiconductor works as well which starts conduction when the ‘saturation voltage’ is reached.  So let’s think about how signals travel down neural pathways.  It would seem that they travel through a series of gates that control the ‘saturation’ levels of sodium and potassium along the pathway.  The ‘action potential’ varies along the axon causing the sodium gates to open and allow sodium into the axon and then the potassium gate opens and allows potassium to rush out so that through this mechanism the ‘signal’ travels along the axon.  When the signal reaches the synapse then neural transmitters are released to carry the signal to the next neuron through its dendrites.

The cell and axon returns to a stable voltage ‘without’ transmitting when the sodium potassium pumps through its action causes the sodium to be forced outside the axon and potassium to be brought into the axon thus reversing the signal or action potential.  The cell body is somewhat more complicated but know that calcium gates are somewhat controlled by the concentration of magnesium.

It is interesting that the article immediately goes to neural transmitters like GABA and ACH and how too much of these will cause the cells to be over stimulated and continue to fire.  This is somewhat different in how engineers would look at a semiconductor and what causes it to fire.  Yes we look at the voltage of the base to control whether the semiconductor is on or off.  However, we control what voltage causes the semiconductor to turn on/off by the amount of ‘doping’ or mineral/metal that is placed in the semiconductor during manufacture.  The equivalent of this in the body of the cell and the axon is how the gates of the cell are working to allow conductive ions in and out and if there is adequate amounts of these electrolytes available.

Ions that are associated with this conduction are calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium.  So it would just seem that a proper diet is extremely critical for a stable environment of electrical conduction in the cell.  That is you need to eat and absorb enough of these minerals so that proper electrical potentials are maintain.

Before you consider changing your diet and taking supplements be sure that you consult with your physician to get him to approve your changes.  If he is resistant please suggest that he read the articles that I am suggesting for you.

Also as vitamin D is extremely important to maintain a healthy endocrine system, proper levels of this vital nutrient should be maintained.  The newer understanding is each cell makes its own steroid form of vitamin D from the storage form of vitamin D.  The cell does not have to get it through the serum level of the steroid as converted in the kidneys.  So does vitamin D affect the threshold levels for seizures?  Here is a study that was done in 1974 that says that there is an association:  “Anticonvulsant Action” of Vitamin D in Epileptic Patients? A Controlled Pilot Study  – 1974 Claus Christiansen, Paul Rødbro, and Ole Sjö

Also Dr. John Cannell talks extensively about seizures that are associated with autism and how that autism may be a result of vitamin D deficiency: “Vitamin D Deficiency’s Role in Autism”

Also Dr. Cannell has located many research articles that can be linked from PubMed through his research page on epilepsy.

ADP/ATP or your energy cycle in the mitochondrial bodies is important as this is where the energy for the sodium/potassium pump comes from.  Magnesium/calcium balance in the mitochondria is extremely critical in proper operation of this ‘energy engine’.  Some researchers claim that as much as 30 percent of the energy that is processed through these engines is used to maintain this balance.  It should also be noted that ADP and ATP are ions and the cation that this reaction works best with is magnesium.

We typically get enough calcium from our diets but whether we properly absorb the calcium is dependent on whether we are replete in vitamin D.  Magnesium however is another story.  I particularly like Krispin’s page on magnesium on how much is enough.  She is a life long nutritionist puts together a very clear way to get to proper magnesium levels.  Krispin’s webpage on magnesium.

Vitamin D levels that are replete tend to cause magnesium to be reduced in your body.  It typically takes about three months or longer for magnesium levels in the cells to reach a healthy value.  There are many research papers that you may access at www.mgwater.com.

Potassium is also not properly understood as you can see that we need a minimum of 4.7 grams per day from this report from the Institute of Medicine from February, 2004.  This article also tells you the proper  balance of sodium and chloride.  “Dietary Reference Intakes: Water, Potassium, Sodium, Chloride, and Sulfate”

Krispin does a great job on how to determine how much potassium we should get in a day based on weight and what foods to get if from.  Krispin’s webpage on magnesium.

If you get a chance you may want to read her page on forgiveness:  this is great piece of work in how we our bodies relate to our environment and memory.

Iodine properly works for energy balance as well and I would suggest these two articles on iodine:

Donald W. Miller, Jr. MD  “Iodine for Health”

This recent article by Dr William Davis of the Heart Scan Blog written for life extension magazine:  “Halt on Salt Sparks Iodine Deficiency”

I know this is a lot but taking only neurotransmitter stabilizers without being sure that you have proper minerals for electrical balance is just a road toward bad health.  Remember the health of the brain activity is related to neural transmitter balance and electrolyte balance.  This is true of the heart as well as a majority of the cells in the heart are neural cells.

Remember that electrolytes are really inexpensive and cannot be prescribed so that is not much of a profit motive to actively treat using proper diet to achieve mineral balance.  Yet minerals may be more critical than neurotransmitters.  I have always suspected this was the case in depression.  Not enough potassium and magnesium to drive the signaling pathways.

EAT YOUR BUCKET OF DIRT!  Just kidding   – Pandemic Survivor

Improving Insulin Sensitivity

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I read an article in the Wilmington Star News online that says that vitamin D is more effective than one of the major meds for controlling blood sugar.  I am surprised that a pharmacist was willing to actually state the truth.  I say congratulations for a job well done.  Before we get into that let me tell you about a friend that I know that struggled with type two diabetes.

I had told him about the research on vitamin D and diabetes and he was excited to try and keep his serum level up as a means to achieve better health.  After he started to supplement with vitamin D he said that he did not ‘sense’ the extreme up and downs in his blood sugar.  He also said that this helped him to better control his appetite and he lost thirty pounds over a six month period.  He got off all the meds for type 2 diabetes.  Now his fasting blood sugar is normal.  I am not saying that taking the vitamin D healed his type 2 diabetes.  I am sure that the loss of the weight had a significant impact.  In any case we have another survivor of a significant chronic disease and better he did it without staying on pharmaceuticals.

Okay so here is the story for the Star News online where this pharmacist says that vitamin D is five times better than one of the meds known as the ‘gold standard’ for treating insulin sensitivity.  I find this most amazing!  “A ‘D’ once a day will keep the doctor away”

If your doctor does not believe that vitamin D will have this kind of effect then I would suggest that you have him read the research that the pharmacist refers to.  Also a really good paper is one by Dr. Heaney of Creighton University where he describes blood sugar being blunted and insulin response improves once your blood serum 25(OH)D is above 32 ng/ml (80 nmol/l).  The name of the paper is ‘The Vitamin D requirement in health and disease’ as published in J Steroid Biochem Mol. Bio.  Oct. 2005.

Taking a lot of vitamin D if you have type 2 diabetes is not going to do that much good if you choose to keep eating sugary and starchy foods.  Even the best attempt at good health cannot overcome emotional eating.  (you know I am overweight and love to eat lots of cheeseburgers and my lipids and blood sugar are excellent and they were not before vitamin D – I should ‘practice what I preach’ ) You may ( I am beginning this techniques myself) want to try the new emotional control techniques using motion that are being used like EFT (emotional freedom technique ).

Eat Healthy and go into the sun!                   – Pandemic Survivor

Vitamin D – Testing Serum Levels

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Vitamin D is an extremely vital substance that is formed in your body when ultra violet B radiation, UVB, converts cholesterol in your skin to cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3).  The Vitamin D3 then forms a prehormone,  25(OH)D that converts to a ‘steroid’, calcidiol.  The importance of calcidiol is that it targets over 2000 genes in the human body.  That is about 10  percent of genome or the total amount of genes that directs our biological functions.  It is also implicated in cancer, diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune disease, hypertension, bone diseases, cavities and periodontal disease, pain, muscle strength, birth defects, immune function, and mental health in depression and schizophrenia.  The seriousness of these diseases and the fact that everyone uses vitamin D at a different rate is why you should test and not just guess at what you ‘think’ may be an adequate amount.

The old understanding was that all of the calcitriol was made in the kidney and circulated to all other places in the body where it was used.  The new understanding is that every cell in the body uses the ubiquitous storage form of 25(OH)D to make the calcitriol as it is needed.  This is exciting as genes get turned off and on and cells communicate with each other through the aid of vitamin D.  Please read the physiology at the Vitamin D Council.

As you would imagine it is very important to keep your storage of form vitamin D level high enough so that all of these really good things can happen within your biological functions.  This has been part of the problem as scientists tried to correlate the active form of vitamin D or calcitriol to disease states in your body.  There was no correlation.  However, in the 1970’s the correlation between disease and the storage form of vitamin D, 25(OH)D,  was discovered to be significant.  So what was happening with the active form in your blood was not what was happening with the active form in the rest of your body.

So it is the storage form of the vitamin D that we are most interested in maintaining at a correct level for health.  The amount of the storage form, 25(OH)D, has been found in typical sunny countries to be in the range of 54 ng/ml to 90 ng/ml.  (Benefits and Requirements for Vitamin D for Optimal Health, Grant and Holick at Sunarc.org )  So is this the correct range for health?  It would seem that this is most likely the case.  The researchers are saying that a significant number of chronic diseases could be eliminated by keeping it within this range.  See chart by Dr. Garland and Carrole Baggerly at GrassrootsHealth disease prevention chart.  (pdf)

When the level of 25(OH)D increases, it appears from the extrapolation of many different studies that disease rates are significantly reduced.  If you look at breast cancer for example from the above chart you see that the incidence rate decreases by 80 percent in the low 50 ng/ml range.  I suspect as more research is done that we can find significant treatment and not just prevention at higher levels.  To think that when you reach the level of a sunny country that rates of breast cancer become extremely low is exciting considering what is happening with this serious disease in the northern latitudes.  Does this bear out in the studies of breast cancer by latitude?  In other words as you get closer to the equator does the breast cancer rate go down.  The answer is yes as you can see from SUNARC Breast Cancer Studies the mortality rate is about half in south Texas of what it is in New England.

So does everyone’s serum level of vitamin D reach the same amount with the same intake of vitamin D3?   The answer is a definite no and much research is needed to better understand why this is the case.  About sixty percent of the variation is due to difference in weight which makes it easier to determine how much to take.  If you are a 150 lb person you could expect your serum 25(OH)D to increase by 1 ng/ml for 100 IU of vitamin D that you take.  If you found that your serum level was 20 ng/ml,  then to get to 60 ng/ml or an increase of 40 ng/ml you would need to take about 4000 IU per day.  This information was obtained from Dr. Heaney’s work at Creighton University and his video presentation through GrassrootsHealth and UCSD public TV is well worth watching even if it is 50 minutes long.  It will answer many of your questions about vitamin D deficiency and how much we need and the levels of safety.

So the thrust of this is that if you weigh more,  then you need to take more to reach the desired level of vitamin D.  Another good method to achieve the desire level is that suggested by Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council home page.  That is you start out by taking 5000 IU of D3 per day and then have your serum level tested after three months.

For children Dr. Cannell suggest that 1000 IU per 25 lbs of body weight per day will get you to a reasonable level.  If your child has any significant disease state such as asthma or autism then you should have your child tested regularly initially to be sure that you are given them enough for health.  Here is Dr. Cannell’s newsletter on pediatrics.

D3 Test

There are several methods for having your vitamin D tested.  I think that it is best to have a doctor do it so that you can discuss the validity of the data and how it relates to health.  Not only that, if you doctor is not up to speed on the research you may help get him there.  However, if you have read my two most recent posts then you know that not all doctors are on board.  I have taken on the quest of finding the places online that you can use:

Vitamin D Council:  http://www.zrtlab.com/vitamindcouncil/  $65 per test

GrassrootsHealth:  www.grassrootshealth.net here you join the national survey and fill out a short form about your current health at $40 per test.

In the above test you get a test kit in the mail.  You prick your finger and do a blood smear and send the kit back in the mail and receive the test results some time later.

Life Extension: http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/ItemLC081950/Vitamin-D-25-Hydroxy-Blood-Test.html This test is $63 and you get your serum drawn at a testing facility in your town or the one closest to you.

At your doctor’s office.  The prices vary significantly depending on how much the doctor wants to add to the test for drawing the blood and interpreting the results and advising you.  I have typically seen the number between $150 and $300.  If your insurance does not pay then you may want to use one of the methods above.

Understanding the meaning of the results: Sometimes the test will include both the steroid form or calcitriol and the storage form or calcidiol or 25 hydroxy-vitamin D or 25(OH)D.  It is only the 25(OH)D level that you are interested about.

The typical reference range or some may think ‘normal’ range is 20 ng/ml to 100 ng/ml.  Some people who spend large amounts of time in the sun with their clothes off may have values of 125 ng/ml or higher such as life guards in the summertime.  There is not any case of extremely high values of 25(OH)D with sun exposure.  The NIH fact sheet that says that anything sustained below 200 ng/ml is safe.  See table 1.  NIH Vitamin D Fact Sheet

You know that you are getting enough when your test comes in above 50 ng/ml.  If you are consistently above 80 ng/ml then you may want to consider reducing the amount of vitamin D that you are getting.

D2 Test If you have taken D2.

When you get your 25(OH)D test result it will most likely show only the total of 25(OH)D2 and 25(OH)D3.  If you have not had any vitamin D2, then your result will show the total of 25(OH)D3.  In some cases where the patient is being aggressively treated with the 50,000 IU D2 then it may show both D2 and D3 results.

Keep healthy serum levels between 50 ng/ml to 80 ng/ml or just be a ‘sunny country’.   – Pandemic Survivor