About those vitamin D studies -----

[hedgehog]

Here's a study suggesting that there is a strong connection between Vitamin D deficiency and Parkinson's disease:

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/ParkinsonsDisease/21114

The authors are careful to stress that there may be fault with the study, among them possible errors in diagnosing Parkinson's .

Now, i have an elderly MIL with early Parkinson's. She won't take the prescription medications. She might be willing to take Vitamin D. I don't know about you, but I think it'd be worth it for her to take the recommended dose well within accepted safety levels. The worst that happens is she's out $3 a month for pills.

[JustAnotherGen]

1. I do

Vitamin D Therapy for an auto immune disease. Only caution is that she should be watching for kidney stones. Vitamin D deficient I was started at 20K IUs a day.

[Kaleva]

2. I take 2k a day

It really seems to help my overall mood during the dark winter days.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. 2k is also associated with greater resistance to winter flu.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. 20 thousand???

Are you still taking that much, or did you cut down?

[Warren Stupidity]

4. my doc told me to start taking it 2k/day

unofficial of course - it can't generally be perscribed
seems that the medical community knows something

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. 2,000 IU is the amount your body makes after exposure to 10 minutes of summer sunlight

so I doubt that it would be dangerous.

Also, if you live above 40°N, you do not get enough Vitamin D from sunlight between the months of October and April.

[CountAllVotes]

5. been on 50,000 IU a week

My level was at something very very low - like 10 I think it was. I was on 100,000 IU for a long time and now I am taking 50,000 IU a week.

Has it done me any good? :shrug: ?????????????

:dem:

[frazzled]

6. It's not worth the risk

Not only are all these claims for vitamin D being seriously questioned, but it is not completely safe. Please read the recent NYT article describing the report of the 14-member panel from the Institute of Medicine. I excerpt only these warnings:

Older women ... may take too much, putting themselves at risk for kidney stones.

Evidence also suggests that high levels of vitamin D can increase the risks for fractures and the overall death rate and can raise the risk for other diseases. While those studies are not conclusive, any risk looms large when there is no demonstrable benefit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/health/30vitamin.html

I am taking this seriously because at my last physical, my doctor said my vitamin D levels were low. He prescribed a pill of 50,000 units, taken once a week. That is waaaay over the recommended dosages (and there is a toxicity level to Vitamin D):

The new reference intakes for vitamin D are:
1–70 years of age: 600 IU/day
71+ years of age: 800 IU/day

The upper level intakes for vitamin D are:
9-71+ years of age: 4,000 IU

I am going to speak to him about stopping this ridiculous regimen and switching instead to a multiple vitamin with a standard daily dosage of vitamin D. Anything that claims to fix everything most certainly does not. It's been a huge huge boon to the industry. I think it's time to be sensible.

[CountAllVotes]

8. I feel the same way about it

and all of these damned blood tests - constant to measure the level. The last time around (when taking 100,000 IU a week) I managed to hit 33. I don't know if it has dropped again or not.

It says on the bottle of these blue pills (which are NOT cheap by a long shot - available only by RX) to take 2 a week. Now I take one a week.

As I have stated already, I have noted no difference at all since my vitamin D level was found to be "dangerously low".

It is not an option for me to go outside in the sun a lot and there isn't a lot of sun where I live at any time of the year anyway.

I'm with you on this. I feel like saying forget it to this vitamin D thingy.

:dem:

[tiptoe]

13. "available only by RX"? You're taking prescription vit *D2*, not the expert-advised form: Vit *D3*

is "natural" vitamin D, "cholecalciferol", identical to what is produced in the skin by UV-B radiation.

Vitamin D2 ("ergocalciferol") is synthetic, only 1/4 to 1/10 as potent as cholecalciferol. Vitamin D2 is also a ripoff:

...
Cholecalciferol, vitamin D3, is far less expensive than ergocalciferol, vitamin D2. Cholecalciferol is available as a supplement without prescription. Ergocalciferol is available only by prescription.

The price difference must mean that the plant-based form, ergocalciferol, must be far superior to the naturally-occurring human form, vitamin D3.

Of course, that's not true. Dr. Robert Heaney's study is just one of several documenting the inferiority of D2/ergocalciferol, Vitamin D2 Is Much Less Effective than Vitamin D3 in Humans. D2 exerted less than a third of the effect of D3.

In my experience, D2/ergocalciferol often exerts no effect whatsoever. One woman I consulted on came into the office having been prescribed Drisdol capsules, 50,000 units every day for the past 18 months (by mistake by her physician). Blood level of active 25-OH-vitamin D3: Zero.

But the pharmacy and drug manufacturer collected $1413 for her 18-month course. Cost for a 4000 unit per day dose of D3/cholecalciferol: $45--and it would have actually worked.

In my view, prescription vitamin D2 is yet another example of drug manufacturer scams, a product that provides no advantages, costs more, but yields bigger profits.

Yet this wonderful supplement called cholecalciferol...is available to you inexpensively*, without prescription, and actually provides the benefits you desire.
...
* ed note: link added for pricing example

See, also:
http://tinyurl.com/DLDQJU">Myths, FAQ, "...Vitamin D: A Real Missing Link..." Prescription=D2 vs D3, Testing, Optimal Ranges

...Prescription vitamin D is only available as vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol), known to be inferior to D3. Raising vitamin D blood levels into the optimal range from below the reference range routinely requires a daily dose of 6000 to 8000 IU’s of cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) for two to three months. Staying in the optimal range requires a minimum of 1000 to 2000 IU’s per day, with potentially increased need during the winter months or for those in higher risk categories. Vegetarians should note that commercial D3 is largely derived from lanolin gleaned from sheep’s wool, rather than from fish oil. Vegans should be advised that supplementing with D2, derived from irradiating fungus, may require twice the amount of D3 proposed to make up for its inadequacies, but it may also be more toxic, because it does not exist naturally in the human body. ...

Safety & two MD's general recommendations: "How Much Vitamin D Should I Take?"

...
Cholecalciferol, Not Ergocalciferol, Is Safe
Although there are documented cases of pharmacological overdoses from ergocalciferol, the only documented case of pharmacological—not industrial—toxicity from cholecalciferol we could find in the literature was intoxication from an over-the-counter supplement called Prolongevity. On closer inspection, it seemed more like an industrial accident, but it was interesting because it gave us some idea of the safety of cholecalciferol. The capsules consumed contained up to 430 times the amount of cholecalciferol contained on the label (2,000 IU). The man had been taking between 156,000–2,604,000 IU of cholecalciferol a day (equivalent to between 390–6,500 of the 400 unit capsules) for two years. He recovered uneventfully after proper diagnosis, treatment with steroids, and sunscreen.

It is true that a few people may have problems with high calcium due to undiagnosed vitamin D hypersensitivity syndromes such as primary hyperparathyroidism, granulomatous disease, or occult cancers, but a blood calcium level, PTH, 25(OH)D, and calcitriol level should help clarify the cause of the hypersensitivity. Although D can be toxic in excess, the same can be said for water.

Therapeutic Index

As a physician, I know that psychotic patients should drink about 8 glasses of water a day. However, many would hurt themselves by regularly drinking 40 glasses a day (called compulsive water intoxication). So you could say that water has a therapeutic index of 5 (40/8).

Heaney's recent research indicates that healthy humans utilize about 4,000 units of vitamin D a day (from all sources). However, 40,000 units a day, over several years, will hurt them. Therefore, vitamin D has a therapeutic index of 10 (40,000/4,000)—twice as safe as water. We are not saying vitamin D is as safe as water, we are saying vitamin D is safe when used in the doses nature uses.

Sun Supplies 10,000 Units Of Vitamin D

The single most important fact anyone needs to know about Vitamin D is how much nature supplies, if we behave naturally, e.g., go into the sun. Humans make at least 10,000 units of vitamin D within 30 minutes of full body exposure to the sun, what is called a minimal erythemal dose. Vitamin D production in the skin occurs within minutes and is already maximized before your skin turns pink.
...
– John Cannell, MD 2009/06/20 http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/vitaminDToxicity.shtml">The Truth About Vitamin D Toxicity

[hedgehog]

9. Well, that 800 IU/day is what I'm thinking of - well

within limits, but waaaay more than she's getting now! She spends most of her time indoors and lives in the Great Lakes region.

[BuddhaGirl]

11. I would take the Institute of Medicine's Report with a grain of salt

"Action Alert: Vitamin D Report Panelist Has Ties to Big Pharm"

As we reported last week <1>, the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) new and absurdly low vitamin D recommendation flies in the face of scientific evidence. Now we need your help to get Congress to launch an investigation. Some may ask, “Why are you treating this report as such a big deal? I’ll take however many vitamins I wish, and the government has no say in the matter.” But unless these findings are challenged, the public will accept it as true. Doctors, medical institutions, the media, and governmental agencies will all parrot these ultra-low recommendations on vitamin D dosage, pooh-poohing its important therapeutic benefits, and keeping the American public dangerously deficient in the vitamin. This will mean more colds, more flu, greater dependence on dangerous flu shots and antibiotics, more illness in general, more weak bones, more cancer, and many more deaths. Some experts calculate <2> that proper vitamin D supplementation could save Americans $4.4 trillion over a decade—about $1,346 per person every year.

The IOM updated its official vitamin D recommendations for the first time since 1997. Despite raising the new vitamin levels by 300% for most Americans (suggesting that their previous vitamin D level recommendation was off by 300%), the IOM guidelines are still in contrast to overwhelming scientific evidence that confirms the significant medical benefits of higher vitamin D levels. A recent Harvard Medical School study <3> and numerous other research institutes and doctors have found that vitamin D supplementation is safe and effective, and recommend significantly higher levels than the Institute of Medicine. The IOM now recommends 600 IU (international units) for people between the ages of 1 and 70—their previous recommendation was a mere 200 IU—whereas Harvard and the Vitamin D Council recommend anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 IU a day.

Studies also show that least one-third of Americans are wholly deficient in vitamin D (and a University of Tennessee Health Science Center study <4> says 87% of patients are mildly to severely deficient). This is due to changing lifestyle and cultural trends in which many people in the US get less sun exposure and often inadequate dietary levels of the vitamin. A simple blood test will confirm whether one is deficient or not, although the IOM now appears to want to change the standard for optimum blood serum levels so that a lower level will still get a passing grade. (The IOM suggests the new standard should be changed to 20 ng/ml, whereas previously anything under 30 ng/ml was considered deficient. The Vitamin D Council recommends between 50 and 80 ng/ml.)"

more at link:
http://www.anh-usa.org/action-alert-is-the-institute-of-medicine-in-bed-with-big-pharma/print/

[tiptoe]

14. WallStreetJournal Nov30 (DJNS=Rupert Murdoch): "Can too much Vitamin D be hazardous to your health?"

Article appearing on Nov 30, exemplifying the radical right-wing assault on corporate-interest-threatening Vitamin D (See Bill Sardi below).

-----------
30 November 2010
Statements on today's FNB vitamin D report:

Vitamin D Council statement*
Download Vitamin D Council statement in PDF format

After 13 year of silence, the quasi governmental agency, the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Food and Nutrition Board (FNB), today recommended that a three-pound premature infant take virtually the same amount of vitamin D as a 300 pound pregnant woman. While that 400 IU/day dose is close to adequate for infants, 600 IU/day in pregnant women will do nothing to help the three childhood epidemics most closely associated with gestational and early childhood vitamin D deficiencies: asthma, auto-immune disorders, and, as recently reported in the largest pediatric journal in the world, autism. Professor Bruce Hollis of the Medical University of South Carolina has shown pregnant and lactating women need at least 5,000 IU/day, not 600.

The FNB also reported that vitamin D toxicity might occur at an intake of 10,000 IU/day (250 micrograms/day), although they could produce no reproducible evidence that 10,000 IU/day has ever caused toxicity in humans and only one poorly conducted study indicating 20,000 IU/day may cause mild elevations in serum calcium, but not clinical toxicity.

Viewed with different measure, this FNB report recommends that an infant should take 10 micrograms/day (400 IU) and a pregnant woman 15 micrograms/day (600 IU). As a single, 30 minute dose of summer sunshine gives adults more than 10,000 IU (250 micrograms), the FNB is apparently also warning that natural vitamin D input — as occurred from the sun before the widespread use of sunscreen — is dangerous. That is, the FNB is implying that God does not know what she is doing.

Disturbingly, this FNB committee focused on bone health, just like they did 14 years ago. They ignored the thousands of studies from the last ten years that showed higher doses of vitamin D helps: heart health, brain health, breast health, prostate health, pancreatic health, muscle health, nerve health, eye health, immune health, colon health, liver health, mood health, skin health, and especially fetal health.

Tens of millions of pregnant women and their breast-feeding infants are severely vitamin D deficient, resulting in a great increase in the medieval disease, rickets. The FNB report seems to reason that if so many pregnant women have low vitamin D blood levels then it must be OK because such low levels are so common. However, such circular logic simply represents the cave man existence (never exposed to the light of the sun) of most modern-day pregnant women.

Hence, if you want to optimize your vitamin D levels — not just optimize the bone effect — supplementing is crucial. But it is almost impossible to significantly raise your vitamin D levels when supplementing at only 600 IU/day (15 micrograms).

Pregnant women taking 400 IU/day have the same blood levels as pregnant women not taking vitamin D; that is, 400 IU is a meaninglessly small dose for pregnant women. Even taking 2,000 IU/day of vitamin D will only increase the vitamin D levels of most pregnant women by about 10 points, depending mainly on their weight. Professor Bruce Hollis has shown that 2,000 IU/day does not raise vitamin D to healthy or natural levels in either pregnant or lactating women. Therefore supplementing with higher amounts — like 5000 IU/day — is crucial for those women who want their fetus to enjoy optimal vitamin D levels, and the future health benefits that go along with it.

For example, taking only two of the hundreds of recently published studies:

Professor Urashima and colleagues in Japan, gave 1,200 IU/day of vitamin D3 for six months to Japanese 10-year-olds in a randomized controlled trial. They found vitamin D dramatically reduced the incidence of influenza A as well as the episodes of asthma attacks in the treated kids while the placebo group was not so fortunate. If Dr. Urashima had followed the newest FNB recommendations, it is unlikely that 400 IU/day treatment arm would have done much of anything and some of the treated young teenagers may have come to serious harm without the vitamin D.

Likewise, a randomized controlled prevention trial of adults by Professor Joan Lappe and colleagues at Creighton University, which showed dramatic improvements in the health of internal organs, used more than twice the FNB's new adult recommendations.

Finally, the FNB committee consulted with 14 vitamin D experts and — after reading these 14 different reports — the FNB decided to suppress their reports. Many of these 14 consultants are either famous vitamin D researchers, like Professor Robert Heaney at Creighton or, as in the case of Professor Walter Willett at Harvard, the single best-known nutritionist in the world. So, the FNB will not tell us what Professors Heaney and Willett thought of their new report? Why not?

Today, the Vitamin D Council directed our attorney to file a federal Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the IOM's FNB for the release of these 14 reports.

Most of my friends, hundreds of patients, and thousands of readers of the Vitamin D Council newsletter (not to mention myself), have been taking 5,000 IU/day for up to eight years. Not only have they reported no significant side-effects, indeed, they have reported greatly improved health in multiple organ systems.

My advice, especially for pregnant women: continue taking 5,000 IU/day until your 25(OH)D is between 50–80 ng/mL (the vitamin D blood levels obtained by humans who live and work in the sun and the mid-point of the current reference ranges at all American laboratories).

Gestational vitamin D deficiency is not only associated with rickets, but a significantly increased risk of neonatal pneumonia, a doubled risk for preeclampsia, a tripled risk for gestational diabetes, and a quadrupled risk for primary cesarean section.

Today, the FNB has failed millions of pregnant women whose as yet unborn babies will pay the price. Let us hope the FNB will comply with the spirit of "transparency" by quickly responding to our Freedom of Information requests.

John Jacob Cannell MD
Executive Director

*reproduced under website's http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons License

Statement from vitamin D expert Dr. William Grant
Download statement by Dr. Grant in PDF format

Statement from investigative health journalist Bill Sardi
Download statement by Bill Sardi in PDF format
A Return To The Dark Ages:
Nutrition Board Confuses "Normal" With "Healthy" And Sets New Vitamin D Requirements To Levels That Condemn Americans To Chronic Illness

Nov 30, 2010

by Bill Sardi

On a day that should have been heralded as "D-Day" for vitamin D's conquest over chronic disease, it is being called "disease day" by critics of new vitamin D guidelines issued by health authorities today.
...
Dr. William Grant, of the Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research Center (SUNARC) in San Francisco, suggests hundreds of thousands of Americans would avert premature death if their blood levels of vitamin D extended beyond the F&NBs normal range. He calculates an estimated 400,000 premature deaths per year could be avoided if all Americans raised their serum vitamin D levels just to the 45 nanogram level. "This would reduce the mortality rate by 15% and extend life expectancy by about 2 years." ...

A day of infamy

Widespread vitamin deficiency burdens America

Savings in healthcare dollars

My guesstimation is that $4 trillion of health costs could be averted over a decade if adequate food fortification and/or supplementation program were to be implemented, which would save Americans ~$1300 per person per year, or ~$3900 per family of 3 annually. These savings won't be achieved now that the Food & Nutrition Board has only taken baby steps to remedy a widespread deficiency in a sun-deprived population.

Say again?

A report in The New York Times says the F&NB concluded a vitamin D blood serum "level of 20 to 30 nanograms is all that is needed for bone health, and nearly everyone is in that range." But there is so much more to vitamin D than bone health. ...

The hidden agenda

And we get a hint at modern medicine's real agenda in solving the vitamin D-deficiency health crisis — vitamin D-like drugs!...

Imagined risks of overdosing

The buildup to the F&NB report

More biases revealed

While the F&NB is said to have reviewed over 1000 scientific reports involving vitamin D before it drew its mistaken conclusions, one wonders how many of those published reports were like the blatantly biased report published in a recent edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine. ...

(full statement available above)


Dr. Mercola interviews Vitamin D Council's Dr. John Cannell on the IOM vitamin D report. Also includes interview with Carole Baggerly from GrassrootsHealth.

-----

In common with the Fraud Nutrition Board's act of dissent suppression: The suppression by the National Election Pool, a six-member media consortium with editorial control over release of its contracted exit pollster's 2008 three Preliminary-national and 51 state exit polls, one member being Fox News (owned by Rupert Murdoch):

When will the MSM release the 2008 Exit Poll Report? (TIA)

[hedgehog]

16. The media accounts of the FN&B Report were flawed, IMO.

I read the summary on-line. My takeaway was this: The FN&B said that if your blood level is below X, you'll get certain bone diseases, so you should get at least Y amount of Vitamin D a day. If you take Z amount, you're likely to get sick from an overdose. Therefore, we recommend everyone get Y amount each day.

However, there are also some interesting reports out there suggesting that if your blood level is, say

1.5 x X or even 2 x X, you may have lower risk of: arthritis, osteoarthritis, Diabetes Type 1, Diabetes Type 2, influenza, tuberculosis, lupus, etc etc. It sounds like quackery until you realize that the immune system seems to be a common factor. The FN&B even said Vitamin D levels may be a factor in autism! The report goes on to say that given the difficulty in isolating the effect of Vitamin D in these diseases, we may never be able to structure a double blind study to prove the case one way or another.

So the takeaway was that for most people, Y amount of Vitamin D is perfectly fine. For an unidentified sub-group of people, a larger amount ( Still well below the toxic limits) may be needed to prevent certain autoimmune disorders.

The media claimed the report said that higher doses of Vitamin D made no difference to health. The report actually said higher doses might be important, but collecting the data is going to take a lot of time and money.

[RagAss]

10. I have taken 7,500 IU's a day for a decade.

I haven't had a cold or flu for a decade. Fuck the Institute of Medicine !

[snagglepuss]

12. Testing her level is important. Elderly people can have very low levels because

their bodies convert less sunlight to Vitamin D. Get her level tested through her doctor or through Grassroots Health - a study being undertaken by scientists and doctors across North America who research Vitamin D and believe that the public is not being adequately informed about the significance of inadequate serum levels of Vit D.


http://www.grassrootshealth.net/

[BonnieJW]

15. Please keep in mind that

20 minutes of unprotected sun exposure provides you with 10,000 units of vitamin D. If you never get sun exposure, your level will be very low and you will need supplements. I have solar dermatitis and use a sun block every day of my life, even yesterday when it was snowing. I take 5,000 units of vitamin D daily and get tested for levels annually. My levels are normal at this point.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

17. Coenzyme Q10 and creatine

Nutr Clin Pract. 2010 Aug;25(4):371-89.
Parkinson's disease: mitochondrial molecular pathology, inflammation, statins, and therapeutic neuroprotective nutrition.
Kones R.
Cardiometabolic Research Institute, Houston, Texas, USA. [e-mail]
Abstract
Pathological hallmarks of Parkinson's disease are destruction of dopaminergic neurons in the basal ganglia, especially the substantia nigra, and the presence of Lewy bodies within nerve cells. Environmental toxins are associated with the disease and, in a minority of cases, genetic factors have been identified.

Inflammation-with activation of phagocytic microglia, release of cytokines, invasion by T cells, and complement activation-plays a role in damaging these neurons. Excessive production of reactive oxygen species, mitochondrial dysfunction leading to apoptosis, accumulation and oligomerization of the protein alpha-synuclein, and defective protein disposal by the ubiquitin proteasome system are involved in the complex web of events mediating nigral cell demise.

Two agents of current interest, coenzyme Q10 and creatine, may be disease modifying, and large studies are in progress. Related mechanisms of other substances, including omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D, are included in this review. The association with serum cholesterol levels and the effects of statin drugs are uncertain but important.
PMID: 20702843