Vitamin D isn’t actually a vitamin. Tt is a steroid hormone with a structure similar to testosterone, cortisone, estrogen and progesterone. It’s actions are far and wide with research pouring in at high speed the past few years. Even some mainstream docs are starting to check their patients for deficiency. For the latest research check outhttp://www.vitamindcouncil.org.
Vitamin D deficiency is certainly related to many cancers and likely will eventually be connected to all cancers. The higher your level, the more protected you are. Vitamin D deficiency is also related to increased risk of infection, most notably the flu. Higher levels are protective. Vitamin D deficiency is related to depressed mood. You can’t think without Vitamin D either. Low levels of Vitamin D are related to more pain in general. Some cases of fibromyalgia disappear with Vitamin D repletion. Low levels of Vitamin D also make it easier to gain weight and more difficult to lose weight.
Can you take too much Vitamin D? According to our all wise and intelligent government bureaucrats, 2,000 units is the upper level of safety. A young person can make this much in 2 minutes in the sun. We gradually lose the ability to make Vitamin D as we age. We are far less capable of making it by age 60.
In the early 1900′s mainstream doctors Rxed 150,000 units daily as a moderate dose. But the “more is better group” were giving doses between 500,000 and a million units per day. This made people sick, so the overreaction resulted in today’s ridiculous government recommendations.
These high doses were effectively used to treat all sorts of immune system problems such as Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and asthma. The low levels recommended today have left this market wide open for the pharmaceutical companies. What a coincidence.
What is a good level? The best blood test for Vitamin D is….Vitamin D, 25,0H. A level between 32 and 100 is considered normal. Normal is only related to what is normally found. Don’t think it implies healthy because it certainly doesn’t. If your doctor finds you at 32 he thinks you are fine. I beg to differ. As your level increases, your health increases. A level toward the high end is far better than lower levels.
There are Vitamin D experts who try for levels approaching 200 to treat certain conditions. More on this can be researched at http://www.vitamindcouncil.org. You can find 5,000unit and 10,000unit caps of D3 at our clinic. 5,000 units of D3 are also found as part of our Bone Formula, multi-1, Multi-2, Multi-4 and Super Immune Formula. None of the formulas we have manufactured for our clinic contain calcium. Because you can become toxic with calcium if taking high doses of D3.
Megadosing vit D3 depletes cofactors that help vitamin D work. The main cofactor is magnesium. This deficiency can cause all kinds of symptoms. It is usually the first one to cause problems when megadosing D. The second is K2. When it becomes deficient you get soft tissue calcification and kidney stones. After being on very high doses for years you may run into zinc, boron or selenium deficiencies. These problems can be avoided by supplementing with them. Another big caveat when even taking five to ten thousand units of D3 is to avoid calcium supplements and maybe even hard cheese if megadosing. Also, checking lab tests along the way when megadosing would be smart.
Here is a video of a doctor who had thousands of patients on 30,000 D3 with lots of amazing benefits. He said problems at that dose were “rare”.
VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY – IS IT A ROOT CAUSE OF CHRONIC ILLNESS AND CANCER?
Seventy seven percent (77%) of U.S. teens and adults are deficient in vitamin D (less than 30ng/mL), ten years earlier, fifty-five percent (55%) were deficient, in the so-called “sunshine vitamin” whose deficits are increasingly blamed for everything from cancer and heart disease to diabetes.
Recent scientific studies have found that the level of Vitamin D in most people, while adequate to protect against rickets, is not high enough to lower the probability of other medical conditions that may be caused by insufficient amounts of Vitamin D.
W. Michael Hooten, M.D., et al., from Mayo Comprehensive Pain Rehabilitation Center in Rochester, Minn. reported that about one in four patients who have chronic pain also have inadequate blood levels of vitamin D, which might contribute to their pain. Patients who did not have enough vitamin D also needed higher doses of morphine for a longer period of time.
Dr. Philippe Autier, et al., found that… Ecological and observational studies suggest that low vitamin D status could be associated with higher mortality from life-threatening conditions including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes mellitus that account for 60% to 70% of total mortality in high-income countries.
Higher serum levels of the main circulating form of vitamin D, (25(OH)D), are associated with substantially lower incidence rates of colon, breast, ovarian, renal, pancreatic, aggressive prostate and other cancers.
In a 2007 study, Dr. Garland, et al., combine data from 29 observational studies in their report, which appears in the journal Nutrition Reviews. They concluded that in North America, “a projected 50% reduction in cancer could be achieved by increasing the intake of Vitamin D so that the blood level reaches 42ng/mL and breast cancer has to get to about 50ng/mL.
In a 2009 study, Dr. Garland, et al., projected that raising the minimum year- around serum 25(OH)D level to 40 to 60 ng/mL (100–150 nmol/L) would prevent approximately 58,000 new cases of breast cancer and 49,000 new cases of colorectal cancer each year, and three fourths of deaths from these diseases in the United States and Canada, based on observational studies combined with a randomized trial. Such intakes also are expected to reduce case-fatality rates of patients who have breast, colorectal, or prostate cancer by half.
At Dana-Farber and Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, researchers are helping illuminate how vitamin D may play a beneficial role in colorectal cancer, health disparities, pediatric stem cell transplants, and overall disease prevention. Working with Fuchs and others, Dana-Farber’s Kimmie Ng, MD, MPH, explored the potential impact of vitamin D on cancer patients. A study she co-led found that colorectal cancer patients with the highest vitamin D levels in their blood were 48 percent less likely to die (from any cause) than those with the lowest vitamin D measurements. Vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent among patients with stage IV colorectal cancer receiving firstline chemotherapy, particularly in black and female patients.
8. Evidence that vitamin D reduces the risk of many types of disease is increasing exponentially. In 2011, 3,100 publications with “vitamin D” in the title or abstract were published, up from 2,606 in 2010, 1,303 in 2005, and 796 in 2000. Based on the latest findings, raising the year-around 25(OH)D level above 40 to 60 ng/mL could have a significant impact on overall cancer rates.
References
1. Adit A. Ginde; et al., “Demographic Differences and Trends of Vitamin D
Insufficiency in the US Population, 1988-2004” Arch Intern Med, Mar 2009; 169: 626 – 632.
2. Gerry Schwalfenberg, MD CCFP, Clinical lecturer in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada“Not enough vitamin D” Can Fam Physician Vol. 53, No. 5, May 2007, pp.841 – 854 Copyright © 2007 by The College of Family Physicians of Canada.
3. W. Michael Hooten, M.D., et al., “Lack of Vitamin D may Worsen Chronic Pain,”
American Society of Anesthesiologists 2007 Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California, October 13-17, 2007.
4. Philippe Autier, MD; Sara Gandini, PhD, “Vitamin D Supplementation and Total Mortality – A Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials” Arch Intern Med. 2007;167:1730-1737.
5. Garland, Cedric F.; Grant, William B.; Mohr, Sharif B.; Gorham, Edward D.; Garland, Frank C. “What is the Dose-Response Relationship between Vitamin D and Cancer Risk?”
Nutrition Reviews, Volume 65, Supplement 1, August 2007 , pp. 91-95(5).
6. Garland, Cedric F.; et al.,“Low Vitamin D May Be Root Cause of Cancer”
Annals of Epidemiology, Volume 19, Issue 7, July 2009, pp. 468-483.
7. Ng, Kimmie M.D., et al, “Vitamin D Status in Patients With Stage IV Colorectal Cancer”
J Clin Oncol. 2011 April 20; 29(12): 1599–1606.
– Mayer Eisenstein MD JD MPH
Dr Eisenstein’s Daily Minimum Recommendation for Vitamin D intake
- Get a Vitamin D blood test25(OH)D
- Make sure your whole family has adequate blood levels of Vitamin D this flu season (>50 80ng/ml). Most children and adults Vitamin D blood level is
