I am listening to Doctor Oz on TV right now and he has just suggested cod liver oil as a supplement that will put your vitamin D level up. Don't do it. Cod liver oil has very low levels of vitamin D and very high levels of vitamin A. Vitamin A will plug the receptors for vitamin D and actually make you more likely to have cancer. They are both fat soluble and that is what happens when you overdose on vitamin A. While you are thinking about what I just read, check your multi vitamin. Most are very high in vitamin A.  I blogged on that a couple of blogs ago...
A quick fact for you to consider. Cod liver oil used to have a lot of vitamin D in it. Now it does not because cod liver oil is obtained from farm fish which are not fed naturally and that fish food is low in vitamin D.
So, again take advice from the people who know. I am one of those because I read the experts at vitamin D council and grass roots health. I have read everything I can find on this subject for a dozen years. Evidently Doctor Oz has not!
I will quote a very old philosopher. Plato said, know thy self. Very true, but also know your Doctor. Many do not stay current with the latest information.

It seems the big wig advising the IOM report a few months ago saying that a LOW reading of vitamin D or below 12ng/ml is deficient, 20 ng/ml is ok, might have ulterior motives. It also is true this person is some one who has invented and patented analogs of vitamin D in the past. He is a legend, but it is also true that vitamin D and its benefits is starting to become general knowledge. Is this a problem? It could be, for this Doctor.
How could this be? Well rumor ( read the quiz below) has it that he is coming up with a drug  that will decrease the breakdown of vitamin D and thus raise the vitamin D level! Also the rumor is that it will be tested against a placebo ( sugar pill) and not vitamin D3. So it will look very good, maybe, and be available much more expensively from your Doctor.
Personally I trust everything the government and drug companies do and say. How about you? Take a look at this quiz and make up your own mind.
Fyi, there is a lot more information on vitamin D on this blog by scrolling down and looking in the archives. Feel free to comment or complain below! I have been reading this stuff for over a decade and I think I have a fair grasp of just what is going on.
bbb



Vitamin D Council Quiz. .

Studies of Interest 3:
True or False? National Academy of Sciences
This newsletter contains grave ethical questions about how the National Academies, through its Institute of Medicine's Food and Nutrition Board, conducts its official business. If you love science, and respect the National Academy of Sciences, pay close attention to the first question.

This is the third newsletter in a new edition of the Vitamin D Council's newsletters. Unlike the general newsletter, the full text of this special newsletter is now available only to members of the Vitamin D Council; however, we will post the entire newsletter on our website four months from now. I am aware some people will illegally post the entire newsletter on the internet before then but I can't stop that; I doubt they have the best interests of the Vitamin D Council in mind when they do so.

The Vitamin D Council needs members to fulfill our goal of ending suffering from vitamin D deficiency and to begin our dream of treating autistic children for free in our San Luis Obispo, CA, office.

Learn more about Vitamin D Council membership.

Vitamin D Quiz Dr. Anne Looker, of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), could not have made Professor Hector DeLuca, the University of Wisconsin, and certain folks at big pharma, any happier with her recent widely reported analysis of the vitamin D status of Americans, while at least one member of the recent vitamin D Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) hopes that the process the FNB used in their deliberations remains impervious to federal Freedom of Information laws.

1 False True Doctor Jill Poole not only listens to her patients, she conducts research based on what they tell her. Together with other researchers at the University of Nebraska, Dr. Poole conducted a study and she is now successfully using vitamin D to treat "chronic urticaria" (long-term hives).

2 False True Recent studies show vitamin D can help take the place of exercise.

3 False True Vitamin D is the best treatment for chronic tension headaches.

4 False True The words, "In summary, rather compelling evidence exists that inadequate vitamin D exposures are associated with an increase in cancer risk and/or tumor progression," were written by researchers at:

5 B) The National Institutes of Health A) The Vitamin D Council D) Grassroots Health C) The National Cancer Institute I hope all of you will take a minute and become a member. We want to hire an administrative assistant so I can start seeing autistic children free in our office.

The next newsletter will give more details about a new Lifetime Membership option (one-time fee of $1,000.00). Combined with sponsoring the free evaluation and treatment of vitamin D deficiency for an autistic child, it confers lifetime membership, along with personal email access to me, and an autographed copy of my upcoming book on vitamin D and athletic performance.

It is an exciting time for the Vitamin D Council; I hope you will be part of it. However, I can't begin to see autistic children in this office for free until we can hire an administrative assistant for the office. I need to know we will have money to pay him or her and not just turn around and fire him or her in three months. We need to be able to plan and you can help us immensely by becoming a member. It is all tax-deductible. Thank you for your support.

John Jacob Cannell MD Executive Director
Vitamin D Council

So, the winter is over and the days are brighter, grass is turning green and you are starting to look forward to summer. Amazing that those bright sunny days make you feel better. Is there a physiological reason for this? Is there a actual blood value, that if were improved,  would decrease "blues" during winter, spring, fall, and summer.  Yes, there is! You have three guess as to what that would be. The first two do not count! This is real and it is a difference you can feel.
If you start the vitamin (it really is a prohormone, not a vitamin) do not expect a change with a single dose. Most feel better in three weeks and a steady dose of vitamin D will stabilize at a given blood level in 3 months. Copy and paste the below for the studies

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/science/research/vitamin-d-and-depression-and-seasonal-affective-disorder.shtml

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/depression.shtml

So, this study is interesting and not especially easy for the lay person to read, but it does say the above. Seems if you do not exercise you will get some of the same benefits of exercise  and improvement in cardio, without exercising. Is exercise and vitamin D ( it is not really a vitamin but a prohormone) better? Sure.
Take a look at the study. copy and paste.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21349488

Dr. Cutler - United States

• Vitamin D may Counteract High Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Among African-Americans Taking vitamin D supplements may help individuals, especially those of African-American descent, improve their blood vessel health and lower their risk of developing cardiovascular disease, according to a recent study conducted by researchers from the Georgia Prevention Institute at Georgia Health Sciences University. ( as noted on the vitamin D council website).
  

(Of course this applies to people of all skin colors. A black person starts out with lower vitamin D levels than a white person, everything else being equal. Because of the fact the skin is black or brown the sun provides less vitamin D in a given period of time. In fact it may take 4 to 5 times longer to get the same amount of vitamin D as a white person. In the black community cancer and cardiovascular problems are more common. Vitamin D corrects this discrepancy from everything I read.
Everyone else (white) benefits also from supplementation also, they just start out at a little higher level). BB

copy and paste for the article below.




http://www.drcutler.com/heart-health/vitamin-d-may-counteract-high-risk-of-cardiovascular-disease-among-african-americans-800483460/

My dosing schedule is a little different from what the vitamin D council is recommending. I believe they feel that they would keep there recommendations on dosing very simple and as long as a person gets tested in three months,  they will get to a good level in about six months. It is a simple way to go about things. Why make it complicated. My mind finds this to be a illogical place to go and I will tell you the reason why. First, I believe, people who read this blog are not average so they will be able to follow my reasoning without difficulty.
    They start out by saying if you are the typical child you should get 1,000 IU of vitamin D per 25lbs of body weight and test in three months to see where they are. If you are a adult you should take 5,000 IU a day and check in three months. Then they say, if you are black, obese, or old you need more than others.  There is no recommendation of what to do if you are in that group until tested.
After 40 years of giving people medications I realize dosing is weight and age related and so my recommendation for adults is the same as children. 1,000 IU per 25lbs. I think people who follow this schedule will be at a more OPTIMUM place in three months.
Additionally if you are a person who eats a unhealthy diet please consider that you may need a little more MAGNESIUM in your diet. Magnesium is vegetables, nuts; you know the healthy stuff! When you start taking vitamin D magnesium is used to make the hormone vitamin D turns into. This will lower your magnesium level and could be a problem as it has to do with maintaining a regular heart beat. Magnesium is worth "googling" and reading up on. While you are at it look up vitamin K also. If you know some one that says, " I started taking vitamin D, but I did not feel so good so I stopped. This is likely to be the reason why". Diet is not a benign thing.
Also, if you are taking a multi vitamin please look at the label. If you are getting up around 70% of vitamin A and your diet brings you over 100% of the RDA, this could be a problem. Vitamin A and vitamin D are both fat soluble and A can block D. Not a good thing. IMHO, multivitamins, which have never been proven to improve health, could be made beneficial by a very simple change. How? Switch the amounts of vitamin A and D.

I personally know several Asthmatics who have decreased their need for Asthma medication by going on Vitamin d in doses recommended on this website and by the vitamin D council. As a interesting aside, the American diet is very low in magnesium. Magnesium is important to a healthy cardio vascular system. When vitamin D is taken it reduces a "probably" already low magnesium, to a lower level. This is true because magnesium is used to make the vitamin D hormone. Of course, you already knew that vitamin D is not really a vitamin at all. It is a prohormone or a substance used to make a hormone. So this substance deserves more respect than the common vitamin.
Cardiologist tend to pay attention to magnesium, but regular doctors seldom investigate. Fyi, magnesium is a mineral found in green leafy vegetables. Just google magnesium and you will find out more about this important mineral.

The Vitamin D Newsletter October 2010

go to newsletter archives

Asthma, Eczema, and Vitamin D
Dear Dr Cannell: I have a few questions which I hope to you will be able to help me God willing:

Firstly, My wife is currently breast feeding our first child who is a 5 months old girl and she has is currently suffering from a very, very common condition called eczema or atopy, which seems to be affecting almost all new born babies and toddlers in the UK. She also has asthma, which is getting worse. My wife has cut out everything from her diet that it is typically linked to the causes of atopy and she is currently taking vitamin tablets which the NHS in the UK give out free to all women who are pregnant and are breast feeding the content of each tablet is as follows:

Vitamin D10 ug (400 IU)Vitamin C70 mgFolic acid (Folacin)400 ug and we are currently giving our daughter 'Children Vitamin drops' which we instructed to give 5 drops and the 5 drops contain in total:

Vitamin A233 ug (700 IU)Vitamin C20 mgVitamin D7.5 ug (300 IU) Now would this amount be enough for both mother and baby's Vitamin D level and could there be a link between the eczema/asthma and Vitamin D level?

Secondly, I myself suffer from eczema for a long time since about 2003 and I am 30 years old now. It has been on and off and it especially flares up in winter indifferent places on the body, I have generally managed to control it by watching what I eat especially at winter, now I have read quite a lot from your website and as far as i can understand that i should be taking 1000 IU of Vitamin D for every 25 pounds of body weight and as for the blood test I should take that after 8 weeks of starting the Vitamin D supplement.

Thank you for reading my rather long email but I am learning to avoid that winter fatigue and maybe find out if I can get rid of a few other problems for myself and loved ones. Thank you Geoffrey Bingham Birmingham UK

Eczema is a form of atopy, a disease characterized by a tendency to be "hyperallergic". A patient with atopic allergies often has atopic eczema or atopic dermatitis since infancy and asthma as they grow older. Atopic eczema is an extremely itchy skin condition with a hallmark rash that can involve almost every region of the body. Crusty, scaly, flattened, reddened lesions of atopic eczema can appear almost everywhere, but are worse in certain areas or after exposure to certain irritants (e.g., allergenic soap, freshly cut lawns).

The single most important feature associated with atopic eczema lesions is that they are extremely itchy, and the itch can occur even before the lesions erupt on the skin and are visible. The itchiness often leads to secondary infections.

Atopy and asthma have a complicated relationship to vitamin D, with some studies showing vitamin D — especially cod liver oil in infancy — making eczema worse in later life. However, one would be silly to stay vitamin D deficient, and all that entails, on the chance your eczema will not worsen. Furthermore, in my experience atopy, including asthma, will slowly improve with physiological doses of vitamin D. Like asthma, eczema can become life-threatening if infection occurs. Such infections are thought to be secondary to reductions in the skin of naturally occurring antibiotics, such as cathelicidin.

Recently, Dr. Tissa Hata and a group at UC San Diego conducted a randomized controlled trial that demonstrated a remarkable seven-fold increase in cathelicidin in the skin after adult eczema subjects were given 4,000 IU per day for 21 days.

Hata TR, et al. Administration of oral vitamin D induces cathelicidin production in atopic individuals. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2008 Oct;122(4):829—31.

Even more important, Dr. Urashima and colleagues at the Jikei University School of Medicine in Japan conducted a randomized placebo controlled trial of young teenagers and found that those with asthma were much less likely to have an attack if they were on vitamin D. Asthma attacks are not an uncommon cause of death among children. They also found that vitamin D significantly reduced the risk of influenza A, which can be much more severe in asthmatics.

Urashima M, et al. Randomized trial of vitamin D supplementation to prevent seasonal influenza A in schoolchildren. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 May;91(5):1255—60.

Geoffrey, both you and your baby need to stop all vitamin A supplements, as they will interfere with the vitamin D, and begin taking vitamin D; your infant needs 1,000 IU/day and you need 5,000 IU per day. I wish I could tell you the eczema will rapidly disappear; it will not. However, over a period of several years I predict both the eczema and asthma will slowly improve. More importantly, both you and your infant will have a decreased likelihood of getting a secondary infection in both your skin and your lungs.

John Jacob Cannell MD Executive Director

This newsletter may be reproduced as long as you properly and prominently attribute its source. Please reproduce it, post it on Internet sites, and forward it to your friends.

Remember, we are a non-profit and rely on your donations to publish our newsletter, maintain our website, and pursue our objectives. Send your tax-deductible contributions to:

• The Vitamin D Council
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• San Luis Obispo, California, United States, 93401

People and especially women have been encouraged to take large amounts of calcium for decades. Now we see mounting evidence that this may actually increase the rate of heart attack.  http://www.webmd.com/heart/news/20100729/study-calcium-may-increase-heart-attack-risk    Unfortunately you can not just click on this address. If you want to read this study, you need to copy and paste the address.
Calcium and vitamin D go together. So much of science is to do a study in which just one thing is changed and then evaluate the results. This is not good science, I my opinion, when there is more than one factor that interact in the body that could effect that study. IMHO, it is bad science to look at calcium without looking at vitamin D at the same time.
What we know for sure is that osteoporosis can be treated by taking vitamin D in doses recommended on this site along with calcium. In fact these studies suggest that vitamin D and calcium is superior to Boniva and the like.  How much calcium? Well everything I read suggest less than 800 mg a day is all that is necessary and that limit should not be exceeded. How can this be true. Well, calcium just is not absorbed well unless there is a optimum amount of vitamin D in the body at the same time. So less is needed. In fact if you drink milk, eat any cheese and like your vegetables you probably do not need supplementation of calcium. Few people realize that vegetables contain some calcium also. In some societies no one drinks milk or milk products after weaning and they do quite nicely without any need for supplementation. It is also true that if the amount of protein in your diet is high, calcium is absorbed poorly. That society would be China, just in case you are curious.

So when Big Gov makes a mistake, big government apologizes and gives a correction. No not really! The recommendations for vitamin d in this dated article is low, in my opinion. Even greater benefits are experienced if you get your level to 80 ng/ ml or up to 100 ng/ml. Vitamin D is a dynamic field that is constantly being updated. As it is updated you will see it here.
A quote from vitamin D council below and address for the article.

2010.01.27 What Vitamin D Means to Your Technology Profits The scientific consensus that has held sway for four decades regarding both exposure to the sun and vitamin D has collapsed. What has emerged in place of the old settled science is the knowledge that most people in America are seriously vitamin D deficient or insufficient. The same is true for Canada and Europe, and the implications are staggering.
Click below.
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/14/046/What_Vitamin_D_Means_to_Your_Technology_Profits.html

This is a old news letter that I had on my other blog. I am updating this blog to cover another area of extreme importance to the today's mothers. This is not the complete news letter and more can be read at the website. A link is provided at the bottom of the this article.


The Vitamin D Newsletter June 2009

go to newsletter archives

Pregnancy and Gestational Vitamin D Deficiency In the last 3 years, an increasing amount of research suggests that some of the damage done by Vitamin D deficiency is done in-utero, while the fetus is developing. Much of that damage may be permanent, that is, it can not be fully reversed by taking Vitamin D after birth. This research indicates Vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy endangers the mother's life and health, and is the origin for a host of future perils for the child, especially for the child's brain and immune system. Some of the damage done by maternal Vitamin D deficiency may not show up for 30 years. Let's start with the mother.

Incidence of Gestational Vitamin D Deficiency Dr. Joyce Lee and her colleagues at the University of Michigan studied 40 pregnant women, the majority taking prenatal vitamins. Only two had blood levels >50 ng/mL and only three had levels >40 ng/mL. That is, 37 of 40 pregnant women had levels below 40 ng/mL, and the majority had levels below 20 ng/mL. More than 25% had levels below 10 ng/mL.

Dr. Lisa Bodnar, a prolific Vitamin D researcher, and her colleagues at the University of Pittsburg studied 400 pregnant Pennsylvania women; 63% had levels below 30 ng/mL and 44% of the black women in the study had levels below 15 ng/mL. Prenatal vitamins had little effect on the incidence of deficiency.

Dr. Dijkstra and colleagues studied 70 pregnant women in the Netherlands, none had levels above 40 ng/mL and 50% had levels below 10 ng/mL. Again, prenatal vitamins appeared to have little effect on 25(OH)D levels, as you might expect since prenatal vitamins only contain 400 IU of Vitamin D.

Thus, more than 95% of pregnant women have 25(OH)D levels below 50 ng/mL, the level that may indicate chronic substrate starvation. That is, they are using up any Vitamin D they have very quickly and do not have enough to store for future use. Pretty scary.

Effects on the Mother Caesarean section The rate of Caesarean section in American women has increased from 5% in 1970 to 30% today. Dr. Anne Merewood and her colleagues at Boston University School of Medicine found women with levels below 15 ng/mL were four times more likely to have a Cesarean section than were women with higher levels. Among the few women with levels above 50 ng/mL, the Caesarean section rate was the same as it was in 1970, about 5%.

Preeclampsia Preeclampsia is a common obstetrical condition in which hypertension is combined with excess protein in the urine. It greatly increases the risk of the mother developing eclampsia and then dying from a stroke. Dr. Lisa Bodnar and her colleagues found women with 25(OH)D levels less than 15 ng/mL had a five-fold (5 fold) increase in the risk of preeclampsia.

Gestational Diabetes Diabetes during pregnancy affects about 5% of all pregnant women, is increasing in incidence, and may have deleterious effects on the fetus. Dr. Cuilin Zhang and colleagues at the NIH found women with low 25(OH)D levels were almost 3 times more likely to develop diabetes during pregnancy.

Bacterial Vaginitis Dr. Lisa Bodnar and her colleagues found pregnant women with the lowest 25(OH)D level are almost twice as likely to get a bacterial vaginal infection during their pregnancy.

Effects on the child Seventeen experts—many of them world-class experts—recently recommended:

"Until we have better information on doses of vitamin D that will reliably provide adequate blood levels of 25(OH)D without toxicity, treatment of vitamin D deficiency in otherwise healthy children should be individualized according to the numerous factors that affect 25(OH)D levels, such as body weight, percent body fat, skin melanin, latitude, season of the year, and sun exposure. The doses of sunshine or oral vitamin D3 used in healthy children should be designed to maintain 25(OH)D levels above 50 ng/mL. As a rule, in the absence of significant sun exposure, we believe that most healthy children need about 1,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily per 11 kg (25 lb) of body weight to obtain levels greater than 50 ng/mL. Some will need more, and others less. In our opinion, children with chronic illnesses such as autism, diabetes, and/or frequent infections should be supplemented with higher doses of sunshine or vitamin D3, doses adequate to maintain their 25(OH)D levels in the mid-normal of the reference range (65 ng/mL) — and should be so supplemented year-round (p. 868)."

That's right. Healthy children need about 1,000 IU per 25 pounds of body weight and their 25(OH)D levels should be >50 ng/mL, year-round.

Eight years before the above recommendations, Professor John McGrath of the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research theorized that maternal Vitamin D deficiency adversely "imprinted" the fetus, making infants more liable for a host of adult disorders. Research since that time has supported McGrath's theory. Consider, for a minute, what it must be like for John McGrath, to know that maternal Vitamin D deficiency is causing such widespread devastation, to know it could be so easily treated, but to also know he must wait the decades that will be required to deal with the problem.

Schizophrenia Dr. Dennis Kinney and his colleagues at Harvard published a fascinating paper last month on the role of maternal Vitamin D deficiency in the development of schizophrenia, in support of Dr. McGrath's theory. As they point out, the role of inadequate Vitamin D during brain development appears to "overwhelm" other effects, explaining why schizophrenia has so many of the footprints of a maternal Vitamin D deficiency disorder, such as strong latitudinal variation, excess winter births, and skin color.

Autism I will say not more, other than to point out that Scientific American ran a lengthy article last month on my autism theory but the editors insisted that the author not cite me, nor my paper, because I am "not a scientist."

Mental Retardation The only evidence that Vitamin D deficiency is a common cause of mental retardation is from researchers at the CDC who found mild mental retardation is twice as common among African Americans as whites, and that the politically correct explanation—socioeconomic factors—cannot explain it. If latitudinal studies of mild mental retardation exist, I am unable to locate them.

Of course, it is claimed you are a racist if you believe these studies. In fact, a number of writers have told me their editors will not allow writers to discuss these studies in their stories. I am glad these studies were conducted by researchers at the CDC. Although, I worry about their political longevity at the CDC after reporting such findings.

I will mention one other fact (at my peril) and that is the fact that a very smart man, President Barack Obama, was born in the late summer (August) and has a brain that developed in a womb covered in white skin, during the spring and summer, in the subtropics (Latitude 21 degrees North), during an age before sun-avoidance was the mantra (1961). Make what you want to of that fact. My point is that whites living at temperate latitudes may have a huge developmental advantage over blacks, an advantage that begins immediately after conception, an advantage that has nothing to do with innate genetic ability and everything to do with environment.

Newborn Lower Respiratory Tract Infection Newborn babies are vulnerable to infections in their lungs and women with the lowest 25(OH)D level during pregnancy were much more likely to have their newborn in the ICU being treated for lower respiratory tract infections. Drs. Walker and Modlin at UCLA recently presented reasons why viral pneumonia is probably only one of many pediatric Vitamin D deficient infections.

Birth weight While conflicting results exist on the effects of maternal Vitamin D deficiency and birth weight, the majority of the studies find an effect. Furthermore, the studies are comparing women who have virtually no intake to women who have minuscule intakes. For example, women who ingested around 600 IU per day were more likely to have normal weight babies compared to women whose intake was less than 300 IU per day. One can only wonder what would happen if pregnant women had adequate intakes? Drs. Scholl and Chen, at the Department of Obstetrics at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, concluded pregnant women need 6,000 IU per day, not the 400 IU/day contained in prenatal vitamins.

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/pregnancy-and-gestational-vitamin-d-deficiency.shtml