I also discuss my seven tips for optimizing your and your families vitamin D. You can also see the video I made of my tips for vitamin D by clicking here.

Are you telling your friends and relatives about the importance of vitamin D? This is the most important time of year to get your levels measured which you can do with this at home test kit or with your personal physician.
 

Are you taking Vitamin D? How much ? What have you noticed when taking it?

I look forward to hearing your comments in the box below.
 

A few years ago, the typical person didn’t know much about vitamin D, so, in the book, I explained how the sunshine vitamin worked as both a vitamin and a hormone. I also wrote about the many studies showing vitamin D’s connection to bone health, cancer, the immune system, chronic pain, and other conditions.

When I was writing The Vitamin D Revolution, I suspected that the cardiovascular system also benefited greatly from the proper levels of vitamin D. At the time there were only a few studies that supported my hunch.

New data is in, though, which undeniably establishes a link!

Findings of a prospective study on cardiovascular disease (CV), done with approximately 41,500 people, were published recently in the American Journal of Cardiology. Researchers concluded that there is an overwhelming connection between low vitamin D blood levels,  less than30 ng/ml, and a significantly higher risk of all cardiovascular incidents. These include heart attack, stroke, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease (narrowing and stiffness due to arterial plaque), and even death.

Because these are risk factors for CV, researchers also looked for the prevalence of diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol), and peripheral vascular disease (narrowing and constriction of arteries and veins, especially to the legs and feet). Researchers found that those individuals with vitamin D deficiency were significantly more likely to both have or develop these conditions.

In The Vitamin D Revolution, I stated there was a widespread deficiency of low vitamin D throughout the world. Although I would have been happy if I had been proven wrong about this, the study supported my theory. When they reviewed the patient records, 63.6% were found to be deficient. This was true regardless of age and gender.

Optimal levels of vitamin D are so critical to long-term health. Yet vitamin D deficiency is rampant in the world today. I encourage you to support your cardiovascular system—and all of your body’s systems and its musculoskeletal structure. You can do this by keeping your blood levels of vitamin D in the optimal range: between 40–70 ng/ml. Research indicates there is little to no risk, but lots of benefits.

Please ask your doctor for a vitamin D blood test or you can order an at home kit from my store.  Keep your vitamin D levels up for good health !

Anderson JL, et al., Relation of vitamin D deficiency to cardiovascular risk factors, disease status, and incident events in a general healthcare population, Am J Cardiol., 2010 Oct 1;106(7):963-8. Epub 2010 Aug 11. (Intermountain Heart Collaborative (IHC) Study Group.)

The study was conducted at the Karolinska Institutet, a medical university in Sweden. Researchers evaluated data on 70,000 patients who were taking immune-suppressant drugs, including tacrolimus and sirolimus, to prevent transplant rejection.

These patients had their blood monitored regularly, so it was easy for researchers to compare blood samples drawn in the winter (January – March) with those taken in late summer (July – September). The comparison showed that blood concentrations levels of tacrolimus and sirolimus were lower in the summer months and higher in the winter months. This means that these patients required more of the medicine in the summer to achieve the same amount of protection they could receive in the winter from a lower dosage.

Sweden has long winter nights and long summer days, so one’s exposure to sunlight—and its ability to produce vitamin D—is significantly different in winter and summer. Sunlight and vitamin D activate a liver enzyme called CYP3A4, which aids in the breaking down of certain medicines, including tacrolimus and sirolimus.

Researchers also took blood samples from patients taking cyclosporine, a drug used for the same purpose. No significant difference was seen in blood concentration levels between winter or summer, probably because the enzyme CYP3A4 is not required for metabolizing cyclosporine.

Although more research is necessary, this study suggests that the enzyme CYP3A4 may provide an important piece of information to doctors prescribing medications. Given that vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin, and vitamin D levels increase with sun exposure, it’s likely that researchers will discover additional medications that can be lowered in the summer while still conferring the needed benefits. 

This may call for closer monitoring of certain drug blood levels depending on the season. In the case of these immunosuppressant transplant drugs correct dosage is critical to prevent organ transplants from being rejected. As more and more people realize the benefits of taking Vitamin D this also will require doctors to monitor blood levels of drugs.

Although more research is required, it seems that Vitamin D dosages of patients will probably affect the metabolism of some drugs. Prospective studies need to be done to prove a causal relationship.

Lindh, J.D., Seasonal variation in blood drug concentrations and a potential relationship to vitamin D, Drug Metab Dispos, 2011 May;39(5):933-7. Epub 2011 Feb 24.

 

He does a good job of summarizing the important points about Vitamin D.

Remember take pills for your D and check your blood levels twice a year …November and March. My store sells a pharmaceutical quality Vitamin D which guarantees you get what is on the label !

A healthy diet and the proper supplementation before and during pregnancy can positively affect a pregnant woman’s health and the health of her baby. For decades, studies have shown the benefits of folic acid for preventing birth defects; omega-3 fats, especially DHA, for brain health; and calcium for bone health. Many pregnant women take prenatal vitamins for this reason.

You may recall a study conducted by Lisa Bodnar, Ph.D., at the University of Pittsburg in 2007. Eighty percent of African American women and roughly half of Caucasian women were found to be vitamin D deficient, even though 90 percent were taking prenatal vitamins! (The typical prenatal vitamin containsed only 400 IUs of vitamin D at this time). This study also showed that low maternal levels of vitamin D increase a baby’s risk of skeletal problems, particularly rickets.

In January 2011, a large study done on mothers and children in Mysore, India gave us more proof that vitamin D deficiency is truly a worldwide epidemic. About 67 percent of the 568 women whose children were studied were vitamin D deficient.

In one of the first studies of its kind, researchers assessed children’s lean muscle mass, cardiovascular markers, and sensitivity to insulin. Children were studied twice; at 5 years old and 9.5 years old.

At ages 5 and 9.5, those children born to mothers with low vitamin D levels had smaller arm muscles (less lean muscle) than children whose mothers had healthy levels. Even more concerning, at 9.5 years of age those children whose mothers were deficient in vitamin D had higher insulin resistance. This is an indicator that one may will develop diabetes.

There were not differences in cardiovascular markers, including blood pressure and cholesterol levels, between the two groups.

These results were the same for boys and girls.

Maintaining adequate—or better yet, optimal—levels of vitamin D is one of the best preventative measures one can take. Now there is evidence that protecting our own health, by having optimal levels of vitamin D, provides an additional benefit to future generations.

I recommend if you plan to get pregnant, make sure to check your vitamin D levels before you conceive. During your pregnancy, monitor these levels every trimester so you’re sure to give your baby the best start he or she can have.

Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 Jan 12

So if you have a Kindle, download a free sample and if you like the sample, you can download the whole book in a minute!

Post a comment on the Amazon page or here!

There has been great interest in my book in Japan.  If you have friends there let them know they should be taking their vitamin D everyday.

Versions in other languages are being worked on as well and I will keep you posted!

They increased the basic recommendation for all adults from 400 IU to 600 IU per day. Also, very importantly, they increased what they consider to be the maximum safe dose from 2000 IU to 4000 IU per day.

Many of us involved in vitamin D work were very disappointed in this tiny increase in recommendations. We were hoping that they would recommend a minimum of at least 1000 IU per day.

There's been much discussion on the Internet about the basis for the recommendations from the IOM. None of the people on the committee were well-known vitamin D researchers or considered experts in the field of vitamin D.

 In addition, they had 15 vitamin D experts review their report before they released it. However, the members of the committee have refused to let anybody look at the vitamin D experts’ opinions about the report. It is thought that many of the world’s leading experts would have expressed disagreement with the report. One organization has petitioned to get these opinions through the Freedom of Information Act.

The Institute of Medicine in their report, which is linked here, only looked at vitamin D and bone health. In my opinion, and the opinion of many vitamin D experts, they made the wrong conclusion that a blood level of 20 ng/mL was sufficient to maintain bone health.
They did not look at any epidemiological or retrospective Vitamin D studies. They insisted on looking  only at prospective double-blind crossover placebo-controlled trials.

As I've said many times in my book and on my website,  the preponderance of studies showing the “more-than-just-bone” benefits of vitamin D to this time, have been epidemiological and retrospective studies. There are a few studies, notably the Lappe study that was prospective, and showed great benefit for vitamin D in cancer prevention.

However the retrospective and epidemiological  studies consistently show that those people with higher levels of vitamin D have reduced incidences of all the diseases that vitamin D is now associated with. This includes 17 types of cancer, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, and many others. ALL these studies were ignored by the IOM.

As I have said in my book, and as I have said many times in my interviews, the prospective studies will not be completed for at least five or possibly 10 more years. Given the data from all these other studies, there is no reason not to take a higher level of vitamin D to get your blood levels in the 40 to 70 ng/mL  range that all of these studies have consistently shown to be beneficial.

At the worst, when the prospective studies are published in future years, the worst that would happen is that there would be found to be no benefit. Even if that were to be the case, none of us would have harmed our bodies by taking higher levels of vitamin D. The financial cost of vitamin Dis minimal.

However none of us in the vitamin D field expect that the prospective studies will show no benefit. In which case, all the extra years of takingvitamin D would only be a major benefit.

In addition, the recommendations of the OIM are for people who do not have a doctor who can monitor their blood levels and who just simply take a multiple vitamin. For people who do not have a doctor and do not get a blood level, it should be noted that the Institute of Medicine has said that daily doses of 4000 IU are completely safe. Therefore without further concern, an individual  can elect to take higher levels without being worried about safety.

In actuality we know that levels as high as 10,000 units per day are probably safe. However it is the tradition of the IOM to be very conservative and to caution on the side of “safety” and so they reduced that known safe level by 2 1/2 times to 4,000IU.

In summary, for my readers, my recommendations to you remain the same as they have always been. 2000 IU per day is a basic safe dose for people who do not get a blood test.

However it is my recommendation, as my patients know, that everybody get a blood test at least once a year in March and preferably twice a year with the second reading in November. Then dosages can be set according to the blood levels for optimum health.

I'm very open to your comments and look forward to hearing back from you.

Dr. Soram

THE IOM REPORT

Accumulation of fat around the abdomen can lead to what is called an "Apple body shape". This shape is linked to increased risk for heart disease, diabetes type 2, and other chronic degenerative diseases.

In this study the researchers followed over 470 schoolchildren from age 5 to 12, starting in 2006. The children were followed for about 30 months. The study looked at the vitamin D levels in the blood of children at the beginning of the study and then looked at the link between vitamin D and changes in three different indicators of body fat over the course of the study. Specifically they looked at body mass index, waist circumference, and scapular – to- triceps skinfold ratio.

Dr Villamor summarized his study by saying "We found that the kids with the lowest vitamin D levels at the beginning tended to gain weight faster than the kids with higher levels" He went on to say  that  children with the lowest vitamin D levels had more drastic increases in central body fat measures.

Diane Gilbert-Diamond, M.D., another of the authors said "Our findings suggest that low vitamin D status may put children at risk of obesity. This is significant because vitamin D insufficiency is highly prevalent across the globe and childhood obesity rates are dramatically increasing worldwide".

Dr Villamor went on to say "Interestingly, Bogota, Colombia, is in a subtropical zone where one may not expect to find a lot of vitamin D deficiency since the assumption is that sunlight is abundant there, but there could be many reasons people in subtropical climates may not get enough sun exposure."

My reply to this statement would be that Columbia is the same as the United States. Specifically parents rub sunblock on their children before they let them go out to play. The sunblock, as my readers know, also blocks the vitamin D rays of the sun. In addition, children spend much more time indoors than they did 50 years ago because of television and computer games.

Dr Villamor points out that "These findings should motivate some discussion on ways to enhance vitamin D status of children there, although it will be necessary to confirm in intervention studies whether improvements in vitamin D status decrease the risk of childhood obesity and early development of chronic diseases."

This means that we need prospective studies to prove that giving children vitamin D will help prevent overweight and obesity. Until the studies are done, as I frequently say, there is absolutely no harm in normalizing children's vitamin D blood levels by supplementation.

If the prospective studies were to show that there was NO benefit from vitamin D on obesity prevention, there would still be many other  benefits from the children taking the vitamin D.

Are you giving your children vitamin D? If they were overweight and you gave them vitamin D have you seen any benefit for their weight?

Children from birth should be getting supplementary vitamin D, as I discuss in my book.

REFERENCE
 

Just this month in the prestigious Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery,Joseph Lane, MD, and colleagues published an article looking at over 700 patients they had operated on retrospectively between January 2007 and March 2008.

The results were that 43% of all patients had insufficient levels of vitamin D and 40% had completely deficient levels.

Of note the highest rates of vitamin D deficiency were seen in the trauma and sports services. In this subgroup 66% of the patients were vitamin D's insufficient and 52% were absolutely deficient.
In addition it was found that men were more likely to have deficiency in vitamin D. As to be expected Blacks and Hispanics, because of their darker skin color, were 5 1/2 times more likely to have vitamin D levels that were low compared with people with lighter skin tones.

In this article they recommend getting orthopedic surgery patients' vitamin D levels up before they have an elective surgery. I am very happy to say that at The Khalsa Medical Clinic  I have been using my own pharmaceutical grade vitamin D consistently to raise preoperative patients levels for all types of surgery. not just orthopedic surgery, for many years now.

Dr. Lane was quoted as saying "in the perfect world, test levels, fix and then operate" Dr. Lane further pointed out that an important part of the healing process which is bone tissue formation occurs about 2 to 4 weeks after orthopedic surgery and is the critical time when the body needs vitamin D.

If you have family or friends who are getting orthopedic surgery or for that matter any type of elective.  Surgery, be sure they have had their vitamin D levels measured and optimized before any elective surgery.

Let me know your thoughts. Do you have any friends or relatives who had orthopedic surgery and had trouble healing? Were their vitamin D levels tested?  Have you tested your levels?

REFERENCE

The authors, MS Sandhu and TB Casele, point out that evidence suggests that vitamin D deficiency is associated with lung airway over-responsiveness, worse asthma control, and possibly resistance of asthma patients being able to respond to steroid treatment.

They point out that the cells in the lung show high amounts of the enzyme necessary to convert vitamin D to the activated vitamin D within the lung.

This activated vitamin D has been shown to inhibit the manufacture of certain molecules that promote inflammation in the lung. Therefore having sufficient vitamin D would contribute to less lung inflammation, which is the cause of asthma.

They also point out that vitamin D in the lung helps manufacture several natural anti-infective molecules that can help prevent infections, like bronchitis.
The authors made the hypothesis that vitamin D supplementation may lead to improved asthma control, and indeed that is exactly what I see in my practice. All of my patients with asthma have their vitamin D levels optimized.

If you or your family has problems with asthma, including childhood asthma please be sure your vitamin D levels are optimized.

Please let me know if you found vitamin D to be helpful with asthma in you or your family? Do you take it on a regular basis? Do you get your blood levels checked occasionally?

I look forward to hearing from you.

REFERENCE

What I basically said is that the medical literature supports the possibility that vitamin D deficiency is connected with depression but more studies need to be done to prove the connection.

Now in the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology a new article has been published,entitled "Vitamin D, light, and mental health". The author is MB Humble.

In this article the author reviews the medical literature for relationship between vitamin D and mental health. He points out that both vitamin D receptors and vitamin D enzymes are present in the brain. He also points out that active vitamin D affects neurotransmitters and other molecules that are relevant to mental disorders.

He points out that considerable evidence supports a role of less than optimal vitamin D levels being associated with depression. However he quickly points out that further double-blind crossover placebo controlled prospective studies must be done to prove this connection.

He goes on to point out that specifically two diagnoses, schizophrenia and autism has been linked to prenatal vitamin D deficiency.as my readers know I've discussed this previously.

The author also goes on to present two cases of psychiatric improvement coinciding with treatment of their vitamin D deficiency, leading to the question of whether their vitamin D deficiency was the cause of their psychiatric disorder.

We increasingly see articles like this in the medical literature.

Please let me know if you have seen any improvement in your or your families mental health as a result of optimizing your vitamin D levels. Have you had your levels checked? Have your friends with depression or other mental disorders had their levels checked?

I look forward to hearing back from you.

REFERENCE

The exact details on the why and why not this vitamin D optimization of patients with these diseases is not discussed in detail in the medical literature.

Now a new study has come out that shows that vitamin D actually appears to HELP patients with two specific types of lymphoma.

In a significant paper published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that was just published online, Matthew Drake, MD and his colleagues from the Mayo Clinic and 2 other schools  tested the theory that vitamin D levels might be predictive of "event free survival" (EFS), and "overall survival" (OS) in non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL). An "event" would be getting so sick the patient would need intervention most likely in a hospital. Otherwise, these terms are self-explanatory.
In the study they looked at over 900 newly diagnosed patients with NHL. 44% of the patients had an insufficient vitamin D level- that was less than 25 ng/ml, measured  within 120 days of their diagnosis. The average patient was followed for almost 3 years, some longer and others shorter.

After adjusting for other factors and treatment, the vitamin D insufficient patients who had defuse large B-cell lymphoma had a 41% lower chance of having event free survival. In addition, this group had a 50% lower likelihood of overall survival in the time they were followed.

Similarly patients with T cell lymphomas also had a significantly shorter event free survival time and a significantly shorter overall survival.

The authors went on to state that it was not clear if normalizing the vitamin D levels in these patients would improve outcome and suggest that more studies of this sort need to be done to find that out.

In my own practice of medicine if I see a patient with one of these types of lymphomas now, I will certainly optimize their vitamin D levels as soon as I start working with them.

The authors were quoted as saying "At this time, there is no definitive evidence for a causative relationship between lower vitamin D levels and poorer outcomes in lymphoma, and our study did not answer the question of whether normalizing vitamin D levels in these patients improves outcome."

This is just one more example where higher vitamin D levels were associated with patients doing better. I look forward to more and more of these studies as vitamin D is not on the researchers map!

Do you have friends or family with one of these types of lymphoma? Have they had their vitamin D levels checked? Let me know what you are doing to help spread the word about vitamin D.

REFERENCE

Preeclampsia is a condition which usually occurs at the end of pregnancy that is characterized by high blood pressure as well as protein in urine. Without treatment it can become very serious and can affect the delivery of the baby.

Early onset preeclampsia is not very common. It occurs in only about 2 or 3% of pregnancies. Nevertheless it is responsible for about 15% of premature births yearly. The definition of "early onset" is when it occurs before the 34th week of pregnancy.
In this new study that was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a mere 10 ng/ml increase in vitamin D blood level, resulted in a 63% reduction in the incidence of early onset preeclampsia.

Christopher Robinson, MD, MSCR, the principal author on the paper was quoted as saying " It is biologically plausible that the vitamin could affect preeclampsia risk. Vitamin D acts as a hormone, and lab research has found that it may affect the regulation and function of proteins in the placenta; problems in the development of the placenta are believed to be at the roots of preeclampsia."

The authors of the study were quick to point out that further study is needed to understand the role of vitamin D deficiency in pregnancy. The study, although it had very strong statistics, had only 100 patients.

Once again we now see another aspect of the importance of vitamin D during pregnancy. It is my recommendation in my practice of medicine that pregnant women take 4000 IU of vitamin D every day, and this amount is adjusted according to blood tests that we do every trimester.

Have you had your blood tested for vitamin D? Do your family and friends who are pregnant take enough vitamin D? The amount of vitamin D in a normal prenatal vitamin is only 400 IU, and no vitamin D researchers that I know consider this to be nearly sufficient for pregnancy.

I look forward to hearing your comments.

Reference
 

Now, for the first time, a study on the economic burden of vitamin D deficiency in Canada has been published. It is especially important for Canada to pay attention to their population's vitamin D levels because most of the Canadian population lives north of the 43rd parallel. Because of this, making vitamin D from sun UVB radiation is impossible for at least 4 to 5 months of the year. ("Vitamin D Winter")The Canadian diet provides about 200 IU of D from food every day, which is not enough to maintain normal blood levels. Therefore the people of Canada should all be taking supplementary Vitamin D for at least those winter months.

This article was written by William B. Grant and others. The authors carefully searched the medical literature for articles that showed the dose-response relationships for vitamin D and disease outcomes. For example they reviewed one study which I discussed in my book that showed increasing vitamin D levels could reduce the risk for death from cardiovascular disease by 25% or more. They looked at many other diseases including cancer, diabetes, influenza, falls and fractures, multiple sclerosis and even pregnancy outcomes.

They then obtained data from Health Canada, on mortality rates for 2005.

The authors then estimated the benefit in reducing disease based on increasing the average person's vitamin D level from 27 ng/ml to 42 ng/ml.
The results were astounding. It was estimated that the death rate in Canada would fall by 37,000 deaths per year, which represented over 16% of annual deaths and that the economic burden of disease could be reduced by 6.9% which is equal to over $14 billion per year.

Their conclusion was that they recommended that "Canadian health policy leaders consider measures to increase serum vitamin D levels for all Canadians". Of course I would certainly agree with this!

I would ask all of my readers who live in Canada or anyplace that far north to check their vitamin D levels at least once a year. My book has been translated into the Estonia language and I would remind my Estonia readers that the latitude of Estonia is 58 degrees. Even more north than Canada! And all of Scandinavia is north of Estonia ! They need vitamin D even more!

So if you have family or friends in these northern countries, call or email them to remind them to take their D at least during the winter.

Let me know what you think of all this information? Have you notified your friends even in the north of the United States about taking vitamin D?

REFERENCE

The researchers tested overall cognition which includes thinking, learning, and memory. They also tested attention and executive function. Executive function is the ability to plan, organize and prioritize.

The results of the study showed that those patients who were deficient in vitamin D were 60% more likely to have a significant decline in overall cognition and 31% more likely to have declines in executive function, than those who had sufficient vitamin D levels. A significant aspect of this study is that none of the elderly patients had any signs of dementia at the beginning of the study.

In an e-mail to WebMD Dr Llewellyn said that "This raises the possibility that vitamin D supplements may have therapeutic potential for the prevention of dementia and clinical trials are now urgently needed. We do not yet know the optimal intake of vitamin D to protect the brain as we need the results of clinical trials to confirm this."

This study is of major importance. I don't know how you and your families are but my patients and friends are  more afraid of getting Alzheimer's disease than almost any other condition including cancer. This study was the first of its type to look retrospectively over a significant number of years to watch cognitive decline occur in those who are vitamin D deficient.

As my conventional colleagues always advise, of course prospective double-blind studies must be conducted. But these take years, and there is no reason for you not to now take vitamin D and optimize the levels of you and your family.

You can check your blood level with your doctor or my at-home blood test kit and replace your vitamin D with inexpensive pills. From my previous post, be careful what brand of vitamin D you take so you know you are getting the amount of vitamin D that  is on the label.

Reference

He also stated that "There is the emerging view that the relative daily intake of vitamin D should be increased from the currently recommended 200 IU, 400 IU, 600 IU per day to a significantly higher level of 2000 IU to 4000 IU per day. He further stated "Already, several studies have reported substantial reductions in incidence of breast cancer, colon cancer and type 1 diabetes in association with adequate intake of vitamin D, the positive effect generally occurring within five years of initiation of adequate vitamin D intake."

Dr Norman is one of the major researchers of Vitamin D, and often speaks about the importance of vitamin D for all of us. I am so pleased he has mentioned in the inadequacy of diet for vitamin D, as many doctors still patients to get their D from diet! 
I am delighted to see this kind of interview coming out on the orthodox medical websites, as that is the only way we can get doctors to pay attention and correct vitamin D levels in all Americans.

Have you had your blood level checked? Are you or your family one of the 50% of Americans with a Vitamin D deficiency? How much Vitamin D are you taking? Please start now if you have not already started taking vitamin D !
 

He also stated that "There is the emerging view that the relative daily intake of vitamin D should be increased from the currently recommended 200 IU, 400 IU, 600 IU per day to a significantly higher level of 2000 IU to 4000 IU per day. He further stated "Already, several studies have reported substantial reductions in incidence of breast cancer, colon cancer and type 1 diabetes in association with adequate intake of vitamin D, the positive effect generally occurring within five years of initiation of adequate vitamin D intake."

Dr Norman is one of the major researchers of Vitamin D, and often speaks about the importance of vitamin D for all of us. I am so pleased he has mentioned in the inadequacy of diet for vitamin D, as many doctors still patients to get their D from diet! 
I am delighted to see this kind of interview coming out on the orthodox medical websites, as that is the only way we can get doctors to pay attention and correct vitamin D levels in all Americans.

Have you had your blood level checked? Are you or your family one of the 50% of Americans with a Vitamin D deficiency? How much Vitamin D are you taking? Please start now if you have not already started taking vitamin D !
 

From 1995 to 1999 the average number of papers with the term "vitamin D" in the title or abstract was about 700 to 900 annually. In 2009 alone over 2400 papers were published on vitamin D.

Prominent vitamin D researcher Anthony W. Norman M.D., who is a distinguished professor of biochemistry and biomedical sciences at the University of California, Riverside was quoted as saying "There has literally been an explosion of new data on vitamin D".
In his Endocrine Today blog Michael Kleerekpoer, MD, estimated that there are over 30,000 blood tests drawn for vitamin D done by laboratories every month in America.

This is the type of "tidal wave" that I was hoping for when I wrote my book The Vitamin D Revolution. I am delighted to see that a revolution is really starting to happen with awareness about vitamin D.

In spite of all these studies on vitamin D, only one prospective interventional trial is large enough to look at the benefits and risks of vitamin D from multiple chronic diseases. This study is called the VITAL study. VITAL stands for "Vitamin D and Omega-3Trial " This trial will test the benefits of giving patients 2000 IU of vitamin D per day in 20,000 American men and women over the following five years.
As I've said many times before, in my opinion there is no reason to wait five more years to start taking vitamin D. We know that there is absolutely no harm and most likely a lot of benefit from optimizing your vitamin D level.

Have you had a vitamin D blood test? Are you taking vitamin D? Are you giving it your family? Let me know! I'm happy to answer any questions here on my blog or in the forum. I am happy to make available an at-home Vitamin D blood test kit.

http://www.drsoram.com/vitamind.mp3

I have been saying it for a long time but now a study has proven it. A lot of the Vitamin D at the health food store has the potency that is on the label and lot of it does not! All the labels are pretty and I personally would have no way to decide which brand to buy at the store.

Now an amazing study has proven this. Dr C. Eckstein and colleagues have published an article entitled "Vitamin D content in commercially available oral supplements" that was done at the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers.

They bought 10 different brands  of  vitamin D  at the health food store and online and measured their actual potency and of course compared it to what it was labeled.

The findings are astonishing.

The labeled dosages were from 400 IU to 10,000 IU. On average, the actual dose was 33.5% of what the label stated. The range of actual dosage in the bottle was from (shockingly ) 0.24% of what the label stated to 81.7% of the labeled dose. None of the products has the dose listed on the label.

This study was done by the Multiple Sclerosis Consortium because of the increasing recognition of the importance of Vitamin D in MS. As one of the authors stated " As the role of vitamin D in immune regulation in MS gains increasing focus, oral supplementation is growing."

It was because of this huge problem with most over the counter vitamin D products, that I decided to bring to market my own Vitamin D supplements. As a specialist in Internal Medicine I like to use pharmaceutical quality products for all my patients. The patients I see are sick  and need high quality doctor-quality nutrients to get well.

That is why I decided to partner with a major company that only makes products to be sold in physicians' offices. This is a whole other level of product manufacture and quality compared with a health food store product.

I have been delighted with the results of blood levels achieved with the Vitamin D products I sell on my website. I measure vitamin D levels on my patients with vitamin D associated conditions at least twice a year and keep their blood levels as well mine and my family above 40 ng/ml. I also am gratified by the testimonials I get from people using my vitamin D products.

Have you measured your blood levels after taking your brand of Vitamin D? How are your levels? And your family's? Let me know because I really am on a mission to get everybody's Vitamin D levels into normal or optimal range.

REFERENCE
 

A very interesting article appeared recently in the Financial Times.

The article interviewed Proffesor Reinhold Vieth, a prominent professor at the University of Toronto and one of the major researchers who publishes articles on Vitamin D. In this article, Dr Vieth discussed his frustration that governments are not recommending a higher dose of vitamin D for all their citizens.

This article clearly discusses the three main reasons that higher dose vitamin D is not being recommended by governments..

1) The research that exists is primarily as I have pointed out epidemiological and not the classical double-blind crossover placebo type of study that is required to get the majority of medical organizations to recognize its importance.

2) Lack of money. Most new scientific discoveries are funded by drug company money. No drug company will fund research on Vitamin D because they cannot take a patent out on this naturally occurring substance. Therefore they will not fund research.

3) Most research is done in the "pharmaceutical drug company model". In this type of study, sick people are given a drug to see if it makes a difference to their health condition over time. In the case of vitamin D, we are looking to prove that taken over many years it will PREVENT disease. It takes a long time and a large group of people to look at healthy people and follow what develops in their lives. This is much more expensive and much more time-consuming, than a 6 to 12 month drug trial.

There is a recent announcement of the $20 million study by Harvard Medical School that is funded by the National Institutes of Health. This research will look at vitamin D and Omega 3 fatty acids and their ability to prevent chronic disease in adults over age 60. If these results are good it might make a case for raising the dose of vitamin D for people over age 60. But it is doubtful that it would convince governmental agencies to raise the dose of vitamin D for younger people.

As all of my readers know, I've been advocating, consistent with the medical literature 2000 IU of vitamin D per day for otherwise healthy adults. I was hoping that our Institute of Medicine would soon be raising the recommendations for Vitamin D for the whole country. After reading this article, it looks unlikely that that recommendation will be forthcoming. This article personally helped me to understand why the government and conventional medical organizations are dragging their heels on increasing the recommendation for vitamin D dose.

In the meantime, you can recommend higher doses of vitamin D to your family and friends. As I have often said, even if this dose of D is found at a future time not to have prevented disease (this is unlikely), you would still in no way be hurting yourself with this inexpensive supplement.

Please let me know your thoughts? Are you recommending vitamin D to your family and friends? Are you talking in your community? Do you have any recommendations to help me spread the word?

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
 

This article which just came out followed almost 200 adults and did monthly vitamin D blood levels on all of the patients from September to early January. The patients were followed for the entire study time for developing upper  respiratory infections (common cold or flu).

The findings are completely consistent with what I talk about in my book and here on my blog as well as other articles on Vitamin D and viral infections.

Those patients with a Vitamin D ( 25-Hydroxy-Vitamin D) level of 38 ng/ml or more had half the risk of a viral respiratory infection over the study. The level of statistical significance was extremely significant (p<0.0001). In addition they found that those with levels over 38ng/ml the duration of influenza was on average 2 days vs 9 days for those with low levels of vitamin D. This obviously would also affect the number of missed work days.

This study also found that higher weight individuals had lower vitamin D levels.  This is consistant with other studies showing the same thing.

Another finding in the study was that over 80% of the patients in the study did have levels less then 38 ng/ml. This further emphasizes the magnitude of Vitamin D insufficiency in the United States.

The authors comment " The data in this study suggests that supplementing with vitamin D to raise the concentrations in the general population to above 38 ng/ml could result in a significant health benefit by reducing the burden of illness from viral infections, at a minimum from viral infections of the respiratory tract in healthy adults living in temperate climates".

My comment is that the authors should have gone longer with their study. They stopped in January!  We know that colds and flus often still occur in February and March and that those patients NOT taking supplementary Vitamin D on their own would have had progressively lower levels in those months without  sun. Had they extended their study to another 2 months, their data might have been even stronger showing the benefit of Vitamin D.

Note also that the level of 38 ng/ml in this study  is very close to the lowest level (40 ng/ml) of vitamin D that I recommend ( in my book).

When was the last time you checked your vitamin D level? Your children's? You can ask your doctor or pediatrician to do a level when you go in for your next checkup. Or you can do a self test at home with an at home  kit.

Let me know what you do to keep your levels up now that summer is here?
Do you get some some without sunblock? or just take a D pill every day?

Reference

I also mention in my book that as of the date of publication and even to this date I have not seen one breast cancer patient come to my office for immune support as an adjunct to their traditional breast cancer therapy who have had a vitamin D blood level measured by their oncologists.

Now a recently published study by KD Crew and colleagues looked at the frequency of vitamin D deficiency in premenopausal women who were diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoing adjuvant chemotherapy. Adjuvant therapy means therapy that is in addition to the primary chemotherapy that a woman would receive after a diagnosis of breast cancer.
In the study, insufficiency of vitamin D was defined as a blood level less than 20 ng/ml. Blood levels from 20 to 30 ng/ml were defined as insufficient. And levels over 30 ng/ml are defined as normal. No mention was made in the article about getting women's levels over 40 ng/ml, which I have recommended.

These women were given 400 units of vitamin D every day with 1000 mg of calcium and followed for 12 months. At the beginning of the study 74% of the women were vitamin D deficient. After taking  400 unit vitamin D pills for one year, less than 15% of the women achievef normal vitamin D levels. The authors concluded that "the current recommended dietary allowance of vitamin D is too low to increase serum 25-OHD  greater than 30 ng/ml. Optimal dosing for bone health and possibly improved survival has yet to be determined."

For me this was a very surprising conclusion. The medical literature is clear that 400 units which is the RDA of vitamin D is totally insufficient to normalize most people's vitamin D levels, unless they are getting a significant amount of sun on a regular basis. I was surprised that the authors were not apparently current on the medical literature. Had they been, I would have expected that they would give the women 2000 IU of vitamin D per day for the duration of that year. Even with that amount of vitamin D however not all women would get their levels normal if they were starting with an especially low level.

Once again I say to you, my readers, for all your near and dear and friends who have had breast cancer please ask them to get their vitamin D levels checked,and have them normalize or better yet optimize their levels of vitamin D after the diagnosis.

Please let me know if you have any experience with vitamin D levels and friends and loved ones after a diagnosis of breast cancer and how they are doing with normalizing their levels.

REFERENCE

Other studies have shown that nursing mothers do not give their infants sufficient vitamin D. I've written about that as well previously.

In this nice article by my colleague Bruce Hollis and associates, the authors looked at vitamin D levels in newborn infants. At the beginning of the study the average infant at one month of age had  vitamin D blood level of 16 ng/mL. This is obviously low as less than 15 would be equivalent to rickets in the child.
They then proceeded to give the children 400 units of vitamin D3 per day and followed them over the ensuing months. By four months, the average level of vitamin D in the children had gone up to 43.6 ng/mL. They retested the children at 7 months and found the levels to be steady at about the same level.

This article again confirms that newborns should be given 400 units of vitamin D3 from the first day they are born. We know from many other studies that breast-feeding does not provide sufficient vitamin D for children to get a proper blood level. In addition, most pregnant women and therefore most nursing women are deficient in vitamin D themselves.

If you have friends who are nursing mothers be sure to tell them to give their infants 400 IU vitamin D every day.

I regard this as an extremely valuable study. Very few mothers with newborns would like their child to have blood tests every few months just to check vitamin D levels. The value of this study shows us what to expect when giving our newborns 400 IU per day. It tells us both that 400IU is safe and secondly that 400IU does bring the child to a normal blood level of vitamin D.

REFERENCE
 

In this article, Daniel Searing, Donald Y M Leung,  and colleagues at the national Jewish Hospital in Denver looked at the relationship between vitamin D insufficiency and childhood asthma and specifically the relationship with the use of corticosteroids.

They evaluated 100 asthmatic children for vitamin D levels and their degree of asthma.

There was a significant positive correlation between the vitamin D blood level in the children and their FEV levels. FEV stands for forced expiratory volume and is a measure of how quickly and how forcefully, a child can blow out air from his or her lungs. With asthma, a child has difficulty in blowing air out quickly.
In addition,the amount of required steroid inhalers as well as oral steroids showed a significant inverse relationship with the child's vitamin D levels. In other words the higher the children's vitamin D level was the less they needed steroids. Inhaled steroids are the standard of care for childhood asthma.

A side correlation of some surprise to me was found in the study. That is that the number of positive inhalant allergies as tested by a skin prick tests correlated significantly with lower the vitamin D levels. In other words allergy tests were more positive in the children with low vitamin D.

Another finding was in the test tube. What they found was that vitamin D enhanced the activity of steroids on an important protein that reduces inflammation and asthma. That would mean that a child's inhaled steroids will work better if their vitamin D levels are higher.

This study is yet one more in the ongoing research of the relationship between vitamin D levels and childhood asthma. Vitamin D deficiency is also correlated with the two other epidemics of childhood in America. These are juvenile diabetes and autism.

REFERENCE

In this amazing article by Hiroynik Ida and others, from December 2008 through March 2009 they researchers conducted a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial of vitamin D3 supplements in schoolchildren. In one group of children they gave the children 1200 IU of vitamin D3 every day and the other group of children received placebos.

They then specifically looked for influenza A infections in the two groups of children. The H1NI flu of this past winter is an Influenza A virus. In children who were sick they specifically diagnosed influenza A with nose swab cultures, the classical way of diagnosing these infections.

The findings were that the children who were given the vitamin D3 had a 42% reduction in the frequency of influenza A infections. This is obviously a major reduction.

Another significant finding, which I have spoken about in my book and in this blog, was that in children who had a previous diagnosis of asthma, asthma attacks were reduced by 83% in the group of children taking the vitamin D3.

I am delighted to see these type of  studies coming out, confirming what I have discussed in my book and what I have been telling my patients in my practice.

The wonderful thing about this study is that it was not an associational study. Rather they used the gold standard-double-blind crossover placebo-controlled type of trial. This is the only type of research that many conventional physicians will accept as valid. Most previous studies on the effect of vitamin D in relation to influenza were associational only.

All children over the age of 1 in our country, until their early teens, should be on at least 1000 IU of vitamin D3 every day. With blood tests even higher levels can be taken to optimize the children's health.

Please help me spread the word about this to your friends and family.

Reference

A recent study published in the British Medical Journal looked at the association between people's vitamin D blood levels, their dietary intake of vitamin D and calcium, and their risk of colorectal cancer in European populations. 520,000 people from 10 Western European countries participated in this study. This is an enormous number! The people who were in the study gave blood samples and completed dietary and lifestyle questionnaires between the years 1992 and 1998.

The findings confirm what other studies, which I talk about in my book have shown us. Lower levels of vitamin D in the blood were associated with a higher risk for colorectal cancer. Higher concentrations of vitamin D in the blood were associated with a lower risk for this cancer. Specifically, people who had the highest blood levels of vitamin D in this study, had a 40% lower risk of colorectal cancer than those in the lowest levels of vitamin D in the blood.

In my opinion, this is just one more reason, further confirmed why everybody should take a basic dose of vitamin D, and should try to optimize their levels of vitamin D if they are able to get blood tests.

For people who do not have a blood test, and who are otherwise healthy adults I recommend 2000 IU of vitamin D daily.

Reference 1

Reference 2

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It was also revealed that both fluctuate seasonally: in the winter months when sunlight is weaker and less Vitamin D is produced, less testosterone is present as well.

“Men who ensure their body is at least sufficiently supplied with Vitamin D are doing good for their testosterone level and their libido among other things,” said a Ad Brand, a spokesperson for the Sunlight Research Forum in the Netherlands in response to the study.

This is very interesting information and should be useful to primary care doctors and urologists. When a man's testosterone is found to be low, his vitamin D level should be checked. If the D level is low, the first line of treatment should be to normalize his D level and repeat the testosterone. This may make it so older men ( including all the baby-boomers) who would have needed testosterone will not need it as soon or at all.

The authors recommend that a prospective trial be run to evaluate the benefit that vitamin D replacement will have on testosterone levels.

Reference

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