Below is a post I made on your work at CureMyTh1.org site and elsewhere on this site. I shall preface it first though. At the time I wrote it, and due to information elsewhere on your site, I referred to the level at which 25D becomes immunosuppressive as 32ng/ml. Perhaps your post here is newer, as you state this level at which 25D becomes immunosuppressive is 20ng/ml “and that’s just it.” What basis do you have for this conclusion? Were the studies in vivo or in vitro? Do you actually have a study demonstrating patients with baseline 25D below 20ng/ml prior to supplementation, and then showing as their levels increase during and after the supplementation period that their level of antimicrobial peptide production goes down and other real life immune system function indicators?

Here is my post with more questions:

Hello, here is a post I made on Amy Proal’s bacteriality site. I am genuinely looking for the truth here. anyone who can respond to any or all of my points/questions would be greatly appreciated:

Amy- Thank you for your site and your work. My interest in your information is two-fold. First, I have a sister who has post treatment chronic Lyme. Second, I stumbled upon Heaney, Vieth, VitaminDcouncil.org and grassrootshealth.net in my search to resolve my own scalp eczema.

I personally have only been taking higher vitamin D for about 3 weeks, but there has been a marked improvement in my scalp eczema.

I read one of the other posts here on the 14 misconceptions about Vitamin D and that 25D is actually immunosuppressive. Your information seems well referenced and very plausible, so you can understand my confusion now after having read through the information from Heaney, Vieth and others on the benefits of D3 supplementation.

It seems both sides have credible arguments and data. Yours especially seems very convincing, but I have some questions:

1. In reading your information, I saw that you have identified the bllod level at which 25D becomes immunosupressive ~32ng/ml. What basis do you have for this conclusion? I would very much like to read the actual paper this is drawn from to see the methods used in the study.

2. While your arguments seem very credible, in fact maybe more credible to me now than that from Heaney, Vieth and other D supplementation proponents, there is one logical barrier I cannot seem to get past with your arguments. We’ve evolved as humans through the millennia with this innate system for Vitamin D production from the sun. Prior to industrialization, or even civilized society, presumably hominids and early humans spent quite a lot of time out in the sun, and no doubt produced a lot of their own vitamin D. Even today, in tropical climates, studies I have seen on blood levels show them to be around 40ng/ml or higher for people who live in these areas while people from northen climes tend to have much lower levels, especially during winter. If 25D is indeed immunosuppressive, then why is there not a higher level of chronic disease and cancer, flu mortality, etc. in these tropical areas? Also, how can you explain away the seasonality of flu and the higher morbidity and mortality rates throughout the fall and winter months? I know your information says that some of these epidemiological studies showing higher incidence of some of these diseases in northern climates are technically flawed– if they are, how so?

3. With regard to the Marshall protocol, or just restriction of Vitamin D intake in general, do you have any data on long term health effects of this popultion wide, or even in specific disease states? This is one of your criticisms of Heaney/Vieth/Cannell/Vitamin D Council et al. You pose the question that since they have no real long term data, i.e. 1-2 decades or more that we cannot really know the true health implications of higher vitamin D supplementation. I would ask the same question– if you have no long term studies regarding the health implications of restricting D3 intake and thus keeping 25D levels low, we cannot really know the true health implications of that either, can we?

4. To expand on point #2, how can something that we’ve evolved with over millennia– our innate ability to produce D3 and thus 25D from the sun, and given that a human can produce nearly 10,000IU per day from sun exposure, how can it be that 25D is deleterious to us? Perhaps there is an optimal level for both sides? i.e. something below the 32 ng/ml threshhold where you suggest 25D is immunosuppressive? Or would people with certain chronic diseases need to be even lower due to the L form bacteria produced proteins also occupying the VDR? If so, how LOW should someone with chronic disease go? To undectable levels of 25D? If so, what are the health implications non related to their chronic disease? Could we help their chronic disease on one hand, but cause other problems on the other? What is the risk/benefit ratio here?

5. From reading your misconceptions on vitamin D page, it was difficult to determine if the studies done demonstrating the immunosuppressive nature of 25D above 32ng/ml were in vitro or in vivo. If they were indeed in vitro studies, is it possible that if you had isolated only the VDR in vitro and introduced 25D that the response could be markedly different than that found in vivo, with the living system and all other substances and enzymes, etc found in the human body? Or do you actually have a double blind placebo controlled study that measured baseline blood levels of anti-microbial peptides as well as baseline 25D and 1,25D levels prior to, during and after supplementation, and do you have concrete proof that 25D above 32ng/ml in humans suppresses the expression of anti-microbial peptides and actually causes their production and blood levels to go down? I don’t believe the other side (Heaney/Vieth/Cannell et al) has a study showing that the levels actually do increase. However, the case reports in facilities and patient populations where patient’s 25D levels are checked and they are supplemented to the other side’s “optimal” levels of 40-60ng/ml are interesting. It does seem like the supplemented populations have less incidence of flu infection compared to surrounding counterparts in the same facility. I know these are clearly not scientific studies, but rather observations that may not even be statistically significant, but there seems to be enough of these case reports independent of each other to show that there may be something to higher vitamin D supplementation and immunity to flu.

6. Your information points out connections of some of the researchers invovled in the D supplementation proponent studies to those in the supplement and/or dairy industries. Some of which disturbed me. However, I believe it is a fair question to ask, what kind of market exists for the Marshall Protocol (independent of the patients actually enrolled in the formal study protocol under the study’s superision), i.e. books, foods, supplements, etc? And if so, what financial benefit if any do Marshall, you and others involved in this work have to gain? Perhaps if not commercial, then maybe private and/or government grants, continued employment, etc.? Your information points out that studies have a funny way of providing the information that is sought by the funder when speaking of those done by Heaney, Vieth et al. I think it is fair to say the same about your work too– could the results of your work be driven to provide information contrary to the other side of the D argument to be different and feed an alternative market?

Please don’t misunderstand me, I don’t mean to be antagonistic. From what I have read, the work you have done looks great and your motives seem genuine– perhaps more genuine than Heaney, Vieth et al. However, I am just trying to get to the truth for me and my sister and others I know that this issue can effect. Guaranteed someone is wrong on either side of this argument and no question there will be damage done. The question is, what side?

Also, you should know, I am not involved at all in supplement production or sales, though I did work for GSK for 6 years up til 2005, primarily selling antibiotics and antidepressants. I now own a business selling medical software– completely unrelated to pharma or supplements. I have been a paramedic for 20 years and have a keen interest in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, so that is where my medical knowledge and knowledge of study design/methods comes from.

I am really just looking for the truth, and your answers to my questions will help me to get that much closer.

Sincerely,

Bill Kelleher

Yeah I know,, evidence is not easy to come by,, but getting better is good evidence also.
I am just saying that there is more ways to go about this.
Bless all that find their way,, and I wish all good health

I found it without harsh medications, and feel blessed for that.

Love Hilli

I’m sure you’re doing what you feel is right, but the evidence for “the zapper,” for example, is nonexistent. Some of your other statements are no less problematic.

Best,
Paul

I wish you would look at other immune compromising agents such as mercury and other pollutants. Antibiotics as Marshal uses is not without side effects. Have you considered using natural methods of killing the L-form bacteria as MMS? I agree that the bacteria must be killed, but not in this health compromising way.
Cleansing is very very important in raysing the body ph, so that the bacteria dont like it. A zapper is also very good in killing it. And will do so with ore without low vit D-levels.
I know Vit D is immunosupressive, but that does not mean that I can not kill the bacteria while while calming my immunesystem.
That is my experience anyway.
Good luck to all, but think twice about allopathic medication, as there is nothing your body needs less than more poison
I have RA, and am almost there. I take vit D for my health, and have killed bacteria AND buildt health at the same time

Love Hilli

I’m sorry you have the flu. I’m not surprised that you are less symptomatic than expected as our research indicates that since your are taking such high amounts of vitamin D you are probably quite immunocompromised. I very much hope you stop taking the vitamin D. If you do I don’t think you will get a massive immune reaction. “Vitamin” D is stored in adipose tissue and usually takes between 3-6 months to leave the body. The D you are taking has certainly accumulated in this fashion so that even if you stop taking it, I would think the activity of your immune response should return gradually as it gets out of your system.

If you stop the vitamin D and get the flu in the future I would expect that you would become more symptomatic. But remember that even though they are a huge pain, such symptoms are a sign of an active immune reaction to the pathogen present. If the pathogen is killed, it should not become part of your collective pathogenic microbiota that could contribute to autoimmune or inflammatory disease.

Best,
Amy

Paul

I agree with you. An over-active immune system needs to be somewhat suppressed. However, I am not aware of any disease where the immune system is over-active — dis-regulated perhaps, but not over-active. I am aware of the following situations:

1) the immune system is impaired
2) impairment of the innate immune system causes the adaptive immune system to over-compensate
3) the immune system reacts to a transplanted organ
4) the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues (i.e. autoimmune).

The last situation could be the immune system reacting to an unidentified organism rather than the body’s own tissue. There may be other situations as well. The immune system is very complex.

Are you aware of any particular disease where the immune system is over-active?

Ken

Surely an over-active immune system needs to be somewhat suppressed. If this is the case it would account for the benefits that some people seem to get surprisingly quickly when they supplement with vitamin D.

Naturally, over-suppressing (which could happen in time with over-supplementation) would swing the pendulum the other way so stopping the supplement would then produce a benefit.

Occam’s razor perhaps?

It helps to see a study before you comment on it, but I assume this study showed a correlation between low levels of 25-D and reduced fertility. If this is the case, in our opinion, that only shows that the body has downregulated the metabolite so as to upregulate immune function. You should be aware that in a forthcoming paper Blaney et al. found elevated levels of 1,25-D, the active form of vitamin D among autoimmune patients. Did the research to which you refer mention anything about that tendency?

Amy’s forthcoming paper, Dysregulation of the Vitamin D Nuclear Receptor may contribute to the higher prevalence of some autoimmune diseases in women discusses how high 1,25-D may interfere with the body’s nuclear receptors including those responsible for producing the body’s sex hormones.

Doctors tend to diminish the significance of sarcoidosis, saying that it’s not contagious and that it can’t be inherited. But, there is a lot of evidence to the contrary. Women who give birth while sick with chronic inflammatory diseases may transmit that disease or some related disease to their fetus. Have a look at this Knowledge Base article:
http://mpkb.org/doku.php/home:pathogenesis:familial_aggregation

Given the fact that you have sarcoidosis, you may want to consider the Marshall Protocol:
http://mpkb.org/doku.php/home:patients

Best,
Paul