I share your frustration greatly. I’ve done everything I can to publish on vitamin D, speak on the topic, discuss our research with doctors and scientists, but I suspect it will be a long time before we can overcome the idea that vitamin D is an innocuous sunshine vitamin. I would say though that every person who understands the negative effects of vitamin D on granulomatous diseases and is working to spread that knowledge is making a difference. So I would encourage you to keep talking about the subject on the boards that you frequent, although not in the context of the MP, I guess.

Take care,
Amy

That’s a pretty big stretch. There are many other reasons why the incidence of cancer could be so hight in Denmark. For example, cancer is increasingly being tied to the presence of pathogens and dysregulated microbial communities. It could be that the prevalence of certain cancer causing microbes is higher in Denmark and that these microbes are more easily passed around a relatively homogeneous population.

The idea being put forth by vitamin D advocates that Vitamin D = cure for cancer is way to simplistic to even begin to address the complex disease process that is cancer. There are other populations and people who live in countries that don’t supplement the food supply with vitamin D and have people who work largely indoors. Yet cancer is not necessarily a concern for many of these individuals.

It’s becoming increasingly accepted in the medical community that vitamin D is a powerful immunosuppressant. There are many variables that influence how a person responds to supplementation and sun.

Best,

Amy

Best
Niels

In a Danish trial researchers have found that almost 70% of the Danish schoolchildren are vitamin-D deficiency. In late winter 40% of them have a level lower than 10ng/ml. If I understand you right, those 40% must have some kind of illness do to their low level of 25-D, because their body are downregulating the secosteroid in order to upregulate immune activity. That’s totally nonsense.

Best
Niels

There is no doubt that there is an increase of chronic diseases in the Western world. This increase has nothing to do with the rise of 25-D level, but that the level has decreased.

I am afraid you are completely misunderstanding/misrepresenting our model of vitamin D metabolism. I don’t think anyone would argue that low levels of 25-D aren’t associated with at least several chronic diseases. Our model states that in chronic disease, the body will downregulate levels of the secosteroid in order to upregulate immune activity. In other words, we both agree that 25-D is low in chronic disease, but you think it’s the cause. We think it’s the effect.
http://autoimmunityresearch.org/transcripts/AR-Albert-VitD.pdf

If you haven’t seen them already, you should have a look at these studies:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15699498
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19083421

Best,
Paul

Thank you so much for your work and your site.
However, I think even you underestimate the problems associated with the media and medical hype surrounding vitamin D and its effect on people with granulomatous conditions.

Those who have access to a computer and knowledge to use the web sooner or later will come across the MP. People who do will learn about the effect of D on chronic disease.

Nevertheless, there are many people who, for one reason and another, do not come across sites like this, or choose to believe the media, or come upon dectractors of Marshall’s theories on chronic disease. These people with granulomatous disease are in some danger and totally unaware of it.

I was astounded at the cavalier attitude of members of the D Council and Dr Michael Holick, who concede that people with granulomatous disease have dysregulation of vitamin D and calcium metabolism. They are making people who suffer from these diseases ‘lambs to the slaughter’ at the altar of vitamin D.

I am a sarcoid sufferer, and am a convert to the MP. I also frequent non MP sarcoid sites. Many of these sites do not allow mention of the MP. I abide by their rules. And, in anycase, the MP doesn’t have a monopoly on the notion of the poor regulation of D and calcium metabolism in Granulomatous disease. The problem of D in these diseases is an established medical fact. Nevertheless, the message is not getting out to many sarcoid victims, nor their clinicians.

The drive to push D for osteoporosis prevention and numerous other health benefits is causing serious harm to people with granulomatous diseases. Doctors are testing the 25D of people with these illnesses and finding it low. What is more, they assume that it is low due to deficiency or prolonged prednisone use. Alternatively, some are having bone densities tested and turning up with osteopenia or osteoporosis. Granulomatous disease patients are often put onto supplements of 50,000 I. U. of vitamin D, or D and calcium or bisphosphonates. Some lucky patients associate a downturn in their conditions with the recent addition of D to their treatment regimes. Others, fully trust their doctors and continue to take the supplements. Sure, a few patients do get kidney stones, but they are in the minority from what I see happening on non MP sarcoid support sites. Many develop frank hypercalcemia and often after only a couple of weeks. A couple of patients have ended up at emergency in semi-comatose states. I believe it is only a matter of time before people begin to die. Indeed, this scenario may have already occurred. Recently, my mother’s friend told her of the death of a friend from kidney failure attributed to sarcoidosis. Could this poor lady have been supplementing with vitamin D? Certainly, I myself have had it pressed on me. Needless to say, I broke off relations with that doctor. On one site I frequent, I have come across at least four cases of kidney stones, one case of calcification of the thyroid gland, and at least ten cases of hypercalcemia, only one of which was NOT brought on by supplementation of vitamin D. One case occured due to treatment of Fosomax with D; and the worst case of hypercalcemia, where the patient almost died, was supplementing both D and calcium. Indeed, last year when I developed a scotoma due to sarcoidosis, thought at first to be a detached retina, the hospital prescribed me a Calcium supplement but no D. Younger doctors, and doctors who have experienced an adverse event due to calcium and d disregulation in granulomatous diseases have greater awareness. The vast majority of physicians do not even know about it. Many of them are resistant to testing calcitriol levels of patients who request it. Indeed, the lady who almost died of hypercalcemia after her obgyn prescribed D and Calcium, flatly denied to her that the D had caused her hypercalcemia. This was inspite of the fact that hospital emergency staff had told the lady that she should never have taken vitamin D while her sarcoidosis was active. One lady, a nurse herself, bravely contacted members of the Vitamin D Council. She got a call from Holick as well as email replies from Vieth and Grant. All she contacted, apart from Grant, acknowledged D dysregulation in Granulomatous Disease. All, with the exception of Grant, told her supplementation was OK provided that she got two baseline levels of 1,25D, 25D, PTH, Calcium and Urine Calcium – and that calcium levels needed to be closely monitored during treatment. After showing these replies from leading lights in the ‘D’ world to her treating physician, she still, to her dismay, walked away with a request for only 25D and urine calcium. This stubborn state of denial and media hype is putting people’s lives at risk. Most doctors deny the need for , or refuse to do tests for calcitriol or PTH prior to supplementing their patients. As more sarcoidosis victims are becoming aware of these tests we are seeing some interesting trends which I would like to bring to your attention, but bear in mind, these are people who are not being treated by the MP. Firstly, many people are on prednisone, so D test results are affected. Some people on prednisone have low Ds but still show hypercalciuria. There are sarcoidosis specialists out there now realising the damage hypercalciuria is doing to their patients. Most use prednisone to correct this even in the absence of other sarcoid symptoms. While it is good that hypercalciuria is becoming recognised as a silent destroyer of health, its normal method of treatment will also result in long term health downturn.

The British and Australian Governments acknowledge D and Calcium dysregulation in Granulomatous diseases in legislation on vitamin supplements – as does the European Union. Even so, the vast majority of physicians remain oblivious to it. With promotion of vitamin D as a panacea by the Vitamin D Council, I fear that the health of human inhabitants of the planet is being hi-jacked. It is climate change denial all over again.

What, if anything, can be done to protect the unsuspecting?

Denise

I have read all about the MP and there is no doubt in my mind, that your are making a terrible mistake to recommend a lower vitamin-D level in your treatment.

There is no doubt that there is an increase of chronic diseases in the Western world. This increase has nothing to do with the rise of 25-D level, but that the level has decreased. The last 50 years a lot of people were working outdoors, but now most are working indoors. We have the last 10-15 years been told that the sun is dangerous, which has meant that our vitamin D levels have fallen dramatically. It is exactly this, which causes an increase of ex. cancer, chronic diseases and many other diseases. You recommend that vitamin D levels should be low and that high levels are harmful to the immune system in the long term. But the vitamin D level in humans have currently never been lower than it is now, so there should instead be a decrease in chronic diseases, etc..

I have also noticed that there’s no proof for your statement that vitamin D supplementation are harmful in the long term. If you have, I would love to see them.

Best
Niels

It’s hard to critically appraise what is, in essence, a press release. For example, the release talks about “safe” and “sufficient” levels of (presumably) 25-D without mentioning what those ranges are. How were patients randomized or allocated? The often-cited 2007 Lappe study is one example of a trial that did not randomize participants on the basis of the stated primary outcome of the paper. See this letter to the editor:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/87/3/792-a

Anyway, this result seems to be consistent with what a lot of existing research – as well as the model for disease we describe here on Bacteriality. According to our model, small doses of vitamin D given to healthy people are rapidly converted into 1,25-D which may lead to a temporary increase in immune activity. If you are young and fertile enough to bring a child to term, you are usually fairly healthy, so – who knows – maybe we’re seeing these subjects getting a short-term benefit.

If you read any of our papers, you’ll see we’re talking about a harm that takes place over the course of many years. Look at Chlebowski et al. See how vitamin D shifts from therapeutic to harmful, but that it takes more than a decade to so. Look at Hyponnen, who showed that incidence of asthma and atopy spiked more than two decades after initial supplementation.

Final note: I don’t know if you know anyone sick with chronic disease, but some of them will readily attest that they *never* get colds. Surely that’s not a sign of health. I would say that the reason a person sick with disease does not get a cold is that their immune system is relatively inactive. Isn’t an elevated temperature, etc. your body’s way of ridding itself of a pathogen?

Best,
Paul

Can you please explain the outcome of this controlled studie.

“In the trial, Dr. Bruce Hollis and Dr. Carol Wagner of the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, gave one group of pregnant women 4,000 IUs per day of vitamin D at about three months of pregnancy. They gave a second group 400 IUs per day, amounts recommended by U.S. and UK governments.

Trial participants were monitored by testing their blood and urine samples to make sure calcium and vitamin D levels were within safe ranges. No side effects were observed in either group and vitamin D levels in the women’s blood increased by about 50 percent.

The researchers found pregnant women who took 4000 IUs of the sunshine vitamin per day reduced their risk for premature birth by half compared to the controls and they were less likely to have small babies.

Women on the high-dose vitamin D3 supplements compared with those on low dose-vitamin D supplementation were at a 25 percent reduced risk for infections, particularly respiratory infections such as colds and flu as well as infections of the vagina and the gums.

Women taking high doses of vitamin D also showed reduced risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, and preeclampsia. In addition, babies getting the most vitamin D after birth were less likely to experience colds and eczema.

In another trial, the researchers found that supplementation of 6,400 IUs per day in breastfeeding women provided infants with sufficient vitamin D for their babies, 400 IUs per day.”

Best
Niels