[pres]

My plans to take vitamin D seemed well funded (lots of positive research these days about high vitamin D levels) and then I stumbled upon this article that promotes the views of Trevor Marshall.

"The Truth About Vitamin D: Fourteen Reasons Why Misunderstanding Endures", by Amy Proal (a biologist), 15/09/2007
http://bacteriality....09/15/vitamind/



The article strongly advises against vitamin D supplementation and contains unusual allegations like these (I've tried to summarize, most of this is not literally from the article):

- 25-D becomes increasingly immunosuppressive starting from levels around 20 ng/ml. Therefore supplementation will damage your health in the long run.

- As a person falls ill with a chronic disease, L-form bacteria begin to live inside the cells of the immune system and in various tissues. These bacteria create proteins that, just like elevated 25-D, are able to bind and block the Vitamin D Receptor and block the ability of the Vitamin D Receptor to turn on the immune system.

- Chronically ill people are not deficient in vitamin D, they often have low 25-D but high 1,25-D.

- To cure many of these chronic diseases vitamin D has to be avoided and low-doses antibiotics have to be used (the "Marshall Protocol" http://www.marshallprotocol.com/ )

- Much vitamin D supplementation research is useless as it doesn't investigate both 25-D and 1,25-D levels and tends to cover only the short run, during which vitamin D provides short term relief with a decrease in toxins, cytokines, and overall inflammation, because it shuts down the immune system. As it shuts down the immune system vitamin D makes people sicker in the long run as the immune system doesn't do its job anymore and L-form bacteria accumulate.


There are a lot of references, but as a lay person it's difficult for me to validate them.




Slides with text and references by Marshall:
http://autoimmunityresearch.org/transcript..._bio21_2006.pdf


This stuff really goes against mainstream opinion.
But then again, mainstream opinion has been wrong before.

Trevor Marshall isn't a medical doctor.
But then again, neither is Aubrey de Grey.

I'm wary of documents titled "The truth about..." and of theories that offer a simple explanation and cure for a whole bunch of diseases.
But then again, what if even part of what he says is correct?

Wikipedia is relatively positive about Marshall, but the neutrality of the article is disputed. It does mention: "Observations that the Marshall Protocol successfully treats certain autoimmune diseases have yet to be fully validated by the medical community. Rosen and Bagwell, in their 2007 review of treatments for sarcoidosis, argue that the Marshalls' 2003 paper, "Antibiotics in sarcoidosis—reflections of the first year" has "serious deficiencies" claiming that the data are not peer-reviewed and that results are not quantified."
http://en.wikipedia....Trevor_Marshall

This post has been edited by pres: 13 January 2008 - 10:45 PM

[kclo4x]

Well, that is disturbing! I more or less thought the more vitamin D the better because of this artical that you guys have probably already have seen.

http://www.nutraingredients.com/news/ng.as...elated-diseases


"Live longer with vitamin D, study says
By Alex McNally

Vitamin D may help slow down the ageing process, scientists have found, adding further weight to the importance of adequate intake of the vitamin.

Researchers from King's College, London, measured telomeres - part of a chromosome which shortens with age - in more than 2,000 women and found those who had higher levels of the vitamin in their body had longer telomeres.

Writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the scientists looked at 2,160 women aged 18 to 79 years and measured leukocyte telomere length (LTL). LTL is a predictor of ageing-related disease and decreases with each cell cycle and increased inflammation, the scientists said.

Scientists measured concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (the 'storage' form of vitamin D) and found a link between increased concentrations and telomere length.

They found that after taking into account the age of the volunteer, women with higher levels of vitamin D were more likely to have longer telomeres.

They wrote: "The difference in LTL between the highest and lowest tertiles of vitamin D was 107 base pairs, which is equivalent to five years of telomeric ageing. This difference was further accentuated by increased concentrations of C-reactive protein, which is a measure of systemic inflammation."

The team concluded that higher vitamin D concentrations, which are "easily modifiable through nutritional supplementation", are associated with longer LTL, which underscores the potentially beneficial effects of vitamin D on ageing and age-related diseases.

Lead researcher Dr Brent Richards said: "These results demonstrate for the first time that people who have higher levels of vitamin D may age more slowly than people with lower levels of vitamin D.

"This could help to explain how vitamin D has a protective effect on many ageing related diseases, such as heart disease and cancer. Further studies are required to confirm these findings."

They also found that out of the women tested, 700 already took vitamin D supplements, and had longer telomeres than those who did not.

However, the scientists gave no indication of what levels of supplementation would be needed to achieve these results.

The scientific community has already called for an increase in the recommended level of vitamin D intake.

Currently, the recommended daily intake is set at 400 IU, and the tolerable upper intake level (UL) in Europe and the US is set at 2000 International Units (IU), equivalent to 50 micrograms per day. Research, particularly from clinical trials, suggests that this should be raised.

A recent risk assessment by the US-based trade organisation, the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) concluded that the UL could be raised to 10,000 IU (250 micrograms per day).

Vitamin D refers to two biologically inactive precursors - D3, also known as cholecalciferol, and D2, also known as ergocalciferol. The former, produced in the skin on exposure to UVB radiation (290 to 320 nm), is said to be more bioactive. The latter is derived from plants and only enters the body via the diet.

Both D3 and D2 precursors are hydroxylated in the liver and kidneys to form 25- hydroxyvitamin D, the non-active 'storage' form, and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, the biologically active form that is tightly controlled by the body."



Also I have heard that some bacteria is good for you, perhaps if vitamin D really is a significant immunosuppresant, it may benificial. Fruit flys exsposed to germs out live (or maybe it was that they were just heatheir?) then the fruit flies that lived in a sterile enviroment. Also, Rats exsposed to soil bacteria do better on the anti-depressant tests. But i guess it may not be the same thing?

This post has been edited by kclo4x: 14 January 2008 - 12:04 AM

[gavrilov]

Thank you for interesting links and discussion. The key issue here may be the dose of vitamin D.

Some doctors believe that the recommended dose of vitamin D should be about 400 IU, and no more than 2,000 IU per day.

This is because the body can store vitamin D, making it possible for the vitamin to build up top toxic levels (see page 109 at: http://tinyurl.com/2t6jcv).

Hope it helps,

-- Leonid Gavrilov, Ph.D.
Website: http://longevity-science.org/
Blog: http://longevity-science.blogspot.com/
My books: http://longevity-science.org/Books.htm

[ortcloud]

You may want to email Krispin and ask her about this article. She takes a while to answer emails but
will get around to it.
Regarding Trevor, he is generally not one you can talk to, he doesnt reason or discuss anything that
challenges his position. I posted something on his board regarding immune modulation and he couldnt
handle it and deleted the post and banned my account along with other people who asked him. He is
out for fame and glory and my post basically threatened his therapy and if that happened all of his
worshippers and disciples might leave his cult. Cult leaders generally dont like to have their message
challenged. so you see he crossed a line where he has put his power above the truth. When you do
that you have to be very careful what he says. It is instinct to defend ones beliefs and reject incongruencies
in ones beliefs despite them having merit and truth. Basically a cognitive dissonance kind of thing.

[krillin]

These Marshall Protocol guys are suffering from monomania and are clearly out of their depth. I read through the links in this thread and didn't find a single mention of the role of vitamin K in preventing calcification. And some of their arguments are just plain goofy.

On page 5 Waterhouse says that there used to be more forests when we evolved, so UV exposure was lower. We didn't live in the forests, you numbskull, we chopped them down and lived in the clearings! Bears and wolves lived in the forests.

Amy Proal's site is sloppy. Reference #77 is obviously not the paper she intended to cite. And how can you take seriously someone who says "Another misconception among some clinicians is the idea that vitamin D enhances the absorption of calcium. This is not the case."? There's also a lot of jumping to conclusions, like

Quote

Not surprisingly, the researchers, who failed to question the subjects’ levels of 1,25-D, picked up on the fact that patients at a higher risk for colorectal and breast cancer had lower levels of 25-D. In reality, the low 25-D observed in the subjects resulted from the downregulation of 25-D under the influence of elevated levels of 1,25-D.

How does she know what their 1,25-D levels were?

Amy should be really embarrassed by this paragraph.

Quote

On the tanning website, tantoday.com, Jeffrey Dach, MD, laments in his article “Vitamin D Deficiency, the Ignored Epidemic” that the majority of people living in “sunny Florida” showed vitamin D deficiency (less than 20 ng/ml), or insufficiency (less than 40 ng/ml).41 This seems odd, considering the fact that if a person spends only 8-10 minutes in the sun they will obtain the entire RDA requirement for vitamin D even if they are not consuming foods with vitamin D or fortified products.

If she had even a minimal comprehension of the literature, she would know that the vitamin D RDA can't prevent deficiency.

Look at this bilge. On pages 15-16 Marshall says (without a shred of evidence) that vitamin D fortification is what makes Americans fat! The opposite appears to be the case.

More than half of the obese children had vitamin D levels <20 ng/ml with equal gender distribution. Vitamin D insufficiency was associated with increased age, BMI, and SBP, and decreased HDL-C.

Here's a good debunking website. It shows that 25-D won't suppress immunity. Marshall and his cronies claim that 20 ng/ml will antagonize the vitamin D receptor, but as far as I know, he only has his molecular model as evidence.

Figure 6 summarizes why it's best to have a 25-D of at least 36-40 ng/ml. I've seen anecdotes of harm from 65 ng/ml, and 80 ng/ml is generally considered to be toxic.

[maxwatt]

To D or not to D; that is the question.

[bran319]

Even if these claims have any truth to them, I don't see what relevance this has to a healthy individual.

[krillin]

bran319, on 14-Jan 2008, 01:17 PM, said:

Even if these claims have any truth to them, I don't see what relevance this has to a healthy individual.

They think that everyone is infested by these bacteria and that vitamin D will allow them to thrive over time and ultimately give you some disease.

[sUper GeNius]

krillin, on 14-Jan 2008, 05:06 PM, said:

bran319, on 14-Jan 2008, 01:17 PM, said:

Even if these claims have any truth to them, I don't see what relevance this has to a healthy individual.

They think that everyone is infested by these bacteria and that vitamin D will allow them to thrive over time and ultimately give you some disease.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/07/...in3684138.shtml

"The incidence of internal cancers -- colon, lung, breast, and prostate -- also increased from north to south. But Setlow's team found that those who lived in southern latitudes -- and who made more vitamin D from sun exposure -- were much less likely to die from those cancers than were the northern latitude residents.

"Vitamin D reduces the death rate from internal cancer," Setlow tells WebMD."

What I want to know is, why were the cancer rates higher the further they went south??

[ajnast4r]

why would a single article make you question a WEALTH of positive evidence? vitamin D is perhaps the most well studies vitamin, and the only one that modern science pretty much agrees SHOULD be supplemented for its health benefits.

This post has been edited by ajnast4r: 15 January 2008 - 01:48 AM

[lucid]

It is also worth mentioning that it is almost impossible to OD on vitamin D. To show signs of overdosing you need to consume about 40,000 UI. A fairly good though onesided review of safety of vitamin D.
http://www.ajcn.org/...t/full/69/5/842

Quote

For adults, the 5-µg (200 IU) vitamin D recommended dietary allowance may prevent osteomalacia in the absence of sunlight, but more is needed to help prevent osteoporosis and secondary hyperparathyroidism. Other benefits of vitamin D supplementation are implicated epidemiologically: prevention of some cancers, osteoarthritis progression, multiple sclerosis, and hypertension. Total-body sun exposure easily provides the equivalent of 250 µg (10000 IU) vitamin D/d, suggesting that this is a physiologic limit. Sailors in US submarines are deprived of environmentally acquired vitamin D equivalent to 20–50 µg (800–2000 IU)/d. The assembled data from many vitamin D supplementation studies reveal a curve for vitamin D dose versus serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] response that is surprisingly flat up to 250 µg (10000 IU) vitamin D/d. To ensure that serum 25(OH)D concentrations exceed 100 nmol/L, a total vitamin D supply of 100 µg (4000 IU)/d is required. Except in those with conditions causing hypersensitivity, there is no evidence of adverse effects with serum 25(OH)D concentrations <140 nmol/L, which require a total vitamin D supply of 250 µg (10000 IU)/d to attain. Published cases of vitamin D toxicity with hypercalcemia, for which the 25(OH)D concentration and vitamin D dose are known, all involve intake of >=1000 µg (40000 IU)/d . Because vitamin D is potentially toxic, intake of >25 µg (1000 IU)/d has been avoided even though the weight of evidence shows that the currently accepted, no observed adverse effect limit of 50 µg (2000 IU)/d is too low by at least 5-fold.

In 2005, scientists released a metastudy which demonstrated a beneficial correlation between vitamin D intake and prevention of cancer. Drawing from a meta-analysis of 63 published reports, the authors showed that intake of an additional 1,000 international units (IU) (or 25 micrograms) of vitamin D daily reduced an individual's colon cancer risk by 50%, and breast and ovarian cancer risks by 30%.
http://www.ajph.org/...stract/96/2/252

Quote

Vitamin D status differs by latitude and race, with residents of the northeastern United States and individuals with more skin pigmentation being at increased risk of deficiency. A PubMed database search yielded 63 observational studies of vitamin D status in relation to cancer risk, including 30 of colon, 13 of breast, 26 of prostate, and 7 of ovarian cancer, and several that assessed the association of vitamin D receptor genotype with cancer risk.

The majority of studies found a protective relationship between sufficient vitamin D status and lower risk of cancer. The evidence suggests that efforts to improve vitamin D status, for example by vitamin D supplementation, could reduce cancer incidence and mortality at low cost, with few or no adverse effects.

The authors of this study recommend 1000 UI at a population wide level. I feel very comfortable with my 5,000 UI / day supplementation. (I would probably supplement a little bit less but I weigh 230)

There was also a thread recently showing that Vit D decreases heart disease risk: http://www.imminst.o...ead-t19787.html

This post has been edited by lucid: 15 January 2008 - 02:08 AM

[krillin]

FuLL meMbeR, on 14-Jan 2008, 06:13 PM, said:

What I want to know is, why were the cancer rates higher the further they went south??

In Figure 4 they added more countries and the internal cancer rate vs latitude graph turned into a scatter plot. So sun exposure can't explain it.

Looking at Figure 2 again, which is the basis for the claim of higher internal cancer incidence in the sunnier countries, as someone in the physical sciences I would be too ashamed to draw most of those lines.

[krillin]

A fraction of the population can get an overdose from a few thousand IUs, so get blood tests if you take more than 1000 IU. 1000 IU got me to 45.1 ng/ml.

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_i...76&page=282
http://www.annals.or.../full/127/3/203
http://sunlightandvi...mple%20Chapters
http://www.westonaprice.org/basicnutrition...indmiracle.html

[lucid]

krillin, on 15-Jan 2008, 03:33 PM, said:

FuLL meMbeR, on 14-Jan 2008, 06:13 PM, said:

What I want to know is, why were the cancer rates higher the further they went south??

In Figure 4 they added more countries and the internal cancer rate vs latitude graph turned into a scatter plot. So sun exposure can't explain it.

Looking at Figure 2 again, which is the basis for the claim of higher internal cancer incidence in the sunnier countries, as someone in the physical sciences I would be too ashamed to draw most of those lines.

In the study they say:

Quote

However, taking more countries into consideration, we see that no reliable north–south gradient can be extracted (Fig. 4). There is a large variation of the incidence rates by factors of 50 and 5 for prostate cancer and breast cancer, respectively. Even for countries at the same latitude, large differences are found. From this epidemiological variation, we can conclude that genetical, dietary, and environmental factors, other than sun exposure, play major roles and may completely mask the effects of vitamin D.

If you look at the graph though, there is definitely a correlation between the 2 even though there is a fair ammount of noise. Simply compare the upper latitude quartile top the lower latitude quartile: It looks like an almost 2x difference in average incedence rates.

[krillin]

lucid, on 15-Jan 2008, 01:53 PM, said:

If you look at the graph though, there is definitely a correlation between the 2 even though there is a fair ammount of noise. Simply compare the upper latitude quartile top the lower latitude quartile: It looks like an almost 2x difference in average incedence rates.

Yeah, but their first line sloped down, with sun increasing cancer incidence. The line you want to draw makes sun decrease cancer incidence. It's probably confounded by the diseases of civilization effect, since most sunny countries are poor and don't have as much meat eating or obesity.

[niner]

krillin, on 15-Jan 2008, 04:06 PM, said:

lucid, on 15-Jan 2008, 01:53 PM, said:

If you look at the graph though, there is definitely a correlation between the 2 even though there is a fair ammount of noise. Simply compare the upper latitude quartile top the lower latitude quartile: It looks like an almost 2x difference in average incedence rates.

Yeah, but their first line sloped down, with sun increasing cancer incidence. The line you want to draw makes sun decrease cancer incidence. It's probably confounded by the diseases of civilization effect, since most sunny countries are poor and don't have as much meat eating or obesity.

I agree with you regarding the diseases of civilization effect, and then there's "Southern Cooking", if you're dealing strictly with the US.. But in these charts, it looks to me that aside from a lot of noise, the data does go in the right direction. As latitude increases, (going away from the equator) you do see a trend toward increasing incidence, assuming I'm reading the y-axis properly.

[edward]

pres, on 13-Jan 2008, 05:41 PM, said:

Take or avoid vitamin D supplements

Umm... Take


Edit: At much higher doses than the RDA, everything I have read points to doses over 2000 IU. Sorry to be blunt, a nice discourse is always good

This post has been edited by edward: 16 January 2008 - 03:28 AM

[krillin]

niner, on 15-Jan 2008, 08:21 PM, said:

I agree with you regarding the diseases of civilization effect, and then there's "Southern Cooking", if you're dealing strictly with the US.. But in these charts, it looks to me that aside from a lot of noise, the data does go in the right direction. As latitude increases, (going away from the equator) you do see a trend toward increasing incidence, assuming I'm reading the y-axis properly.

You're reading it correctly and I hope you're right. But one would expect to be able to reach better conclusions from a graph like Figure 2 where standard of living has been (kind of sort of) controlled for, and there's no way to draw an uphill line through that data.

[lucid]

krillin, on 16-Jan 2008, 12:11 AM, said:

niner, on 15-Jan 2008, 08:21 PM, said:

I agree with you regarding the diseases of civilization effect, and then there's "Southern Cooking", if you're dealing strictly with the US.. But in these charts, it looks to me that aside from a lot of noise, the data does go in the right direction. As latitude increases, (going away from the equator) you do see a trend toward increasing incidence, assuming I'm reading the y-axis properly.

You're reading it correctly and I hope you're right. But one would expect to be able to reach better conclusions from a graph like Figure 2 where standard of living has been (kind of sort of) controlled for, and there's no way to draw an uphill line through that data.

Controlling for stanard of livng is not what we would really want to control for: What we really want to control for is 'non-sun-exposure related' cancer incedences which is dependent largely upon diet and then a whole slew of other things. So comparing regions with a similiar diet may be more helpful, but even then if one culture has a similiar diet but uses a few different spices (lots of spices are strongly anti-inflamitory) then that could skew results. All that to say, that since it looks too difficult to control for 'non-sun-exposure related' cancer incedences: figure 4 is going to be the most valuable.

I just find mountains and mountains of studies corroberating low latitude and Vit D to decreased cancer incedences.