Vitamin-D hesitancy, at least in regard to dosages that tend to push levels up to “sufficiency” relative to Covid-19 risk, would seem to stem at least in part from the much lower RDA. I think people have a reasonable fear of “megadosing” on things… so we need to be really well informed here as to what truly constitutes a megadose. Everything Chris and DaveF has said is completely true, so rather than repeat what they are saying let me add some perspective on dose.
I will remind the PP.com readers that there is this letter, posted on a stand-alone website, now sporting 200 signatures of scientists and doctors that recommends the kind of dosage Chris is talking about. I personally take 5000 IU some days, 10,000 on others. If I had to point people to just one resource to learn the story of Vitamin D vs Covid-19 it would be this website;
https://vitamindforall.org/letter.html
Vitamin D is well known to be essential, but most people do not get enough. Two common definitions of inadequacy are deficiency < 20ng/ml (50nmol/L), the target of most governmental organizations, and insufficiency < 30ng/ml (75nmol/L), the target of several medical societies & experts.2 Too many people have levels below these targets. Rates of vitamin D deficiency <20ng/ml exceed 33% of the population in most of the world, and most estimates of insufficiency <30ng/ml are well over 50% (but much higher in many countries).3 Rates are even higher in winter, and several groups have notably worse deficiency: the overweight, those with dark skin (especially far from the equator), and care home residents. These same groups face increased COVID-19 risk.
It has been shown that 3875 IU (97mcg) daily is required for 97.5% of people to reach 20ng/ml, and 6200 IU (155mcg) for 30ng/ml,4 intakes far above all national guidelines. Unfortunately, the report that set the US RDA included an admitted statistical error in which required intake was calculated to be ~10x too low.4 Numerous calls in the academic literature to raise official recommended intakes had not yet resulted in increases by the time SARS-CoV-2 arrived. Now, many papers indicate that vitamin D affects COVID-19 more strongly than most other health conditions, with increased risk at levels < 30ng/ml (75nmol/L) and severely greater risk < 20ng/ml (50nmol/L).1
I have to admit I have not gone down this rabbit hole regarding the purported statistical error in setting the RDA.. but does it really surprise anyone at this point that information that could cause you to be healthier, and maybe not just avoid harm from SARS-CoV2 but also be healthier overall as a result of improving general immune function, is being suppressed? The stat's are right there in the statement... the vast majority of people need around 5000 IU supplementation just to get to the lowest level of sufficiency. One thing that I really like about the letter is that every signatory states their daily level of supplementation - so take a look at what the smartest people in the room are doing...
“Vitamin D Hesitancy”
Jim H.,
You crack me up.
But that is a good way of putting it.
Maybe we should complain to Fauci about his “Ivermectin Hesitancy.”
Dr. M: Well, because the intent of those articles isn't to inform, it's to nudge you away from taking Vitamin D. It's intentional; that's the explanation that fits best.
Hey Doc, where have you been the last ten years? Vitamin D has been the supplement of the decade! The amount of pro-vitamin D research and media coverage has been incredible.
I never trust that kind of promotion because in the following decade the research tends to show how "wrong" we all were.
When I went to school 30 years ago Vitamin D was considered somewhat dangerous because if you took too much you would get kidney failure. Now days, the exact opposite meme is popular.
My point is that you can't trust research.
It really doesn't matter how well the research is conducted because in the end we all just accept the research that agrees with the outcome we want and reject the research that doesn't agree with it.
Here is the reason that I rarely take supplements any more despite being in the supplement research business for 20 years: you cannot be smarter than nature.
The human organism evolved to use the nutrients found in the ecosystem, in the form that they exist in the ecosystem. The chemically isolated nutrients found in most supplements do not exist in the natural world or in our evolutionary history.
The aim of most research is to isolate and test one variable. Unfortunately, nothing really exists in isolation within nature, so this type of research is flawed from the beginning.
We really need to focus on getting nutrients in their "whole food" form and forget about how much of a supplement the current research says to take (or not to take).
PS: This also applies to all vitamins, especially Vit. C. Sorry Linus Pauling.
For a long time the word on Vitamin D was you could overdose on this fat soluble vitamin. According to grass roots health, a blood level of 200 ng/ ml is overdose range. I think it would be hard to achieve.
I grew up on the cloudy northwest coast, I am sure my family was deficient. After living in Seattle, my tested levels were below 20ng/ml. Dr. Mercola encouraged all followers to get tested and raise their levels. After two years, I got up to 55 ng/ml.
I work outside in the summer. I now take 10,000 IU D3 daily. My autumn level is around 67ng/ml. I was taking 20,000IU daily this winter to compensate for lack of sun. My recent test showed 107 ng/ml. So my plan now is, continue the summer supplements but back off winter to 15,000 IU. Everyone is different, your skin tone, genetics, sun exposure, latitude, age all count. You have to test.
There are several self ordered tests you can get online. Most under $50. I have used grassrootshealth.org , a bit spendy, but they do outreach. I also get orders or kits from lifeextension.com. I take the kit in for a self ordered blood draw at my hospital lab and send it in by UPS. It is interesting that if I just want a vitamin D test locally, I have to get a doctor’s appointment, and talk them into ordering the test.
The human organism evolved to use the nutrients found in the ecosystem, in the form that they exist in the ecosystem.
I am sure others have had a similar thought cross their minds while reading your post; Yeah, sure, I will go back to my equatorial roots of walking around mostly naked in the sun... that way I won't need to take Vitamin D to fight off a bioengineered virus.
Or something like that.
Screw that. I will take my 5000 - 10,000 IU daily (in oil).
If you really delve into Vitamin D supplementation you realize that you are practicing gene therapy. Yes, the fact is that you can forego the mRNA spike protein gene therapy, and instead wield this power on your own in a much more natural, beneficial, and benevolent way;
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32325790/
Key Vitamin D Target Genes with Functions in the Immune System
The biologically active form of vitamin D3, 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)2D3), modulates innate and adaptive immunity via genes regulated by the transcription factor vitamin D receptor (VDR).
Jag,
I was once in your camp - Nature knows best, we should get all the vitamins and minerals we need from our food. No longer. After learning more about how poor our soils have become over the years due to our extractive farming methods and the things food engineers do to produce to make a product they can sell, I believe one must supplement with extra vitamins and minerals. How much? Which? Tough questions, especially since I too believe that the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) are set way too low for a healthy life.
Regarding Vitamin D levels, I recall sitting through a video months ago that another commenter here had added to an earlier thread on Vitamin D. The video was from a conference of heavyweights in the Vitamin D research field. Almost all of it was over my head. What really hit me though was when the main presenter was asked about too much Vitamin D. His words, “We evolved, naked, near the equator. Too much Vitamin D is not a big problem for our species.” Since then I have not worried about it.
For all nutrients there is not getting it/not getting enough of it, and then there is depletion of those nutrients from your body via a whole range of attacks on our body systems. Humans are being bombarded with toxins on every front, air, water, food, even our mental anguish, which is ramping up X10 lately, physically depletes our bodies of nutrients and even generates our own home made toxins.
This is the real cause of disease and “pandemics” and will take us out if we don’t insist on stopping it ASAP!
Even the foods and natural sources that we used to rely on for nutrition have been depleted of some or all of the nutrition from this ubiquitous onslaught of toxicity. Sorry to sound so bleak but it has to stop now. Also there is no getting away from it by moving somewhere or only buying …
Chris, I really wish you would broaden your view beyond whether large amounts of Vit D can cause hypercalcemia and instead look at the metabolic pathway relating to calcium deposition and the dance among calcium, Vitamins A and D and K2 and activation of osteocalcin and matrix gla protein (MGP) if there is an imbalance in those players. The body can avoid hypercalcemia in the serum by dumping calcium in tissues so high serum levels aren’t a given.
Supplementing with high levels of D should be counterbalanced with A and K2. Easy to get A from sources like liver. Food-based K2 is difficult and you might want both the MK4 and the MK7 version to protect both the cardiovascular system and bones.
Carl: His words, "We evolved, naked, near the equator. Too much Vitamin D is not a big problem for our species." Since then I have not worried about it.
Ever wonder why people that live naked near the equator have dark skin? The pigmentation prevents over production of Vitamin D.
JimH: Remember the cod liver oil your parents made you take as a kid? Great natural, minimally processed form of Vitamin D. It tastes wonderful too.
There may be a good storm coming, with the drought in the west and mid west food could become hard to come by. Now ad in the covid 19 virus and things start to ad up to a very bad last half of the year. Do the best you can to be ready for a good storm to come your way.
Yes, definitely what Kat43 said. Also, don’t forget magnesium. I supplement extra Mg, as type B blood types notoriously deficient as/per, Eating For Your Type.
Thanks, JimH, ?. Others, here, better at posting with links and proofs than I am. I really appreciate the efforts you, and others, go to to make this a professional level blog.
Even cod liver oil is deficient in vitamins, now. I notice mine is supplemented. Yes, great taste, not ?.
How is saying that vitamin D is not a magic bullet, that all vitamins and minerals are necessary for a properly working immune system, wrong and grounds for this near hysteria? That’s like saying that the shot hesitancy people are anti-vaxers. KAT43 and I are not talking about overdosing, but imbalance. Imbalance. We can’t survive on vitamin D alone anymore than we can survive on water alone.
This is a straw man response. Please stop making things up.
JAG wrote:
Here is the reason that I rarely take supplements any more despite being in the supplement research business for 20 years: you cannot be smarter than nature.
The human organism evolved to use the nutrients found in the ecosystem, in the form that they exist in the ecosystem. The chemically isolated nutrients found in most supplements do not exist in the natural world or in our evolutionary history.
JAG,
Here is a video with Dr. August Dunning, a NASA scientist. I was trying to find a video he made concerning mineral deficiencies in the food we eat. He did a study analyzing government C-Rations from WWI and beyond. He plotted mineral content vs time and superimposed a graph of disease prevalence vs time. The mineral content in food decreased markedly at the same time that once-rare diseases became rampant. For instance, the first documented case of childhood Type 2 diabetes was in the early 1980s. Before then, it was known as "adult onset diabetes."
I did find this video from 2017 where he shows much of the same information - albeit with less detail. The food's mineral/nutrition content suffered when mechanized agriculture came into being. Without inputs from draft animal waste being reincorporated into the soil, the plants mine all the minerals from the soil as best they can. Farmers are in the business of making a profit. Those who only supplement the soil with the major fertilizers - N,P,K get good yields at lower costs. Those who try to do the right thing and replace all the minerals that the plants remove from the soil are at a financial disadvantage. It really shouldn't surprise you that nature is trying to be smarter, but our financial incentives keep nature from doing its job.
The video is ~55 minutes long and consists of a presentation at a conference. He starts out discussing soil degradation, food mineral deficiencies, and disease incidence. His solution - restore the soil's mineral content. (He's teamed up with Dr. Mercola to produce and market a product.) Then, he talks about chemicals, big Pharma, pesticides, etc. He included a ~3 minute clip of Chris Martenson talking about bumblebees with Max Keiser @ 26:52.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtTVIu85E-0
There's lots more. Dunning doesn't tread lightly on sacred cows. I wish the video would have ended 5 minutes before it did. The last 5 minutes is devoted to a fantasy where he's the captain of a Star Trek vessel. Other than the last 5 minutes, the rest of the video is worth watching.
Grover
I totally agree with all that have pointed out that the soil is depleted of nutrients…100%. But what can be done about it? Not really anything on a global scale because there are too many people to feed. You have to prioritize calories over nutrition. Not enough calories and people starve to death quickly. Not enough nutrition and people starve to death slowly.
But I think we are fooling ourselves if we think we can make up for poor nutrition with commercially available vitamin and mineral supplements. If you think the pharmaceutical companies are corrupt, the supplement industry is 10x worse.
Now if you supplement with wild foods and herbs, and/or really know what you’re doing growing your own food, you could probably mitigate much of the problem. And at worst, you aren’t creating five problems down the road by trying to fixing one today.
I think I remember Dr. M saying he had a goal to grow enough calories for 50 people. I love that goal, but that is a huge undertaking. Just the amount fresh water that would take is a problem, unless you have a well fed, giant lake on the property. Aquaponics or semi-aquaponics might be a better path to that goal.
Edit: SP
Thanks for your post. One needs to know their area well. When practicing in Northern Virginia infertility and osteoporosis was rampant compared to Maryland where I had been. A farmer and his wife told me that the soil lacked boron and all animals- horses and cattle that they owned had to have their feed supplemented with boron to prevent fertility issues, disease, and injury.
How is saying that vitamin D is not a magic bullet, that all vitamins and minerals are necessary for a properly working immune system, wrong and grounds for this near hysteria?
Near hysteria? Ummmmm... The scientific truth is that Vitamin D is special in this story. Supplementing is the single most pedestrian, simple, safe, and powerfully efficacious thing we can do to steel ourselves against getting really sick with the virus. That's what the studies say, over, and over, and over again.
Look at this recent study, published June 7; Covid-19 patients coming into hospital were given doses of the more potent and readily used (by your body) version of Vitamin D, calcifediol. Results? 87% less chance of going to ICU, 79% less chance of dying.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34097036/
Setting: Patients admitted to COVID-19 wards of Hospital del Mar, Barcelona, Spain.
Patients: A total of 930 patients with COVID-19 were included. Ninety-two were excluded due to previous calcifediol intake.
Intervention: Of the remaining 838, a total of 447 received calcifediol (532ug on day one plus 266ug on day 3, 7, 15, and 30) whereas 391 were not treated at the time of hospital admission (Intention-to-Treat). Of the latter, 53 patients were treated later during ICU admission and were allocated in the treated group in a second analysis. In healthy subjects, calcifediol is about 3.2-fold more potent on a weight basis than cholecalciferol.
Main outcome measures: ICU admission and mortality.
Results: ICU assistance was required by 102 (12.2%) participants. Out of 447 patients treated with calcifediol at admission, 20 (4.5%) required ICU, compared to 82 (21%) out of 391 non-treated (p-value<0.0001). Logistic regression of calcifediol treatment on ICU admission, adjusted by age, gender, linearized 25OHD levels at baseline, and comorbidities showed that treated patients had a reduced risk to require ICU (OR 0.13 [95% CI 0.07;0.23]). Overall mortality was 10%. In the Intention-to-Treat analysis, 21 (4.7%) out of 447 patients treated with calcifediol at admission died compared to 62 patients (15.9%) out of 391 non-treated (p=0.0001). Adjusted results showed a reduced mortality risk with an OR 0.21 [95% CI 0.10; 0.43]). In the second analysis, the obtained OR was 0.52 [95% CI 0.27;0.99].
Conclusions: In patients hospitalized with COVID-19, calcifediol treatment significantly reduced ICU admission and mortality.
I was on a live lecture featuring Dr. Russell Jaffee. He seems to be good friends with many big players including Fauci. https://www.drrusselljaffe.com/
I asked him what he suggested people do that were being exposed to potential spike protein shedders and he said get your vitamin D level up to 80-100 and add the Perque buffered vitamin C with additional vitamins and minerals.
I’ve known people who have taken the entire RX of 50,000 IU vitamin D (300,000 IU) and not have any change in their liver function tests.
I first read about it in Life Extension Magazine --Early studies on men showed that 3 months of K2 reduced coronary artery calcium by 50%.
I noticed that benign breast calcifications were mostly all gone by the 6 month follow-up diagnostic mammogram in women who started on K2 supplementation.
I tried it myself before getting a cardiac workup (strong family history of heart disease) prior to scuba diving in retirement. I am sure it was for over 1 year. My coronary artery score was 3, my younger brother had a score of >3000- >no K2 supplementation.