Vitamin D3

John -- the simple answer is that the obesity epidemic is not a vitamin D problem. It's fringe thinking. The obesity epidemic is a complex problem involving a number of factors. It is just hugely naive to think that it's all about vitamin D. There are socioeconomic factors, dietary factors (the availability of cheap highly processed, high fat foods), people sitting on their asses all day on computers and not exercising, etc, etc.

 

It's not rocket science, and it is not that simple.

I can think of two medical conditions that can cause weight gain without the patient's overeating and/or going anywhere near junk food: autoimmune thyroid disease (specifically Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, which is a well-known cause of weight gain) and celiac disease, both of which are linked with vitamin D deficiency.

http://www.celiac.com/articles/1033/1/Celiac-Disease-and-ObesityThere-is-a-Connection-by-Melissa-Croda-q/Page1.html


I even found a thread on wheat-withdrawal headache: http://www.celiac.com/gluten-free/topic/21397-wheat-withdrawal-headache/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20479683
http://www.celiac.com/articles/1034/1/Food-Cravings-Obesity-and-Gluten-Consumption-by-Dr-Ron-Hoggan-EdD/Page1.html

For some, wheat can be literally addictive: "Gluten is highly addictive through the opioid peptides it contains and the excessive zonulin production it incites. Zonulin allows these opioids access to the bloodstream and the brain." --Journal of Gluten Sensitivity

http://www.molecularstation.com/wiki/Peptides: "It has also been documented that, when certain food proteins such as gluten, casein, egg protein and spinach protein are broken down, opioid peptides are formed. These peptides mimic the effects of morphine, and those individuals that are unable to break them down will experience mental illness. These peptides are quite short and are given names such as casomorphine, gluten exorphine and dermorphine. Ultimately digested peptides are ribosomal peptides, although they aren't made on the ribosome of the organism that contains them."


About opioid molecules in wheat and dairy and how they may affect behavior in ... effect of cereal grains in schizophrenia--Celiac disease as a model. ...
www.glutensensitivity.net/Gluteomorphins_Parcell.doc
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WNR-4C48D0H-M9&_user=10&_coverDate=03%2F31%2F1987&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1522210407&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c2ffe37938e06920aff9a344d7afacf1&searchtype=a

 

On a personal note, When I was in my early 20's, I gained about 25 pounds before a doctor thought to test me for thyroid problems. The first doctor did not believe me when I insisted I was dieting and exercising, and scolded me. The pounds came off after I was put on thyroid medication.

They came back on after celiac disease was triggered. Again, I was dieting and exercising--and eating stone-ground, whole-wheat bread, whole grains, just as suggested by the doctor. And, again, I was scolded, and told that it wasn't rocket science, i was obviously taking in way more calories than I should.

I was exercising, and I was hungry ALL the time, and eating about half of what everyone around me was eating, including my pre-teen children.

After eliminating gluten (but NOT carbs--in fact, I ADDED Fritos and chocolate to my diet, not that I recommend that), I lost over 20 pounds in about 6 weeks.

 

I think Scott was talking about obesity where a serious medical issue like thyroid disease is NOT involved. The majority of people who are fat are that way because they eat too much. You see a lot of Hollywood nonsense and fad diets around when the best diet of all is summed up in two words. Eat less.

 

OK, Studio, if the two professors are real students of their excrement (which has very little vitamin D), and anyone taking more than 3000 IUs of vitamin D is in danger, where are those failing kidneys? Several million Americans are taking 4000 IUs each day, and have done so for several years now.

I'm waiting for the real-person evidence. There is a gigantic anecdotal trial going on, with millions of people taking putatively unsafe quantities of vitamin D each day. Can you project how long it will be for the toxicity problems to turn up. So far, not a single one has, comporting exactly with evidence of the physicians of the Vitamin D Council.

--John of Ohio

 

That's exactly what I was told, over and over by the doctors who thought I was just fine (and doesn't that sound similar to what we hear from ENTs about MM? "Sleep more." "Don't stress out." "Reduce sodium ." "Take valium." "You're perfectly healthy, really." "There is nothing wrong with you." "It's your age." "It's your hormones." And my personal favorite, told to me by a doctor after I passed out on my way to dinner--"some women just react to stress by fainting."

Based on my experience and that of just about everyone I know, overweight people--especially women-- aren't tested for thyroid disease OR celiac OR intestinal malabsorption OR vitamin deficiency. I was scolded for eating too much, and ridiculed for looking for a medical "excuse" for my weight gain when, according to the doctor, it was obviously my fault. I was even accused of not being honest about what I ate or how much I exercised.

And BOTH times I had major (20-25 pounds!) weight gain, it was directly caused by a medical issue. But the first couple of doctors I saw did not want to even CONSIDER the possibility that anything was at play but (what they assumed to be) my overeating (even though I was NOT overeating).

Take a look at the celiac forums and you'll see many similar stories. You'll also see accounts of young women with serious trouble keeping ON weight, who were constantly accused of bulimia--when what they really had was celiac disease.

 

Do you have the hard data to back this statement up? I'd really like to see this. John, I am not a vitamin specialist but when an Emeritus professor who has spent his life in this field, knows the VMS literature back to front, has worked in Africa to improve vitamin status, and has taken part in writing vitamin and supplement guidelines for the WHO, I sort of take that a little more seriously than your recommendations. I know you mean well.

I wonder if you could comment on this that I saw on the vitamin D council site. They recommend the following which really made me raise an eyebrow:

• "regularly use a sun bed (avoiding sunburn) during the colder months."

Yet look at what the American Cancer Society has to say about the use of sun beds:

• "Tanning beds pose a greater cancer risk than previously believed, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the World Health Organization (WHO) agency that developed the most widely used system for classifying carcinogens. The group has elevated tanning beds to its highest cancer risk category – "carcinogenic to humans" (Group 1). Tanning beds had previously been classified as "probably carcinogenic to humans."
  
  IARC's decision was based on a comprehensive review of current research, which shows tanning bed use raises the risk of melanoma of the skin by 75% when use starts before the age of 30. The agency also found a link between tanning bed use and risk of melanoma of the eye. Melanoma accounts for less than 5% of skin cancer cases but causes a large majority of skin cancer deaths.
  
  The findings are published in The Lancet Oncology."

France has banned children from using sun beds, and to my knowledge there are no restrictions in Australia yet though it's on the table given the high prevalence of melanoma here and already massive sun exposure all year round. A few areas in Canada and the US have restricted sun bed use -- banned in Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin, and New Brunswick in various young age groups.

S

 

I'm not a proponent of tanning beds. It's a non-issue. If somebody wants to use one, either to make vitamin D, or to take on a winter tan, or to get cancer, that's a personal decision of no concern to me. I don't use tanning devices, and I don't know of anyone who does. That is staw man unrelated to any discovery of the induction of kidney disease by mega-doses of vitamin D.

But the sales of vitamin D, in 1000, 2000, and 5000 IU containers is massive. That is a real issue. Viturally every American store that sells aspirins or other analgesics also sells vitamin D, in large amounts. The word is out here. Vitamin D really helps, and most of us don't have enough.

But in relation to the kidney disease problem, the actual number of Americans taking mega-doses of vitamin D makes no difference right now. It's clearly at least in the range of several hundred thousands of Americans, and most likely somewhere between 1 and 10 million.

At any of these populations levels of usage, according to your physician sources, there should be significant numbers of people suffering from vitamin D-induced kidney diseae.

Were the problem to exist, American news reporters and the FDA would be all over this problem. From the numerous postings on American health websites, and because of an expanding number of physicians who now routinely test their patients for serum vitamin D levels and consequently prescribe mega-doses to bring levels into the 30 -- 50 ng/ml range, I have every reason to believe the number of "mega-dosed" Americans is now somewhere between 1 and 10 million.

But what if it's still only a fringe, quirky, even quacky, 100,000? Still, where then are those with the kidney problems? If the problem were to occur in even only one-tenth of one percent, that would be 100 victims in the 100,000. It would be a 1000 people in the population of a million mega-dose users.

But the physicians you conferred with on the topic expressed what I perceived to be much greater concerns, implying that many more would be affected. Any of us could calculate how many would be suffering from kidney dysfunction if the rates were 1, 2 or 5%.

I just did a Google search using a number of search phrases, including "vitamin D, kidney disease," vitamin D, kidney dysfunction," vitamin D, side effects," and others. In page after page I could find not a single case of anyone using any dose of vitamin D with any form of kidney disease that could be attributed to the vitamin.

Perhaps you should confer again with your two physicians on the matter and ask them to present real patient data. If the problem exists, given the massive numbers of Americans putting themselves at risk, some real hard evidence for the problem should appear. So far, such evidence doesn't exist in the form of real people in the hospital hooked up to dialysis units, or with expanded names on kidney transplant candidate lists, or in any other discovered form. If the problem exists, somebody is really hiding this, across the country, in thousands of hospitals and thousands of doctors' offices.

So far, the problem appears to be pretty vaporous.

--John of Ohio

 

You know what makes no sense to me? The idea that if someone on this board fails to prove that something is efficacious or fails to prove something is dangerous that that will supersede the facts and make it so. That's what I read over and over again here. What people say here or who gets the last word will have no effect on what effect some substance has on our body. That's why, imo, we all need to be searching together, always eager and grateful for the next bit of information, especially grateful if some new bit of information sheds light on an erroneous assumption we may have had. Otherwise we are doomed to live in the darkness.

 

Did anybody ever address this question or has it been lost in the nit-picking? I think a lot of times our doctors are (justifiably) afraid of being sued so they have to stay within a certain area or "acceptability" range ... I mean they might very well believe taking more vit. D is great for a person, but they can't 'officially' say so because the 'recommended dosage' is such&such. When I approached my primary doc & my neurologist with the stuff I take for migraine (PXP) they both said "if it works, that's great". They didn't say specifically to take it because that could have been interpreted as if they were 'prescribing' it.

You get what I'm sayin here, Terri?

 

Okay so I'm busted ... I didn't read all the threads. Great minds think alike, right?

 

As well they should. If a doctor hangs out his shingle and gets licensed by the state, consumers assume that he is going to practice medicine according to the science of the time, not be experimenting on them because he has a notion.

 

I had a doctor like that. She just retired. I hope the next one sees patients as sentient beings. So many are on autopilot, just see patients as boxes.

 

Although I have not explored the Vitamin D Council website in detail, I do think it is relevant if they recommend tanning beds as a legitimate means of getting more Vitamin D. One naturally thinks: If they recommend this known dangerous practice, then how credible is the rest of their material?

 

This is why I think discussion threads are helpful. It's not that one person is "smarter" than another. It's that two people can look at the same piece of evidence and formulate different conclusions. We all have our biases, and it's an unfortunate fact about the human condition that we cannot 100% overcome our biases.

And when you have a certain bias, you are subconsciously pick and choose data that supports your beliefs, while often overlooking data that doesn't support your beliefs. It's why I think it is important for folks to post links to articles and literature supporting what they believe to be true, because it gives other folks who don't have the same philosophical bent the opportunity to look at the data with a more critical eye and point out flaws or inconsistencies. And when that happens -- assuming the discussion remains above board -- we all win because we are all more educated for it.

 

Questions about the credibility or interests of a promotor of a concept are relevant because they may be tip offs to biased or sloppy investigations. The tanning bed thing would just raise the question in my mind whether the group had tunnel vision. But in the end, the facts are the facts even if promoted by bad, boring, lazy people. It's the facts we need.

 

And (naively I ask) are tanning beds really bad if one uses them in moderation? I don't use them & don't encourage anybody to use them, but ... back to my question.

 

To do some research about tanning beds, and to care about what happens to your health, would keep anyone from ever climbing into one of those things.

 

But can you 'get' vit. D benefits from them?

 

yes I think so