Tag: vitamin D

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Fringe reports; Elevated hormone D levels and irritability

I found an interesting article about mainstream media while looking for the source of a quote by Ted Koppel. I didn’t find the source of the quote but it is included towards the end of the article “A citizens guide to understanding corporate media propaganda techniques,” by George Orwell for earthblognews, Jan. 9, 2010:

“People shouldn’t expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the ‘fringe’ media.” – Ted Koppel – (American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for Nightline) [1]

A book that also included the quote by Ted Koppel also states that most newspapers do take his “advice seriously,” and the chapter continues with a quote by politician Donald Rumsfeld which may suggest that sensible people in positions to know things also know enough not to talk to the media. And on the next page a quote by Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the U.S., gives the impression that a lack of information in newspapers has been a concern for many years: “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” [3, from the first two pages of Chapter Six of “Extreme Money: The Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk,” By Satyajit Das]

So news may not become news in the mainstream media until the subject is already being talked about by enough members of the public to suggest to the mainstream media that there will be plenty of viewers who are interested enough in the news story to be willing to sit through paid advertisements. Commercial advertisements and product placement fees are what pay for salaries and supplies for the news industry. Cigarette commercials were banned from television when the negative health risks became clear but it took decades for the change to occur. Cigarettes were advertised with physician endorsements and images of beautiful people in beautiful places – smoking was represented as sexy and smart by the popular media for many decades before the health risks became overwhelmingly clear.

Direct to consumer advertising for prescription medications is only allowed in two nations, in New Zealand since 1981 and in the United States since 1997. There is some concern that commercials for prescription drugs may lead to their being over prescribed to consumers who may not need the medication but who became worried enough by the ad to ask their physician for a prescription.  [4] I would also be concerned that allowing ads for prescriptions might have led to changes in the programs as well. Producers might encourage writers to incorporate more prescription drug references within TV shows in order to sell more commercial time to the companies who market the prescription medications.

The use of the non-euphoric cannabidiol oil (CBD) that can be extracted from some strains of medical marijuana has been found very effective for some children with severe types of epilepsy. Children may have seizures non-stop for hours regularly for years and may have tried many prescriptions that may cause their own negative side effects. More parents and young adults are speaking out about the effectiveness and safety of the CBD oil for seizures. Parents can lose custody of their children for helping the child use medical cannabis products and parents may also lose custody if it becomes known that they are using medical marijuana for their own health condition. One of the parents  in the following article lost custody of her child when it became publicly known that she was using medical marijuana to help control her Crohn’s Disease, which is an autoimmune inflammatory bowel condition. [2] THC, the euphoric part of medical marijuana has been found helpful for suppressing inflammation which might be helpful for autoimmune conditions with inflammation such as colitis. [3]

Crohn’s Disease was one of the autoimmune conditions listed in yesterday’s post as a disease that may be caused by an infectious bacteria that may be able to survive within human cells and cause elevated hormone D levels.

As a high risk nutrition counselor I have learned professionally about the difficulty patients suffer from Crohn’s Disease. It is an inflammatory bowel disease that can greatly shorten lifespan and can be so devastating to quality of life that patients may not leave their house much in order to stay near a bathroom. During flair ups a patient may have explosive diarrhea randomly throughout the day many times. Severe weight loss and multiple nutrient deficiencies due to poor absorption in the intestines can occur. Shortened lifespan is common, patients may not make it to their fifties. So if Benicar, antibiotics, and avoiding vitamin D could help patients with Crohn’s Disease go from a disease flair up into a state of remission, then I think most patients with Crohn’s Disease would really like to know about the treatment earlier in their lives rather than suffer many uncomfortable years first.

But health professionals can’t really legally/ethically make recommendations to patients about an alternative protocol until it becomes accepted by the mainstream medical industry. Until a therapy is widely accepted as the standard of care it would be considered potentially dangerous for a health professional to recommend and therefore unethical for them to recommend. A health professional would be less at risk legally or ethically if they simply were providing information to a patient so the patient could look into it and learn more about it on their own.

So according to the quote by Ted Koppel reporting on the news is the job of fringe investigators – and so my work may fall into that category too. In the last post I tried to share what could be life saving information about autoimmune disease and the complicated interaction of vitamin D, hormone D, calcium and magnesium .)

So is there something in it for me? Not directly — talking about topics that aren’t mainstream can be dangerous for one’s career. Fact checking the work of the fringe is probably part of the job of the mainstream and it can be common to try to discredit alternative information with the publication of negatively slanted stories. [1]

But to me it would be great if more experts and more individuals did become interested in looking into the information and maybe add further understanding and research, and then maybe sooner than later we would  develop a national blood and organ supply that is tested for intracellular infectious pathogens; and develop clear guidance about the importance of measuring both hormone D and vitamin D levels in order to clearly see which patients are actually deficient in both the vitamin and hormone forms and would therefore need to increase their sun exposure or their intake of vitamin D and which patients actually have elevated hormone D levels instead of being deficient. Low vitamin D levels with elevated hormone D levels may suggest the person has an underlying infection with an intracellular pathogen and that person would actually benefit more by limiting their sun exposure and their intake of vitamin D – and they might be able to treat the underlying infection with Benicar and antibiotics.

I’ve written about this topic for several years because I know from my own illness how uncomfortable it is to have even moderately elevated levels of hormone D. It causes increased loss of calcium from the bones and can lead to osteoporosis over time, and excess free calcium in soft tissue can cause muscle cramps and headaches in the short run and lead to calcification of soft tissue over time, such as atherosclerosis, a type of hardening of the arteries. Elevated hormone D can also affect the mood and may cause extreme irritability – I learned about this directly one summer when I tried tanning booths for the first time. It was before I had learned about the Marshall Protocol or had my own vitamin D and hormone D levels checked. I got a nice all over tan but that summer I was irritated at everything, like silly minor things like rattling-silverware-noise or seconds-too-slow-wait-service, things that I wouldn’t normally be annoyed about. I recognized the feelings weren’t real anger and did my best not to let my internal irritable mood leak out to others.

I learned about the vitamin D/infection theory later that year and after sharing the research with my family physician I was able to follow the Marshall Protocol with his help. I took medications for the treatment for a year and a half and since then I haven’t had the severe migraines that I’d been having regularly for over a decade. I’ve continued to avoid having much sun exposure though and avoiding vitamin D sources since and my autoimmune thyroid condition is currently in remission, thank goodness and thank search engines which had led me to the medication protocol in the first place.

The Marshall Protocol was first developed for treating sarcoidosis but has been used successfully for a variety of conditions. It is still not widely accepted in the medical industry but progress has been made; the FDA did approve use of the blood pressure medication for use with the antibiotic protocol, making it easier for physicians to order for patients who want to try the protocol. [See the last post for more information about the Marshall Protocol and vit.D]

Note/ Updates added at 2 and 3 pm. The save Draft feature hasn’t been working well and Publish is a different software feature that allows edits after posting.

/Disclosure: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes./

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Whether to be compliant or to be healthy seems like an easy question to answer

*I made a significant correction to this post today, so I’m moving it to the front page today.

— but it may not be that easy of a question for a patient of the current medical industry. Personally, I do like to be compliant and agreeable with other people but I also prefer to be healthy and agreeable rather than sick and agreeable. The terms compliant and non-compliant are used in the medical field when documenting how thoroughly a patient is following the recommendations of the medical team. However if the medical team’s recommendations are based on limited knowledge or incorrect information, then complying with the recommendations might not seem like a good idea to a patient. If an industry claims to not know what causes a disease or how to cure it then why should a patient be expected to believe that the same industry knows if a treatment will actually be adding to making the patient worse instead of helping them get better as is hoped? Some of their recommendations might be making the underlying, not well-understood, problem much worse.

The terms compliant and non-compliant may also be used in legal cases when there is conflict between a medical team’s recommendations and the parent’s decisions regarding the care of a child. Painful and possibly ineffective chemotherapy or other cancer treatments might be recommended to try to save a child’s life but if those treatments are just making the last few months, days, or years of the child’s life more miserable then who is being helped? The child and family are missing out on the quality  of life during their last days together and frequently with a significant financial cost. Paying for hope of a last chance cure at the cost of daily enjoyment seems like pretty expensive hope. The pharmaceutical industry’s profit margin may be helped but the child’s last days might be spent in more pain and nausea with less time to spend enjoying the company of their family.

Intravenous vitamin C has been used effectively against a variety of types of cancer at the Linus Pauling Institute for decades but vitamin C isn’t profitable because it can’t be patent protected. — A review article suggests there is some anti-tumor effects from the high dose intravenous vitamin C treatment but that it is not a miracle cure and is providing such a high dose, approximately 200 oranges worth twice a week, that it could be dangerous to a patient who had kidney problems. [8] 

Patents allow companies to charge higher prices for products because they are the only supplier. Generic products and natural products have market competition to help keep the price down for consumers.

A for-profit prison industry requires prisoners and tax-payer funding to finance their care and provide the profit, and a for-profit medical industry needs people to take medicine, whether they are sick or whether they are trying to prevent sickness. Requiring people to take maintenance medicine for chronic symptom control for years or for the rest of their life will add up to more profit for the medical industry over time compared to providing patients with effective preventive guidance or with a treatment that actually cures their underlying condition.

While I am fortunate not to have cancer I have been struggling with autoimmune and allergy symptoms for as long as I can remember and in my experience as a patient if currently available lab tests don’t reveal any diagnoses that are currently accepted within mainstream medical standards then your symptoms might be labeled psychosomatic – all-in-your-head physical symptoms that may be caused by mental stress or other emotional problems. That might be helpful for a patient who actually has psychosomatic problems but it isn’t very helpful for the long term treatment of a patient with an autoimmune disease.

Unfortunately though, in the current medical industry even if you receive an autoimmune diagnosis the cause is still considered unknown and immune suppressing chemotherapy drugs are frequently the only treatment available. However the good news is that the cause of some types of autoimmune disease has actually been discovered, but the news hasn’t made it into mainstream media or medical practice yet; and more good news, an effective therapy protocol has also been developed and life threatening chemotherapy drugs are not part of the medication protocol.

Severe migraine headaches every week were my worst health symptom, but I also had chronic fatigue and multiple muscle cramps similar to those described by patients with fibromyalgia, and I was sensitive to a variety of food and environmental allergens. I’ve only had a couple migraines since I tried the newly developed medication protocol. I spent a year and a half taking antibiotics every other day, and an angiotensin receptor blocker (olmesartan/Benicar) everyday, and avoiding vitamin D foods, supplements and sunlight everyday. This was not easy or comfortable, the antibiotics cause allergy like symptoms from the increased load of toxins that results from the remains of infected cells that healthy white blood cells were able to kill while on the combination of antibiotics and olmesartan, but the allergic symptoms were not as bad as having migraines that feel like a railroad spike pounding into your skull over and over for three days every week, never mind the muscle cramps, fatigue and other symptoms that I’d had off most of my life.

Not having weekly migraines and other daily symptoms was so wonderful that I wanted to share the good news but I found that it is difficult to get people to see past the mental block of “we don’t know what causes autoimmune disease or how to cure it.” — And we will never know what causes it or how to cure it if we keep ignoring the people who are making advances in figuring out what causes it and how to cure it.

Lida Mattman is a research scientist who conclusively showed that Rheumatoid arthritis is caused by a bacteria but that breakthrough hasn’t reached the patient yet. Some types of bacteria can survive in a modified form within the interior of some types of human cells. The form is hard to grow in normal agar gel cultures but Lida Mattman developed techniques that are able to culture the cell wall deficient microbes. She discusses the pathogens that cause Lyme’s Disease and Lou Gehrig’s Disease and other stealth pathogens at the Autoimmunity Research Foundation’s Chicago Conference, March 12, 2005, in this video link: (video, at ~19:30 she recommends not visiting people who had just suffered a coronary/heart attack in person at the hospital, just send a card, as evidence has shown that a infectious but unidentified pathogen is involved in some coronaries and therefore probably also in cerebral strokes which occur in the same way – but she probably doesn’t really mean not to visit your loved ones. She gets a laugh from the crowd as she shared a story about getting a sample to test after her husband had a coronary – so she probably did visit him but the point may also be that we don’t know what we don’t know and it might be dangerous, at least to the immune compromised).

Some types of pathogens, including the virus that causes HIV/AIDS, have forms that can actually enter human cells and survive and grow within the cell. This sets up an inflammatory condition with overactive white blood cells that may be looking for the infection but instead attack other healthy tissue – ‘auto-immune’ – attacking self. Lida Mattman found cell wall deficient bacteria involved in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lyme’s Disease and other diseases. The bacteria that causes tuberculosis also has a form that can live within cells. The textbookofbacteriology.net site uses the term faculative intracellular parasite in their description of the pathogen that causes tuberculosis. [7]

The specialized pathogens developed ways to disguise the infected cells from healthy immune cells. The angiotensin receptor blocker medication olmesartan is normally given once a day for high blood pressure but for the auotimmune treatment protocol it is given three to four times per day every six to eight hours in order to keep the levels steady all day and night because the infected cells hide by developing angiotensin receptors – blocking the receptors takes away the disguise. I think – this is my rough understanding of how the medication helps in the protocol developed by Trevor Marshall, a biomedical engineer. Blocking the angiotensin receptor disguise somehow allows the healthy immune cells to identify and kill the infected cells instead of continuing to ineffectively attack other healthy tissue (such as finger joints in Rheumatoid arthritis or lung tissue in sarcoidosis).

Correction, (9/16/2015): The part about the angiotensin receptor blocker medication was wrong. The medication olmesartan (Benicar) is not only acting as a angiotensin receptor blocker (which can help reduce the production of inflammatory cytokines which cause pain and fatigue and can help prevent fibrotic tissue from forming). It also acts as an agonist, an activator, of the vitamin D receptors (VDRs). By activating the VDRs the medication is allowing the healthy immune cells to do their normal functions. The pathogens had developed a variety of ways to block the vitamin D receptors in order to ‘hide’ by disabling the immune cell’s normal immune functions that are controlled by the active VDR. It transcribes over 1000 genes that are involved not only in calcium balance but also in cancer metastasis and many other functions. MPKB: Science behind olmesartan (Benicar).

Prof. Marshall is not a medical doctor but he is a biomedical researcher who did not choose to be compliant when he was diagnosed with sarcoidosis and was told that he probably only had a year and a half left to live – over a decade ago. Instead he developed  his specialized medical protocol and then sought and received orphan drug approval by the U.S. FDA so that olmesartan/Benicar can be prescribed for use with the antibiotic Marshall Protocol in addition to it being able to be prescribed for its normal use for treating high blood pressure. Using the blood pressure medication three to four times per day may increase the risk of feeling light headed when standing up quickly but taking it 3-4 times per day doesn’t cause the blood pressure to drop 3-4 times lower than normal. (I did have to catch my balance occasionally and fainted once or twice while taking olmesartan three times per day for a year and a half. Fainting is weird but fifteen years of migraines is worse.)

A three day migraine or chronic arthritic degeneration seems worse to me than feeling light headed when standing up quickly – and the medication protocol isn’t needed for the rest of life as many medications are prescribed for patients with chronic illnesses. While the protocol reduces symptoms after a year or two on the medications, an autoimmune patient might need to follow Trevor Marshall’s protocol for a year or two more than once over their lifetime because autoimmune diseases tend to flair up and go in remission with the patient’s overall level of health or stress or environmental toxin load – there really is a lot we don’t know about autoimmune disease. Having good and bad times, remissions and relapses, may be common in autoimmune disease because just a few remaining infected cells may linger over the years and then multiply again during a stressful or otherwise unhealthy time of life.

Tuberculosis is a disease that has been shown to be caused by a type of bacteria able to live within human cells and the infection can be spread through air-borne respiratory droplets when actively sick patients cough or sneeze. The disease can remain dormant for years in healthy people and the sickness can be spread by people who never got sick themselves and therefore don’t realize that they are carriers. A continuing education session for health professionals recommends using Universal Precautions, in order to protect staff and to help prevent spread of infection between patients, health professionals are recommended to wear adequate masks and gloves and treat all patients as if they were potentially contagious because anyone might be a carrier of a dormant infection. The course, Infection Control and Prevention, Module 5, Element II: Mechanism of Transmission available at atrainceu.com [atrainceu.com] has more information about Universal Precautions.

“Every year, more than 9 million people worldwide develop TB and nearly 2 million people die from the disease. Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and is spread in airborne droplets when people with the disease cough or sneeze. Most people with healthy immune systems infected with M. tuberculosis never become ill. However, the bacteria remain dormant within the body and can cause tuberculosis years later if host immunity declines.” – atrainceu.com, Infection Control and Prevention, Module 5, Element II: Mechanism of Transmission [atrainceu.com]

Tuberculosis, I learned recently, is also a type of infection that interferes with normal vitamin/hormone D metabolic pathways. The vitamin D receptor (VDR) plays a role in the ability of white blood cells to kill infected cells and cancerous cells. Some pathogens have developed ways to suppress the Vitamin D Receptor’s activity so white blood cells aren’t able to effectively resist the infection process. Other pathogens that have been shown to reduce the activity of the Vitamin D Receptor, in addition to the pathogen that causes Tuberculosis, include the mold Aspergillus, the viruses that cause Epstein-Barr chronic fatigue syndrome and HIV/AIDS, and the autoimmune diseases sarcoidosis, Crohn’s Disease, and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Elevated levels of 1, 25(OH)2D are seen with the bacterial infections: “Elevated 1,25(OH)2D appears to be evidence of a disabled immune system’s attempt to activate the VDR to combat infection.” [page 19, 1]

The Infection Control and Prevention course provides more information about Aspergillus. It is a fairly common mold that generally only becomes a problem for immuno-compromised individuals, [atrainceu.com], but interestingly those at increased risk also include people who have advanced cases of HIV/AIDS and those who have been on long term corticosteroid therapy (which acts similarly to having elevated levels of 1, 25(OH)2D, which is the active hormone form of vitamin D, and is actually not a vitamin. It is a seco-steroid based on a molecule of cholesterol). [2]

It seems to me that people with advanced cases of HIV/AIDs, whether they also have opportunistic aspergillosis or not, might like to know that taking olmesartan/Benicar daily and avoiding vitamin D foods, supplements and sunlight [1] might help their healthy white blood cells to be able to work more effectively again or might at least not add any negative symptoms that can occur when there is elevated levels of hormone D. The elevated hormone level itself is a health risk itself because it is telling the bones to release their stored calcium which can lead to osteoporosis of bones and calcification of soft tissue. The article [1]  doesn’t suggest that AIDS patients might be helped by Benicar because it is a review of research that has already occured article – research has shown that Benicar is helpful for autoimmune diseases like sarcoidosis but more research is needed to find out how the HIV and Epstein-Barr viruses and aspergillus mold suppress the Vitamin D Receptor and how to stop the down-regulation.

Our medical industry uses donated blood and organs that are screened for many diseases but they can’t screen for diseases that don’t officially have a known infectious agent. Dormant tuberculosis can cause carriers to become sick years after they were exposed and in all those years as a carrier the person might also have been a regular blood donor. Sarcoidosis patients who are in remission are allowed to donate blood and plasma yet there have been organ transplant patients who got sarcoidosis only after receiving the organ transplant. If the organ donor wasn’t known to have active sarcoidosis then the medical industry may not realize that the person might be a carrier of infected cells that could cause symptoms in a more immuno-compromised person. All organ transplant patients are purposely given immune suppressing medications in order to prevent the body’s own immune defenses from attacking the transplanted organ.

The longer autoimmune disease is treated as something without a known cause the longer we may be spreading it through contaminated blood and organ donations. The longer autoimmune disease is treated as something without a known cure the longer patients have to suffer reduced quality of life and shortened lifespans.

  • Tuberculosis: annually worldwide, 9 million infected and 2 million deaths, [atrainceu.com]
  • Epstein-Barr virus (EBV): According to the Centers for Disease Control about 90% of adults have antibodies against EBV, suggesting a current infection or history of exposure. The disease can be spread before a person has active symptoms and the virus can remain in a latent/inactive phase for years and can become active again at any time. [cdc.gov]
  • HIV/AIDS virus: According to the Centers for Disease Control there are about 50,000 people in the U.S. infected with HIV/AIDS each year and there are about 1.2 million people currently in the U.S. with an HIV/AIDS infection. About 12.8% of them may not be aware of their disease status. [cdc.gov]
  • Aspergillosis: According to the Centers for Disease Control the exact prevalence of opportunistic aspergillosis is unknown because it is not required to be reported in the U.S. however it is a common type of fungal infection found in organ transplant patients with a cumulative incidence of 19% over twelve months during a 2001-2006 study. It may also be a problem for up to 15% of patients with cystic fibrosis and 2.5% of patients with asthma, which represents 4.8 million people worldwide, 400,000 of whom might have a more severe form of aspergillosis.  There are 1.2 million people estimated to have aspergillosis as a complication of their tuberculosis disease and there may be 70,000 people who have aspergillosis as a complication of their sarcoidosis disease. [cdc.gov]
  • Sarcoidosis: According to a study of U.S. Navy personnel, “Sarcoidosis Among U.S. Navy Enlisted Men, 1965-1993,” the rate of disease incidence dropped over the time period but was significantly more of a risk for enlisted men who were assigned to aircraft carriers. The study was made at the request of a veteran who wondered if his case of sarcoidosis might have been due to an environmental contaminant.  “Although 70% of case-patients and 66% of controls had ever served on ships, 26% of case-patients and 17% of controls had ever served specifically on aircraft carriers.” (case-patients, n=1121) [3] *Living within the confined quarters of a ship or aircraft carrier may have affected risk of sarcoidosis infections if the disease can remain dormant similarly to tuberculosis. Exposure to the blood or body fluids of a seemingly healthy person might be able to be a source of latent infection for an immuno-compromised individual if the disease is carried within infected white blood cells.
  • Crohn’s Disease: I haven’t found statistics regarding the prevalence of this type of inflammatory bowel disease but the Mayo Clinic site at least mentions that an infectious agent might be involved: [4] Unfortunately they also recommend vitamin D and calcium supplements to help counteract the risk of osteoporosis if steroid therapy is used. [5] This would be bad if the patient actually has elevated levels of hormone D (1, 25(OH)2D) because levels above 42 pg/ml are a signal for calcium to leave the bones which ultimately increases the risk of osteoporosis and calcification of soft tissue. “In fact, there is ample evidence that elevated 1,25(OH)2D leads to bone loss. Brot et al. [53] found that elevated levels of 1,25(OH)2D were strongly associated with decreased bone mineral density and content, and increased bone turnover. When levels are above 42 pg/ml 1,25(OH)2D stimulates bone osteoclasts. This leads to osteoporosis, dental fractures and calcium deposition into the soft tissues [54]. Vanderschueren et al. [55] found that a combination of high 1,25(OH)2D and low 25(OH)D is associated with the poorest bone health.” [1] Adequate magnesium is very important when elevated calcium levels are a problem because it helps the kidneys to excrete excess calcium.
  • Rheumatoid Arthritis: Infection is also mentioned as a possible cause of Rheumatoid Arthritis on the Mayo Clinic site. [6]

That is an incomplete list of statistics but the point was that many people may be affected by pathogens that have developed ways to manipulate our immune system’s normal Vitamin D Receptor metabolism.

Trevor Marshall doesn’t recommend that people who are using his protocol with the help of their physician worry too much about what specific pathogens might be the cause of their own abnormal vitamin D/hormone D levels. Comparing the level of the inactive vitamin D, 25 (OH) D, with the level of the active hormone D, 1, 25 (OH)2D, can suggest infection when the inactive form is low but the active form is normal or elevated. Healthy individuals can remain at 30 pg/ml of the hormone while they are getting plenty of sun exposure and dietary supplies of the vitamin form. Elevated levels are not normal. Elevated levels during active autoimmune disease can be in the 100s while the vitamin level remains low and tends to remain low even when large dose supplements are taken regularly.

The problem is that the infection process has inhibited breakdown of the active hormone and/or causes over production of the enzyme that converts the vitamin into the hormone form so all the large dose vitamin is being converted into the active hormone form which wouldn’t be noticed if only the vitamin level was being measured by the lab – as is the routine currently. The hormone level is a more unstable form that is more expensive to process. The mainstream medical recommendation is based on the theory that the enzyme that can convert the vitamin into the hormone is under careful control by the kidneys, which may be true for healthy people but might not be true for someone with sarcoidosis or Rheumatoid arthritis.

Personal Impact

My own was hormone D level was 55 pg/ml recently which is within the range considered normal but it is towards the high end of the range. It has remained around that level even while limiting dietary sources and exposure to sunlight. The vitamin level was below 10 which is low, above 20 to 30 is the low end of the normal range for the vitamin form of D. So do I have low levels, normal levels or elevated levels?  My endocrinologist’s recommendation that was sent with the vitamin D/hormone D lab report was to start taking vitamin D and calcium in order to help reduce osteoporosis risk but if all levels over 42 pg/ml are causing calcium to leave my bones already then adding extra vitamin D is more likely to add to the infection risk. The use of Benicar and reduced intake of vitamin D and sun exposure is mentioned in this review article about Vitamin D and infection: [1]

My own medical history includes an episode of Epstein-Barr virus/mononucleosis during college and more recently a diagnosis of Grave’s Disease, which is an autoimmune thyroid condition related to Rheumatoid Arthritis in that bone marrow cells become labeled with a thyroid receptor and infiltrate the thyroid gland. The thyroid can become overactive and overproduce thyroid hormone and sometimes the bone marrow cells become mislabeled in a slightly different way and infiltrate the fatty area behind the eye sockets and cause the eyeballs to protrude. 

Professional Impact:

I would like professional guidance about abnormal vitamin/hormone D metabolism iin infection for myself and family and for feeling comfortable about counseling nutrition clients. Without knowing both the vitamin and hormone D levels of a client I can’t really know whether a low vitamin D level alone means the client isn’t getting enough of the nutrient or sun exposure or whether they might have an underlying infection that hasn’t been diagnosed. But without the professional ‘evidence-based’ guidance from the mainstream medical industry I can’t really recommend alternative strategies to a client legally. A professional code of ethics encourages us to do no harm in the health industry but during the earlier phases of medical research it can be more difficult to figure out what might be helpful and what might be harmful.

*I may add to this later but I’m going to try to post it now because I’m having trouble saving it. 2:12pm post was successful, update added, and at 10:54pm.

9/16/2015 correction added. A type of gastro intestinal bacteria, Prevotella copri, has been found to be more prevalent in the GI tracts of people with rheumatoid arthritis.  Intestinal bacteria linked to rheumatoid arthritis (Nov. 5, 2013).

This post is continued on the next two posts:

/Disclosure: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes./

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Hormone D is made from vitamin D

Vitamin D and hormone D are metabolically linked by one enzyme. Testing only the vitamin does not prove a deficiency of the hormone. There would be more children with rickets if the food supply or sunlight supply was inadequate in vitamin D or cholesterol. Statin drugs stop the liver from producing cholesterol so people taking statin drugs long term could be more at risk for low levels of both vitamin and hormone D. However they would also need to be avoiding sunlight, dairy products, egg yolks, some types of fish and other vitamin D fortified foods like breads and cereals.

If an epidemic of rickets isn’t a problem [3] then probably a reasonable amount of vitamin D has been available over the years. There is certainly an association between chronic disease and low vitamin D levels but it has not been adequately proven that low vitamin D is causing the chronic disease or whether it is a side effect of some other condition. It has been proven that the enzyme that converts vitamin D to the active hormone D is made in some types of cancer and autoimmune disease. There are two tests necessary to prove a deficiency of both the vitamin and the actual hormone D. It has been proven that excess hormone D can cause chronic degeneration from excess calcium leaving the bone tissue and it causes pain.

Two tests are needed to show whether there is deficiency of vitamin D or whether there is actually excess hormone D. The test for vitamin D levels doesn’t measure the amount that was converted into hormone D which is the form that signals bones to release magnesium and calcium from long term storage. It also signals the intestines to preferentially absorb more calcium than magnesium. Magnesium is inexpensive but it isn’t absorbed well when there is also a lot of calcium in the food or supplement or when there is excessive hormone D levels.
Two tests for D can show who needs further testing vs who needs supplements or diet guidance.The good news suggested to me, by the limited number of cases of rickets in comparison to the large number of people with low vitamin D levels, is that having both the hormone and vitamin levels tested would show who needs a vitamin and who might benefit from more testing for underlying issues.

Testing for chronic infection or cancer can catch treatable problems in much earlier stages of disease before osteoporosis or soft tissue calcification are allowed to happen. If the hormone level is elevated and the vitamin is low there can be a treatable reason why the enzyme between the two forms is overactive. Or sometimes there is an issue with too little activity by the enzyme that breaks down the hormone and too little enzyme activity allows the hormone to build up to excess levels.

Making too much active hormone D or not breaking down the excess can lead to worsening chronic disease over time. Measuring both the vitamin and hormone levels of D can show who needs a vitamin and who might need antibiotics or other treatment and who might be harmed by the use of excess supplements of D over time. So, yes, vitamin D is important and many people have been found to have low levels but we haven’t been measuring the level of the active hormone in many research studies and it is more powerfully active within health and illness.

Agribusiness and processed food are an essential part of the food supply. Improving food labeling would help people with food sensitivities or allergies to avoid risk without requiring all processed foods to change ingredients. Standardizing fortification levels helps with menu planning for a healthy diet for individuals and residential facilities.

Corporate profit and national viability is affected by the cost of health care and that won’t get cheaper if the same wrong solutions are pursued. One vitamin or medicine can never grow a body or give the body the nutrient building blocks that are needed for healing.
Multiple nutrients are necessary for preventing chronic disease and repairing health.

Recognizing that there is a link between elevated hormone D and low vitamin D will be important for the long term effectiveness of any health care system for any business or country. Pursuing vitamin D supplements as an easy solution to chronic disease has not been working and any one nutrient solution will not work to build health. Magnesium or iodine are not single answer solutions either. Vitamin K, selenium, zinc, vitamin C and B’s and the essential fats and phospholipids are necessary as well as adequate calories and protein.

Many nutrients working together help maintain quality of life and reduce pain and chronic degeneration. Basing health care on medical and surgical solutions alone can not solve or prevent all types of health issues. Those types of solutions are needed for acute repair but chronic degeneration needs prevention strategies and many nutrients working together within the body.
/Disclaimer: Information presented on this site is not intended as a substitute for medical care and should not be considered as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment by your physician./

Reference List

  1. Canadian Medical Association Journal (2012, November 5). Low vitamin D levels linked to longevity, surprising study shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 11, 2012, from [sciencedaily.com­] *The study control group had higher levels of vitamin D and had more chronic concerns. Low vitamin D levels is only important if there is also low hormone D levels.
  2. van Heemst D., Leiden Longevity Study, Longevity Research Background, in Dutch, [langleven.net]
  3. Lazol JP, Cakan N, Kamat D. 10-year case review of nutritional rickets in Children’s Hospital of Michigan. Clin Pediatr (Phila). 2008 May;47(4):379-84. Epub 2008 Jan 11. [ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] *The charts of 58 children with rickets diagnoses were found for a ten year time period at one hospital, 96% of them were exclusively breast fed and ethnicity suggests many may have hard dark skin tones which blocks sunlight production of vitamin D. Ideally vitamin D supplements would be recommended for exclusively breast fed infants during preventative nutritional counseling. So roughly 6 children per year at a large hospital with rickets – that is a much smaller number than “35% of American Children.” [4]
  4. Bener A., et al.,Vitamin D Deficiency as a Strong Predictor of Asthma in Children. Int Arch Allergy Immunol 2012;157:168–175 [content.karger.com] *The study participants were found to have lower vitamin D levels than the control group but they also were found to have lower magnesium levels and increased bone turnover levels which would suggest to me they actually had elevated hormone D but that wasn’t tested. Magnesium is cheap but it isn’t well absorbed if there is elevated hormone D due to some other unidentified issue. Vitamin D supplements and food were used by a significant number of the study participants.     Excerpt from this paper that is in reference to a different paper: “Litonjua and Weiss  [16] found that 35% of American children were vitamin D deficient and these children were at a greater risk of severe asthma attacks.“
  5. Hashimoto Y, Nishimura Y, Maeda H, Yokoyama M. Assessment of magnesium status in patients with bronchial asthma. J Asthma. 2000 Sep;37(6):489-96. [ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] *The magnesium levels were similar between asthmatic and control groups in the serum blood test but the magnesium level inside of red blood cells was lower in the asthmatic group.
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Low vitamin D linked to longer lifespan

A study focused on the families of people who had at least two siblings who were 89 years or older. Middle-aged children of the long-lived siblings and the life partners of the middle-aged children were included in the Leiden Longevity Study. The vitamin D levels were found to be lower in the middle-aged children than for life partners.  The life partners were used as the control group in comparison to the middle-aged children based on the idea that they would have shared similar diets and lifestyles. Vitamin D levels but not hormone D levels were mentioned. [1] The numerical lab values were not available.The middle-aged children of the families with at least two 89-91 or older siblings were found to have less cardiometabolic disease indicators such as myocardial infarction, diabetes and hypertension compared to their life partners. The group of middle-aged children of 90 year olds also had lower values for blood sugar, insulin, triglycerides and improved insulin sensitivity. [2]

Low levels of vitamin D have been associated with many diseases, however hormone D levels were not measured in most of the studies. The vitamin can be converted to the active hormone by an enzyme that is typically well controlled by the kidneys but is also made by some types of cancer cells, white blood cells and in some autoimmune conditions. Elevated hormone D levels can cause excessive loss of calcium from bone tissue and calcification of soft tissue.

Supplements of vitamin D frequently need to be taken in amounts far greater than the standard recommendation in order to raise vitamin D levels. An association with disease does not prove whether the depressed vitamin D levels are a cause or a side effect of chronic disease. Measuring both the vitamin 25(OH)D and the hormone 1, 25(2OH)D levels would be more likely to reveal whether excessive enzyme activity was causing a decrease in vitamin D levels and an increase in hormone D levels rather than there being an actual deficit of vitamin D. Chronically elevated hormone D is associated with osteoporosis and other health issues.

/Disclaimer: Information presented on this site is not intended as a substitute for medical care and should not be considered as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment by your physician./

  1. Canadian Medical Association Journal (2012, November 5). Low vitamin D levels linked to longevity, surprising study shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 11, 2012, from [http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2012/11/121105130355.htm]
  2. van Heemst D., Leiden Longevity Study, Longevity Research Background, in Dutch, [http://www.langleven.net/index.cfm?p=1B8B2369-3048-9110-624DBCCA13F65FE9]
/Disclosure – the author of this post had two grandparents who lived beyond 90 years old; and has had low to normal values for vitamin D and normal to elevated lab values for hormone D for more than five years of testing.
*January 2021 addition: Too much vitamin D seems to be problem for me – genetic over activity of the vitamin D receptor may be part of it. Transport proteins are also needed for holding a supply of vitamin D in the inactive 25-D form. Without the protein transport the body can’t keep the 25 D from converting to the 1, 25-D form which is the hormone form that can activate the Vitamin D Receptor. /

Veterans Day 2012, honoring soldiers, past and present.