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Wed, 21 Apr 2010 01:59:00 -0400

 

 

 

John Cannell, M.D. <vitamindcouncil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Vitamin D Newsletter

 

 

April 21, 2010

 

 

More

letters

 

 

This is a periodic

newsletter from the Vitamin D Council, a non-profit trying to end the

epidemic of vitamin D deficiency. If you are not d, you can do

so on the Vitamin

D Council's website. If you want to , go to the end of

this newsletter.

 

 

This newsletter is now

copyrighted but you may reproduce it for non-economic reasons without

prior permission as long as you properly attribute its source.

 

 

Dear Dr.

Cannell:

 

 

I was taking a vitamin D3

liquid oil supplement 60,000 IUs/day regularly and 180,000 IUs/day

fairly occasionally for about 8 months in '09 in an attempt to get over

a chronic sinus infection and prevent cold/flu. Last November '09, I

started having symptoms for irregular heartbeats, nervousness,

insomnia, weight loss, difficulty concentrating, and muscle weakness. I

met with my physician and had blood work done. My vitamin D3 level was

406 ng/mL and my calcium elevated and probably had been that high for

several months. I stopped taking the supplement immediately. But my

physician didn't recommend anything else at the time except to recheck

the blood levels in a few months. I am 46 and have been in excellent

health all my life with no previous medical issues.

 

 

The symptoms have not gone

away entirely. I was not aware of the potential toxic effects of D

until a few weeks ago. I recently found out that vitamin D toxicity can

cause hypercalcemia.

 

 

Is there anything more I

can do now to reverse the effects of vitamin D toxicity and possible

hypercalcemia that may have been present for several months last

summer/fall? Should I have my kidney function and heart function

checked? What can I do to reverse effects on my nervous system and

brain now? What tests can I do to keep checking the levels or know if I

did any permanent damage to these soft tissues?

 

 

Finally, my daughter (5

yrs. old at the time) was also taking about 20,000 IUs/day fairly

regularly over the same period of time. She didn't appear to have had

any adverse symptoms but now I'm really concerned and scared she may

have been toxic too. What tests should I ask to be done to check her

for Vitamin D toxicity and hypercalcemia?

 

 

Please respond and help if

you can, I'm having a hard time finding good sources of information for

my questions! Any information or help would be greatly-greatly

appreciated!

 

 

Thank you,

 

 

David, Utah

 

 

Dear

David:

 

 

Congratulations, you have

indeed made yourself toxic by knowingly taking too much supplemental

vitamin D, one of the first such cases I am aware of in the modern

literature. Have your daughter's 25(OH)D and serum calcium checked; she

was also taking potentially toxic doses.

 

 

The treatment for you and

your daughter to not take any vitamin D and both of you should stay out

of the sun until your 25(OH)D levels return to normal. Drink 8

eight-ounce glasses of water a day and have your daughter drink four.

You both should have a chemistry panel periodically to see if kidney

function is normal and to check serum calcium although I doubt that

your calcium is still elevated. I doubt you have permanently damaged

any internal organs as most cases of toxicity, with 25(OH)D levels

higher than yours, did not result in permanent damage to the kidneys or

other internal organs.

 

 

Also, readers should be

aware, if they are not already, that vitamin D does not prevent all

viral respiratory infections. As we noted in correspondence to our

first influenza paper, rhinoviruses, the most common cause of the

common cold, are not seasonal; that is, they are just as common in the

summer as in the winter, and they do not have a lipoprotein coat for

antimicrobial peptides to destroy. Also, in a recent Japanese paper,

influenza B was not prevented by vitamin D, only influenza A. Although

many people get influenza symptoms and are worried enough to go to

their doctors, and their doctors worried enough to get an influenza A

test, only about 3% of the specimens submitted to CDC surveillance

centers are positive for influenza A.

 

 

If you are already taking

5,000 IU a day and you get a cold, chances are that more vitamin D will

not help much. No one should take large doses for more than a few days

and then only if the infection is severe. Certainly the doses you took

were toxic and it sounds as if you still suffered from viral

respiratory infections.

 

 

Dear Dr.

Cannell:

 

 

Thanks for taking time for

my e-mail. I heard Dr. Cannell on the radio about a month ago talking

about his vitamin D formula and as someone who has been involved in

holistic nutrition and natural health most of my life as a layperson, I

really appreciate what you do for people, and have upped my D on your

recommendation. I absolutely have noticed more of an attitude of

wanting to participate in life and less a feeling of "why bother,"

after a month of increased dosage. I will get my levels tested sometime

this year.

 

 

Currently I do homecare

and my present client/friend doesn't get outdoors at all. She was

taking 2000 iu of D per day for general purposes until I spoke with her

about Dr. Cannell's radio spot. She upped it to 5000 iu with your

formula and said she felt a difference in her mood within a week! Bear

in mind this is someone who was on antidepressants for decades and has

struggled with depression all that time, despite the meds. She wants to

wean herself off her meds and for her to say something has helped her

mood is anywhere from extraordinary to miraculous!

 

 

Keep up the good work!

 

 

Jesse, Pendleton, OR

 

 

Dear

Jesse:

 

 

Tell your friend to keep

taking her meds. As much as I like to hear what you said, it is more

likely that this improvement in your friend's mood will not be

permanent. If she does decide to go off her meds, do it very slowly

with the help of her doctor. Vitamin D deficiency is but one cause of

major depression; there are lots of others. However, I now recommend

that anyone struggling with depression should take at least 10,000 IU

/day with frequent 25(OH)D blood tests to assure levels of at least 100

ng/ml and to monitor for toxicity.

 

 

Depression is a serious

illness with a known morbidity and mortality and thus it warrants more

aggressive treatment than someone in good health. Some readers have

written that they require 50,000 IU/day to alleviate depressive

symptoms but that should only be done under the care of a knowledgeable

physician, with frequent 25(OH)D levels, as such doses may cause

toxicity.

 

 

John Cannell, MD

 

 

Dear Dr.

Cannell:

 

 

I just wanted to share. I

take 20,000 unites per day for 2 years now. I have experienced

only positive results. My levels are currently 91 ng/ml. My high

sensitive CRP decreased from 25 to .01. All the people I provide health

coaching to (as an occupational therapist) are deficient or have

absolutely none at all as a blood level.

 

 

Mary, Long Island, NY

 

 

Dear Mary:

 

 

Great but keep checking

your 25(OH)D levels. Several studies are confirming that vitamin D

lowers CRP. I'm so glad you are doing this on your own for patients, as

an occupational therapist, but are you putting all your patients on

20,000 IU/day? I hope not. The proper dose for healthy adults is 5,000

IU/day.

 

 

John Cannell, MD

 

 

 

Dear Dr.

Cannell:

 

 

I am a neurologist in

Oklahoma. I wrote to you a few months ago about the observation that

all of my patients with sleep disorders had low vitamin D and that when

I was able to replace D, and get the level above 50, their sleep and

secondarily several of their neurologic problems, improved, especially

their headaches.

 

 

I have since stumbled into

a few unexpected holes and have learned a lot but now have some

questions regarding the D2 imposter. My medical colleagues that are

using D2 (Drisdol) for bone health have no symptoms to follow in

response to supplementing and think that they have accomplished what

they want when they get the 25(OH)D2 above 50. The problem is that I am

using D3 supplement for other things and have learned that the sleep

and headaches improve with the right dose of D3 but that the same dose

of D2 does not work at all.

 

 

On several patients even

though the 25(OH)D2 level is up, their sleep and headaches are no

better. For example, today I saw a woman who has all the same symptoms

as all my other patients; poor sleep, indigestion, daily headache, all

worsening after her second pregnancy 4 years ago. Her 25(OH)D2 was 52

and she was not supplementing, so I did not ask her to take D3. After

receiving several calls from her about her headaches not getting any

better I decided to try supplementing D3 the way I am in all the other

patients at 20,000 IU for one month. Since starting D3 supplement her

sleep is better and her headaches are gone.

 

 

Why is D2 used at in a

prescription when it is not natural to our body? What has been the

motivation for using it? Why is it used in milk instead of D3? I am

about to look into the literature about whether it has some exclusive

effect on bone health but I'm noticing that most of the literature is

sloppy about which D they're talking about in terms of the 25OH. Why

are they sloppy about this? Has there been literature that supports the

fact that D2 and D3 are actually identical?

 

 

The sleep effect ties to

many of the neurologic disorders that get better with D3, improved

sleep, seizures, headaches, vertigo, tremor, gait, Parkinson's,

depression, psychosis, hypertension. I'm interested in anyone else

watching similar effects on their patients?

 

 

Thanks for your comments,

explanations, and exclamations.

 

 

Gormon Servasta M.D.,

Oklahoma

 

 

Dear Dr.

Servasta:

 

 

That is great news for

millions of headache sufferers, as well as those suffering from other

neurological disorders. I always recommend D3 and see no reason for

anyone to take D2, it is not human vitamin D. It is a vitamin D

analogue that happened to be discovered before D3 by the University of

Wisconsin, which patented it and it was then sold, and still is, as the

only available prescription vitamin D, Drisdol.

 

 

Currently, most scientists

are specifying whether they use D2 or D3 in their studies but that was

not always the case in the past. All studies done with D2 will need to

be repeated with D3; if the studies were negative, they need to be

repeated to see if they are also negative with D3; if they were

positive, they need to be repeated with D3 to see if the effect size is

the same or not. Most milk now contains D3. If your patient had a

25(OH)D2 of 52 and had not been on D2 supplements or eating large

amounts of irradiated Shitake mushrooms, the result was a lab error.

 

 

D2 or ergocalciferol does

not exist in detectable quantities in the human body, only in tiny

quantities in some plants and, as such, is "unnatural" when in the

human body. You cannot get any appreciable D2 by eating vegetables

except for some irradiated mushrooms. D2 is metabolized to various

substances in the body, many of which are not normally present in

humans, although these metabolites have never been shown to be

dangerous.

 

 

There is also some

evidence that D2 is more toxic in overdose, which is curious as it is

only about half as potent as the naturally occurring vitamin D3,

cholecalciferol. I have seen evidence that humans prefer D3 over D2, in

that, if both 25(OH)D2 and 25(OH)D3 are present in serum, over time the

25(OH)D3 falls faster than the 25(OH)D2, suggesting the body

preferentially uses 25(OH)D3, if it is available. For any scientist

readers, this would be an easy and important study to do.

 

 

Your experience that D3,

but not D2, helps neurological symptoms is interesting. Such

comparisons of the efficacy of D3 versus D2 on neurological symptoms do

not exist in the medical literature, another important study to do .

Since I have never given anyone D2, I cannot comment further.

 

 

John Cannell, MD

 

 

Dear Dr.

Cannell:

 

 

This is a letter of

gratitude to you! Ever since I read what you wrote about asthma several

years ago, I have taken first 5,000 then 10,000 IU daily of Vitamin D3

from Bio Tech my energy has improved DRAMATICALLY and my asthma is

completely gone! It has taken over a year, but it worked!

 

 

I have thrown away all of

my allergy medicines and all of my asthma medicines and have never gone

back!

 

 

I am forever grateful to

you Dr. John Cannell.

 

 

Harry, Pennsylvania

 

 

Dear

Harry:

 

 

You're welcome. The same

Japanese randomized controlled trial just published that showed vitamin

D prevent influenza A, also showed that the placebo group was six times

more likely to get an asthma attack then the vitamin D group and that

was with only 1,200 IU per day in ten-year-olds.

 

 

There is a growing

literature suggesting that vitamin D may not just help asthma, but may

cure it. In my experience, how long it takes to help asthma depends on

how long you have had asthma. Adults with asthma should take 10,000 IU

per day and shoot for a 25(OH)D of around 100 ng/ml. Children with

asthma should take at least 2,000 IU for every 25 pounds of body

weight, also shooting for a 25(OH)D of around 100 ng/ml.

Like depression, asthma is a disease with a serious morbidity

and mortality, thus more aggressive dosing is indicated.

 

 

After the asthma

disappears, slowly reduce your asthma meds under the supervision of

your doctor, then slowly reduce the dose of vitamin D to standard doses

of 5,000 IU/day for adults, and 1,000 IU/day for every 25 pounds of

body weight in children, keeping 25(OH)D levels between 50 and 80 ng/ml.

 

 

John Cannell, MD

 

 

Dear Dr.

Cannell:

 

 

I had asthma for 20 years

with allergies and severe breathing issues. After it was too much to

bear any longer, I went with very high doses of Vitamin D3 and was able

to quit the prednisone. I took about 30,000 IU per day for I think a

few weeks then 10,000 IU/day for the last year and have not had ANY

asthma again this spring! I threw out all my inhalers and I stay at

10,000 IU per day now! Life is good! I love my vitamin D3!

 

 

Thanks for everything.

 

 

Trish, California

 

 

Dear

Trish:

 

 

You are welcome. The

"Stoss" or short-term high daily dose for a few weeks is a good idea to

get your levels up quickly if you have a serious illness. It would have

been better to put your asthma meds in a drawer rather than throw them

out as asthma is an episodic disease and it is too early to know for

sure that it will not come back.

 

 

Also, when on 10,000

IU/day get periodic 25(OH)D levels; to date, no one has published

literature on long-term safety, years, of 10,000 IU/day.

 

 

John Cannell, MD

 

 

Dear Dr.

Cannell:

 

 

I just came back from a

vacation in the Caribbean and you are right about what you wrote a few

years ago about vitamin D and sun sensitivity. Before, I always burned

easily as I am fair-skinned. But, before this vacation I had been

taking 5,000 IU per day for about 9 months. My skin was much more

resistant to the sun; sometimes it would get red and I thought I was

burned but the next morning it was gone.

 

 

Thank you, it is so great

not having to always worry so much about getting burned.

 

 

Justine, New Jersey

 

 

Dear

Justine:

 

 

You're welcome but don't

throw away your sunblock. If you remember from my past newsletters, my

daughter Eliza discovered vitamin D's ability to prevent sunburn and my

fair-skinned river-rafting friend confirmed it. My daughter had been

taking 5,000 IU per day for ten months and decided she wanted to tan in

a suntan parlor. Instead of burning the first few times, she quickly

developed a rich tan.

 

 

My friend took high doses

of vitamin D for a few weeks before rafting and, for the first time in

his life, did not burn when rafting the Snake River. In fact a

businessman is now selling a product at sun-tanning parlors to prevent

burning; the product's active ingredient is simply 30 tablets of 10,000

IUs of vitamin D3, to be taken daily for one month before tanning.

 

 

This is the time of year

many people sunburn. I have thought a lot about the whole issue of

sunburning and would like to propose a theory. I do not think

sunburning is entirely without an evolutionary benefit. The final

conversion of vitamin D in the skin requires heat and the heat of

sunburn will increase the amount of vitamin D made by any one

sun-exposure. Thus, sunburns evolved for a reason. Nature cares less if

you damage your skin with sunburn; Nature cares more that vitamin D

deficient people maximize any one sun-exposure. That is, people with

low 25(OH)D levels have a reason to burn, they make more vitamin D.

Easy sunburning and sun sensitivity may simply be a symptom of vitamin

D deficiency. This is also a good study for some young vitamin D

scientist to do.

 

 

Vitamin D sufficient

people do not need any extra vitamin D from the sun, so the extra heat

in the skin generated by sunburn is not needed. (As an aside, I also

predict that 25(OH)D exerts negative feedback on 7-dihydro-cholesterol,

vitamin D's precursor molecule.) Vitamin D sufficient readers will see,

when they go into the sun this spring, that it takes longer to burn,

that their skin is less sun-sensitive, and that when redness does

occur, it is often gone the next day. However, beware: vitamin D

sufficient people can still sunburn, it just takes longer. Sunburns

increase your risk of melanoma and other skin cancers.

 

 

Also, some fair-skinned

people have a genetic variation that prevents their skin from making

melanin pigment. Theoretically, vitamin D should not help them from

sunburning. But don't confuse fact with theory. The fact is that some

skin type 1 people cannot make much melanin; the theory is that vitamin

D will not protect their skin from sunburn. However, I know of some

very fair-skinned, blond-headed, blue eyed, skin type 1 people whose

skin became less sensitive to the sun after taking 5,000 IU/day.

 

 

John Cannell, MD

 

 

Dear Dr.

Cannell:

 

 

Thank-you for all of your

hard work! I read what you wrote on your website and my son (at age 15)

was diagnosed with D deficiency (his levels were 7 ng/ml), after many

long years with severe anxiety and depression and psychiatric meds that

didn't work. Vitamin D3 10,000 IU/day was a miracle for his recovery as

he is now a freshman in college!

 

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Connie, St. Paul, MN

 

 

Dear

Connie:

 

 

You are welcome. Again,

vitamin D deficiency is but one cause of depression. How much of it is

caused by vitamin D deficiency, how it will respond to adequate doses

of D3, and what dose to use is simply not known. Err on the side of

higher doses with frequent 25(OH)D blood tests when treating

depression. Documented vitamin D toxicity has never been described with

25(OH)D levels below 200 ng/ml. Again, 10,000 IU per day requires

periodic 25(OH)D levels.

 

 

Dear Dr.

Cannell:

 

 

I appreciate greatly Dr.

Cannell`s good work for this fundamentally important issue of getting

the knowledge about the importance of vitamin D for health and

prevention of disease, through to the consumers.

 

 

I am testing every patient

of mine for vitamin D. Not surprisingly, all of us Finns or anybody

living here in Finland is vitamin D deficient, the average winter-time

blood value being only 18ng/l ( equals 45 nmol/l.) for my patients.

 

 

Case: A

30 yr old lady had her first blood test done only 4 months ago. It gave

10ng/l. She has suffered of severe atopic dermatitis since early

childhood with a lot of itching and even bleeding of skin after

scratching the skin during the night. Additionally, she has obtained

severe migraine headaches, leading to vomiting in the end, since the

age of 14 onwards. She has got pollen allergies and during the last few

years she has developed severe food allergies as well. She has not been

able to sunbathe, because it has caused intolerable burning and itching

sensation in her skin. The atopic dermatitis has been getting worse by

exercise and sweating and sauna. The latter points have come to the

picture 5 years ago and have gotten worse by time.

 

 

Four months ago, I gave

her a detailed supplementation program, in which D3 plays a major role

(5,000 IU/day). I have included calcium and the cofactors you have in

your formula as well in the treatment, such as magnesium, zinc, boron

and K2.

 

 

She has made an amazing

recovery of almost all of her symptoms. Skin problem is completely

cured, no itching, no scaly dead skin, no redness, no inflammation any

more. Migraine headaches, which used to be 1-2 times a week, have

dramatically diminished. She has had only 1 migraine attack for the

last 4 months, compared to average 16-32 attacks previously during the

same time period.

 

 

She is slowly increasing

the number of previously intolerable foods into her diet. She can now

exercise with full energy and sweating is not a problem anymore, as it

does not cause any burning or itching sensation either. She has had

only minor pollen symptoms now, which is also completely new for her.

She has not been using any antihistamines so far this spring. Earlier

she was forced to use prescription allergy-medications every year.

 

 

She looks better, because

the skin of her face has become clear and beautiful, with a

healthy-looking, shiny complexion. She is so happy of this progress

that she cannot stop smiling. She is going to re-test now her vitamin

D-value and we will take care of the right dosages accordingly.

 

 

This case is just one

example of what the right supplementation may do for a severely

suffering patient, with no side-effects. This lady had never heard of

you but she does now.

 

 

Regards from Finland

 

 

Jerkko Mause, MD, Finland

 

 

Dear Dr.

Mause:

 

 

That is great news; I wish

all patients would experience the same miraculous recovery. I'm glad

you used the cofactors, magnesium, zinc, boron, and K2, as deficiencies

in these four are probably as common as vitamin D deficiency. That is

why I added them to my formula, which Purity Products markets via

telemarketing. Beware: my family gets a buck for every bottle sold.

 

 

http://www.purityproducts.com/purityEcommerce/control/productDetail?productId=dr-cannells-advanced-vitamin-d

 

 

Also, I doubt anyone can

get toxic on my formula. For example, if you decide to take 50,000 IU

per day of my formula, it would require 20 tablets a day and you will

be getting 1,250 mg of magnesium per day and, after a few weeks, you

will have so much diarrhea that you will not have time to get to the

medicine cabinet.

 

 

John Cannell, MD

 

 

Dear Dr.

Cannell:

 

 

Curing magnesium

deficiency with seeds and nuts is like curing vitamin D deficiency with

egg yolks.

 

 

Barry, New York

 

 

Dear

Barry:

 

 

Well said. Eating a

handful of seeds and nuts every day and changing to whole grains may

add another 100 mg/day of magnesium to total magnesium intake but at

least 500 mg/day extra is needed to correct a magnesium deficiency.

 

 

As I have written,

magnesium has similarities to calcium. Both are stored in the bones and

bones need both to be healthy. Deficiencies of neither can be detected

by a simple blood test. Total body deficiencies of both are the rule

not the exception. Finally, vitamin D is involved in the absorption of

both calcium and magnesium.

 

 

If the reader is like most

Americans, you are deficient in magnesium. I recommend a product made

by Trace Minerals (no financial relationship to the Council or my

family), in Roy, Utah: (801) 731-6051.

 

 

One comes with a 1:1

calcium: magnesium ratio:

 

 

http://www.traceminerals.com/products/bone-joint/complete-calcium-magnesium-1-1-bone-joint

 

 

It also comes with a 2:1

calcium: magnesium ratio:

 

 

http://www.traceminerals.com/products/bone-joint/complete-calcium-magnesium-2-1-bone-joint

 

 

What I especially like is

the trace minerals it contains from sea salt with the sodium removed.

Bones need many of these trace minerals to be healthy. The 500 mg of

magnesium will treat a magnesium deficiency but it will take a year or

two to replenish your bone stores of magnesium. The amount of calcium

that you choose depends on your dietary calcium. If you do not eat

dairy products choose the 2:1 Ca:Mg ratio, if you eat dairy at least

twice a day, choose the 1:1 ratio.

 

 

John Cannell, MD

 

 

Dear Dr

Cannell:

 

 

It was interesting to read

your recent newsletter regarding poor vitamin D status of Somali women

and risk of autism and I was glad to see that scientists are confirming

your autism theory. I am a registered dietitian from the UK and have a

very strong interest in Vitamin D research.

 

I have a particular interest in ethnic minorities, especially Somali

women whom I have treated several for vitamin D deficiency. Two of the

Somali ladies I have treated are sisters, and both have multiple lists

of health complaints from rare autoimmune skin conditions to the

obvious aching bones and muscle weakness.

 

 

One of the sisters has an

autistic son who is 3 years of age now. I am sure this is of no

surprise to you the fact that she has an autistic child but her first

vitamin D test came back at a staggering 0.5 ng/ml! Which I believe

would be an accurate reading as it was carried out via the NHS and all

local tests are sent to labs which are DiaSorin compatible.

 

I have not heard of vitamin D levels that low but I would be interested

to hear if you have heard of similar experiences.

 

I really appreciate the valuable work you undertake in order to get the

message out there about such an important autism issue.

 

 

Kind Regards

 

 

Elliott, UK

 

 

Dear

Elliott:

 

 

Always trust low 25(OH)D

levels and always repeat high 25(OH)D levels. Such low levels are not

uncommon and indicate the person is at risk for sudden death from

hypocalcemic seizures, should their calcium intake falter

As regards the

three-year-old Somali child with autism, remember that vitamin D, at

2,000-5,000 IU/day for every 25 pounds of body weight, may have a

treatment effect in autism. The sooner it is started, the better.

 

 

 

In Minnesota, the Somali

immigrants call autism the Minnesota disease, in Sweden the Somali immigrants call autism the Swedish Disease,

but in Somalia, autism has no name.

 

 

 

 

John Cannell, MD

 

 

Executive Director

 

 

 

Vitamin D Council

 

 

 

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