Vitamin D
[back] Nutritional Medicine

[Good sources of vitamin D are butter, cheese, cream, yogurt, milk, eggs and sunlight (see: Sunscreens).  Recommended daily intake levels have been set low to create disease, see RDA and also Food pyramid.]

See: Infection & nutrition  RDA

[2009 Aug] Setting the people up to die: A conspiracy of silence about swine flu natural remedies by Mike Adams

[2009] Institute of Medicine Has Announced the Next Vit D Food and Nutrition Board. Guess Who is Left Out?

[2006] Cod Liver Oil: The Number One Superfood by Krispin Sullivan, CN

Butter, Vitamin E and the ‘X‘ Factor of Dr. Price by Royal Lee

The Healing Power of Sunlight and Vitamin D: an exclusive interview with Dr. Michael Holick
What’s really remarkable is that vitamin D deficiency is epidemic throughout the entire United States, through all age groups. And I’ll give you some examples. It’s well known that elders throughout the United States are at high risk. And upwards of 40-60% are at risk for vitamin D deficiency. But we also now realize that even younger adults that are otherwise active and who may be always wearing sunscreen before they go outdoors, or they never see the light of day because they’re working all the time. When we did a study in Boston, we found that students and doctors 18-29 years of age, at the end of the winter, 32% were vitamin D deficient.  More shocking, though, was that we also looked at young girls (working with Dr Sullivan and Dr Rosen in Maine) -- and these are Caucasian girls ages 9-11 - and we found that 48% were vitamin D deficient at the end of the winter. And 17% remained vitamin D deficient at the end of the summer because of wearing all the sun protection.
    So we did a study at our hospital, and we looked at women coming in and giving birth, and we measured their vitamin D levels -- their 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels, and the infants’ 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels at birth. 49 infant-mother pairs were looked at, mostly African-American and Hispanic but some Caucasian as well. 76% of mothers were severely vitamin D deficient. 81% of infants were severely vitamin D deficient.
.............Even though I was unfortunately fired from my position in dermatology because my views on some sensible sun exposure were counter to the American Academy of Dermatology and some of the so-called leaders in the dermatology field, .....I think that there’s no question that the American Academy of Dermatology is well-funded by the sunscreen industry, and I’m sure that that plays a role in this (the idea that sun should be avoided.)
..............There was a study done in Minnesota by Dr Plotnikoff and what he showed was that, he looked at over 150 individuals. And we’re talking about children ages 10+ and adults up to the age of 65, presenting at a Minnesota hospital in the wintertime, complaining of muscle aches and pains and bone pain. Many of these, especially young women in their 20s, were given Motrin or some type of over the counter drug, or even a prescription strength anti-inflammatory drug (NSAIDs) because the doctors couldn’t figure out what was going on. 93% of that entire group of children and adults complaining of bone pain or muscle pain were vitamin D deficient.

[Letter BMJ 2006] Can influenza vaccine overcome vitamin D deficiency? If flu shots are effective - and if more older Americans have been getting them - why have more older Americans been dying of the flu?.....Perhaps the elderly, virtually all of whom are vitamin D deficient, would be better off getting an injection of vitamin D in the fall, rather than a flu shot?

Re: Lack of Vitamin D - The Real Reason Flu Hits In Winter

[Vitamin D] How You Can Successfully Treat and Prevent TB Without Drugs

[Media Nov 2006] Theory suggests that a shortage of vitamin D triggers outbreaks of flu

Epidemic Influenza And Vitamin D By J. J. Cannell

Epidemic Influenza and Vitamin D, In 1981, R. Edgar Hope-Simpson proposed that a ‘seasonal stimulus’ intimately associated with solar radiation explained the remarkable seasonality of epidemic influenza. Solar radiation triggers robust seasonal vitamin D production in the skin; vitamin D deficiency is common in the winter, and activated vitamin D, 1,25(OH)₂D, a steroid hormone, has profound effects on human immunity. 1,25(OH)₂D acts as an immune system modulator, preventing excessive expression of inflammatory cytokines and increasing the ‘oxidative burst’ potential of macrophages. Perhaps most importantly, it dramatically stimulates the expression of potent anti-microbial peptides, which exist in neutrophils, monocytes, natural killer cells, and in epithelial cells lining the respiratory tract where they play a major role in protecting the lung from infection. Volunteers inoculated with live attenuated influenza virus are more likely to develop fever and serological evidence of an immune response in the winter. Vitamin D deficiency predisposes children to respiratory infections. Ultraviolet radiation (either from artificial sources or from sunlight) reduces the incidence of viral respiratory infections, as does cod liver oil (which contains vitamin D). An interventional study showed that vitamin D reduces the incidence of respiratory infections in children. We conclude that vitamin D, or lack of it, may be Hope-Simpson's ‘seasonal stimulus’. (Accepted August 5 2006)

We proposed that annual fluctuations in vitamin D levels explain the seasonality of influenza........which cause recurrent and predictable wintertime vitamin D deficiency, predispose human populations to influenza epidemics. We raised the possibility that influenza is a symptom of vitamin D deficiency in the same way that an unusual form of pneumonia (pneumocystis carinii) is a symptom of AIDS. That is, we theorized that George Bernard Shaw was right when he said, "the characteristic microbe of a disease might be a symptom instead of a cause."  Epidemic Influenza And Vitamin D By J. J. Cannell

[The Vitamin D Newsletter December, 2007] Does vitamin D prevent cancer?    Both Canadians and Americans are shocked to think their doctors care about money, are in the illness business.  In some ways people think of their doctors like they do their local public schools.  They know medicine is a business and know doctors do things for money but they don't think their own doctors do. 
      The fact is that doctors, hospitals, regional cancer centers, and the cancer drug manufacturers are all in business to make money and all of these businesses make money off the sick, not off the well.  Just a fact, but, as Aldous Huxley once observed, "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
       Vitamin D will save the Canadian government enormous amounts of money but will cause widespread economic disruption in the USA.  Do the physicians leading the American Cancer Society have strong economic ties to the cancer industry in the form of patents, stock options, and consulting fees?  If so, what do you expect them to do?  What would you do?  It's simple.  You would believe what you have to believe, what you need to believe, that is, anything with the word "vitamin" in it is simply the latest Laetrile. 
       Look to Canada, not the USA, to lead the way. Dr. Lichtenfeld, implied the Canadian Cancer Society has acted precipitously in recommending that all Canadians take 1,000 IU of vitamin D daily.  He implied that Americans should placidly wait until more randomized controlled trials, such as Lappe JM, et al (above), accumulate before they address their vitamin D deficiency. That is, nothing should be done until more randomized controlled trials prove vitamin D prevents cancer, one randomized controlled trial is not enough; epidemiological studies are not enough, animal studies are not enough, multiple anti-cancer mechanisms of action are not enough?  If that is his position, I challenge him to point to one human randomized controlled trial that proves smoking is dangerous? If he cannot, then he must admit that the American Cancer Society's position on smoking is entirely derived from epidemiological studies, animal studies, and a demonstrable mechanism of action, not on human randomized controlled trials?  Vitamin D not only has hundreds of epidemiological studies, thousand of animal studies, and at least four anti-cancer mechanisms of action, vitamin D deficiency has something smoking does not have, it has a high quality randomized controlled trial.  If future randomized controlled trials fail to show vitamin D prevents cancer - and Dr. Lichtenfeld better hope they do - he can have the satisfaction of saying "I told you so."  If future randomized controlled trials confirm vitamin D prevents cancer, then he needs to look at his hands, the red he sees is the blood of needless cancer deaths.

1. Vitamin D is produced by your skin in response to exposure to ultraviolet radiation from natural sunlight.
2. The healing rays of natural sunlight (that generate vitamin D in your skin) cannot penetrate glass. So you don’t generate vitamin D when sitting in your car or home.
3. It is nearly impossible to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from your diet. Sunlight exposure is the only reliable way to generate vitamin D in your own body.
4. A person would have to drink ten tall glasses of vitamin D fortified milk each day just to get minimum levels of vitamin D into their diet.
5. The further you live from the equator, the longer exposure you need to the sun in order to generate vitamin D. Canada, the UK and most U.S. states are far from the equator.
6. People with dark skin pigmentation may need 20 - 30 times as much exposure to sunlight as fairskinned people to generate the same amount of vitamin D. That’s why prostate cancer is epidemic among black men -- it’s a simple, but widespread, sunlight deficiency.
7. Sufficient levels of vitamin D are crucial for calcium absorption in your intestines. Without sufficient vitamin D, your body cannot absorb calcium, rendering calcium supplements useless.
8. Chronic vitamin D deficiency cannot be reversed overnight: it takes months of vitamin D supplementation and sunlight exposure to rebuild the body’s bones and nervous system.
9. Even weak sunscreens (SPF=8) block your body’s ability to generate vitamin D by 95%. This is how sunscreen products actually cause disease -- by creating a critical vitamin deficiency in the body.
10. It is impossible to generate too much vitamin D in your body from sunlight exposure: your body will self-regulate and only generate what it needs.
11. If it hurts to press firmly on your sternum, you may be suffering from chronic vitamin D deficiency right now.
12. Vitamin D is “activated” in your body by your kidneys and liver before it can be used.
13. Having kidney disease or liver damage can greatly impair your body’s ability to activate circulating vitamin D.
14. The sunscreen industry doesn’t want you to know that your body actually needs sunlight exposure because that realization would mean lower sales of sunscreen products.
15. Even though vitamin D is one of the most powerful healing chemicals in your body, your body makes it absolutely free. No prescription required. The Healing Power of Sunlight and Vitamin D: an exclusive interview with Dr. Michael Holick

Get vitamin D not the flu shot.  Dr. John Cannell, a cardiac surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington, recommends avoiding the flu shot and taking vitamin D instead.