From Toni Marshall:
Great work, as usual, following the swine flu stories. Thank you. I have some experience with Vitamin D:
High Doses of Vitamin D may cause problems with blood levels of thyroid and potassium as it is an antagonist for both thyroid and potassium.
Doctors are prescribing 50,000 IU of Vitamin D in one dose to be taken once a week for patients who are found to be severely deficient. I was found severely deficient, took cod liver oil, then D3, 1,000 IU a day for months, then decided to increase my D dose to 2,000 IU per day. Since then, still deficient in D, I refused treatment with 50,000 IU of D per week for several months. Here’s why:
My thyroid levels were found to be pathologically low taking 2,000 IU of Vitamin D a day for a few weeks. Recommended Daily Allowance for D is 400 IU a day. Following the blood tests showing severely low thyroid, I stopped dosing with Vitamin D; my thyroid and potassium blood levels stabilized. An excellent nutritionist pointed out the relationship of my low thyroid numbers and D.
Best way to get D is sun in summer above the equator, dosed with care: a few minutes for both front and back of body (depending on skin color, distance from equator, etc) exposing as much skin as possible between 10 am and 2 pm most places in the US, only time UVB is available.
Protect skin from water, no bathing, for 2 hours and the skin transforms UVB into Vitamin D. UVB in careful doses is protective of the skin. UVA is damaging (as is too much UVB at one time). UVA does not have protective qualities nor the ability to produce Vitamin D.
I’m no doctor or researcher, no expert on Vitamin D but my experience with suddenly low then suddenly normal thyroid and potassium levels were helpful toward understanding what an antagonist Vitamin D happens to be to thyroid and potassium.
Krispin Sullivan’s website covers the topic quite well, though my doctor was not impressed, still wanted me on 50,000 IU per week in one dose, despite my prior experience: http://sunlightandvitamind.com/
I trust Sullivan even though she’s a bit of a zealot and says things like, “facts don’t change” which seems odd for her to say since her story about Vitamin D has changed substantially since I first heard about her talk at a Weston A Price Foundation seminar near Washington DC in 2000. I appreciate the fact Sullivan publicly changes her mind. I respect her work researching the literature on Vitamin D, altering her interpretations of Vitamin D literature as new information came to her attention. Publication of Sullivan’s book, Naked at Noon, was promised in 2000 when I first heard of her ideas about D, finally published in 2004 as a $40 manuscript. The trouble with non-fiction, soon as it’s published, you wish you could take some or a lot of it back.
Mercola is pretty good on lots of health topics. I’m not sure if he covers the newly discovered dangers of taking cod liver oil now they have mucked it up by trying to eliminate the smell, ends up having too much Vitamin A, dangerously so.
The sun, in reasonable doses around noon in summer in the US, staying dry for a few hours, with skin color and geographic distance to the equator in mind, is best for getting the right amount of D. An alternative is 200 to 1,000 IU of D3 per day, or several times per week.
Toni Marshall
Arnold, MD