Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Reassessing Vitamin D

It has been interesting in recent months to see how previously lauded approaches are sometimes abandoned and positions reversed.  For example Fish Oil used to be prescribed in massive dosages ...(remember the Whole9 Fish Oil Calculator?) but there has been a recognition that this might not be healthy.

Vitamin D was also held up as a wonder drug for long enough too.  Again now there are questions as to the value of it, especially in terms of supplementation.



Pregnant women should avoid taking vitamin D supplements. Substitution appears to raise the risk of children developing a food allergy after birth. This was the conclusion drawn from a new survey carried out by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg in Germany which was published in the February issue of the medical journal Allergy.

I am sure we could question the methodology of the study, but it is interesting nevertheless.

13 comments:

Steven Hamley said...

That's odd. One of the functions of vitamin D is to increase the function of Treg cells. Treg cells help resolve inflammation and play a major role in immunological tolerance (not targetting harmless antigens, for example food proteins (food allergy) and self-antigens (autoimmune disease))

Anonymous said...

A few things, based on the abstract:
1) The study did not look at supplementation effects. It is not clear if the subjects took supplemental vit D and if they did, was it D2 or D3 form.
2) It is not clear what the statistical degree of "positive" correlation was, since it is not stated.
3) Is the higher allergy rate due to high vit D or is it due to the lower T cell numbers? We don't know.

That said, it is interesting to consider that supplemental vit D might be deleterious. I'd like to know more about the details of this paper.

TG

Dann said...

When we come in the world from our Mothers womb we have been given everything we need and it was not a matter of choice . Sure as I am writing this not 100 years before or 100 years hence rejoice and be at peace and do the best with what has been given to us . We are limited at what we receive and what we can give

FeelGoodEating said...

chris,

I'm still a big fan of Vit. D.

pay attention people...hormones are powerful. (vit D)

get your levels tested...
but the majority of us NEED help to get to a normal level of about 46 ngl

From everything i can read...AND UNDERSTAND.....its important to have those levels. Even 35 is stil ok....but many of us walk arond for years with ngl in the teens.

Marc

Anonymous said...

Hi Chris,

The pendulum does keep swinging, doesn't it? Even setting this study aside, there are countless others the contradict ideas that have morphed into conventional wisdom, like low-fat is good, and now it isn't. That sort of thing. Each day we are bombarded with noisy advice. All it does is leave us confused and untrusting of ourselves.

Now that's a bad place to be, as Dann said so well. We have everything we need within, we just forget how to recognize it, and worse, we forget how to trust it. I know because I am probably one of the most guilty parties out there seeking external "wisdom" and guidance, knowing all along I already have all I need.

I appreciate how you continue to point out the complexities, the contradictions, making the simple basics all the sweeter and more appealing.

Take care.

K

FeelGoodEating said...

Dan,
I believe we are not limited as to what we can give....

Marc

Dann said...

Marc
Thank you for a reply

Man cannot give what he does not have and cannot count what is not there.

FeelGoodEating said...

Dan,
But you said we HAVE been given everything we need....
And I couldn't agree more.
As such it is our duty to give away all of it also.....as in unconditional love for example.

I like where you're coming from with this....
Poignant comments from you always. Thank you

Marc

Robert said...

Taking vitamin D in the morning has improved my sleep quality (i.e. I sleep more soundly) and, so my logic goes, if something improves my sleep dramatically, then it's probably good for me. That's not fool-proof logic, but it's probably a decent rule of thumb.

Dann said...

Marc

Well said that is the truth Love we cannot store it we cannot barter it or sell it all we can do is give it away


Thank you Marc :)

Sifter said...

Wasnt there a study not too long ago indicating that fish oil caused stage 4 stomach cancer tumors in rats, surprising even the scientists conducting the study? Point being, fish oil may be very healthy, but fish oil supplements in pill or tablet form may not be.

Same may be said, perhaps, with Vitamin D

DFoltz said...

Probably is true. Death and reproductive failure from parasite and infectious disease used to be much larger concerns than allergies, especially given that the human lifestyle used to have a much lower inflammatory load than it does now, due to better foot/sleep/social-life/exercise)

A quick skim of abstracts on google shows that parasites are more common in summer; bacterial growth on foodstuffs proceeds faster in warm weather...

Anonymous said...

Funny, since I just read this stating the exact opposite... http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/vitamin-d-deficiency-linked-to-allergy-in-infants/