Low Toxin Lifestyle Shannon's story of "Vitamin D" toxicity

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Story of Vitamin D Toxicity

How much Vitamin D should I take? This is still the looming question, and it’s time to address it. First, though, imagine that someone in a public forum online asked me, “How much metoprolol (a common blood pressure medication) should I take?” It would be clear that I could not give a real...

www.devaboone.com

Good article on the dangers of "vitamin" D.

Took her 6 months to resolve the calcium toxicity that resulted from this "vitamin". 5000 IU is the dose Ray Peat usually recommended people to take. Very problematic, especially on the background of a high milk, high calcium diet. Cholecalciferol, taken orally, works in the intestine to potentiate calcium uptake, something that does not happen with sunbathing. Words have meaning, and neither retinol nor cholecalciferol should have ever been classified as a "vitamin". It is destroying the life's of millions of people.

"In the fall of 2018, Shannon R. was the special education director for a large Arizona school district. Normally energetic and expressive, the otherwise healthy 38-year-old began having an odd and disturbing symptom: difficulty speaking. Her husband and two boys would ask her questions, and though understanding the question, she was unable to formulate the words to respond.

Milder problems had started over the summer, when she felt more tired than usual. As the months passed, new symptoms appeared: palpitations, insomnia, anxiety, along with cognitive deficits – “like my brain wouldn’t function,” she recalled. Her heart rate, normally in the 60s, now often stayed in the 90s, even while in bed. She barely slept at night and lost nearly 50 pounds. By mid-semester, she was often unable to work. At around 1 AM one October morning, she was taken to the emergency room for a racing heart. When there, she had difficulty responding to the doctors’ and nurses’ questions. After a full workup, the doctors had no explanation, so they resorted to what doctors often reach for when confronted with mystery ailments: psychiatric illness. "

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"Eventually we worked out what happened with Shannon: In 2013 she was diagnosed with mild osteopenia, a thinning of the bones that can be a precursor to osteoporosis. Her Vitamin D was low at the time, so her physician started her on over-the-counter Vitamin D supplementation at 5000 international units (IUs) daily. Five years later, she was still on this dose, and her blood Vitamin D level had risen to 79 ng/ml. This level is within what many labs call the normal range, between 30 and 100 ng/ml, but levels above 70 are almost always a result of high dose supplementation, and I have seen toxicity with levels between 70 and 100 ng/ml. (A better “normal range” based on what I have seen would probably be between 30 and 60.) Vitamin D builds up over time, so the longer someone is on a high dose, the more likely she is to develop toxicity. Shannon’s calcium levels began rising in the fall of 2018, when her severe symptoms developed.

Ironically, Shannon started to recover because she became too sick to worry about taking her vitamins, and stopped taking Vitamin D in October. It often takes many months for high Vitamin D levels to drop, and it took six months for Shannon’s level to fall into the 50s. As it fell, her calcium level gradually started to normalize, and her symptoms slowly resolved. By May, she was starting to feel like herself again."

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"Shannon agrees that Vitamin D should be treated like a medication. “It’s a hormone!” she exclaimed. “If I had to take ‘Hormone D’, I would have questioned my doctor about why I needed it.” Shannon is now committed to educating others about Vitamin D. "

It was Dr. Hollick who normalized cholecalciferol levels of 100ng/ml as desirable.

Since 2011, Dr. Holick’s advocacy has been embraced by the wellness-industrial complex. Gwyneth Paltrow’s website, Goop, cites his writing. Dr. Mehmet Oz has described vitamin D as “the No. 1 thing you need more of,” telling his audience that it can help them avoid heart disease, depression, weight gain, memory loss and cancer. And Oprah Winfrey’s website tells readers that, “knowing your vitamin D levels might save your life.” Mainstream doctors have also urged Americans to get more of the hormone, including Dr. Walter Willett, a widely respected professor at Harvard Medical School.

Today, seven years after the dueling academic findings, the leaders of the National Academy report are struggling to be heard above the clamor for more sunshine pills. “There isn’t a ‘pandemic,’” said A. Catharine Ross, a nutritional sciences professor at Penn State and chairwoman of the committee that wrote the report, in an interview. “There isn’t a widespread problem.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/business/vitamin-d-michael-holick.html

In reality, all the observational studies have shown that the healthiest people have cholecalciferol levels of around 25 ng/ml.