By Ken Peters

There is a constant attempt by the pharmaceutical industry to discourage people from using natural remedies, since they simply can’t abide having competition, especially the type that is safer, cheaper, and more effective than what they offer. The latest example of these disinformation campaigns revolves around diminishing the perceived value of taking vitamin D, and not for the first time.

We Are Going To Need A Better Health MInister

Even politicians are in on this game. In April of 2021, in the midst of the Covid “crisis”, our own Canadian Federal Minister of Health, Patty Hajdu, joined the disinformation party by revealing either her extreme lack of basic health knowledge, or for other nefarious purposes.

During a discussion on the government’s approach to the Covid crisis an independent MP asked the minister if she could “explain why Health Canada’s website states that most Canadians are getting enough vitamin D and doesn’t actively recommend supplementing.”

Our Health Minister responded with: “I would encourage the member opposite to not fall prey to the myriad of fake news articles that are circulating around the Internet.”

Which is of course an absurd thing to say, given that vitamin D is the single most important nutrient that we supplement with, one that is required to prevent almost any disease you can name, including influenza. And not just influenza, the potential to be infected by Covid, and the severity of one’s symptoms, are clearly linked to vitamin D status.

Previously on Refuting Bad Science

In 2008, as vitamin D research was kicking up, Dr.Cedric Garland, professor of preventive medicine at the University of California, San Diego, publicly stated, “I think vitamin D is introducing a golden age in medicine.”

By 2013, the pharmaceutical industry realized it was time to disavow consumers of the idea that a simple vitamin could be of so much value. At that time, this headline made its way around the world: “Vitamin D supplements don’t help boost bone density in healthy adults.”

This “study” concluded that: “The negative findings of our analysis contrast with the widely held perception that vitamin D works directly on bone cells to promote mineralization,” the scientists wrote. “This perception is probably incorrect.”

That deeply flawed study was easy for even a nonscientist like myself to refute, simply by reading the actual study, and pointing out the obvious problems with its conclusion.

In almost half of the studies reviewed, the amount of vitamin D given, less than 800 IU per day, was insufficient to make a difference, especially if the subjects were already D-deficient.

Furthermore, this study ignored one from the previous year, which found that people 65 and older who took 800 to 2,000 IU vitamin D daily, had a 30% lower risk of hip fractures. In that study, it was found that taking less than about 800 IU of vitamin D per day had no effect on bone-fracture risk, when compared with taking a placebo or a calcium supplement alone.

More Disinformation

Time for another visit to the wonderful world of medical disinformation. Watch how an older study is republished to facilitate headlines around the world like this one:

“Prolonged vitamin D supplement use may increase dementia risk”. And this one: “Vitamin D could speed dementia: study”.

See how science can be purchased by pharmaceutical interests in order to turn people away from natural support from supplements, driving them back into the arms of their drug-pushing doctors. Marvel at how a layman, like myself, can dismantle their spurious arguments simply by reading the actual study and doing a little follow up research.

What Does This Study Say?

Published originally in Nov/2021, in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, this study was deemed sufficiently offensive to vitamin D to be worth dusting off and republishing, along with a big media push to get the headline out there.

The actual title of this study is: “Vitamin D supplementation worsens Alzheimer’s progression: Animal model and human cohort studies”, and was republished this year in Journal Aging Cell, July/2022.

The study opens with: “Many recent epidemiological studies have found a link between vitamin D deficiency and risk of dementia. Basing their assumptions on results of observational studies, some people have come to believe that vitamin D deficiency causes AD (Alzheimer’s Disease) and have gone a step further to conclude that vitamin D supplementation might confer neuroprotection against dementia.”

But, it concludes with: “However, those taking a high (>146 capsules of 0.25 mcg per year) and medium (43.8–146 capsules of 0.25 mcg per year) cumulative dose had a 1.80- and 1.27-fold increase in risk of incident dementia, respectively, compared with nonusers, suggesting a potential link between prolonged use of calcitriol and increased risk of dementia in older people.”

And, it gets worse: “The findings of our animal experiments also suggest that the prolonged vitamin D supplementation might actually exacerbate AD.” Not to mention, “Older adults with pre-existing dementia were at 2.17 times higher risk of death if taking vitamin D3 supplements.”

Well, studies like that could really make one question their use of vitamin D supplements. I mean, by doing so, am I increasing my odds of getting dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease, and even dying prematurely?

So, these researchers ended up producing results that “overturned long-term understandings about vitamin D”, however not discounting that vitamin D had “other benefits”. No, the lesson here is that, “the research should remind older adults that prolonged and highdose consumption of vitamin D supplements may be detrimental to their brain health, and that more moderate levels of the vitamin could be derived from sun exposure”.

The Flaw

The astute reader will already be questioning how 0.25 mcg of vitamin D, only 1000 IU, daily for less than half a year could be dangerous. Most of us consider that to be an insufficient and ineffective amount of vitamin D. So what’s up?

The lead author “noted that the data was derived from people who had received prescriptions for calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D3, but not the inactive form which is sold over-the-counter”.

The insanity here is how they casually use the terms calcitriol and vitamin D interchangeably. What is Calcitriol? We refer to vitamin D as a vitamin but, in fact, it actually “comprises a group of very closely interrelated hormonal compounds also related to the other main calciotropic hormone, the parathyroid hormone”. (Calciotropic = “involved in the regulation of calcium in the blood and in bone”.)

So, let’s now look at the cascade of “vitamin” D compounds and where calcitriol fits in, so that we can get a good understanding of the difference between calcitriol and the form of D that we supplement with (cholecalciferol).

Vitamin D is synthesized in human skin after the conversion of 7-dehydrocholesterol (found in your natural skin oils) into cholecalciferol under the influence of UV B radiation (from the sun). Cholecalciferol then turns into calcifediol, which metabolizes into calcitriol.

Calcitriol the Drug

Because vitamin D supplements are building blocks for calcitriol, the body will not produce more of it than required. An end hormonal product like calcitriol, however, is another story, and constitutes a hormone/drug rather than a supplement. And therefore can be dangerous.

Calcitriol, the drug, is a synthetic version of Vitamin D3 and is prescribed to treat calcium deficiency with hypoparathyroidism (decreased functioning of the parathyroid glands) and metabolic bone disease in people with chronic kidney failure.

Given the powerful effect of synthetic calcitriol on the metabolism of calcium in the body we should not be surprised to find that there are serious potential side effects that can accompany its use. In fact, there are approximately 40 side effects listed under the drug Calcitriol on rxlist.com.

Real Scientists Know

Now let’s examine what two other researchers, not in the pocket of pharmaceutical companies, have to say. “Therefore, it must be concluded that cholecalciferol is the only form of vitamin D that should be considered in the context of the nutritional functions of fortification and supplementation.

Thus, calcitriol is not a replacement for vitamin D and, at best, functions solely as a poor replacement for its endocrine function.”

Here, real scientists point out the distinction between vitamin D and calcitriol, that they are clearly not the same thing, and the terms should not be used interchangeably.

We have established that the drug calcitriol works primarily on calcium metabolism, and serves as a poor replacement for natural vitamin D. Well, other research has already established that excess calcium can lead to heart disease. Thus, if we see an increase in mortality, as indicated in the study we are analyzing, it may be due to the effect of this drug on increasing blood calcium levels, which increases risk of cardiovascular events.

And, since abberative calcium functions in the body have also been implicated as a cause of Alzheimer’s Disease8 , we can see a mechanism whereby calcitriol could also be the cause of the increase in incidence of AD in the study in question.

Therefore, it is most likely that the increase in dementia and mortality rates is due to the calcitriol drug used in the study, and has nothing whatsoever to do with actual vitamin D. And, to claim otherwise, as that study does, is a deliberate attack on vitamin D that flies in the face of real science.

Conclusion

If a layman, like myself, can easily refute such studies, where are the rest of the scientists, who could do so with a glance at the full study? Are they afraid for their careers if they stand up to the pharmaceutical overlords, or are they simply a dying breed? I do not fault science. I fear that science has sold out to the point that, in the public realm, it has become nothing but a tool of industry.

So, relax and enjoy your vitamin D supplement with no worries. It will not cause dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, nor premature death, in fact quite the opposite. As always, do your research. Also remember that your face makes almost no vitamin D during sun exposure, and neither does your body if you have showered off your natural skin oil. So, unless you are running around half-naked and dirty in the summer, it is a good idea to supplement in the summer months as well.