Vitamin D Deficiency Study Raises New Questions About Disease And Supplements

Science Daily ^ | 1-27-2008 | Autoimmunity Research Foundation

[blam]

Vitamin D Deficiency Study Raises New Questions About Disease And Supplements

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2008) — Low blood levels of vitamin D have long been associated with disease, and the assumption has been that vitamin D supplements may protect against disease. However, this new research demonstrates that ingested vitamin D is immunosuppressive and that low blood levels of vitamin D may be actually a result of the disease process. Supplementation may make the disease worse.

In a new report Trevor Marshall, Ph.D., professor at Australia’s Murdoch University School of Biological Medicine and Biotechnology, explains how increased vitamin D intake affects much more than just nutrition or bone health. The paper explains how the Vitamin D Nuclear Receptor (VDR) acts in the repression or transcription of hundreds of genes, including genes associated with diseases ranging from cancers to multiple sclerosis.

"The VDR is at the heart of innate immunity, being responsible for expression of most of the antimicrobial peptides, which are the body’s ultimate response to infection," Marshall said.

"Molecular biology is now forcing us to re-think the idea that a low measured value of vitamin D means we simply must add more to our diet. Supplemental vitamin D has been used for decades, and yet the epidemics of chronic disease, such as heart disease and obesity, are just getting worse."

"Our disease model has shown us why low levels of vitamin D are observed in association with major and chronic illness," Marshall added. "Vitamin D is a secosteroid hormone, and the body regulates the production of all it needs. In fact, the use of supplements can be harmful, because they suppress the immune system so that the body cannot fight disease and infection effectively."

Marshall's research has demonstrated how ingested vitamin D can actually block VDR activation, the opposite effect to that of Sunshine. Instead of a positive effect on gene expression, Marshall reported that his own work, as well as the work of others, shows that quite nominal doses of ingested vitamin D can suppress the proper operation of the immune system. It is a different metabolite, a secosteroid hormone called 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, which activates the VDR to regulate the expression of the genes. Under conditions that exist in infection or inflammation, the body automatically regulates its production of all the vitamin D metabolites, including 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the metabolite which is usually measured to indicate vitamin D status.

Vitamin D deficiency, long interpreted as a cause of disease, is more likely the result of the disease process, and increasing intake of vitamin D often makes the disease worse. "Dysregulation of vitamin D has been observed in many chronic diseases, including many thought to be autoimmune," said J.C. Waterhouse, Ph.D., lead author of a book chapter on vitamin D and chronic disease.

"We have found that vitamin D supplementation, even at levels many consider desirable, interferes with recovery in these patients."

"We need to discard the notion that vitamin D affects a disease state in a simple way," Marshall said. "Vitamin D affects the expression of over 1,000 genes, so we should not expect a simplistic cause and effect between vitamin D supplementation and disease. The comprehensive studies are just not showing that supplementary vitamin D makes people healthier."

Journal reference: Marshall TG. Vitamin D discovery outpaces FDA decision making. Bioessays. 2008 Jan 15;30(2):173-182 [Epub ahead of print] Online ISSN: 1521-1878 Print ISSN: 0265-9247 PMID: 18200565

Adapted from materials provided by Autoimmunity Research Foundation, via AlphaGalileo.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Supplemental vitamin D has been used for decades, and yet the epidemics of chronic disease, such as heart disease and obesity, are just getting worse.

Gosh, all this time I thought it was smoking, drinking, overeating and a sedentary lifestyle.

[blam]

Low Vitamin E Levels Associated With Physical Decline In Elderly

[caveat emptor]

Low Vitamin E Levels Associated With Physical Decline In Elderly

However, further research may be needed to show whether low Vitamin E levels are the result of a disease process, and whether taking Vitamin E supplements can supress the immune system, thus making the disease worse.

[TChad]

Interesting.

[devere]

I am very skeptical of the theory propounded by this article. I take 2000 IU of vitamin D every day during the winter, and I haven’t missed a day’s work due to illness since November 1991. If my immune system is “suppressed”, it’s a surprise to me. Dr. J. J. Cannell reports that when an influenza epidemic swept through his mental hospital, only a ward of patients receiving daily 2000 IU vitamin D supplements were immune:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1929828/posts

The weakness of the Dr. Marshall’s theory is that it is based on speculative reasoning rather than sound epidemiology.

[freeangel]

Why do I get the feeling that this is “evidence” that the government would like in order to enact a new tax on vitamins?

[ThePythonicCow]

Trevor Marshall's home page is at: http://trevormarshall.com/ .

Note there is a link on it to the actual text of this paper, where it says:

New paper: Vit D discovery outpaces FDA decision making.
  FullText Preprint available here

---

Here's the contents of the Abstract for this paper, from one of the above links to Wiley InterScience:

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Vitamin D discovery outpaces FDA decision making

Trevor G. Marshall ^*

School of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Murdoch University, Western Australia

email: Trevor G. Marshall

^*Correspondence to Trevor G. Marshall, Autoimmunity Research Foundation, California Foundation, 3423 Hill Canyon Ave. Thousand Oaks, California 91360.

Abstract

The US FDA currently encourages the addition of vitamin D to milk and cereals, with the aim of reducing rickets in children and osteoporosis in adults. However, vitamin D not only regulates the expression of genes associated with calcium homeostasis, but also genes associated with cancers, autoimmune disease, and infection. It does this by controlling the activation of the vitamin D receptor (VDR), a type 1 nuclear receptor and DNA transcription factor. Molecular biology is rapidly coming to an understanding of the multiplicity of roles played by the VDR, but clinical medicine is having difficulty keeping up with the pace of change. For example, the FDA recently proposed a rule change that will encourage high levels of vitamin D to be added to even more foods, so that the manufacturers can claim those foods reduce the risk of osteoporosis. The FDA docket does not review one single paper detailing the transcriptional activity of vitamin D, even though, on average, one new paper a day is being published on that topic. Nor do they review whether widespread supplementation with vitamin D, an immunomodulatory secosteroid, might predispose the population to immune dysfunction. This BioEssay explores how lifelong supplementation of the food chain with vitamin D might well be contributing to the current epidemics of obesity and chronic disease. BioEssays 30:173-182, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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Here's the contents of his home page, from another link above:

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TREVOR MARSHALL, PhD

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3423 Hill Canyon Ave,
Thousand Oaks, CA 91360, USA
phone: (805)492-3693

 

Click here for a List of Published Scientific Papers

Current Presentations:

New paper: Vit D discovery outpaces FDA decision making.
  FullText Preprint available here

'Metagenomics 2007', UCSD - Abstract Presentation, 11-13 July 2007

'Days of Molecular Medicine' - Abstract Presentation, 22-24 May, 2007

Lecture tour of Australian Universities:
"Molecular mechanisms driving the current epidemic of chronic disease"
   John Curtin School of Medical Research, Wed 15 Nov, 2:30pm
    Finkel Lecture Theatre, ANU
   The University of Melbourne, Thurs 16 Nov, 12 noon
     Bio21 Institute, Building 102, 30 Flemington Road

AAEM 2006 Annual Meeting - Faculty Presentation, Oct 27, 2006

Autoimmunity Research Foundation, 2006 Conference, June 17/18, 2006

Days of Molecular Medicine 2006, Stockholm, May 24-27, 2006

FDA CDER 'Visiting Professor' Presentation, March 7, 2006

"Recovering from Chronic Disease", Chicago, March 12/13, 2005

Quick Links:

List of Published Scientific Papers

Here are the details on the WiFi 802.11b/g Slotted Waveguide Antennas

Here are the details on the WiFi 802.11b/g Biquad Antenna/Primestar feed

Link to my website/repository for the NEC2 Antenna Simulators

Articles written for BYTE.com

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Prof. Marshall is currently a Director of the Autoimmunity Research Foundation, an Adjunct Professor of the School of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Murdoch University (Western Australia), and a past Chair of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society of the Ventura IEEE. He is the Patron of the Australian Autoimmunity Foundation.

Based in the heart of Southern California's "Digital Coast", Dr. Marshall is involved in technologies ranging from Immunology, Biomedicine, Autoimmunity, WiFi Security and Internet Infrastructure through RF, Hardware, Software, Audio/Video and Prepress. Previous speaking engagements have included COMDEX, Microprocessor Forums, WLAN/WiFi conferences, and International presentations in a variety of Medical Specialties.

Pasteur once said "In science, chance favors the prepared mind," and Dr. Marshall's career has certainly taken advantage of the many twisty passages in the fields of both Medical Science and Engineering. The best way to find out what he is doing right now is to look at the list of current presentations (above) or browse his recently published scientific papers.

[ThePythonicCow]

Why do I get the feeling that this is “evidence” that the government would like in order to enact a new tax on vitamins?

Well ... while I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, and believe some of them myself, that's not the conspiracy theory I'd apply here.

My take is two-fold:

• He actually raises a good question, whether the low levels of Vitamin D seen in disease are the cause (current main stream hypothesis) or the result (alternative hypothesis) of the disease.

  As he points, Vitamin D is not your usual vitamin. It is not some simple substance that the body breaks down and uses to build the myriad of substances it needs. Rather Vitamin D is a secosteroid (like a steroid but with a broken ring). It directly interacts in complex ways with many reactions within the body.

  The body makes its own Vitamin D, and as with any such non-essential nutrient of complex affect, one always has to ask whether supplementing it throws more body processes out of whack than it improves.

• The main stream media is going to lap this one up. They love articles showing that vitamins are bad for you. That's because Big Pharma would love to kill off the vitamin and related health nut industries (such as the raw milk I love -- see my FR home page and my FR screen name;).

  Any article that makes taking Vitamins useless, or even better harmful, gets the full support of Big Pharma, who can push popularizations of such articles on the willing (greedy and leftist) main stream media with great affect.

  They have already mortally wounded the Vitamin industry in parts of Europe, and are trying to do so world wide, by some treaty we have signed that I don't recall the name of offhand.

Bottom line, after my preliminary look-see:

1. The article is good.
2. Vitamin D supplementation is more suspect.
3. The article will be well publicized.
4. It will increase the risk that the FDA tries to further limit the Vitamin industry.

[ThePythonicCow]

The weakness of the Dr. Marshall’s theory is that it is based on speculative reasoning rather than sound epidemiology.

Argument by innuendo, I'm afraid. Both reasoning and epidemiology are essential tools, as I suspect you agree.

Have you seen the research that ambulance drivers cause automobile accidents? There is an irrefutable statistical correlation between one and the other <grin>?

Thanks by the way for your link to:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1929828/posts

Good link.

[ThePythonicCow]

Reading the paper itself ( Vitamin D discovery outpaces FDA decision making.) I see that this paper follows a presentation that Trevor G. Marshall made to the FDA, in an effort to get them to not change their rules to allow even higher levels of Vitamin D supplementation in foods.

In several ways, the paper raises doubts about Vitamin D supplements in our food supply.

It's another attack on Vitamins.

[A Navy Vet]

Just one more instance of science not knowing all. Here's some more:

Milk is bad - milk is good (calcium) and helps in weight loss; cheese is bad - cheese is a good source of protein; red meat is bad - red meat is an excellent source of protein; all fats are bad, but now they contribute to a mans health, vitality, and testosterone levels.
Cholesteral is bad (even though its naturally produced in the liver); now it's about triglycerides; sticky blood palets cause clots, but too thin blood causes internal bleeding and ulcers.

The planet is cooling in the 1970's; the planet is warming in the 2000's; recent reports are the planet temps have levelled off in the last 10 years.

Anyone remember alcore (sp) that almost decimated the apple industry back in the '70's? Turned out wrong.

Population growth will cause mass starvation world-wide. Didn't happen.

Remember themaldihide (sp) that was the dain of all of creation? Now they are using it for chem-therapy.

Pluto is one of the nine planets in our Solar Sytem; Pluto is no longer considered a planet.

The 2006 and 2007 hurricane seasons would be the worst on record due to global warming; the 2006 and 2007 hurricane seasons were relatively mild, again, due to global warming; the artic is melting - Greenland's ice sheet is building.

My all time favorite: Boys and Girls are born with the same blank slate and are a product of their upbringing and environment according to socialogists in the late "60's and early '70's. Flash forward a decade and Newsweek announces boys and girls have different mental make up. As if any parent can't see the obvious difference in their childrens' gender differences.

Here's some more from our oh-so-wise sages of early men of learning: Apollo rides sun-chariots around the World; the dead have to cross the river Styx; little civilization exists beyond Rome's empire; the Sun revolves around the Earth; go far enough to the West and you will fall off the planet; the Plaque was a god's revenge; earthquakes, volcanice eruptions, tornadoes, hurricanes were also god's revenge.

Lest I forget: Some ancient primitive persons wrote some books that was coalesced into what we know as the Bible. These were unknowlegable people of the time who thought a meteor in the sky was an Angel. They were the original flat-earth believers and had no understanding of the physics of the universe beyond their own simplistic viewpoints.

Almost every day our knowledge grows and finds our prior beliefs have been wrong. Even Einstein has been proven wrong according to some modern day physics. We are children in our understanding of the Universe and even our own Earthly history.

Bottom line: Scientific truth is ever changing. It is not absolute because we just don't know all. Vitamin D may be good...haha!. Then again, it may cause whales to uprise against mankind.

[djreece]

marking

[ThePythonicCow]

It's another attack on Vitamins.

Correction. It may well be taken as another attack on Vitamins, in the popular press (thanks to Big Pharma money and influence.)

But it was clearly intended as a specific concern with Vitamin D, which closely interacts with complex ways with the human immune system. He raises important questions as to whether we should be including Vitamin D in our common food supply as much as we do.

The work that Marshall is doing on the causes of autoimmune diseases, as visible on his blog at http://www.marshallprotocol.com/forum39/ is very impressive, for his energy, his attitude, his talent and his understanding. I wish Mr. Marshall well in his endeavors.

[ThePythonicCow]

Marshall himself suffers from Sarcoidosis, an autoimmune disease which is often fatal within a decade or two. Sarcoidosis is characterized by boils on the lungs and failure of the lymph nodes. He came down with it in the 1970's. He began his current studies in an effort to understand his own disease.

From the Wiki page for Trevor Marshall:

Trevor G. Marshall, PhD (b. 1948, Adelaide, South Australia), is a biomedical researcher. Over the last few years, he has developed a medical treatment, called the 'Marshall Protocol', which uses low-dose antibiotics, an angiotensin II receptor antagonist (being used as a VDR agonist, and avoidance of Vitamin D, to treat a class of chronic diseases, which he argues are caused by L-form or cell wall deficient bacteria. His protocol is being used by physicians worldwide to treat a variety of chronic diseases. Waterhouse reported these include include Sarcoidosis, Fibromyalgia, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Marshall first began to suspect Vitamin D when he noticed that his condition got worse with more sunlight. Notice that his Marshall Protocol includes Vitamin D avoidance.

One of the finest friends of my life, a woman named Linda, died of Lupus, another autoimmune disease. She too reacted negatively to sunlight, as is typical with Lupus victims.

Thank-you, blam, for posting this. It has led to a better understanding than I ever expected to have of such autoimmune diseases.

[Wonder Warthog]

"The body makes its own Vitamin D, and as with any such non-essential nutrient of complex affect, one always has to ask whether supplementing it throws more body processes out of whack than it improves."

There's one MAJOR flaw in this argument---"the body makes its own Vitamin D" AS LONG AS YOU GET SUFFICIENT SUNLIGHT. The problem is, most people do NOT get sufficient sunlight for the body to do the synthesis.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

*Ping

[ThePythonicCow]

That sunlight is needed is not a MAJOR flaw in the sense that it disproves Marshall's proposal. Rather it's just one explanation for what we observe.

Granted, it is by far the generally accepted explanation. One of many papers explaining this, in agreement with this widely accepted position is: Vitamin D: importance in the prevention of cancers, type 1 diabetes, heart disease, and osteoporosis, by Michael F. Holick

Marshall is presenting an alternative hypothesis, which explains the same epidemiological evidence, and (in his view) better fits the biomechanical models.

It will take a careful understanding of the underlying biological mechanisms and the epidemiology, in concert, to unravel these puzzles.

[Ladysmith]

Mark

[Bobibutu]

“I take 2000 IU of vitamin D every day during the winter”

So do I - and ditto - since I started.