Now it's Vitamin D...

Several news stories popped up about this today.

article said...
MONTREAL — Vitamin D, touted as the "sunshine cure," might also prevent and fight Crohn's disease, suggests a new study by Montreal researchers.

[...]

"Our data suggests for the first time that Vitamin D deficiency can contribute to Crohn's disease," said John White, an endocrinologist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre.

www.vancouversun.com/health/Vitamin+fight+Crohn+disease+Study/2494571/story.html

Sunshine what's sunshine? (a member from British Columbia).

pb4 said...
No, not "now it's vitamin D"...check out this link, dated from 1985, it's been long known...

http://gut.bmj.com/content/26/11/1197.abstract

That article seems to say this:

article said...
It is suggested that undernourished Crohn's patients who have high levels of disease activity are at risk of vitamin D deficiency, and attempts should be made to improve their vitamin D nutrition.

not that vitamin D deficiency could cause or worsen Crohn's.

Here's another interesting article from 2000 regarding the role of CD, genetics and vitamin D....

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1728007/

I love going back and reading stuff from researchers from ages ago to present and see the discoveries and connections they make the more they learn about this disease...just wish they could learn things quicker and find us a cure already.

:)

I only just started taking vitamin D...now I have my full "A, B12, C-calcium ascorbate and D" part of the alphabet of vitamins covered LOL!

:)

I wonder if there's also a higher rate of Crohn's in places like Argentina. Buenos Aires is a ways south at almost 35 degrees latitude.

50 000 IU,....I hope you mean micrograms...

10 000 IU micrograms is a normal dose, so if you are very low or have none, you might be suggested to use 50 0000 micrograms. I use Vitamin D from fish liver oil, getting omega 3 at the same time. Omega 3 has to be at a ration 3:1 to omega 6. So be careful getting much less omega 6 than 3.

And vitamin D3 deficiency could also the cause of MS, Multiple Sclerotis, and they suspect even a lot of other autoimmune diseases have the same origin, a lack of vit d3./Bee

Post Edited (BeeSting) : 1/29/2010 1:30:39 PM (GMT-7)

remember that vitamin D is fat soluble. this is why you find it in fatty foods, like fish oil, cod liver oil, real/whole milk, liver, eggs, sardines, fatty fish. so if you are drinking fat free or reduced fat dairy (ie milk, yogurt, cheese), you are not assimilating the fortified vitamin D that was put back into the product after it was pasteurized that killed the natural enzymes, probiotics, and nutrients. it is worse if you are drinking soy milk (yuck). calcium absorption w/o vitamin D is very little, like 10%. taken with vitamin D it is like 80-90%. but the trick is knowing how much calcium you are actually getting, meaning you want the dosage on the bottle given as "elemental" calcium. if it doesnt give you that, then you do not know exactly how much you are getting/should be taking of that product. vitamin D deficiency is only suspect right now as being the cause of many diseases. who knows if it is the only cause, but i would not be surprised if it is a contributing factor in a lot of things, just how it is looking like the deficiency of omega 3 EFA and high intake of omega 6 EFA is turning out to be. i believe it is a good thing to add this vitamin to the list of stuff to take. remember: if you are deficient in a vitamin, you will get sick (ie lack of B vitamins causes peligra (sp?) and beri beri while lack of vitamin C causes scurvy), but too much of a vitamin/nutrient can also have disastrous effects and be toxic...

the ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 is unknown and is under much debate. it is reported as 6:1, 1:1 and even 1:4 and 1:6. omega 3 and omega 6 compete for the same receptor sites. a western diet has its processed foods very high in omega 6 and low in omega 3. they are both essential fatty acids, so you do need both in your diet. but because you can assume you eat incorrectly and thus have a major imbalance (this has been reported at 20:1 up to 50:1 omega 6 to omega 3) that the best thing you can do is reduce intake of processed foods and vegetable oils which are high in omega 6s and eat more fatty fish, grass fed beef, and take a cod liver/fish oil/krill oil supplement. this way you are actively decreasing your omega 6s while increasing your omega 3s. omega 3s are best obtained from animal sources (ie meat) as it is in a bio-available form. the plant form, ALA, from say flax seeds, must be converted by the body before it can be used so it is not as potent. and why doesnt any one here talk about omega 9s, CLA or GLA? suggested reading: the queen of fats by susan allport and anything by mary enig.

there is conflicting research about taking vitamin A and D together. some say D helps in the assimilation of A, while some says A blocks the assimilation of D as they both compete for the same receptor sites with A being more readily absorbed than D. something to look into for those of you taking cod liver oil supplements as it has a good dose of both A and D...

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/177447.php

springthyme said...
I know this is not a poll, BUT I was just diagnosed with a very low amount of Vitamin D. I was put on 50,000 IU of Vit D a week for one month. My latests labs show that it helped and I am back up to where I should be.


I take a Vit. D now of 1000 IU on a daily basis.

My vit d level was at a 6. I, too, have been taking 50,000 units a week. I am on week 5 tomorrow. I haven't noticed a difference.

e. coli is generally harmless, but it should not be in your urine. our stomach acid will kill it. did you know you have e. coli in your gut right now? e. coli has a bad rap cos of the methods employed by conventional cattle ranchers - by feeding a cow corn in lieu of grass, its natural food, you create an environment in the cows stomach that encourages the growth of e. coli. when slaughtered, this e. coli can get on your food in the slaughterhouse and when packaged. cows dont like corn - they get sick. to combat the sickness from that and their confined, filthy environment and whatever may be caused by the growth hormones they are given, cows are fed antibiotics. over use of antibiotics will eventually create resistant strains (ask the russians about their resistant TB strains they developed...oops...). so anyhoo, naturally e. coli found a way to be resistant to the acid stomach of the cow and antibiotics (some one, some the other, others both). so now we have to worry about e. coli contamination. the form to really be afraid of is e. coli 0157. this has evolved in the unnatural acid gut of the corn fed cattle. and this is why you need to at least sear steak and cook ground beef thoroughly. funny though how if a cow is switched from a diet of corn to grass before slaughtered for min of 5 days (this is called "grass finished", NOT "grass fed"), the number of e. coli bacteria is virtually killed off as the cow's stomach acid returns to its natural acidity (remember greens are alkaline forming). too bad grass costs too much...

oh, and mad cow disease is caused by making the herbivore cow into an omnivore or worse, a cannibal. have you wondered where the unused parts of the cow go? how about fish bones, feathers, egg shells, blood, road kill and other animal parts? they become part of the feed for cows, chickens and fish (pellets for farmed fish). so yeah, some cows are being fed ground up cow parts. this causes the "holes" in the spongy parts of the brain.

so again, red meat is fine to eat if it is organic grass fed cos you dont have problems with e. coli, mad cow disease, growth hormones, antibiotics, etc etc. it is a way way better protein source for you than whey or soy, a good source of iron and CLA (an omega 6 EFA you do want) and b vitamins. a grass fed cow is also as lean as a boneless skinless chicken breast. yes it is. the fat in a cow is barely tilted to the saturated side, but once cooked, the mono-unsaturated fat dominates as the saturated is what drips off and it is the same kind of MUF you find in olive oil. so go have a steak and eat to good health.

Ankylos said...
Ashyla03: the theories that MAP may be responsible for Crohn's need to explain one big problem first: if MAP causes Crohn's, then why don't immunomodulators cause the disease to get much worse? After all, before taking Humira or Remicade, it is critical the patient be tested for tuberculosis- Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a related organism. One would think that Humira or Remicade would make things much worse if MAP were responsible.

I am fairly certain that Dr. Marcel Behr addresses exactly what immuno-modulators do to MAP in his presentation on youtube.

No I didn't have a UTI, I know what a UTI is they can test protiens in your urin.  All I'm saying is they dont know how to treat CD and even if our corrupt government did know how to treat all these diff. diseases, the drug comp. would be broke.  Its so sad how our government works now.  Its kinda like you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.  Its all about giving drugs, that cause other problems that cause us to need more drugs.  Beside the bloating and stomach pain, I feel so much better when I'm not on the meds for CD.  If it wasn't for my having thick blood I would prob. be anemic all the time.  It seems that my ulcers bleed just as much on meds as off of them.  But I see things from a diff. point of view, most of my family is in the medical field and my uncle is a pharm.  I like answers, I seek answers, I know there are all diff. kinds of theories, I have mine you have yours.  Although, I think a lot of people will agrea on this, Docs (most) aren't docs because they want to help people they do it because someone wanted them to be a doc or for the money.  Which in reality they dont make that much money unless they are a spec.  How many of us have had docs that are rude and short and just don't seem to give a darn.  What happened to docs that care.  I know there are a few, but they are far and few in between.  I've actually been to a few GI docs that didn't know squat about CD they tried to tell me I had IBS just because I have CD with constipation.  Needless to say I stopped seeing that jacker.  I was diagnosed with the Blood test and the colonoscopy.  Plus three other people in my family have CD.  I'm not just saying this stuff, I've seen so many bad docs I use to work for a Med mal practice attorney.  its a crazy world we live in;)