What follows is my personal opinion concerning Andrea Love’s article: Vitamin D: Can we Finally Stop Beating this Dead Horse? . I will cover most of the article refuting as much misinformation as I have time for. However she makes so many vague misleading statements and major errors I do not have time to cover them all. At the end of my response you will find the most helpful and powerful arguments.
Let us get started. In her first two paragraphs she launches into an attack on the wellness industry. Ending up labeling vitamin D3 as the poster child for this. I assume she is referring to her statements in the paragraph. Where she wrote, “Many utilize a common tactic in pseudoscience: make claims based on a grain of truth, and this will give you immediate credibility.” What does that even mean?
I am so glad she is making these statements. Clearly to make such an ignorant statement she must benefit from this. Well she does work for and participate in the pharmaceutical industry working for Perkin Elmer. Yes she works in the part of the company that manufactures testing products, but on their website they list as one of their main areas.
In particular I found this statement “From basic research to the development and manufacturing of new drugs, PerkinElmer’s Life Sciences products help increase pre-clinical R&D productivity at each.” 1 Conveniently you do not mention this anywhere in this article or the most recent one bashing supplements.
Does she not think it is important err readers know your conflicts of interest? As it can affect her judgement. God knows what other conflicts of interest you have but do not mention. Concerning The American Lyme Disease Foundation for which she is the director. She has a major critic from the real Lyme disease organization-Lyme Disease.org. An organization that actually helps people. This article is quite enlightening. 1 I recommend you read it.
Let me get my potential conflicts of interest out front. I authored a book about vitamin D3. I also have a website discussing my research and theories concerning vitamin D3. Now on the website in blog form I have everything I wrote in my book and more. This information is too important to keep from people. I do not sell vitamins, or courses. No sign up is required to view the site.
I have no relationship with any supplement manufacturer or company involved in the supplement trade. I do own one percent of a company that helps set up site testing for pharmaceuticals and medical devices. So actually I stand to lose out financially by educating people about vitamin D3. See big pharma is scared of supplements and in particular vitamin D3.
Therefor your reason I believe for picking out vitamin D3 in particular. Because it is one of the few things in life that lives up to the hype. What follows is my dissection of your article, hit piece would be a better description. I wish I had more time and the resources like you had to craft my response.
I will do the best I can. In summary she makes so many false statements with as you can say a bit of truth thus to give her instant credibility. There is not time to clarify each one. What I will do is hit on some of the most egregious. Will point out how you really do quite a bit of baiting and switching, attack people personally and appear despite your claim to be an expert.
I do not know her personal history and despite her using that to defame others it is none of my or anyone else’s business. Frankly to use her personal business would only prove my arguments are so weak that I need to attack her personally. Which I do not need to do. What I will do is attack first is her credentials. I reviewed the 8 main and 2 other publications she was involved with that she listed on LinkedIn. 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11
On all where she was listed as an Author. However on none of them was she listed as the main or senior author. Being the senior author is important as the reference for this explains. 11 As otherwise you are not the one whose developed the science to test just a somebody in the lab. For her PhD and dissertation you only have four publications. One being your dissertation.
None on vitamin D3 and again none with her as the senior author. . To my knowledge she does not treat patients so it can be assumed she has no clinical experience treating patients with vitamin D3. So to me it is not clear where her expertise on vitamin D3 comes from.
From her comments in the article has she wasted any resources having her vitamin D3 blood plasma levels checked? She clearly has a strong bias against taking supplements. So does she even have any personal experience taking vitamin D3? Now that we have clarified she is not an expert on vitamin D3 let us look at her hit piece.
First curious that she would spend time slandering Dr. Holic. That does seem her modus operandi. As she has also done the same to Dr. Oz and Andrew Huberman. Is it jealousy or you just cannot win an argument on its merits? As an old attorney once told me in a court case if you have the law you pound the law. If you have the facts you pound the facts. If you have neither you pound the table. You seem to me not to have the facts to support your argument you are pounding the table.
What I have found in life is those who have no argument attack the person. Second you complain about the vagueness of those who support higher vitamin D doses and blood plasma levels yet you proceed to do the same thing! In the following paragraph you wrote how the hype was around vitamin D deficiencies and supplementation was a deliberate effort to profit off of misleading people.
Next she wrote that thousands of studies(I assume she is referring to vitamin D3) wasting trillions of dollars. Well first talk about vague. Second I do not think all the thousands of scientists believe they wasted their time or research money.. Third if I am doing my math correctly each one of these studies costs a million dollars each. As you gave no specifics I have no way to verify any of this. I doubt that is accurate.
Next paragraph she states, “In fact, we can produce all the vitamin D3 we need.” Again vague. Well I disagree with this statement as to all we need. However much vitamin D3 we need she never tells exactly tell us. In your next paragraph she wrote “Vitamin D3 is a fat-soluble vitamin that we produce through sun exposure, specifically, UVB exposure.” This is amazing as to further demonstrates your ignorance about this substance.
Yes it was originally mislabeled when first discovered during the early part of the last century. Though labeled vitamin D3, I will continue to call it that in this response for simplicity’s sake it is actually a seco-hormone. 12 By definition, a substance classified as a vitamin is one that the body cannot produce. As Andrea herself wrote the body can and does produce it, so vitamin D3 is not a vitamin.
She goes on in that paragraph to explain how the different forms of vitamin D3 are produced in the liver and kidneys. All accurate except again for key facts and something you should have known if you were going to draft an article like this. Let us start at the beginning of your article. You wrote that 25(OH)D is not a biologically active form of vitamin D3. Actually it is a biologically active form of vitamin D3. Yes 50 times less than 1,25(OH)2D which is calcitriol. 13
Of note at BPLs of 25(OH)D3 that you reference as adequate its concentration is 600-900 times greater than 1,25(OH)D3 making one wonder if it has just as much effect on the VDR as doses 1,25(OH)2 D3? There are also other biologically active forms of vitamin D3 though at much lower BPLs. The fundamentals of vitamin D3 that you should know.
The problem is you left out a whole half of how vitamin D3 effects the body and its physiological effects. How cholecalciferol the precursor to 25(OH)D3 (the form of vitamin D3 produced by the liver) besides being converted into 1,25(OH)2D3 in the kidneys can be converted into 1,25(OH)2D3 in every cell in the body.
This is where the physiological effects occur. The effects on sleep, immune function, and metabolism for example. She goes on to mention immune system function and glucose metabolism those are the physiological effects totally separate from calcium metabolism effects of vitamin D3. Again demonstrating her ignorance and this article is in my personal opinion misleading. Again a bit of truth.
Then in the next paragraph this is the most telling about how she thinks when she goes into how we need only minimally sun exposure to generate all the vitamin D3 we need! Is that not forgetting most of the people in the world? People of color. Really racist. Also as she should know age, skin health, general health, skin pigmentation levels, sunscreen use(many makeups have it in them) and other factors effects how much vitamin D3 our skin can produce. Again vague and misleading.
Then she gloats about how our body stores vitamin D3 so that you do not need to worry about vitamin D3 production in the winter in areas where the sunlight UV index is inadequate to produce enough vitamin D3. She mentions the vitamin D3 we receive in our diet. To quote her from her article “ Finally, dietary sources: fatty fishes like salmon, mackerel, sardines, egg yolks, red meat, and liver, and fortified dairy products and cereal grains”!
To keep it simply let us focus on fortified foods. Typical the form of vitamin D these foods are fortified with is vitamin D2. The type of vitamin D found in mushrooms not mammals. Multiple studies show vitamin D2 is inferior to vitamin D3. 14,15 So no despite her dreaming we do not have enough. During the winter in such areas that do not receive adequate UVB an area north of the latitude running through Alanta Georga a significant number of people have many symptoms of vitamin D3 deficiency.
Weight gain( I would argue that everyone who is not supplementing adequately has this), depression symptoms and immune (your area of “expertise“) system function impairment for example. Concerning the later symptom-immune system function-I am referring to how the incidence of respiratory tract infections (typically referred to as the flu-actually only a small percentage are due to influenza) skyrockets in the fall and winter months.
You may argue no one knows why. That is bunk. As image how much this area alone losing the revenue would cost the pharmaceutical industry? Your employer. As I explain in my book and website they have known why respiratory tract infections(the flu) skyrocket in the winter since at least the 1800”s. It is easy to “not know” when as she you like to throw out the phrase people are making billions of dollars of ill people.
In fact depending on the strains of influenzas circulating each year it can kill millions(1918 Spanish flu). In my experience I found something I did not expect in treating close to 5,000 patients for almost 6 years with as much magnesium as they could tolerate and 30,000 IU of vitamin D3. This was 2010-2016 and the tail end of the swine flu.
What I found is not one of those patients developed a respiratory tract infection (the “flu”) during this time period. This was before Covid. In fact two of the people I recommended this dosing to felt that this combination saved their lives. Both had swine flu. One was my mom. No not a controlled double blind controlled study.
All I can say is not what I expected and something in medicine almost never happens. That is a treatment that is 100% effective. I have had second thoughts about even writing this a most will find it unbelievable. However that was my experience. So extremely surprising to me. To my knowledge people with BPLs of vitamin D3 of 12.5 ng/ml do not fare well against the “flu” and especially Covid.
The next sentence is a dozy. Titled vitamin D deficiency is not as prevalent as many believe. Let us see Andrea Love, who has never treated a patient much less with vitamin D3. Who gives me the impression she does not take vitamin D3. So she has no personal experience with vitamin D3. Yet she now knows more about what appropriate medical practice is than most if not all doctors. She is the only one smart enough to see through the charade and is here to enlighten us.
Next she wrote that the book/study-Dietary Reference Intakes for Calcium and Vitamin D (2011) you use as your proof as to what constitutes vitamin D3 deficiency. Well it was published in 2011 which is 13 years ago. Not exactly up to date information! I admit I did not read it all. However based on your comments and what I read your focus is only on the calcium metabolism aspect of vitamin D3 not the intracellular physiological effects.
Minimal mention of the intracellular functions, the physiological effects of these substances, active forms of vitamin D3. The functions that are again key for vitamin D3’s effects on immune function, sleep, and metabolism for instance. You are aware of how important are the intracellular physiological functions of vitamin D3?
Convenient really as she referred to Dr. Holick cherry-picking information. Is this not another example of her doing the same thing? Concerning this study/book if this is such a benchmark study why is it not the gold standard? Talk about wasted research dollars. I wonder who paid for it? Easy to guess. Again if I had time I would investigate it.
In the next paragraph she goes on about this study and how a blood plasma level(BPL) of 12 ng/ml is more than sufficient but they chose 20ng/ml to cover outliers. Well In Italy one area where a significant number of people had a vitamin D3 BPL of 13.2 ng/ml, contracted Covid-19 and died compared to those who had higher BPLs.
Not much above the level she considered more than sufficient. So were they all outliers. In this same study they found those with BPLs below 22 ng/ml were admitted to the ICU. 16 Those below were. This is a remarkably interesting article and worth reading.
BMD I can only assume is bone mineral density and is one of the more important measures in checking for osteoporosis. So clearly higher BPLs of vitamin D3 increase BMD. Refuting her point BPLs of 12 ng/ml are adequate. She throws in a graph to try to emphasize her point. Now if you look at the X axis you will notice it starts at 10 ng/ml but only extends to a bit more than 24 ng.ml.
Quite convenient. Why did she not extend it further say to 100 ng/ml? As for one at blood plasma levels of 25(OH)D3 this low little change occurs. Typically it is not until BPLs reach 50ng/ml that the physiological effects of 25 (OH)D3 start kicking in.
In this same paragraph she final mentions Black Americans. Here she wrote the biggest lie yet. She wrote “A cursory glance of raw data suggests 25(OH)D levels are lower in Black Americans, but these populations generally have no clinical symptoms of vitamin D deficiency,” Ok in medical school when I went they taught us that the reason people of color had obesity, diabetes and HTN so frequently was due to genetic causes. Frankly racist.
The symptoms of vitamin D3 deficiency the physiological symptoms are obesity, gut micro biome imbalance, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes for starters. As again when she mentioned a level of 12 ng/ml she was referring to and attempting to prove everyone had adequate vitamin D3 based solely on vitamin D3’s calcium metabolism. Nothing to do with its physiological effects. So yes vitamin D3 deficiency does have a profound effect on the health of Black Americans and all people of color. Again another instance of her cherry picking her “proof.”
Considering how many other Americans in particular are demonstrating the same symptoms did it not occur to her that vitamin D3 deficiency is a widespread medical epidemic? Especially since the advent of sunscreen and policy of sun avoidance.
Finally at the end she hoots about how all these organizations have come to believe vitamin D3 is being over tested for. Curious as to my understanding medical doctors are rewarded for treating sick people. Healthy people rarely have a reason to see medical doctors. How do these medical doctors treat the sick? Typically with pharmaceuticals.
I would say there is significant bias on the part of these organizations. Thus it should surprise no one that some medical organizations, especially the ones with the most to lose would believe vitamin D3 should not be a routine test. It should only be tested for those who have osteoporosis or are at high risk. To quote them: ‘It is therefore recommended that vitamin D testing should not be misused as a universal population-wide screening tool, but rather be applied only in selected individuals at high risk of vitamin D deficiency.” 17
Of course they do not other than those with osteoporosis list who are potentially at risk and should be tested. That is how to determine if someone is at high risk for vitamin D3 deficiency. Convenient really. If she cannot prove her point just confuse people to the point they give up and go elsewhere.
It is interesting to read over the research her name was attached to, I am not an immunologist so I do not fully understand this. In her 2014 study on the spirochetes that cause Lyme disease in particular the B. Burgdorferi Strain B515 produces excessive IFN, she wrote dendritic cells are the source of this excessive IFN.18 That this type of spirochetes is more virulent. More toxic to humans. That is to my understanding from reading this article.
Well I happen to have a fascination with dendritic cells as they have significant importance in autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, and cancer. Dendritic cells are the most important cells in the immune system. 19 In fact dendritic cells are the key to these diseases. Interestingly vitamin D3 in particular the active form of vitamin D3-1,25 dihydroxy vitamin D3-calcitriol is important for dendritic cell function.
In particular causing dendritic cells to change to the immature state. Reducing production of INF-y. In your article I am not sure which interferon she is referring to but this is what I found about INF-y. Yes I found this on Wikipedia but it is well referenced. So it would make sense for a pathological organism to manipulate the host to increase the secret of this interferon as by doing so it helps reduce/suppress part of the immune response. In fact to quote the article:
“In B. burgdorferi-stimulated human PBMCs, transcript levels for IFN-γ were observed to be at least 10-fold higher than levels for either IFN-α or IFN-β” 20 I do not pretend to fully understand this. Clearly increasing INF-y production is beneficial to the spirochete’s survival. In those who develop Lyme disease the B. Burgdorferi Strain B515 increases the production of this interferon. Have you considered that those who have lower vitamin D3 blood plasma levels are more susceptible? As I bet they are. I bet a BPL of vitamin D3 of 12 ng/ml is not adequate.
“Interferon type II (IFN-γ in humans): This is also known as immune interferon and is activated by Interleukin-12.[3] Type II interferons are also released by cytotoxic T cells and type-1 T helper cells. However, they block the proliferation of type-2 T helper cells. The previous results in an inhibition of Th2 immune response and a further induction of Th1 immune response.[8] IFN type II binds to IFNGR, which consists of IFNGR1 and IFNGR2 chains.[3]” 21
Is she not potentially harming those with Lyme disease by authoring an article like this? I guess as her controllers are big pharma she is going to say some day when the truth comes out she was just following orders. Clearly her article goes on with lots more of taking a sliver of truth and manipulating it to support your position.
Frankly, I have wasted too much time on this. I am sure she will show us a lot of studies all done at such low blood plasma levels due to inadequate dosing to be of no valve. If you want to talk about wasted money. Most people will after reading your article and mine walk away more confused. That is where you have the advantage.
As she does not need to prove she is right like I do. All she has to do is confuse people so they will not use it. Mission accomplished on her part. She and Big Pharma win. However I have two trumps’ cards. First I am not giving medical advice. First raise your BPL to above 50 ng/ml. Typically requires 10,000 IU of vitamin D3 and lots of magnesium (as long as there medically able to).
Initially before you start taking vitamin D3 it is wise to be tested for ionized and total calcium, vitamin D panel and parathyroid hormone blood plasma levels. Recheck in 6-8 weeks. This way you can document how you feel and your body responds based on your BPLs. Then after starting see how you feel.
It will take a couple of weeks usually to notice a difference. Weight loss, sleeping better, more energy, improved mood and bowel function are better among other symptoms improvement. That will help settle the argument. I bet I know what will happen. What do you have to lose? Yes a bit of work but how important is your health?
Then my second trump card. As I wrote much earlier Andrea Love PhD is the executive director of The American Lyme Disease Foundation. Then in my ignorance, as I am not an immunologist, I tried to connect her research she has her name on. How vitamin D3 is important. How it could help effect interferon effects that are referred to in that study. Thus helping those with Lyme disease.
Well I was about to say enough time wasted as that was the best I could do in connecting vitamin D3 and Lyme disease on my part. In my efforts to exposing not only how in my personal opinion she is extremely ignorant about vitamin D3, a big pharma stooge and her information is misleading when God came to my rescue.
On the Facebook group I started I came across a post on Lyme disease a member made. Now I under why her ferocious attack on Vitamin D3. See the spirochete causing Lyme disease severely affects the vitamin D receptor(VDR). Reducing its effectivity by 50-80 times. Thus even if you have “normal” that is what you consider normal BPLs of 25 (OH)D3.
It has little to no effect on this receptor. You are left with little or no immune response to this spirochete. Allowing her and big pharma to say vitamin D3 has no effect on Lyme disease! Clever. However not all is lost. Fortunately, there are ways to overcome this. That is by boosting the VDR activity through the following ways:
1. Vitamin D3 ( enough to reach blood plasma levels of 100-140 ng/ml) and magnesium
2. Retinol
3. Omega-3 fatty acids
4. Resveratrol
5. Forskolin®
6. Quercetin
7. Zinc
8. Boron
9. Progesterone
10. Vitamin E/alpha-tocopherol
11. TUDCA
12. Omega-6 Linolenic acid, Arachidonic acid
13. Curcumin
14. intense exercise
15. Gamma Tocotrienol – Tocotrienols or Tocopherols
16. Sulforaphane
17. Phytoestrogens
18. Testosterone
19. Prostaglandins
20. Bisphosphonates
It takes either boosting the VDR and/or flooding it with vitamin D3 to overcome the effects of this spirochete’s effects on the VDR. By doing so you have a greater chance of restoring your immune system and recovering. Or you can wait around for Dr. Love and the pharmaceutical industry to save you. Again what do you have to lose by trying vitamin D3 and magnesium?
You can regain your health. Is not health critical to your freedom? Finally Dr. Berg does a great job of explaining it on the referenced YouTube video. 22 So in the end I spent a lot of time, like I am sure she did. making my arguments. In the end you can believe me or not. I am irrelevant. Besides knowing her way of acting she will dig up lots of dirt on me. It is there.
Using that to “prove” my arguments are false. However that does not change the facts. Nor does it prevent you from trying vitamin D3 and magnesium yourself. You just need to take adequate amounts of both. I am not giving medical advice. You be the judge.
- https://immunologic.substack.com/p/vitamin-d-can-we-finally-stop-beating
- https://www.lymedisease.org/lymepolicywonk-the-bogus-grassroots-of-the-american-lyme-disease-foundation-2/
- https://journals.aai.org/jimmunol/article/186/1_Supplement/56.19/49236/Borrelia-burgdorferi-the-spirochetal-agent-of-Lyme
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4019181/
- https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0100174
- Her dissertation
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25420916/
- https://bmcmicrobiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12866-016-0644-4
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jim.2020.112830
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34989923/
- https://slas-discovery.org/article/S2472-5552(23)00013-8/fulltext
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17484507/
- https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8247/16/5/637#:~:text=For%20a%20long%20time%2C%20calcifediol,of%20vitamin%20D%2C%20thus%20exerting
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/understanding-importance-authors-position-scientific-papers-khan
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12879-021-06281-7
16. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916523028204
17. https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/89/11/5387/2844259
18. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6365669/
19. https://bmcmicrobiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12866-016-0644-4
20. https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdfExtended/S2211-1247(21)01753-8
21. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4304421/
22. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferon
3Wiki. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(00)04904-7/fulltext
8wiki. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12946237/
23. https://youtu.be/WJ7N_9UYK1Y?si=0ygR_Vbe8j74WLRd
0 Comments