Vitamin D Council

April 3, 2009

Yesterday, Life Extension Magazine published the most comprehensive press article to date about vitamin D and autism:

The Link Between Autism and Low Levels of Vitamin D

Additional press articles about Vitamin D and autism will appear in the next few months. 

Don’t forget to see our public service announcement about Vitamin D and pregnancy.

Today, I want to thank all of you who have supported the Vitamin D Council and my research and writings over the last six years.  Some of you have made direct donations, which allowed us to continue in the lean years; I apologize if I did not send you a thank you note. 

Some, like Bill Sardi, supported us when no one else did. Others supported us more recently by purchasing the vitamin D products on our website.  Many supported us by simply reading our newsletters and website and then referring others to those publications.  Some supported us by simply sending a thank you note.

A few of the things you have made possible:

Our readers were the first to learn that Vitamin D helped prevent influenza and other respiratory infections:

Pascal’s Wager and Pandemic Influenza

Our readers were the first to learn of Vitamin D’s remarkable effect in athletes:

Athletes and Vitamin D

Our readers were the first to learn of the problems with Vitamin D testing at Quest Diagnostics:

Supplementing With Vitamin D

Our readers were among the first to learn that Vitamin D prevented heart disease:

Paradigms and Paradoxes

Our readers were the first to read about Vitamin D’s role in autism:

Vitamin D and Autism

None of this would have been possible without your support. 

Thank you. 

Finally, we are moving.  My family has rented a house at 585 Leff Street in San Luis Obispo, CA.  Behind our house is a building that will be the new headquarters of the Vitamin D Council.  We also have a new Board of Directors .  As you know, due to the lack of funding, we have had to monetize our website to continue in operation.  Thanks to the generous help of Dr. Joe Mercola, we will soon have a new website and a new and steady source of income.  Dana Clark will continue to be our incredible and underpaid webmaster. And, I hope to be able to work for the vitamin D Council full-time within the next several years.

John Cannell, MD

9100 San Gregorio Road

Atascadero, CA 93422

More Evidence Vitamin D Beats the Flu

In April 2005, an influenza epidemic started sweeping through the maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane where Dr. John Cannell worked.

As the epidemic progressed, he noticed something unusual: although wards all around his became infected, no patients on his ward became ill, despite intermingling of both patients and nurses.

The only difference was that all of the patients on Dr. Cannell’s ward had been taking 2,000 units of vitamin D every day for several months or longer.

Shortly after the epidemic, a paper in the journal Nature showed that vitamin D was a potent antibiotic, working by increasing the body’s production of proteins called antimicrobial peptides. Antimicrobial peptides destroy the cell walls of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, including the influenza virus.

Dr. Cannell posits that this explains such matters as:

• Why the flu predictably occurs in the months following the winter solstice, when vitamin D levels are at their lowest
  
• Why influenza is more common in the tropics during the rainy season
  
• Why children exposed to sunlight are less likely to get colds
  
• Why cod liver oil (which contains vitamin D) reduces the incidence of viral respiratory infections
  
• Why the elderly who live in countries with high vitamin D consumption, like Norway, are less likely to die in the winter

Epidemic influenza kills roughly a million people every year worldwide, usually by causing pneumonia.

Sources:

• Epidemiology and Infection September 7, 2006
• Medical News Today September 15, 2006

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

Yes indeed, vitamin D is the hidden nutrient that can help prevent and treat the flu.

This interesting article written by noted vitamin D expert Dr. John Cannell describes just how effectively the sunshine vitamin beats the flu. Dr. Cannell’s results at the ward of the maximum-security hospital led him to collaborate with other noted experts — Harvard’s Dr. Edward Giovannucci and Dr. Michael Holick of Boston University — on a more extensive paper that connects the absence of vitamin D to disease.

Just be careful to recognize that the best way to get vitamin D is NOT from pills or capsules but from sun exposure. Unfortunately, that is a major challenge in the winter for most that live in the United States.

That is also one of the primary reasons why people come down with the flu in the first place. They just don’t have access to regular doses of healthy sun exposure. Fortunately, there are some good safe sun lamps that one can use in the winter.

Vitamin D has positive effects not just on influenza, but also on:

• Heart Disease
  
• Cancer
  
• Diabetes
  
• Inflammatory Bowl Disease
  
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Multiple Sclerosis
  
• Osteoporosis

 … and many other illnesses as well.

Exposure to sunlight is an important source of vitamin D. Ultraviolet (UV) rays from sunlight trigger vitamin D synthesis in the skin. Getting optimum sunlight may not be possible for everyone, however, and Dr. Cannell’s article also discusses supplementation.

But supplementation is a tricky thing because you run the serious risk of overdosing if you stay on a vitamin D supplement for any length of time. It’s impossible to overdose on vitamin D obtained from sun exposure, as any excess is destroyed by that process.

If you don’t live in a part of the world where you can get the optimal amount of vitamin D through year-round sun exposure, I strongly recommend taking a high-quality cod liver oil and monitoring your blood levels carefully during the winter.

Related Links:

• Vitamin D Is Not A Vitamin But A Steroid Hormone Precursor
• Valuable Insights Into the Importance of Vitamin D and Sun
• Why You Need to Have Your Vitamin D Level Tested Now