While the mainstream medical community -- to the extent it is interested in preventing/treating disease in the first place and not just capitalizing off of it -- has long held that the buildup of amyloid and tau proteins in the brain is the precipitating cause of Alzheimer’s disease, along with other degenerative conditions of the brain, the true cause may be much simpler and, critically, much more simply prevented/treated.
Anyone who really wants to reduce Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Multiple System Atrophy, dementia with Lewy bodies and other forms of dementia would sooner or later think of nutrition and vitamin D and do a quick Google Scholar search on "vitamin D" and "dementia", "Alzheimer's disease" or whatever.
Here https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.3 are links to and discussion of a few of the many articles they would find, which show that most, and perhaps all forms of age-related neurodegeneration generally only occur in people with even lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels than the lousy levels of the general population, who have only 1/4 to 1/2 of the 50 ng/mL (125 nmol/L) circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D their immune system needs to function properly, including reducing the risk of excessive inflammatory responses.
One of these articles is Ogura et al. 2021 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405650221000617 , who report highly significant (p = 0.0001, so 1 chance in 10,000 that the results were due to sampling error, if there was in fact no such correlation in the full population) correlation between very low 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and two of these diseases. The control subjects' 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels averaged 26.85 ng/mL. Those with Parkinson's disease had levels averaging 13.36 ng/mL. Those with Multiple System Atrophy had levels averaging even less: 10.53 ng/mL.
It is obvious that people with 50 ng/mL of more 25-hydroxyvitamin D are far, far, outside the bottom of the barrel range of levels at which these diseases are most likely to occur.
This is part of a long page citing and discussing the most important research on vitamin D and the immune system. It begins with body weight based recommendations for how much vitamin D3 to take as a supplement, on average, every day: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#00-how-much.
There is very little vitamin D3 in food or multivitamins. It can be generated in sufficient quantities to enable the immune system to work properly with ca. 297 nanometre ultraviolet B radiation on ideally white skin. However, far from the equator, this is only naturally available in sufficient quantities in the form of high elevation sunlight on cloud-free summer days, with no intervening glass, sunscreen or clothing. All UV-B exposure damages DNA and so raises the risk of skin cancer. Fortunately vitamin D3 is easy and inexpensive to supplement. Vitamin D3 supplements can be taken daily to once every week to ten days.
These recommendations are from New Jersey based Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Sunil Wimalawansa, and are a simplification of those in his July 2022 article: "Rapidly Increasing Serum 25(OH)D Boosts the Immune System, against Infections - Sepsis and COVID-19" Nutrients : https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/14/2997.
His recommended vitamin D3 daily average supplemental intake quantities, as ranges of ratios of body weight:
70 to 90 IU / kg BW for those not suffering from obesity (BMI < 30).
100 to 130 IU / kg BW for obesity I & II (BMI 30 to 39).
140 to 180 IU / kg BW for obesity III (BMI > 39).
For 70 kg 154 lb without obesity, 0.125 mg (5000 IU) a day is a good amount. This is a gram every 22 years, and pharma-grade vitamin D3 costs about USD$2.50 a gram ex-factory. Higher ratios of body weight are required for those suffering from obesity, since this reduces the ability of the liver to hydroxylate vitamin D3 to 25-hydroxyvitamin D and because excess adipose tissue tends to absorb both vitamin D3 and 25-hydroxyvitamin D: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#obesity-deficit .
If everyone followed Prof. Wimalawansa's recommendation, almost everyone's 25-hydroxyvitamin D would be at least the 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L their immune system needs to function properly. With no vitamin D3 supplementation, and no recent summertime UV-B skin exposure, most people have only 1/10 to 1/2 of the 25-hydroxyvitamin D they need to be healthy. Government recommended vitamin D3 daily supplemental intake quantities, such as 0.02 mg (800 IU), help somewhat, but are a fraction of what people need for proper immune system function.
Vitamin D3 is hydroxylated, primarily in the liver, to circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D which is used by the kidneys and many types of immune cells. The kidneys can regulate calcium-phosphate-bone metabolism quite well with just 20 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D. All doctors understand this. However, most doctors and immunologists are unaware that many types of immune cell need a 50 ng/mL or more level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D because they use it to supply their intracrine and paracrine signaling systems, which are crucial to their ability to respond to each cell's changing circumstances. These signaling systems have nothing to do with hormonal (endocrine) signaling. There are no peer-reviewed journal tutorials on these signaling systems, so I wrote one here in late 2020: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/02-intracrine/. A less detailed tutorial is at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#02-compounds .
There are a plethora of articles showing that low 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels are associated with, and so largely or entirely cause, higher rates of numerous infectious and chronic diseases. One such article is Dror et al. 2022 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263069 who graph COVID-19 severity against pre-infection 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels.
An especially clear piece of research, which should have gone viral and become known to all doctors and immunologists within months of its publication in 2014, is this work https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/articlepdf/1782085/soi130062.pdf which reports on the risks of both hospital acquired and surgical site infections and the anti-correlation of these risks with the patient's pre-operative 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. This was for 770 patients undergoing Roux-en-Y gastric bypass operations for weight loss at Massachusetts General Hospital between 2007 and 2011. All patients were suffering from obesity, but there is no reason to believe that their immune systems need a higher level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D to function properly than those who are not suffering from obesity. So the results can reasonably be extrapolated to all other people. (People suffering from obesity do need a greater vitamin D3 intake, as a proportion of body weight, than those not suffering from obesity, for two sets of reasons: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#obesity-deficit.)
For levels of 50 ng/mL (125 nmol/L) or more, the risks of each type of infection were about 2.5%. At levels such as 20 ng/mL 50 nmol/L, which is perfectly normal in the general population who are not supplementing vitamin D3 properly, the risks rose to about 24%. This is frank immune system incompetency, caused by lack of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, which needs to diffuse into the cytosol of many types of immune cell in sufficient quantities to support each cell's intracrine (within the cell) and perhaps paracrine (to nearby cells) signaling systems.
Imagine that the whole of the West had been injected with a product that promulgated amyloid build up by protein misfolding... That really would be a thing, right?
You have to go fartget back. Alzheimer’s is a lifestyle disease based on a carbohydrate (sugar) heavy diet like Type 2 Diabetes. The carb diets, i.e. the USDA standard American diet (the pyramid), promote dental caries, et al, and, subsequently Alzheimer’s. The proper human diet is as close to carnivore as possible.
Anyone who really wants to reduce Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Multiple System Atrophy, dementia with Lewy bodies and other forms of dementia would sooner or later think of nutrition and vitamin D and do a quick Google Scholar search on "vitamin D" and "dementia", "Alzheimer's disease" or whatever.
Here https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.3 are links to and discussion of a few of the many articles they would find, which show that most, and perhaps all forms of age-related neurodegeneration generally only occur in people with even lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels than the lousy levels of the general population, who have only 1/4 to 1/2 of the 50 ng/mL (125 nmol/L) circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D their immune system needs to function properly, including reducing the risk of excessive inflammatory responses.
One of these articles is Ogura et al. 2021 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405650221000617 , who report highly significant (p = 0.0001, so 1 chance in 10,000 that the results were due to sampling error, if there was in fact no such correlation in the full population) correlation between very low 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and two of these diseases. The control subjects' 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels averaged 26.85 ng/mL. Those with Parkinson's disease had levels averaging 13.36 ng/mL. Those with Multiple System Atrophy had levels averaging even less: 10.53 ng/mL.
It is obvious that people with 50 ng/mL of more 25-hydroxyvitamin D are far, far, outside the bottom of the barrel range of levels at which these diseases are most likely to occur.
This is part of a long page citing and discussing the most important research on vitamin D and the immune system. It begins with body weight based recommendations for how much vitamin D3 to take as a supplement, on average, every day: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#00-how-much.
There is very little vitamin D3 in food or multivitamins. It can be generated in sufficient quantities to enable the immune system to work properly with ca. 297 nanometre ultraviolet B radiation on ideally white skin. However, far from the equator, this is only naturally available in sufficient quantities in the form of high elevation sunlight on cloud-free summer days, with no intervening glass, sunscreen or clothing. All UV-B exposure damages DNA and so raises the risk of skin cancer. Fortunately vitamin D3 is easy and inexpensive to supplement. Vitamin D3 supplements can be taken daily to once every week to ten days.
These recommendations are from New Jersey based Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Sunil Wimalawansa, and are a simplification of those in his July 2022 article: "Rapidly Increasing Serum 25(OH)D Boosts the Immune System, against Infections - Sepsis and COVID-19" Nutrients : https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/14/2997.
His recommended vitamin D3 daily average supplemental intake quantities, as ranges of ratios of body weight:
70 to 90 IU / kg BW for those not suffering from obesity (BMI < 30).
100 to 130 IU / kg BW for obesity I & II (BMI 30 to 39).
140 to 180 IU / kg BW for obesity III (BMI > 39).
For 70 kg 154 lb without obesity, 0.125 mg (5000 IU) a day is a good amount. This is a gram every 22 years, and pharma-grade vitamin D3 costs about USD$2.50 a gram ex-factory. Higher ratios of body weight are required for those suffering from obesity, since this reduces the ability of the liver to hydroxylate vitamin D3 to 25-hydroxyvitamin D and because excess adipose tissue tends to absorb both vitamin D3 and 25-hydroxyvitamin D: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#obesity-deficit .
If everyone followed Prof. Wimalawansa's recommendation, almost everyone's 25-hydroxyvitamin D would be at least the 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L their immune system needs to function properly. With no vitamin D3 supplementation, and no recent summertime UV-B skin exposure, most people have only 1/10 to 1/2 of the 25-hydroxyvitamin D they need to be healthy. Government recommended vitamin D3 daily supplemental intake quantities, such as 0.02 mg (800 IU), help somewhat, but are a fraction of what people need for proper immune system function.
If everyone did this, there would be no pandemic influenza or COVID-19 - and sepsis (11 million deaths worldwide in 2017, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32989-7/) would be rare. Likewise dementia, Kawasaki disease and MIS-C.
Vitamin D3 is hydroxylated, primarily in the liver, to circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D which is used by the kidneys and many types of immune cells. The kidneys can regulate calcium-phosphate-bone metabolism quite well with just 20 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D. All doctors understand this. However, most doctors and immunologists are unaware that many types of immune cell need a 50 ng/mL or more level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D because they use it to supply their intracrine and paracrine signaling systems, which are crucial to their ability to respond to each cell's changing circumstances. These signaling systems have nothing to do with hormonal (endocrine) signaling. There are no peer-reviewed journal tutorials on these signaling systems, so I wrote one here in late 2020: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/02-intracrine/. A less detailed tutorial is at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#02-compounds .
You can also read or listen to the robotically narrated version of this Brownstone.org article to broadly understand these signaling systems and the need for at least 50 ng/mL circulating vitamin D3: https://brownstone.org/articles/vitamin-d-everything-you-need-to-know/ .
There are a plethora of articles showing that low 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels are associated with, and so largely or entirely cause, higher rates of numerous infectious and chronic diseases. One such article is Dror et al. 2022 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263069 who graph COVID-19 severity against pre-infection 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels.
An especially clear piece of research, which should have gone viral and become known to all doctors and immunologists within months of its publication in 2014, is this work https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/articlepdf/1782085/soi130062.pdf which reports on the risks of both hospital acquired and surgical site infections and the anti-correlation of these risks with the patient's pre-operative 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. This was for 770 patients undergoing Roux-en-Y gastric bypass operations for weight loss at Massachusetts General Hospital between 2007 and 2011. All patients were suffering from obesity, but there is no reason to believe that their immune systems need a higher level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D to function properly than those who are not suffering from obesity. So the results can reasonably be extrapolated to all other people. (People suffering from obesity do need a greater vitamin D3 intake, as a proportion of body weight, than those not suffering from obesity, for two sets of reasons: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#obesity-deficit.)
For levels of 50 ng/mL (125 nmol/L) or more, the risks of each type of infection were about 2.5%. At levels such as 20 ng/mL 50 nmol/L, which is perfectly normal in the general population who are not supplementing vitamin D3 properly, the risks rose to about 24%. This is frank immune system incompetency, caused by lack of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, which needs to diffuse into the cytosol of many types of immune cell in sufficient quantities to support each cell's intracrine (within the cell) and perhaps paracrine (to nearby cells) signaling systems.
Imagine that the whole of the West had been injected with a product that promulgated amyloid build up by protein misfolding... That really would be a thing, right?
Thank you for continuing to call out Vivek. Thank you also for sharing the latest Alzheimer’s research.
There are still so many sheeple buying what both of these deep state frauds are selling.
One such promising avenue is infection with herpes. A recent natural experiment in Wales with shingles vaccine looks promising: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01824-1.
Awesome work!
But what are your true feelings of Vivid Rama-swampy? Don't hold back now!
After all, these Swamp Creatures need exposure!
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Perfect:
Medicines That Cause Disease.
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Good analysis. I think we will eventually find that subclinical infections are probably behind most degenerative and autoimmune diseases
You have to go fartget back. Alzheimer’s is a lifestyle disease based on a carbohydrate (sugar) heavy diet like Type 2 Diabetes. The carb diets, i.e. the USDA standard American diet (the pyramid), promote dental caries, et al, and, subsequently Alzheimer’s. The proper human diet is as close to carnivore as possible.