Posted by Larry Hoover on March 24, 2009, at 7:05:44
In reply to Re: Vitamin D! **Larry Hoover** » Larry Hoover, posted by bleauberry on March 23, 2009, at 19:19:15
> Hi Larry,
>
> Hey, any information on Vitamin and infectious disease? Here's why I ask...
>
> In the Marshall Protocol, an experimental method of conquering many unknown intracellular bacterial infections, especially ones lacking cell walls, Vitamin D is a big no-no. Long story short, it gives more advantage to the bad guys than us.
>
> My Lyme doc tested my Vit D metoblites and they were low. He said to take 800IU daily.
>
> Do you know anything about the relation of Vitamin D to infectious organisms, such as Lyme? On one hand, some say it is bad, bad enough to even avoid as much exposure to bright light as possible. On the other hand, some claim it is good. But at the same time Vit D benefits the body and the immune system, it equally benefits the infectious organisms. I'm confused on it all. I'm not sure anyone really knows, but I figured good ole Larry would have a more wisdom filled answer than anyone else I know.First off, I want to say I appreciate the faith you have in me. I will caution you, however, that you will receive my considered opinion. My opinion.
About Marshall, and his protocol. The man has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. He's not a doctor. That doesn't mean he can't be right, but it raises a red flag.
I found a copy of his Phase 1 treatment plan, which had a series of numbered references embedded in the text. I made notes as I read, planning to go the primary references soon after. When I got to the end of the text, there was no reference list. Then, I found another presentation of Phase 1, and its references were somewhat different, but at least they were there. Every reference, save one, was to an earlier paper he'd written, or to links to the Marshall Plan website, but all of those links failed. And the lone exception had nothing to do with what he was talking about, in my opinion.
I then considered his published work, and I learned that his protocol has never been subjected to double-blind review. It's been offered to him, and he's refused. So, the only evidence for efficacy is open-label, and hopelessly confounded by expectancy effects.
Now, even with that all said, that doesn't mean that it doesn't work. So, I questioned the mechanisms by which his protocol is said to operate. Here's where he steps right outside of science. My overall impression is that he has cherry-picked certain concepts, taken them completely out of context, and then generalized them by absurd extrapolation. Still, that doesn't mean it doesn't work. It just doesn't work for the reasons he says. If a witch doctor gives you an herb so that you might merge with the spirit of the plant's goddess, I might be tempted to argue that any efficacy might be due to chemical compounds contained therein. But the witch doctor would still demonstrate efficacy.
Finally, to the specific concerns about vitamin D, Marshall is flat out wrong. For those with low vitamin D status, high white blood cell counts are common. The immune system has become dysregulated, and is churning out high numbers of white blood cells, but they have poor capacity to discriminate host cells from threat cells. Autoimmune disorders are associated with low vitamin D, for example, because this host of immune cells has dysfunctional guidance systems. It's like they have low IQ. Improving vitamin D status leads to fewer white blood cells that are much more selective. They have their guidance system functioning much better, so fewer intelligent cells do a better job than many stupid ones. Marshall has confabulated cell count as a measure of immune function, and has created an hypothesis that low vitamin D status is an effect of the disease. A simple correlation doesn't discriminate between whether A leads to B, or instead, B leads to A. But we already have a huge body of evidence that low vitamin D status leads to infection, not the other way around. We've known that ever since tuberculosis patients were found to improve when they were put outside in the sun, over a hundred years ago.
If I was in your shoes, I'd be taking more than 800 IU/day.
Marshall is a quack. His Plan still might work, but if it does, it works despite his erroneous vitamin D avoidance rule.
Here's a full-text link to a nice summary by a medical researcher who is dedicated to studying the immune effects of vitamin D, with an excerpt from that paper.
Lar
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=18505808
"While the potential protective effects against TB infection have attracted the most attention, data are accumulating from several sources that vitamin D may also be beneficial in combating a range of other bacterial or viral infectious agents. One small but intriguing study worthy of follow up found that elderly women undergoing long-term treatment with vitamin D as an antiosteoporosis agent had a significantly lower rate of Helicobacter pylori infections than women in an untreated control group (44). There have also been a number of studies examining the potential role of vitamin D in protection against upper and lower respiratory tract infections, which can be caused by a variety of etiological agents, many of which are viral (14, 57, 102). Subclinical vitamin D deficiency was associated with severe lower respiratory tract infection in an Indian study (97), and clinical vitamin D deficiency was associated with a 13-fold-increased risk of pneumonia in Ethiopian children (58). A Finnish study found that there was an association between serum 25D concentrations of less than 40 nM (16 ng/ml) and a range of acute respiratory infections (sinusitis, tonsillitis, otitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, pharyngitis, and laryngitis) in young army recruits (46). In addition, Cannell and several colleagues have persuasively argued, based on a range of epidemiological data, that cutaneous vitamin D production provides the seasonal stimulus associated with solar radiation that underlies the seasonality of epidemic influenza (16, 17). Finally, clinical and genetic evidence is accumulating that vitamin D may play a role in modulating human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, although more work needs to be done to clarify the relationship between vitamin D physiology and HIV infection. A positive correlation was established between vitamin D supplementation and CD4-positive T-cell counts in seropositive individuals (94). A correlation between mortality from HIV infection and vitamin D deficiency has not been clearly established. However, interpretation of the vitamin D status of HIV-positive individuals is complicated by the potential confounding effects of antiretroviral therapy on vitamin D metabolism (94). This is an area that merits further clarification, because, as detailed below, a potential role for 1,25D signaling in modulating HIV infection is supported by genetic studies on vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene polymorphisms."
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:886672
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090322/msgs/886776.html