Vit D -- good for brain, bad for body

[linusbert]

Oh, you're sooooo welcome . I like detailed answers, but some people don't.

I always feel obliged to share anything that I know, especially if I've learned it the hard way (is there any other?), and if I think it might help a fellow-sufferer ....

What form of mag were you taking? Oxide, malate lactate, taurate, etc etc etc ???

Oh sweetie ... you're really between a rolling rock and a spiky hard place. That has to be AWFUL .... I wish I could think of something other than a serious MCAS reaction, about which I know very little. Have you worn out the google machine on that one yet?

Carp !!! Uh, crap .... (bad bad typist)

....

Oh, do I hear that !!!!

damn your post slipped my radar.

well, since then, half a year later, i did take 700.000 iu of vitamin D (35k once a week) + Bx + K2 + Mg/Pot. the results are as following:
- magnesium seams to be tolerable again in a sense that i do not get calcium deficiency symptoms now
- mg and pot. still not tolerable due to increasing BP (i have a suspicion now as B vitamins do the same now)

- my blood vD rose from 4mg/dl to 11mg/dl ... :'(

- my asthma and allergy symptoms worsened A LOT in this half year , thats the opposite i hoped to see, main reason i actually took it is to bring asthma and allergies back down. i do not know why it didnt work this time, the last time i got my D up to 88ng/ml my allergies and asthma improved soo much. also later, i just could take 5k and i was fine for another week. this completely vanished.
i am not sure if the worsening came from D or from the accompaning Bx or mg/pot.

- i suffered, there were days with increased muscle weakness and muscle irritiability. especially after that one 100k test.

- i got neurological symptoms like blurred eye vision and dizzyness now. feels somehow like hypoglycemia, but its not. at least not in blood.

- also i got very bad head / ear pressure, i suspect head muscles are tight now.

- my diabetes improved for what it looks like at least 1% on A1C scale. couldnt measure it yet. but before i had values of 140-160 in the morning, 150-199 after lunch. now its 125'ish morning, 100-140 after lunch. i even decreased my long time insulin

- lost like 3-5 kg. which is good as i am severe overweight... ok lets not lie, i am severe FAT!

(my worst day is the 2nd to the 4th days after taking high dose vitamin D, after that all symptoms reside a bit.)


my suspicion is i indead am somewhat MCAS affected. i now think the MG/POT and Bx blood pressure increase comes actually from MCAS and not electrolytes.
maybe even the dizzyness and blurred vision comes from that.
maybe even the lower glucose levels come from elevated histamine ... which is pushing it down.

so my questions,
what forms of magnesium / potassium can MCAS tolerate?
what vitamins of Bx are not tolerated and wich are?

i have a feeling that everything which makes me bad (allergy / asthma wise) doesnt work out in the long run. MCT makes me feel worse after a while (especially asthma and allergy wise). its a accumulative effect the more, the longer, the worse it gets.
all my D is in MCT. could the worsening come due to this MCT? but how do i take vitamin D then? there is nothing without MCT.
i took another medicine of D (dekristol) which is somewhat peanut oil made. This is even worse, i do get problems immediately afterwards for like 30-60 minutes. so no choice either.

 

[cheeseater]

What does Vitamin D do–and what should you know about Vitamin D?

1. Facilitates increased intestinal absorption of phosphorus and calcium as well as suppression of parathyroid hormone secretion to increase our plasma calcium concentrations. It, however, does not dictate or direct where this calcium will be deposited in our bodies. There is also not a strong negative feedback control loop within the gut for Vitamin D.

Not sure where you got that quote, but it is misleading. If your body is deficient in Vit D, then your parathyroid gland will start releasing hormones that essentially slowly dissolve your bones, resulting in a high serum calcium (from the dissolving bones) and osteoporosis.

Of course there are also other reasons one might have bone thinning. One common cause of leaching calcium out of your bones is by consuming too much protein. Most people take way more vitamin D than they need. 5,000 IU per week is probably plenty for most people as in insurance policy against osteoporosis

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

One common cause of leaching calcium out of your bones is by consuming too much protein.

As with so many things in medical research and treatment protocols, there are two schools of thought on that, and they totally contradict each other, with one stating that high protein intake dissolves bone calcium, and the other stating that high protein intake has a essential and positive effect on bone mineral density.

Go know ….

Protein intake and bone health
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22139564/#:~:text=In addition to calcium in,bone mineral density or content.
“In addition to calcium in the presence of an adequate supply of vitamin D, dietary proteins represent key nutrients for bone health and thereby function in the prevention of osteoporosis. Several studies point to a positive effect of high protein intake on bone mineral density or content.”


Dietary protein: an essential nutrient for bone health
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16373952/
“The main purpose of this review is to analyze the evidence that refutes a relation of causality between the elements of this putative patho-physiological "cascade" that purports that animal proteins are causally associated with an increased incidence of osteoporotic fractures. In contrast, many experimental and clinical published data concur to indicate that low protein intake negatively affects bone health.”


Dietary branched-chain amino acids modulate the dynamics of calcium absorption and reabsorption in protein-restricted pigs
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35139926/

Most people take way more vitamin D than they need. 5,000 IU per week is probably plenty for most people as in insurance policy against osteoporosis

As with most things medical and nutritional, one size does NOT fit all. What may be sufficient for you could be woefully deficient for me, and for other ME members who get little to no sun exposure and/or exercise due to being bed/housebound.

And some find that even at doses as high as 15000 IU a day, they can’t get their 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25 (OH) D) or their 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25 (OH) 2D) levels anywhere near the lowest normal reading that will sustain basic health and bone density levels. The first measures plasma levels of D, the second test measures Vit D levels after it’s hydroxylated in the kidneys and other tissues to the most metabolically active form of D. But it doesn’t reflect vitamin D reserves and is not particularly useful for monitoring vitamin D status of patients unless you have renal insufficiency or other obstructions to Vit D absorption/utilization ….

Like so much of this stuff, didactic generalizations can be misleading…..

EDIT .... for accuracy and clarity ... and some typos. OK, a lot of typos ....

 

[cheeseater]

In addition to leeching calcium from the bones, "excessive" protien in the diet also is turned (pretty much directly) into fat. Forgot to mention the fat. When you look at protien amounts eaten by people that do not eat meat and have healthy bones all their life, you will notice significantly less protien intake compared to the ideal protien amount proposed by the meat lobby. One explaination for the obesity/osteoporosis epidemic...

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

In addition to leeching calcium from the bones,

Could you site your sources here?

In addition to leeching calcium from the bones, "excessive" protien in the diet also is turned (pretty much directly) into fat.

Anything you eat too much or or in excess of your body's immediate needs, will be turned into fat.

When you look at protien amounts eaten by people that do not eat meat and have healthy bones all their life,

Again, could you cite your sources?

Generally, a plant based or vegan diet is associated with lower bone mineral density and increased risk of fractures.

One explaination for the obesity epidemic...

It's the weakest link in the obesity equation. The constant jamming of junk food into bodies that rarely exercise and generally have sedentary jobs and lifestyles is a major component, as is huge sugar consumption in the form of everything from Dunkin' Donuts to Reese's Pieces. Excess protein would have to take a back seat ...

One of the other issues involved in weak bones, in spite of Vit D supplementation, is the lack of MK-7, which more or less escorts ingested and plasma calcium directly to the bones and teeth, where it belongs and can do good, and away from soft tissues, arteries, and joints, where it migrates to in large quantities absent that nutrient.

And if you're deficient in magnesium, it doesn't really matter how much Vit D you supplement with, because your body wont be able to utilize it. The absorption of Vit D is dependent on magnesium, and sucks it up like a Dyson on crack. Since magnesium is widely seen as one of the salient deficiencies in most of us, it stands to reason that a lot of Vit D supplementation is useless.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

- i got neurological symptoms like blurred eye vision and dizzyness now. feels somehow like hypoglycemia, but its not. at least not in blood.

I've had the same reactions, th not to D or MK-7 .... I call it 'wonky' or 'strobby' eyes, sort of blurry and spinny, and I still get intermittent dizziness and odd muscle respnses from time to time. Ive given up trying to figure out what causes it. It seems to not be uncommon among ME mebers here .... so I just write it off to the ME ad do a little lie-down.

Not very scientific, but hey, what can 'ya do

- also i got very bad head / ear pressure, i suspect head muscles are tight now.

And again, I've had those, too .... still do from time to time. For me, all of the above seems to be tied to low magnesium levels. It also helps to boost my MK-7 for a while ....

- my diabetes improved for what it looks like at least 1% on A1C scale. couldnt measure it yet. but before i had values of 140-160 in the morning, 150-199 after lunch. now its 125'ish morning, 100-140 after lunch. i even decreased my long time insulin

Magnesium is notoriously deficient in diabetes patients, and soe patients ahve been able to come off most of their diabetes medication once they carefully boosted their magnesiu levels.

Magnesiu is required for some 300-400 enxyme conversions in your body, and affects pretty much every body system you have. Including the absorption of Vit D, etc .... it's extremely common, even without diabetes, for most of us to be anywhere from mildly to severely deficient.

ok lets not lie, i am severe FAT!

I prefer to think of you as cuddly fat ....

my suspicion is i indead am somewhat MCAS affected. i

Speaing from alost complete ignorance of your various health and medication issues. lemme say that I doubt that that's at the root of all this, tho you might be mildly MCAS. I think most of us living in industrialized countries are, there's just soooooo many allergens floating around it's ridiculous to thin that we're not affected to one degree or aother ....

maybe even the dizzyness and blurred vision comes from that.
maybe even the lower glucose levels come from elevated histamine ... which is pushing it down.

Nope. I think, and remember I'm absolutely no form of medical professional, thank God, but I think the improvement in diabetes/blood sugar is a direct result of supplementing magnesium and possibly even potassium, and the dizziness and blurry vision that comes and goes could be the diabetes asserting itself, or a momentary low in your magnesium reserves. Vit D sucks up magnesium like a speeding tornado, so there could be intervals where your mag stores are too low ...

what forms of magnesium / potassium can MCAS tolerate?

No idea. But Im not sure that's your problem ...

what vitamins of Bx are not tolerated and wich are?

A HUUUUGE proportion of ME members here are extremely sensitive to pretty much the full spectrum of B vits ..... I had to cut them out entirely for seeral years, along with every other supplement I was taking and most of the foods I was eating, until a combo of Vit D and magnesium supplementation (at least as far as I can tell), which I added back into my diet in teensy little amounts, increasing them gradually and slowly to more or less normal levels, have allowed me to also slowly and carefully add back B-complex ....

all my D is in MCT. could the worsening come due to this MCT?

Medium chain triglycerides can be produced from a number of sources, including animal sources, and you may be reacting to the form of MCT's. See if you can find MCT's from coconut oil instead???

 

[cheeseater]

For those just starting out out on health and nutrition with vitamins and minerals and amino acids etc you should pick up a copy of "Prescription for Nutritional Healing" by Phyllis A Balch, CNC and James F Balch, MD. Hands down the best book ever assembled. They devote 4 pages to CFS. When using this book, I look at the recommended supplements and mostly ignore "branded" items. Then I mostly ignore the herb section and go right to recommendations and mostly ignore the considerations section.

For instance the first "recommendation" for CFS I will quote:
"Eat a well balanced diet of 50 percent raw foods and fresh "live" juices. The diet should consist mostly of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, plus raw nuts, seeds, skinless turkey, and some deep water fish. These quality foods support nutrients that renew energy and build immunity. " Nine other bullet point recommendations-- From the year 2000 3rd edition-

 

[cheeseater]

Getting back to the discussion of Vitamin D, what exactly have I said that you disagree with me about Vitamin D or the function of the parathyroid gland, bones and calcium??

James Balch MD (is he a nightclub owner?) has wirtten dozens of books on nutrition, but the only one I would ever recommend to anyone is the one I mentioned. It is an old standard in the field of nutrition, often updated, and highly regarded.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

Getting back to the discussion of Vitamin D, what exactly have I said that you disagree with me about Vitamin D or the function of the parathyroid gland, bones and calcium??

I've answered all your quibbles in them, including supplying citations for those answers, except for the parathyroid issue, which I sidestepped because it's such a weak and generally unhelpful comment.

An overactive parathyroid secretes too much parathyroid hormone, which does cause calcium to be excreted from the bones and dumped into the blood. But this condition is generally caused by poor, or failing, kidney function, and in general isn't part of the larger picture, absent those conditions.

The source you cite for your information, in fact, the ONLY source you cite for your information, is from the Balchs.

Phyllis Balch, who called herself a Certified Nutritional Consultant (which by the way, is a questionable title all on its own) was certified by the American Association of Nutritional Consultants, which, according to several sources including Quackwatch, is a discredited and absolutely disreputable organization, whose only membership requirement was the payment of a $50.00 fee, and whose "CNC" designation is based on passing an open-book examination, based mainly on the contents of what have been described as "quacky" books.

Her husband was a urologist in Indiana, but hasn't been a practicing physician for many years. During the mid to late 1990's, he was associated with an A. Glenn Braswell, a mail-order retailer who flooded the country's mailboxes with slick brochures, some of them accompanied by letters under Balch's name, for dubious herbal and supplement products, including recommendations for repeated dosages of 100,000 IUs (!!!!) of Vit A (a dosage level that's high enough to cause liver damage), and large quantities of shark cartilage, both for the prevention of cancer.

As a testament to the validity and efficacy of the Balch's advice regarding nutritional treatments and supplements, Phyllis Balch died of cancer in the early 2000's.

 

[linusbert]

I prefer to think of you as cuddly fat ....

damn right, i am cuddly as hell!

Spoiler: recent portrait of me - not underage material careful including nudism

i am not sure with the magnesium. i take way too less to make any difference. when i take it its like 100-300mg per week.

right now my main problem is worsening of asthma allergies after taking things. prevents me from taking almost anything.

 

[cheeseater]

Obviously protein is an essential nutrient, and I never suggested it was not. I said twice that EXCESSIVE protein caused bone leaching of calcium and that a Vit D DEFICIENCY also caused the parathyroid gland to cause calcium leaching.

Sure you can have a parathyroid tumor that will also cause bone thinning. You can also have malnutrition that will cause bone thinning. As I stated there are many other reasons why bones can become thin.

Why do you think experts have been vocally advocating for people to take some supplemental vitamin D for so long? It is because a vitamin D deficiency will cause your parathyroid gland to kick in and deplete calcium from your bones.

I have gotten 10,000 times better with my CFS over the last 20 years.

 

[linusbert]

I have gotten 10,000 times better with my CFS over the last 20 years.

i'd like that, 10k ... oh boy , i'd be flying like a bird.

how did you fix it?

 

[cheeseater]

i'd like that, 10k ... oh boy , i'd be flying like a bird.

how did you fix it?

Everybody is different. Mostly by cutting out foods like beef, mushrooms, string beans and chocolate- that did not agree with my system. Corn products were also a big culprit. I figured out I could not consume milk around age 6. No milk but I can eat cheese, yogurt, etc, just no milk. Figured out the corn/mushroom poison when I was in college. Huge improvement. Figured out the beef thing around the time I was first told I had CFS 20 years ago.

One excellent source of info was the Balch book. I did not follow the Balch verbatim (as i said above) because I already had a strong background in nutrition. I found his herbal recommendations to be nonsense-- and I got better by not following the herbal idvice. I also ignored his name brand supplement concoctions. 10,000 times better might sound like a lot, until you consider how close to zero I was at the time.

I also follow a light exercise program. I realize some here cannot do that. Like I say, everybody different.

 

[linusbert]

Everybody is different. Mostly by cutting out foods like beef, mushrooms, string beans and chocolate- that did not agree with my system. Corn products were also a big culprit. I figured out I could not consume milk around age 6. No milk but I can eat cheese, yogurt, etc, just no milk. Figured out the corn/mushroom poison when I was in college. Huge improvement. Figured out the beef thing around the time I was first told I had CFS 20 years ago.

One excellent source of info was the Balch book that Yipee has ridiculed. Thanks Yipee, I guess my whole recovery is in my imagination, eh? I did not follow the Balch verbatim (as i said above) because I already had a strong background in nutrition. I found his herbal recommendations to be nonsense-- and I got better by not following the herbal idvice. I also ignored his name brand supplement concoctions. 10,000 times better might sound like a lot, until you consider how close to zero I was at the time.

I also follow a light exercise program. I realize some here cannot do that. Like I say, everybody different.

damn it already doesnt work for me, i eat bread for like 60..70% of my calories, and i need to eat every 2 hours and i need to have those calories.
is rice and glutenfree stuff ok as replacement for corn? when talking corn you mean wheat and maze?

 

[cheeseater]

damn it already doesnt work for me, i eat bread for like 60..70% of my calories, and i need to eat every 2 hours and i need to have those calories.
is rice and glutenfree stuff ok as replacement for corn? when talking corn you mean wheat and maze?

For me it is corn meaning corn/maize. All corn products including corn flour, corn starch, corn syrup, HFCS, fresh corn, etc, etc etc. It is in nearly everything packaged. Corn/maize is a common replacement for wheat when they make a gluten free product. Corn contains gluten, but is is not the same kind of gluten that causes gluten sensitivity from wheat, etc.

I have been assured up and down by my GI doctor that I do not have celiac disease. That from various scope procedures. I am not gluten intolerant so I can eat wheat bread, rye, barley, rice etc. As long as it is not in the corn/maize family.

Part of the corn problem could be aflatoxin that grows on corn after it is harvested and right before it is harvested if it gets wet. A black mold sort of fungus.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

damn right, i am cuddly as hell!

Like I said, absolutely adorable and cuddly, tho a bit fishy smelling on hot days ....

 

[linusbert]

Like I said, absolutely adorable and cuddly, tho a bit fishy smelling on hot days ....

thats why i am popping allicin now, so i will just reek of GARLIC!

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

thats why i am popping allicin now, so i will just reek of GARLIC!

LOOOOVE garlic. Not that fond of fish. So total win, and thank you for that adjustment !!!!

 

[linusbert]

...by the meat lobby...

there is a meat lobby?

Vitamin D gives me weak exhausted muscles a few days later. like next day, plato'ing 2-3 days after, then regulating itself back to normal. somebody has a idea what that can be?
i usually only got crampy muscles from vitamin D. but this seams to be a new side effect since a few month.

 

[cheeseater]

Meat lobby? In US the meat lobby is among the 3 most powerful. Oil lobby, pharmaceutical lobby and meat lobby. Meat lobby spent around $7 million in DC for year 2020. That amount does not include anything but lobbying in DC.