@Sporty
Magnesium is very important for vitamin d3, it seems. I feel worse when taking high doses (>10k) of vitamin d3 but magnesium and k2 make it better. It does activate the immune system and d3's anti-inflammatory effect is very much visible on my skin the very next day!
It is important that people understand that inflammation is the result of an activated immune system. You do not take a substance that "activates the immune system" and then have "anti-inflammatory effects".
In fact Vitamin D *may* be immunosuppressive, if you believe the work of Dr Marshall. Your heresay N=1 report would agree with him, because the effect you describe of Vitamin D lowering inflammation would be an immunosuppressive effect.
You raise great questions regarding Marshall's claim that supplemental Vitamin D is blocking the VDR receptor so that the important form 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin-d cannot fill the receptor to activate it. Marshall has dozens of presentations on Youtube, all of them carefully documented and backed by a lot of cohort research on humans. However, he always gets hit hard by other professionals on this issue of the Vitamin D supplementation blocking 1,25 form and his responses always rely on his computer models. I think this is a weak point in his theory, but please note that he could be wrong on this and his theory would still be incredibly important.
Essentially what Dr Marshall is arguing is that all of the tissues of your body are infected by bacteria. They are pervasive and have evolved over the millions of years apes have been around to target the vitamin D receptor. The vitamin D receptor is what activates the innate immune system that would destroy - or at least greatly limit - those bacteria. Once the vitamin D receptor is deactivated, the bacteria are then free to infect and disable functions of the target tissues. Dr Marshall's claim is that almost all autoimmune diseases are in fact caused by this single unifying idea.
Marshall's protocol relies on a heart disease drug named olmesartan that has an unintended side-effect of activating the VDR receptor. What his cohort trials have shown over the last 10 years is that people who take olmesartan in high doses every four hours get worse for the first year, then sometime in years two to three start to improve, with dramatic improvements appearing after that time. The theory says they feel worse the first year because they are *activating* their innate immune system to fight the bacteria. This is creating inflammation and a worsening of symptoms as the body engages a huge and well-entrenched population of bacteria in the tissues. It takes time to turn the corner.
Here is the report of a cohort of 64 patients with chronic fatigue syndrome who went on Marshall Protocol and showed impressive improvements:
Marshall's claim is that supplemental Vitamin D is immunosuppressive. The reason many people feel better is because they are actually further disabling the VDR receptor - by competing for its use with a non active form of Vitamin D. This lowers inflammation in the short term - in much the way a steroid treatment would - but unfortunately this will make you even more ill in the long term because you are allowing the entrenched infection to become worse.
People who are fighting chronic disease often test with very low levels of vitamin D. Marshall's point is that this is the *result of the disease itself* because the body is actively converting the 25-D form to the 1,25-dihydroxy form. These same people will usually test with very high levels of 1,25-dihydroxy. Why? Because the body converted to the active form but the bacteria disabled the VDR, so the active form could not be used! His point is supplementation in such individuals will further occupy the VDR slots and thus prevent even more of the active form from working.
It's interesting that in my own case I have normal vitamin D levels, but I definitely feel worse taking supplemental vitamin D. I am currently treating my chronic fatigue as the result of biotoxin illness using Shoemaker protocol, and I am remediating my home environment. After I finish with that I may end up putting myself on Marshall protocol not only as further treatent for the CFS but also as a potential prophylaptic for many chronic diseases. His idea is very powerful if even 50% of his ideas are proven correct.
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