Intro: Inadequate nutrition - especially low vitamin D - is not properly recognised by the medical profession; Optional paid subscriptions.
Doctors, immunologists and public health officials should read the most pertinent research!
The most important article here is:
nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/how-much-vitamin-d3-to-take
Welcome to Nutrition Matters by Robin Whittle. I am an electronic technician and computer programmer in Daylesford, Victoria, Australia. I am concerned that most medical doctors and immunologists do not understand the immune system’s dependence on 50ng/ml 125nmol/L, 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in the bloodstream. This is 2 to 10 times the level most people have without proper vitamin D3 supplementation.
The material presented here is a public service - to encourage medical professionals, immunologists, public health officials and all those with a keen interest in nutrition to read the research I cite and discuss. I have no formal qualifications in any field.
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Since early 2020 I have devoted a lot of time to raising awareness of the importance of vitamin D for the immune system. My electronic musical instrument business Real World Interfaces has taken second place to these efforts. In May 2023, prompted by an offer from a new (511th) subscriber, I added an option for paid subscriptions. Please take up a paid subscription if you would like to support my work financially. However:
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Vitamin D3 supplementation - how much to take?
Please see my February 2024 article which answers this question comprehensively:
https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/how-much-vitamin-d3-to-take
There’s very little vitamin D3 in food, fortified or not. We can make vitamin D3 in our skin by exposing it to short wavelength, high energy, ultraviolet B radiation around 297 nanometres in wavelength. However, this is normally only available in sufficient quantities from high elevation (far from the equator, only in summer) sunlight on cloud-free days, without glass, clothing or sunscreen protecting the skin. UV-B always damages DNA and so raises the risk of skin cancer. Those with brown or black skin would need to spend inordinate amounts in such sunshine to generate enough vitamin D3 for their immune systems to function properly.
The only safe way most people can raise their 25-hydroxyvitamin D sufficiently for their immune system to work well is to supplement vitamin D3, which is converted in the liver to 25-hydroxyvitamin D. For 70 kg 154 lb people who are not suffering from obesity this requires about 0.125 milligrams vitamin D3 a day. This is also known by the scarily high value of “5000 IU”. This is a gram every 22 years - and vitamin D3 costs about USD$2.50 a gram, ex-factory. A sheet of A4 or Letter size office paper weighs about 5 grams.
The best detailed introduction to vitamin D3 and the immune system is the article Simon Goddek (PhD, biotechnology) and I wrote for the Brownstone Foundation in May 2023:
brownstone.org/articles/vitamin-d-everything-you-need-to-know/
You can listen to this in English via a cheery robotic voice, or read translations into 17 other languages.
A more comprehensive account of the vitamin D compounds and the immune system is this long web page, co-signed by Patrick Chambers MD: vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/.
In 2020 I wrote this detailed, illustrated, tutorial on 25-hydroxyvitamin D based intracrine and paracrine signaling because no-one else had done so: vitamindstopscovid.info/02-intracrine/.
For discussion and questions about these articles - and some preliminary notes on how some (very few) people may have ill effects from the vitamin D3 supplemental intakes which most people need for proper immune system function - please see and contribute to the Comments section of this article:
Most medical doctors and immunologists do not yet understand the immune system’s dependence on higher 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels than governments recommend
My intention is not to impress people with my knowledge of nutrition, which is a fraction of what I would like it to be. Likewise immunology. You shouldn’t be taking nutritional or medical advice from an electronic technician and computer programmer. Please read the research I cite and discuss.
If you can’t understand or reliably evaluate that research, please ask someone to help you. Doctors are generally averse to their patients trying to show them something on the Internet, but most of them would be able to do their work much better if they understood the research I cite, which shows that:
Government recommendations for vitamin D3 supplementation aim to attain only the 20 ng/mL 50 nmol/L circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D the kidneys need to regulate calcium-phosphate bone metabolism. The immune system needs 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L (one part in 20,000,000 by mass). These recommendations, which doctors are generally expected to follow, recommend inadequate quantities of vitamin D3 and are based on age-group. The only way to reliably determine the best supplemental quantities, without blood tests and medical involvement, is according to body weight and obesity status.
If everyone had the 25-hydroxyvitamin D their immune system needs, then influenza and SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes COVID-19) would not spread in pandemic fashion - and those who were infected would only rarely be seriously harmed or killed. This is even more the case if proper early treatment for COVID-19 is made available, starting with zinc, ivermectin covid19criticalcare.com/treatment-protocols/i-care/ and other early treatments
The Brownstone.org article and this Substack article explain why boosting the patient’s 25-hydroxyvitamin D level to at least 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L in four hours, with a single oral dose of 1 mg (for 70 kg body weight) calcifediol, is the most urgently required early treatment for the great majority of COVID-19 patients, whose 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels are a fraction of what their immune system needs. Calcifediol is 25-hydroxyvitamin D.
This 0.014 mg / kg BW calcifediol protocol, recommended by Prof. Wimalawansa, and discussed at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#4.7 will also greatly reduce the toll of harm and death which results today from sepsis, severe influenza, Kawasaki disease and MIS-C/PIMS.If everyone had at least 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the sepsis - which kills 11 million people a year worldwide (2017 figures from the Global Burden of Disease Project - one person every 3 seconds) - would be rare. Many chronic inflammatory auto-immune, developmental (autism) and neurodegenerative (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s diseases etc.) diseases would be much less prevalent.
“Vitamin D” is not a hormone. Please see here or the Brownstone.org article for an explanation of how the immune system relies on a good circulating level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D to run many types of immune cells’ intracrine (inside each cell) and paracrine (to nearby cells) signaling systems. The immune system does not use hormonal (endocrine) signaling. Neither vitamin D3 cholecalciferol nor 25-hydroxyvitamin D act as hormones.
Doctors, nurses, immunologists, nutritionists and anyone else - with or without formal qualifications - who is really keen to discuss research regarding nutrition and the immune system are invited to join the Nutrition for Immune System Health (NISH) email discussion list: NISH.groups.io.