I recently did some more research on Vitamin D3,
and found a study that showed that supplementation in patients with
NAFLD, using 20,000 IU per day for one week (then weekly, thereafter),
brought the patients' levels to a normal range! I learned quite a bit
about Vitamin D3 recently,
and wanted to share it with you guys in case it might help, any.
Of course, I
am not a doctor, and cannot give medical advice, but I still thought
this was worth sharing, and I encourage you to do your own research : ).
In my opinion, WAAAY too many people are just plain scared to take too much Vitamin D3, because somewhere along the way, we heard it's a fat soluble vitamin we have to "watch out for." But I think sooo many of us just don't get nearly enough.
I was vitamin D3 deficient in my 20s and 30s, until I discovered how much a lack of D3 was contributing to depression and back pain. I decided to take 10,000 IU after reading that Dr. Andrew Weil said it's considered safe to take up to 10,000 IU. I can tell you I have a friend who was taking 25,000 to even 50,000 IU per day. She was getting her blood monitored, though, but it really seemed to be helping her. I've never had my blood monitored, and on occasion have taken up to 25,000 IU with ZERO side effects, but that doesn't mean it'd be safe for you also. You should be under a doctor's care. You know the drill.
I was vitamin D3 deficient in my 20s and 30s, until I discovered how much a lack of D3 was contributing to depression and back pain. I decided to take 10,000 IU after reading that Dr. Andrew Weil said it's considered safe to take up to 10,000 IU. I can tell you I have a friend who was taking 25,000 to even 50,000 IU per day. She was getting her blood monitored, though, but it really seemed to be helping her. I've never had my blood monitored, and on occasion have taken up to 25,000 IU with ZERO side effects, but that doesn't mean it'd be safe for you also. You should be under a doctor's care. You know the drill.
Please read what Dr. Weil says about Vitamin D3:
He says:
Are There Any Risks Associated With Too Much Vitamin D?
No adverse effects have been seen with supplemental vitamin D intakes up to 10,000 IU daily. Exposing the face and hands to roughly 10 minutes of direct sunlight daily is also quite safe and a good way to boost vitamin D; for some tips on general sun safety, read the DrWeil.com Q&A: “No Fun in the Sun.”
So what is a Normal Level of Vitamin D, anyway?
It's helpful to know what is considered a "normal" vitamin D range, in a blood test (I didn't know what a normal range was, myself, till I just looked it up):
What is the normal range for vitamin D in a blood test?
When a person has cirrhosis they become soooooo vitamin D3 deficient! I just get this feeling that Vitamin D3 is one of those supplements that gets sucked up like a sponge, by a person who has cirrhosis, because their bodies are crying out for more nutrition.
Check out this study of patients with NAFLD (non alcoholic fatty liver disease), which shows... participants in a study, who took 20,000 IU per day (then 20,000 IU per week, for 6 months) were able to bring their Vitamin D3 levels up to 34.7 ng/ml, which is considered an average range!
Please note, I am not an expert on vitamin D3, but like I said, it can attest it worked like a miracle for my own back pain. Please be sure to do your own research, and make sure if you take more than 10,000 IU, you are getting your vitamin D3 levels checked.
Recent clinical trial discovers vitamin D supplementation may improve non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
A
recent clinical trial found that vitamin D supplementation reduced
liver fat infiltration among patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver
disease.
Non-alcoholic
fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the accumulation of fat in the liver
unrelated to excessive alcohol consumption. The cause of NALFD is
multifactorial, resulting from both genetic and environmental factors.
NAFLD
is common, with a prevalence of 25-45% in Western countries. The
majority of individuals with NAFLD do not experience signs, symptoms or
complications. However, in some, NAFLD can progress to liver cancer or
liver failure.
Researchers
became interested in the role that vitamin D plays in NAFLD due to the
presence of vitamin D receptors in the liver. Furthermore, research
shows that vitamin D deficiency is linked to greater severity of NAFLD.
Recently,
researchers aimed to determine the effects of vitamin D supplementation
in NAFLD patients who were considered vitamin D deficient (< 20
ng/ml). A total of 40 patients from an outpatient liver clinic fit the
criteria, and thus, were included in the study. The researchers
quantified the severity of NAFLD by measuring controlled attenuation
parameter (CAP), a marker used to assess liver fat content. Higher
values signify greater liver fat content.
The
study lasted six months. During the first week, all patients were
instructed to supplement with 20,000 IU vitamin D3 daily. This dosage
was followed by 20,000 IU vitamin D taken on a weekly basis for the
remainder of the six months. The researchers performed follow ups after
four weeks, and at three and six months. Here is what they found:
The researchers concluded,
“The degree of hepatic steatosis significantly improved after only four weeks of vitamin D replacement therapy in the absence of concomitant weight loss in this six-month supplementation study. Hepatic steatosis, as assessed by CAP, is a dynamic process, which appears to be modulated by interventions such as vitamin D substitution.”
The
study suggests that patients who are affected with NAFLD should
supplement with vitamin D to reduce liver fat content. As a clinical
trial, the study design was relatively strong. However, the study lacked
a control group, leaving room for placebo effect to possibly skew the
results. The researchers called for controlled trials to further assess
the possibility of managing NAFLD with vitamin D.
And there's this study:
https://www.health.harvard.
Vitamin D: What’s the “right” level?
POSTED DECEMBER 19, 2016, 9:30 AM , UPDATED OCTOBER 26, 2018, 8:55 AM
Many
of my patients who come into the office for their physical exams ask to
have their vitamin D levels checked. They may have a family member with
osteoporosis, or perhaps they have had bone thinning themselves.
Mostly, they want to know that they’re doing everything they can to keep
their bones strong. Vitamin D is critical for healthy bones. But when
we check that blood level, how to act on the result is the subject of
great controversy in medical-research land.
Pinpointing a “healthy” vitamin D level is tricky
So,
what is the current cutoff value at which people are considered “low,”
and thus at risk for developing bone thinning and having fractures? (We
are talking about the blood level of 25-hydroxy-vitamin D, which is
usually measured in nanograms per milliliter.) Ah. This is where there
is a lot of argument.
In
2010, the venerable Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued a report based
on lengthy examination of data by a group of experts. To sum up, they
estimated that a vitamin D level of 20 ng/mL or higher was adequate for
good bone health, and subsequently a level below 20 was considered a
vitamin D deficiency.
In
my practice, and in most, it is not uncommon to see a vitamin D level
less than 20. When that happens, we tell the patient that they are
deficient and recommend fairly aggressive replenishment, as well as
ongoing supplementation. The majority of folks have a level between 20
and 40, in my experience, and this is corroborated by the IOM’s findings
in that 2010 report.
But in
2011, the respected Endocrine Society issued a report urging a much,
much higher minimum blood level of vitamin D. At that time, their
experts concluded: “Based on all the evidence, at a minimum, we
recommend vitamin D levels of 30 ng/mL, and because of the vagaries of
some of the assays, to guarantee sufficiency, we recommend between 40
and 60 ng/mL for both children and adults.”
But wait, there’s more…
A
more recent opinion on the right target level of vitamin D is presented
in an article titled “Vitamin D Deficiency: Is There Really a
Pandemic?” published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In this piece, several of the leading epidemiologists and
endocrinologists who were on the original IOM committee argue for a
lowering of the currently accepted cutoff level of 20, stating that the
level they estimated as acceptable was
never intended to be used to define vitamin D deficiency. They feel
that we are over-screening for vitamin D deficiency, and unnecessarily
treating individuals who are perfectly fine.
Based
on their analysis, a more appropriate cutoff for vitamin D deficiency
would be much lower, 12.5 ng/mL. They examined a massive amount of data
from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) for
2007 through 2010, and found that less than 6% of Americans had vitamin D
levels less than 12.5. A cutoff of 12.5 ng/mL would most certainly
eliminate the “pandemic” of vitamin D deficiency.
And the controversy boils on, with many articles and statements made to support one or the other guideline.
Some perspective on what is, and isn’t, vitamin D deficiency
I
spoke with osteoporosis expert Dr. Joel Finkelstein, associate director
of the Bone Density Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, whose
research in this field spans over three decades. He agreed with the
authors of the NEJM article
that we are currently over-screening for vitamin D deficiency, and
overtreating people who are getting enough vitamin D through diet and
sun exposure. “Vitamin D has been hyped massively,” he states. “We do
not need to be checking the vitamin D levels of most healthy
individuals.”
He
points out that from an evolutionary standpoint, it doesn’t make sense
that higher vitamin D levels would be beneficial to humans. “Vitamin D
is actually quite hard to find in naturally occurring food sources,” he
points out. “Yes, we can get vitamin D from the sun, but our bodies
evolved to create darker skin in the parts of the world that get the
most sun. If vitamin D is so critical to humans, why would we evolve in
this way, to require something that is hard to come by, and then evolve
in such a way as to make it harder to absorb?”
So who should be screened for vitamin D deficiency?
Dr.
Finkelstein and his colleagues published a study of over 2,000
perimenopausal women who had been followed for almost 10 years, and they
found that vitamin D levels less than 20 were associated with a
slightly increased risk of nontraumatic fractures. They concluded that
because few foods contain vitamin D, vitamin D supplementation is
warranted in women at midlife with levels less than 20 ng/mL. “For
perimenopausal women or other groups of people with higher fracture
risk, certainly a level of 20 or above is ideal,” and he adds: “For the
vast majority of healthy individuals, levels much lower, 15, maybe 10,
are probably perfectly fine, and so I would say I agree with what the
authors of the New England Journal perspective article are saying.”
All that said, most
experts, including Dr. Finkelstein, agree we should be checking vitamin
D levels in high-risk people — those most at risk for a true
deficiency. These include people with anorexia nervosa, people who have had gastric bypass surgeries, who suffer from other malabsorption syndromes
like celiac sprue, or who have dark skin, or wear total skin covering
(and thus absorb less sunlight). In addition, certain populations will
require that vitamin D level of 20 ng/ml or higher. This can include
perimenopausal women, people diagnosed with osteopenia (reduced bone
density, but not osteoporosis) and osteoporosis or other skeletal
disorders, as well as pregnant and lactating women. All of these groups
should be screened and treated as appropriate.
Note how the article, above, suggests that people who suffer from a malabsorption syndrome may need more vitamin D3. You'd think they would have listed cirrhosis on that list, but... nope. But I cannot think of another disease where a person could have a greater "malabsorption problem" than someone with cirrhosis!!! (Except for, maybe a person who is LITERALLY starving because they have no food available).
There are sooo many reasons why a person doesn't absorb nutrients properly, if they have cirrhosis. Like the blurb below, states: "Mulnutrition, portal hypertension, lack of secretion of bile acids, pancreatic disease and mucosal changes of small intestine have been listed as possible causes for malabsorption in patients with cirrhosis."
I mean.... hello! How could cirrhosis not be classified as a malabsorption syndrome?
Here's what you get, when you google:
"Is cirrhosis a malabsorption syndrome?"
by DCH Sun - 1967 - Cited by 88 - Related articles
The PRESENCE of a malabsorption syndrome in patients with cirrhosis has long been suspected. Malnutrition,1,2 portal hypertension,3 lack of secretion of bile acids,4-6 pancreatic disease7-10 and mucosal changes of small intestine3 have been listed as possible causes for malabsorption in patients with cirrhosis.I recently got a weird hunch that it could be good for lowering bilirubin levels, so I googled it, and it appears that it might. The study below is for newborns but I believe this could be just as applicable for adults.
It also appears that low
vitamin D levels could cause liver enzymes to rise (not a good
thing!). Some people worry that D3 could cause elevated liver enzymes,
but it appears to be the opposite... people with low vitamin D3 are the ones who are more likely to have elevated liver enzymes!
Can vitamin d3 cause elevated liver enzymes?
I just sent an email to my husband while he was at work a few days ago, after seeing the reviews for this brand of high-dose vitamin D3 (and other high-dose brands with VERY high average review ratings), and wanted to share it with you. I pasted my email to him, at the bottom of this page.
Many people are scared to take Vitamin D because they worry about taking too much (the medical industry seems to work very hard to warn people not to take too much), and yet, it seems like it's practically a miracle supplement (at least it was for me... seriously, it seemed to take away back pain I'd suffered with for years), and the people who take high quantities seem to get even more health benefits (provided they are monitoring themselves).
Please note, I cannot say for sure what is safe for anyone else and encourage you to do your own research, but I had to share this with you!
You can read a book about the miraculous effects that can be achieved by taking very high doses of Vitamin D, by CLICKING HERE. There is a kindle version of this also, that is not too expensive.
I do believe that it could be true that a person with cirrhosis might not be able to take a very high dose like a normal person, but for all I know maybe it could work incredibly well for them. My husband never took more than 10,000 IU. I just wish there were more studies showing how much is safe for a person with cirrhosis.
Also,
please read this post I wrote about Vitamin D3 in 2014. It seems to
hold a lot of promise for fibrosis. As the study showed, it "deactivates the switch governing the fibrotic response in mouse liver cells" Just click here to see the study:
What I wrote to my husband:
I was reading reviews for Vitamin D today,
and it seems like the brands with solid 5-star ratings are the ones for
high potency - 10,000 or 50,000 IU! See screen shot at the bottom
of this page, to see what I mean. I have heard that it's better to take a large dose of vitamin D,
like, once a week, vs. doing it every day? But I never did that myself
cause I seemed to get so much benefit from taking it as I already did
(10,000 IU daily), I just never switched.
The
one below is the one I would buy myself, if I had to pick one! I
highlighted in yellow, some of the benefits of this supplement.
(this one below is like an 8 month supply of the same one below... probably not necessary)...
About the product
(note this is a screenshot below, not clickable links... I'm just posting it here so you can see how high the ratings are, for the brands that have a very high I.U.)
Hope this helps!
Ellie
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