Dr. Walt Goodpastor is a naturopathic doctor. Below is a piece he wrote for the network in response to questions another member had. I asked if I could reprint it here. I’ve slightly edited it to make it clear in this context. The question he is responsding to was, “Have you visited the Vitamin D Council website?”
Yes, I have often visited the Vitamin D Council website over the past few years. Interestingly, John Cannell, MD (who appears to be a somewhat atypical enlightened psychiatrist) is the founder of the Council and has been a driving force in the effort to bring the authoritarian dogma of conventional medicine into the light.
Dr. Cannell had been employed for several years in the California state psychiatric hospital system when he noticed that patients who got sufficient D3 did not get the flu as often as those who were likely deficient. He began researching historical records on the great post-WWI flu epidemic and saw patterns that reinforced his suspicions.
John’s pioneering study eventually prompted others to more closely examine the role of D3 in health & to the discovery that D3 is an absolutely critical nutrient for neurological and physical health and resistence to infectious & degenerative diseases.
There is a vast amount of research currently underway because early research reports revealed that adequate amounts of D3 protect against a host of illnesses from depression and anxiety to cancer and autism, to Parkinson’s and MS and cardiovascular disease. It may even reverse or control existing disease. To review the research, just go to plosmedicine or pubmed and enter search term vitamin D3.
Of course, the mainstream media have reported little about all this since they are pretty much all stooges and tools of the pharmaceutical industry because they get big checks from them. Just watch CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS for a little while and count the Big Pharma ads. Big pharma is scared stiff about D3 because it threatens to make all the toxins they sell irrelevant. And since it is a natural substance, it is non-patentable. So they have done everything in their power to suppress information about it and undermine it. Behind the scenes, they are trying their best to get the federal government to restrict the public’s access to all nutritional supplements and vitamins by claiming they are dangerous and should only be available by prescription from an MD. Of course, they control the MDs. They are also struggling to come up with a patentable knockoff in the lab to which they can claim ownership. They are currently pouring money and lobbying effort into Washington, trying to manipulate the Obama administration.
When you look at the research results that are coming in, you will see what is at stake here. D3 is something that would really “rock their world” by making a whole lot of people a whole lot healthier.
Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble prohormones, the two major forms of which are vitamin D2 (or ergocalciferol) and vitamin D3 (or cholecalciferol). I don’t know which one organic milk contains, but I suspect you will find it contains D2 since industrial food typically contains the cheapest form of anything… even if it’s organic. I hope you find me wrong on that, but you can just check the label. It should be stated there.
I take D3 as I’ve been following the latest research—I might add though that I’ve only been taking it a few months. I’d like to also say I think there are many other essential nutrients we need to supplement too. But vitamin D3 is shaping up to clearly be another one of them.
Thanks for the article and informative response by Dr. Goodpastor. The difference between vitamin D3 and the artificial D2 is not so well understood by many people, thanks for clarifying. I’ve been reading some of the other reports one finds about vitamin D research in the past several weeks and this D3 point is not always made clear.
matresses…
you look and smell like spam…but you did actually read the article….what’s your deal?
Dear VC,
First, it is important to distinguish between D3 and the artificial D2 which is a knockoff of the natural form produced in the lab. D2 is the inferior form typically added to processed foods, while D3 is the same natural form produced by the human body when it is exposed to full spectrum sunlight & some tanning lights as well.
I certainly agree that it would be preferrable to get your D3 naturally from the sun, but as Gianna points out, that becomes more difficult the further one lives from the equator. And even those of us who live in warmer climates would have difficulty finding the time to get the necessary full body sun exposure every day. At one time in our early human history when everyone ran around half naked in the sun it wasn’t a problem but that’s not the way we live today. It is also virtually impossible to get a sufficient amount from dietary sources.
I am puzzled by your assertion that human breast milk contains no D. The physiology involved in the production of human breast milk teaches us that its content reflects the nutritional status of the mother. Ergo, if the mother consumes a substance, it will show up in the milk. This occurs with vitamins B, C, A & E as well as such things as drugs, alcohol, garlic and onions. Whatever is present in the mother’s blood serum will also be in the milk. This would be particularly true of fat soluble compounds such as vitamin D which are stored in body fat tissue.
You are right to point out the dangers of mega doses of D3. I have heard of conventional medical doctors giving very large doses of prescription D by injection. There is a risk of toxicity at doses over 10,000 IU per day (10,000 IU is about what your body would produce on its own after 1 hour full body exposure to sunlight). At sustained levels over 10,000 IU per day, there is risk of calcium deposits in the soft tissues of the body. This includes the brain and other vital organs, although this is mitigated by sufficient levels of vitamin K2 since the two compounds appear to work synergisticaly. I recommend 2,000 IU per day for adults and 5,000 IU per day for 5 days at the first signs of any virus infection such as cold or flu.
You are also right to be wary of medical practitioners who push products of any sort. Conventional medical doctors are almost completely corrupted and manipulated by Big Pharma and the biotech industry into pushing their products, mostly to the detriment of patients. And yes, even some naturopathic doctors are product pushers as well. In the Houston metropolitan area where I live, there is a group of traditionally trained MDs who call themselves wellness centers pushing a line of “bioidentical hormones” and vitamins/supplements that they manufacture in their own plant. There is also a corporate presence of “Wellness Centers” that is nothing but white-coated sales clerks called “advisors” pushing vitamins and supplements at outrageous prices.
I believe that if we are to be successful in recovery, we must understand that many people who present themselves as health authorities are nothing more than profit seekers who treat people as objects to be exploited for money. This is why billions of dollars are wasted each year on worthless prescription drugs and pointless surgeries. The practitioners of this organized crime should be avoided like the plague on humanity they are.
Perhaps it is most important here to emphasize that the capacity for healing exists within each of us. Nobody actually heals anybody else. Even the surgeon who cuts and saws and stiches depends on the body’s innate power to heal itself. Otherwise, all his patients would simply die.
It is this capacity that is given to us by God and Nature, and we must choose healer guides who understand and accept this essential principle. An ethical healer guide expects to be paid for his/her services, but does not exploit the relationship in order to sell drugs, vitamins, supplements or medical equipment.
thanks Walt,
beautifully put…I’m hardly functioning today…
so glad I could post your piece.
I’m a firm believer the only good vitamin D is the one you get from the sun, and in natural foods such as fish. Anything else, I believe, is not good ( ie. fortified foods, milk and supplements ). I have been gravely sickened by supplementing with D while withdrawing from medications.
Human breast milk does not contain vitamin D. It is the only vitamin missing ( suggests to me that God didn’t intend for us to get it other than the ways he provided ).
Vitamin D isn’t even a vitamin. It is converted into a steroid hormone in the liver, and too much will suppress the immune system in much the same way as Prednisone. Take a person in a severe psych drug withdrawal and give them Prednisone, and ask how it makes them feel. Yikes!
D was misidentified as a vitamin by researchers, and once the truth about what it really is was later discovered, it was too late to call it something else and the name stuck.
I’ve had a very nasty experience with withdrawal, and have encountered many benzo withdrawal suffers who have turned to Vitamin D to ease withdrawal symptoms, and to help the body heal, only to end up feeling a 1000 x’s worse. My personal experience, I can sit in the sun til the cows come home and eat fish to my heart’s content, but if I take a D supplement, I am guaranteed to be bedbound and miserable for the next 2 days.
I truly think the latest Vitamin D hype is another marketing ploy by drug companies who manufacture prescription strength vitamin D, much like vitamin E was hyped in the 80’s and 90’s and turned out to be quite dangerous to take in excessive amounts. Nowadays it is nothing for doctors to prescribe 50,000 I.U.’s of vitamin D to their patients, and causing them to suffer symptoms of vitamin D toxicity, which often are similar symptoms of drug withdrawal. Too much vitamin D can dampen down the vitamin D receptors throughout the body and render them inactive….opening up a whole new can of worms for disease and illness to take hold.
Better to stick with sun exposure and foods that naturally contain D. Stay away from fortified anything and supplements, at least for the next 10 years when researchers will be singing another tune that supplementing with D turns out to be a bad thing after all. It’s a steroid, people. It might suppress an ailment someone is experiencing at first, but later will cause all kinds of havoc because its simply not natural for a human body to be exposed to high amounts via supplementing ( D from the sun is regulated in the skin and only converts as much as it needs ….never too much ). Take too much, and you are most certainly going to tinker with the way your body is created to function, outside of what nature intended. You are, in essence, trusting people who manufactured psychiatric drugs, with setting the limits of what is deemed acceptable vitamin D levels.
( sniff sniff – $$$$)
Anytime there is new hype about a miracle vitamin, do your research. There is almost always a pharmaceutical drug company behind it, hoping to profit off your desires to heal with natural means and capitalize off the naturopathic trend. Research the drug companies who mass produce prescription strength vitamin D, and also doctors and researchers who market products such as D supplements and sun lamps for profit. They are the ones who produce these massive amounts of “research” about vitamin D and have lots to gain. Even one of my most beloved, popular doctors who is one of the most verbal Vitamin D supporters in this country, has a huge website that is self-professed to cost nearly $500,000 a year to maintain, and therefore depends on the sales of his products to keep it going, sells what else….vitamin D supplements and sun lamps and they two of his biggest selling products! The more research he puts out there about the benefits of vitamin D, the more products he sells, end of story. These people are brillant and know exactly what they are doing. I’m convinced more and more that there is not a soul in this world, researcher, doctor, whomever…who conducts research without somehow taking that research and profitting off of it, honestly or not….probably mostly “not”.
I’m sure many people will disagree, and that is your right and perogative. I just ask that before you pop that vitamin D supplement you bought because you read about how beneficial it is to your health….why did God exclude it, and only it, from breastmilk? And, why is the world getting sicker, not healthier, from all this research? And if D was so wonderful, why are we not seeing a healing revolution happening?
Thank you for all you do. I love your website and wish you nothing but the best because you deserve it as much as anyone, but felt compelled to share my feelings about this latest marketing ploy people are falling for because its falls in the natural health category. We should know better by now to not believe everything we read when there is money to be made by someone, somewhere. DRUG COMPANIES are doing the vitamin D research, and sadly, the naturopathic world is jumping on the bandwagon because it’s helping them sell more of their products, too. We are brainwashed to believe natutral health practitioners actually care about us and don’t fall for stuff like this, but unfortunately they are in it for the bucks, as well. They are making a killing off all this D hoopla the drug companies are throwing out there. Rest assured, when this D novelty wears off, GSK or Pfizer will be onto the next miracle vitamin they can turn into a script.
🙂 Sorry so long winded…..I’m just very passionate about this. Get your D from the sun and food that contains it naturally. Don’t buy that pharmacuetical propaganda baloney that is masked as natural health research.
VC,
in a perfect world I would get my D from the sun…I’m housebound now and some people live where there is virtually no sun. some supplements are actually fine to take they should be D-3 and not any other…
I agree fortified foods are crap, but there are good supplement brands and it’s simply not always possible to get all the D we need depending on our circumstances…and especially in the winter.
and pharmaceutical companies routinely discredit supplements so I don’t know what you’re talking about on that front..they are trying to wipe out the supplement industry.
and vit D did NOT make me feel worse…
but I’m with you on alternative docs being as bad as traditional ones sometimes…I’ve been slaughtered worse by a couple of alternative docs than some trad docs…
bottom line is finding people who listen to OUR experience…it seems most people with a medical degree of any sort think themselves related to God but are terribly lacking in empathy…
I get my info from survivors who are also in the field at this point…and I’m one of those people as well…a professional and a survivors.