Vitamin D

The chemicals produced in a lab and designated as vitamins, have become very popular in allopathy and naturopathy. Though people have lived somehow for thousands of years without these, many feel they are necessary because our food is not as good as it may have been in the past. This is known as the “scorched Earth theory” that says our land and water is polluted so we cannot get good nutrition from it.
By supporting your local organic farmers instead of eating food with herbicide and pesticide or taking drugs, the fertility of our soil can be increased, as well as our own health. More and more women are acquiring hypercalcemia, which is more difficult to cure than cancer. One of the causes of this is taking high doses of "vitamin" D, especially with Tamoxifen. Sometimes just taking this drug is enough to cause hypercalcemia. This is why.
There is nothing natural about the supplement, "vitamin" D. Most people already get enough D as it is formed naturally in the skin when exposed to sunlight, is present in significant levels in certain fish, mushrooms and eggs. The MDR has been artificially raised because there is a conflict of interest from the manufacturer sitting on the Council. Though Dr. Holick has been identified as sitting on this council and being a manufacturer of this drug, no agency has demanded he step down from this position.

How it is Made
This is not being cooked up by a little old grandma somewhere. It's not "natural" nor are doctors afraid to prescribe it. These are some of the big pharma corporations manufacturing it: Ion labs, Lycored, Fermented Biotech limited, Laxmidas and Co, Supreme Pharmaceuticals-- in India; Polymed-- US; Zhejiang Biotech-- China. There are two major forms of supplemental vitamin D: Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol).

Vitamin D is a vitamin, with
(2) 25-hydroxy-Vitamin D being a prehormone (a glandular secretory product converted peripherally to an active hormone, namely 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (calcitriol); while
(3) 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (calcitriol) is a secosteroid hormone functioning as a a molecular switch which is known to target over two hundred known human genes, and thus serves as a transcriptional gene regulator,
then I would argue that we need to construe Vitamin D itself as something more than a vitamin but less than a strict hormone (that function being reserved for 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (calcitriol)), in order to reflect and accommodate its gene transcriptional regulator functions, and so it would be more clarifying to speak of Vitamin D as not a simple vitamin, but rather as a biomodulator vitamin, a vitamin which exerts transcriptional regulation of genes at the molecular pathway level. https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_vitamin_D_a_hormone_or_vitamin
Vitamin D3 is approximately three times more potent than vitamin D2, and it also binds to the protein receptors in your body. Taking K with D3 does not mitigate the dangers posed by this chemical that alters the DNA.
It is commercially made from synthesizing certain chemicals in lanolin washed from lambs’ wool. This is how one manufacturer describes the process (I added caps to some of the description). Crude lanolin undergoes saponification; this separates the fatty component which is removed via centrifugation, from the ‘unsaponifiable’ component, known as ‘lanolin alcohols’.
These undergo further steps of saponification and separation to increase purity. Crude cholesterol is extracted from lanolin alcohol using solvent washes and / or column chromatography. The crude cholesterol undergoes a series of further SOLVENT extractions, washes and drying until it is extremely pure and crystalline. Purified cholesterol is then taken through a four-step CHEMICAL process to make 7-Dehydrocholesterol, this is otherwise known as ‘pre-Vitamin D3’
Next, the pre-Vitamin D3 is IRRADIATED to produce Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol); Finally, the pure crystals of Vitamin D3 are used to make the stabilized product forms that can be used to manufacture supplements and other end use applications such as foods and beverages."
As with lanolin, the process to extract the chemical D3 from lichen also involves extraction, purification and concentration.
Use as rodenticide. "Cholecalciferol produces hypercalcemia, which results in systemic calcification of soft tissue, leading to renal failure, cardiac abnormalities, hypertension, CNS depression, and GI upset. Signs generally develop within 18-36 hr of ingestion and can include depression, anorexia, polyuria, and polydipsia. In New Zealand, possums have become a significant pest animal, and cholecalciferol has been used as the active ingredient in lethal gel baits and cereal pellet baits "DECAL" for possum control.
The LD50 is 16.8 mg/kg, but only 9.8 mg/kg if calcium carbonate is added to the bait. Kidneys and heart are target organs.” (2) 25-hydroxy-VitaminD being a prehormone (a glandular secretory product converted peripherally to an active hormone, namely 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (calcitriol); while (3) 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (calcitriol) is a secosteroid hormone functioning as a a molecular switch which is known to target over two hundred known human genes, and thus serves as a transcriptional gene regulator. Vitamin D itself as something more than a vitamin but less than a strict hormone (that function being reserved for 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (calcitriol)), in order to reflect and accommodate its gene transcriptional regulator functions, and so it would be more clarifying to speak of Vitamin D as not a simple vitamin, but rather as a biomodulator vitamin, a vitamin which exerts transcriptional regulation of genes at the molecular pathway level. https://www.researchgate.net/.../Is_vitamin_D_a_hormone...
 
Conflict of Interest
“Dr. Holick’s role in drafting national vitamin D guidelines, and the embrace of his message by mainstream doctors and wellness gurus alike, have helped push supplement sales to $936 million in 2017. That’s a ninefold increase over the previous decade. Lab tests for vitamin D deficiency have spiked, too: Doctors ordered more than 10 million for Medicare patients in 2016, up 547 percent since 2007, at a cost of $365 million.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/business/vitamin-d-michael-holick.html
 
This is the org that recommended the increased requirement for vitamin d in 2010. At least one of the board members, Dr. Holick, also manufactures this drug. http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2010/Dietary-Reference-Intakes-for-Calcium-and-Vitamin-D/Vitamin%20D%20and%20Calcium%202010%20Report%20Brief.pdf

Even they have had to admit the danger of supplementing fortified foods with more synthetic vitamin D. “The upper level intakes set by the committee for both calcium and vitamin D represent the safe boundary at the high end of the scale and should not be misunderstood as amounts people need or should strive to consume. While these values vary somewhat by age, the committee concludes that once intakes of vitamin D surpass 4,000 IUs per day, the risk for harm begins to increase. Once intakes surpass 2,000 milligrams per day for calcium, the risk for harm also increases. As North Americans take more supplements and eat more of foods that have been fortified with vitamin D and calcium, it becomes more likely that people consume high amounts of these nutrients. Kidney stones have been associated with taking too much calcium from dietary supplements. Very high levels of vitamin D (above 10,000 IUs per day) are known to cause kidney and tissue damage. There is strong evidence of possible risks for daily vitamin D.”

This paper examines the claims made (in a rather sarcastic way) that vitamin D supplements will cure Covid 19.  Here is an excerpt “ The Castillo et al paper seems to be extremely authoritative, maybe because not many bothered to read it properly, but here is a nice takedown by DW Science. It quotes Martin Smollich, pharmacology professor at University of Lübeck in Germany, who noticed that the placebo control arm of the clinical trial included 19% of diabetics and 57% of hypertension sufferers, who are the highest COVID-19 risk group. The Vitamin D arm, where the survival rates were so much higher, happened to have merely 6% of diabetics and 24% of hypertension patients. But it passed peer review, so how dares Smollich to criticise it now!
Now, we arrive at some really serious money making. With these authors it cannot be any more obvious that they are all unashamed Vitamin D industry shills. Especially the last character on that paper.
Harvey W. Kaufman, Justin K. Niles, Martin H. Kroll, Caixia Bi, Michael F. Holick SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates associated with circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels PloS one (2020) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239252
The first four authors are employees of Quest Diagnostics, which tests your blood Vitamin D levels and then sells you Vitamin D supplements. The last author is the notorious Michael Holick, described by New Yorker as “The Child-Abuse Contrarian” You can read further down in this section about Dr. Holicks’s foray into being a highly paid expert witness to defend child abusers. https://forbetterscience.com/2020/09/28/we-reached-the-stage-where-vitamin-d-is-the-cure-for-covid-19/
​
The following quote is from a study looking at the use of D supplements, not funded by the Vitamin D Council or Dr. Holick's group.
"It is apparent that much of the reported high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency in healthy populations of the world is artificial, created by unjustified high cutoff values of serum 25(OH)D. Most of the individuals diagnosed as vitamin D-deficient based on these criteria lack any marker of ill health, including bone mineral deficiency.
In developing countries, an assay of 25(OH)D is presently available only to a small number of high-income people who get it done on the recommendation of the physicians or on routine screening. The use of high cutoff values of the normal range by the laboratories creates unnecessary panic leading to potentially irrational intervention in the form of high-dose supplementation with medicinal vitamin D, often posing a risk of toxicity… When a nutrient deficiency is found to be near-universal, a key question that emerges is whether the basis of diagnosis of the deficiency is valid and whether there are any adverse health consequences if the deficiency is not corrected.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4581139/

This article references the well-researched article in the NY Times previously mentioned. “Dr. Hollick was paid by one the largest companies that perform the lab test for Vitamin D levels and also by one of the companies that sell Vitamin D supplements to help them sell more products (that’s why companies pay people).
·      He managed to get the Endocrine Society to adopt the position that normal Vitamin D levels should be between 30-100 ng/ml in 2011 despite there not being any evidence to support this range.
·      This new guideline automatically made about 60-80% of the US population Vitamin D “deficient” and Hollick promoted widespread testing and supplementation (still with no evidence that this made people healthier).
·      Hollick promoted the narrative that there was a Vitamin D deficiency “epidemic” (after creating it by changing the normal values) and he promoted his 2010 Vitamin D book which made wild and unsubstantiated claims about Vitamin D. https://howardisms.com/evidence-based-medicine/yes-vitamin-d-is-a-scam/
Dr. Holick’s lack of integrity and honesty was revealed again in 2019 when he was asked to serve as an expert witness to defend a child abuser.  Defending abusers is something he did quite a bit of before the hospital he was working with “restricted” him. “Last September, we examined Dr. Michael Holick’s work as an expert witness for alleged abusers. In the wake of the article, his hospital notified Massachusetts’ medical board that it restricted his privileges.”  You can read the whole article here. https://www.propublica.org/article/boston-hospital-reports-disciplining-of-renowned-child-abuse-skeptic

Side Effects
“Confusion, apathy, recurrent vomiting, abdominal pain, polyuria, polydipsia, and dehydration are the most often noted clinical symptoms of vitamin D toxicity (VDT; also called vitamin D intoxication or hypervitaminosis D). VDT and its clinical manifestation, severe hypercalcemia, are related to excessive long-term intake of vitamin D, malfunctions of the vitamin D metabolic pathway, or the existence of coincident disease that produces the active vitamin D metabolite locally. Although VDT is rare, the health effects can be serious if it is not promptly identified. …Researchers have proposed many processes to explain VDT. Those processes include elevated activity of 1α-hydroxylase or inhibited activity of 24-hydroxylase, both leading to increased concentration of 1,25(OH)D; increased number of vitamin D receptors; and saturation of the capacity of vitamin D binding protein. Increased public awareness of vitamin D–related health benefits might increase the risk of VDT due to self-administration of vitamin D in doses higher then recommended for age and body weight or even higher than the established upper limit intake values. Consequently, the incidence of hypercalcemia due to hypervitaminosis D might increase.”   https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6158375/

“As more patients are tested, an increasing number of individuals with elevated serum 25(OH)D levels have been identified. Vitamin D toxicity occurs from exposure to extremely high doses of vitamin D supplementation, which can be the result of manufacturing errors or accidental or intentional incorrect dosing. It is important to emphasize that supplementation is usually driven more by patients than physicians. Since vitamin D increases calcium absorption in the gastrointestinal tract, vitamin D intoxication manifests primarily as hypercalcemia and hypercalciuria. This leads potentially to muscle weakness, hypertension, neuropsychiatric disturbances, gastrointestinal upset, polyuria and polydipsia, renal calculi, and, in extreme cases, renal failure, deposition of calcium phosphate crystals in soft tissues throughout the body, cardiac arrhythmias (reduced action potential), calcification of coronary vessels and heart valves, and ultimately, death.”  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6115827/


In developing countries, an assay of 25(OH)D is presently available only to a small number of high-income people who get it done on the recommendation of the physicians or on routine screening. The use of high cutoff values of the normal range by the laboratories creates unnecessary panic leading to potentially irrational intervention in the form of high-dose supplementation with medicinal vitamin D, often posing a risk of toxicity" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4581139/
Taking high doses of this chemical is known to cause hypercalcemia. “Conclusions: It is common practice to prescribe high-dose cholecalciferol to MS patients for its possible role in immunomodulation and relapse-rate reduction. Nevertheless, cholecalciferol may increase serum calcium, and there seems to be an additive effect when patients simultaneously use calcium supplements. This case underscores the need for physicians to be attentive to the possibility of hypercalcemia in patients treated with both high-dose cholecalciferol and calcium.”  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/1107961

“Confusion, apathy, recurrent vomiting, abdominal pain, polyuria, polydipsia, and dehydration are the most often noted clinical symptoms of vitamin D toxicity (VDT; also called vitamin D intoxication or hypervitaminosis D). VDT and its clinical manifestation, severe hypercalcemia, are related to excessive long-term intake of vitamin D, malfunctions of the vitamin D metabolic pathway, or the existence of coincident disease that produces the active vitamin D metabolite locally.”  https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2018.00550/full
 
“The upper-limit intake for vitamin D recommended by the Endocrine Society, when co-administered with calcium intake at the upper recommended level, is associated with increased odds for hypercalciuria when compared against recommendations from the Institute of Medicine, according to findings from a randomized, double-blind controlled trial”  https://www.healio.com/news/endocrinology/20180913/recommended-upper-limits-for-vitamin-d-calcium-associated-with-hypercalciuria
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16622738/  This study looks into the cases of hypercalcemia from tamoxifen.
While physicians continue to prescribe vitamin D to their cancer patients, researchers have noted an alarming trend. “Hodgkin, non-Hodgkin, and adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma are associated with hypercalcemia). Hypercalcemia occurs in approximately 13% of non-Hodgkin lymphomas and 5% of Hodgkin lymphomas. Lymphoma patients with hypercalcemia tend to have more extensive disease and reduced survival. Increased serum levels of  D3 have been implicated in the pathogenesis of hypercalcemia in virtually all cases of Hodgkin lymphoma and in 30–40% non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It is likely that the production of D3 occurs at extra-renal sites inasmuch as patients with lymphoma have had elevated 1α,25(OH)2D3 despite the presence of renal failure”  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5045493/

Use as rodenticide. "Cholecalciferol produces hypercalcemia, which results in systemic calcification of soft tissue, leading to renal failure, cardiac abnormalities, hypertension, CNS depression, and GI upset. Signs generally develop within 18-36 hr of ingestion and can include depression, anorexia, polyuria, and polydipsia. In New Zealand, possums have become a significant pest animal, and cholecalciferol has been used as the active ingredient in lethal gel baits and cereal pellet baits "DECAL" for possum control. The LD50 is 16.8 mg/kg, but only 9.8 mg/kg if calcium carbonate is added to the bait. Kidneys and heart are target organs.”