Another Amazing benefit of Vitamin D...Stanley Cup Hockey Championship

Another Amazing benefit of Vitamin D...Stanley Cup Hockey Championship

Another Amazing benefit of Vitamin D...Stanley Cup Hockey Championship
Robert G Carlson, MD, FACS

Team physicians from Chicago Blackhawk’s Hockey team credit the winning of the Stanley Cup to Vitamin D, well some of the credit. The Chicago Blackhawk team physicians apparently began diagnosing and treating vitamin D deficiency which was identified in ALL Blackhawk players. Most players were placed on 5,000 IU of Vitamin D3 per day. After many losing seasons, two years ago, loaded with Vitamin D, the Blackhawks came out of nowhere to get to the Western conference finals, and this year captured the Stanley Cup. Improved athletic performance is only one of the benefits for the Blackhawk players, the other include reduction in the number and severity of colds and flu and a reduction in the number and severity of injuries.
There are new lines of evidence now that demonstrate clearly that vitamin D plays a role as an anti-carcinogen, aids the body in fighting infections, building and supporting bone growth, stimulating wound healing, bolstering the immune system, hindering cognitive degeneration, and promoting cardiovascular health…..and now the Stanley Cup Championship. And only for 8 cents a day!!! I personally feel that during the winter season, 5000 units may not be enough to fight off the common colds, flu’s and the depressive blahs of the winter, and 10,000 may be required. Measurement of 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels may be beneficial to optimize your dose, but don’t accept the low levels below 50. Demand levels between 60-80 ng/ml as acceptable, and if you have auto-immune diseases like Rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, or lupus set your goal to be between 100-120 ng/ml
New evidence suggests that maintenance of the suggested vitamin D levels is crucial for athletic performance and keeping players on top of their game. In short, this is due to Vitamin D’s reported ability to: increase speed, improve balance, improve a reaction time, increase both muscle mass and strength, and promote the treatment and prevention of chronic neuromuscular injuries. What about bringing Vitamin D into our work places and promoting health, reducing respiratory infections, as well as all the things that promote a Stanley Cup Champion hockey player to remain in his top game. You deserve it and so do your co-workers and employees. Bring Vitamin D into work today! Have a Vitamin D party and squash the flu all winter long.
How about home? Kids can have 2000 units/day (not babies, although a Finnish study said in infants at that dose reduced the incidence of Childhood Diabetes by 8 fold). Studies have shown that children with low vitamin D levels were over 10 x more likely to develop a respiratory infections, whereas a study supplementing with Vitamin D completely eradicated respiratory infections during the six months of treatment. One study, published in February 2009 in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, concludes that adolescents with higher levels of vitamin D can jump higher, quicker, and with greater power than those with lower vitamin D levels. You gotta love vitamin D and all its amazing benefits.

I Love Vitamin D, but watch out for Vitamin A in your multivitamin

Robert G Carlson, MD, FACS

No other nutrient, hormone or even drug has gained so much scientifically supported credibility than Vitamin D, demonstrating reductions in cancer, heart disease, blood pressure, chronic inflammation, diabetes, viral infections and the autoimmune diseases( arthritis, Lupus, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis). Even though Vitamin D has been shown to be so incredibly beneficial , it is often in very low doses in standard multivitamins, and often side by side with high doses of Vitamin A. Unfortunately some forms of Vitamin A actually BLOCK the benefit of Vitamin D. So grab your multivitamin bottle and look at how much vitamin D and Vitamin A is in it. Most multivitamins have woeful amounts of vitamin D , often ranging from 200 units to 1000, but we should be taking at least 5000 units a day and now more studies show absolutely no toxicity at 10,000 units(should consider this dose in the fall/winter months) and incredible benefits. So what about Vitamin A? The preformed Vitamin A (retinols) are often excessive in multivitamins and having Vitamin A in the beta-carotene form is the form you want. “Preformed” vitamin A comes only from animal products, fortified foods, and supplements. It is most commonly measured in International Units (IU). The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for vitamin A is 2,310 IU daily for women, 3,000 IU for men, although some food products identify the recommended dose as 5000 iu. Watch out because preformed Vitamin A is not your friend. Studies have proven that too much preformed Vitamin A results in a two fold increase in hip fractures, and a 16 % increase in total mortality, undoubtedly because it blocks all the amazing benefits of Vitamin D. Keep that form of Vitamin A no higher than 1000 IU. Now if the Vitamin A is in the beta-carotene form, there are fewer issues because it is found in plant foods, especially dark green and highly colored vegetables and fruits. It is converted to vitamin A only as our body needs it. Therefore one can’t get dangerous levels of vitamin A by consuming too much beta carotene. By the way that foul tasting modern day Cod Liver oil has up to 10,000 units of preformed Vitamin A….so don’t drink that stuff!

Dear Editors of the Wellness Letter Special Report from UC Berkeley, ARE YOU KIDDING!!??

Dear Editors of the Wellness Letter Special Report from UC Berkeley,...ARE YOU KIDDING?!

I was so excited when I saw a link to the Berkeley Wellness Report about Hormone Therapy-Still An Option For Some Women, on my sponsored links for my Gmail account. University of California, Berkeley stands for advancements in medicine, thinking out of the box and demonstrating insightful thought processes. And was I ever disappointed. Whoever wrote this article appeared to base all their research on a combination of Ladies Home Journal and Newsweek. Instead of demonstrating provocative insight, the article only echoed the obsolete commentary of a Big Pharma supported program. George Washington died of epiglottis two years after his presidency, a tragedy for sure, as the only treatment used at the time was to bleed the President of his bad humors, instead of using antibiotics or airway management if required. Granted we now know this, and at the time the president’s physicians did not, so we cannot be too judgmental about their performance. But if there had been hundreds of articles published about the benefits of antibiotics, and the diagnosis of epiglottis was made properly, then I would have to say that the president’s physicians would have acted inappropriately. This is a parallel thought process to this SPECIAL REPORT by Berkeley University, as the benefits of proper bioidentical hormone therapies have been well described and I will provide a copy of an article that lists 196 articles supporting the benefits of bioidentical hormone therapy where the article states: Until there is evidence to the contrary, current evidence dictates that bioidentical hormones are the preferred method of HRT.

Now the first major error in this SPECIAL REPORT, it states that :” In 2002, it found that hormone replacement therapy(HRT, combining estrogen and progesterone) increases the risk of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease…” First the Women’s Health Initiative involved the use of neither estrogen and progesterone. Now if whoever wrote this article, made no attempt to discern between the two types , then they need to read the literature more before they write an article with the esteemed “ UC Berkeley” on it. The HRT described in that study was Conjugated Equine Estrogen ( Horse urine estrogen, estrogen from a mare’s urine that was starved and purposely dehydrated to concentrate the estrogen in the urine and led to 95 % of the foals born having birth defects, and they were immediately “discarded” so that the mare could be impregnated again) and Progestins which are synthetic progesterone, having nothing to do with the physiologic effects of progesterone and as stated in the Holtorf article: “.Bioidentical hormones have some distinctly different, potentially opposite, physiological effects compared with their synthetic counterparts, which have different chemical structures. Both physiological and clinical data have indicated that progesterone is associated with a diminished risk for breast cancer, compared with the increased risk associated with synthetic progestins. In addition the synthetic progestins cause a marked increase incidence of breast cancer and heart disease in women, which has been shown in numerous studies: In a meta-analysis of 61 studies, Lee et al found a consistently increased risk for breast cancer with synthetic HRT, with an average increase of 7.6% per year of use (95% CI: 1.070–1.082), and also found that higher doses of synthetic progestins conferred a significantly increased risk for breast cancer.75 Ewertz et al examined the risk for breast cancer for approximately 80 000 women aged 40 to 67 years from 1989 to 2002. For women older than 50 years, current use of synthetic HRT increased the risk for breast cancer by 61% (95% CI: 1.38–1.88). So the key is to stay away from synthetic progestins, and to USE natural progesterone as stated with the following notations: In 2007, Fournier et al reported an association between various forms of HRT and the incidence of breast cancer in more than 80 000 postmenopausal women who were followed for more than 8 postmenopausal years.59 Compared with women who had never used any HRT, women who used estrogen only (various preparations) had a nonsignificant
increase of 1.29 times the risk for breast cancer (P 0.73). If a synthetic progestin was used in combination with estrogen, the risk for breast cancer increased significantly to 1.69 times that for control subjects (P 0.01). However, for women who used progesterone in combination with estrogen, the increased risk for breast cancer was eliminated with a significant reduction in breast cancer risk compared with synthetic
progestin use (P 0.001).59 Bottom line, is that with progestins, or the synthetic ones, breast cancer is increased, and with the natural progesterone cancer is reduced and in fact less than patients never using any HRT. Don’t you think this may be an important point to bring out in your SPECIAL REPORT ?

The next amazingly obsolete approach is stated on page 2, where after a women has her uterus removed she only needs estrogen and not progesterone, because estrogen carries few risks. First of all I would also agree to stay away from using progestins as I have clearly outlined previously. But why not use natural progesterone which will balance the effects of estrogen reducing symptoms of estrogen dominance. Just because the uterus is removed, why does the body no longer need progesterone? Progesterone is an amazing hormone, and when you carefully read Holtorf’s article you will also agree. Natural Progesterone, not the killer progestins, reduces heart disease, coronary artery spasm, reduces LDL, reduces breast cancer and of course uterine cancer. But that is the only reason it is not recommended is because after a hysterectomy a women no longer has a uterus. She still has a heart, liver, kidneys, brain, and breast tissue, so why totally disregard this fact!? In addition natural progesterone is amazing to help a woman sleep, reduces headaches, anxiety, fatigue, fluid retention and abdominal fat distribution. So you recommend not to use it because a women no longer has a uterus? Now that is really archaic thought process, thinking that does not fit a University that is known for cutting edge ideas. In Cardiovascular medicine we have talked about the Berkeley labs and the ability to discern between particle size and the affect on cardiovascular disease, and even more important identifying Lipoprotein A which is 10 x more atherogenic than the small (really bad) LDL particle. (This took a while to catch on because the statin makers were mad that the most atherogenic of all cholesterol particles wasn’t even affected by their billion dollar drugs). But Berkeley pushed forward, because it was the right thing to do, and they were thinking way ahead of the rest of the country. By the way one of the few things that can reduce Lipoprotein A is transdermal or topical estrogens! Maybe your editorial board should look at that as well. What happened when your editors put together this worthless archaic and obsolete report about hormone therapy, when California has some of the best and the brightest minds in managing age related issues and hormone replacement therapies with bioidentical hormones? What Happened?

Your commentary on sexual desire is also so far off base. I would also strongly discourage the use of oral testosterone and estrogen (Estratest) as there has been repeated studies identifying an increase incidence of breast cancer by over 20% with those oral preparations. Now using topical
Estrogens ( biest-estriol and estradiol, never estrone), progesterone and testosterone, a marked improvement in energy, sense off well being, memory , and libido, as well as improvement in bone densities has been described. Vaginal preparations with Estriol (well described in 1994 NEJM article) not Premarin (again that horse urine stuff) has remarkable benefits when it comes to vaginal dryness, dyspareunia, urinary incontinence, and incidence of urinary tract infections.
I enjoy the same unresearched comments in the last section on the second page. You state: So-called “natural” estrogens, Estrace or Tri-Est and other hormones synthesized from soy and yams, appear to help with hot flashes,but their safety and long-term effects have never been tested. Are you kidding!! This sounds right out of the NAMS booklet, unfortunately those guys have never read past there plethora of studies only using synthetic progestins. Read Holtorf’s article closely, and also I will provide a 22 page paper I wrote about hormone therapy. There was a wonderful 24,000 women study in Europe that was over 10 years using bioidenticals with excellent long –term results and reduction in breast cancer by 24% , unfortunately it was in Europe and so none of the Gynecologic research in the states only looking at the progestins and horse urine estrogens or estradiol with the progestins is ever looked at. Please take a moment and look at the other studies and don’t base your opinions on these same old studies with cancer causing progestins, that by the way are being actively prescribed by Gynecologist all over the country despite the fact that there have been over 12 studies in the last five years that state that progestins cause breast cancer. The WHI showed that progestins increase the risk of breast cancer by 29% and the studies I cited early, stated that progestins increase breast cancer by 61 %. When are they going to listen? Hopefully a University program like yourself that stands for what is right and asks the tough questions will step forward and separate the control of our women’s care from the greedy Big Pharma who wants to now shove antidepressants, anti-anxieties and sleeping pills down women’s throats instead of balancing their hormones naturally. Your comments about the bioidentical estrogen /progesterone being “synthesized from Yams is accurate, but the process removes the side chains that make the molecule from a yam and create the IDENTICAL molecule that is present in Men and Women’s blood streams, not the synthetic abnormal progestins that can be patented to make money for big Pharma, but the natural progesterone , that is already present in our blood streams and therefore can not be patented with the associated big financial gains.
Finally your recommendation to not use any hormones to control symptoms and instead replace the hormones that we need, progesterone that results in calmness, estrogen that helps memory and fights depression, progesterone that helps women sleep, and testosterone that improves a women’s sense of well being and energy to live, with synthetic anti-depressants, synthetic sleeping pills, and synthetic anti-anxieties. ARE YOU KIDDING!? Now you want to take every women over 50 and turn her into a Stepford wife! Women don’t want anti depressants, they don’t want anti-anxieties, they don’t want sleeping pills. Of course they want to sleep, not be depressed or anxious and not irritable. They just want their hormones replaced so that these symptoms disappear! And of course the well documented reduction in heart disease, osteoporosis and cancer will become a reality. If a patient’s insulin levels are low and they are diabetic, I replace the insulin if required. I don’t put them on anti-depressants and anti-anxieties so that they live the rest of their lives in a stunned state. The same thing goes for thyroid disease. So why not restore these hormones to a more balanced state. I plead with you as a University that in my mind has always represented foresight, intelligence, and thinking out of the box, asking the questions that are difficult to ask despite all the answers being in front of you. Please step forward and re-examine your thoughts as described on the SPECIAL REPORT: Hormone Therapy-Still An Option For Some Women.


Robert G Carlson, MD, FACS

Are you running out of energy in the late afternoon?

Are you gaining weight, but still exercising and eating right? Did you have your thyroid checked and your doctor said that everything is ‘normal”? What do you think? Of course it’s not normal. You know what normal is for you, and this isn’t it! Do you want to restore your energy levels, lose weight, and get back to “your” normal? The answer is easy. The solution is right in your grasp. All you need to do is have someone carefully assess your thyroid function, not the once over lightly, and treat you like a person, not a lab test.

I would rather have a smoothie.

Unfortunately no amount of exercise, healthy diet, botox or facial cream can change the fact that as we age, hormone levels in our body begin plummeting, affecting sexual desire, response, and performance. Our society focuses on ED, but menopause brings with it lower desire for and increased discomfort during sexual activity. Therefore, “I would rather have a smoothie” was the calling card for the one of the sex symbols of the 80’s, Suzanne Somers. Balancing hormones enables patients to go from the “too worn out for sex” to feeling re-energized and ready for romance.

So how important is Cholesterol?

It is the foundation for all of the hormones that are so kind to you. It helps build Vitamin D. It keeps your digestion working better and allows you to remember where you put your car keys. It’s NOT the bad guy, inflammation is the bad guy. Inflammation causes cancer, heart disease, pain and agony. So why are we so focused on cholesterol? Because it made the pharmaceutical companies 32 billion dollars last year? Because it made the insurance companies millions of dollars referring to people with elevated cholesterol, as high risk heart patients and therefore increasing their premiums. Of course it’s not the cholesterol. It’s money, it’s a big business and YOU are the one being screwed. So take fish oils, resveratrol, and natural remedies to fight inflammation, and stay away from the dangerous statins.

I would rather have a smoothie.

Unfortunately no amount of exercise, healthy diet, botox or facial cream can change the fact that as we age, hormone levels in our body begin plummeting, affecting sexual desire, response, and performance. Our society focuses on ED, but menopause brings with it lower desire for and increased discomfort during sexual activity. Therefore, “I would rather have a smoothie” was the calling card for the one of the sex symbols of the 80’s, Suzanne Somers. Balancing hormones enables patients to go from the “too worn out for sex” to feeling re-energized and ready for romance.

Are you running out of energy in the late afternoon?

Are you gaining weight, but still exercising and eating right? Did you have your thyroid checked and your doctor said that everything is ‘normal”? What do you think? Of course it’s not normal. You know what normal is for you, and this isn’t it! Do you want to restore your energy levels, lose weight, and get back to “your” normal? The answer is easy. The solution is right in your grasp. All you need to do is have someone carefully assess your thyroid function, not the once over lightly, and treat you like a person, not a lab test.

Restoration of Health and well being.

When we were in our 20’s and 30’s, we had unending energy, youthful energy. So why did that leave us? It left us when our hormones started to disappear. Why not take the same hormones that were so kind to us in our 30’s and bring them back? Will it increase cancer, heart disease? In fact, the absence of these hormones has lead to 1 out of every 2.8 women having heart disease, and 80% of breast cancers occurring after menopause. So what so good about that? Studies have shown a reduction of up to 24% of breast cancers, reduction of a mortality of heart disease and stroke by 60%, and a significant improvement in energy, quality of sleep, weight issues, memory, and libido when those hormones are restored. So why not restore them?

THE AMAZING VITAMIN D...JUST THE FACTS

The Amazing Vitamin D3…Just the Facts
Robert G. Carlson, MD, FACS

video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQbVTEesb3I


Review of article recently published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, June 2007:


Vitamin D and Calcium supplementation reduces cancer risk: results of a randomized trial. Lappe JM, Travers-Gustafson D, Davies KM, Recker RR, Heaney RP Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Jun;85(6):1586-91


This was a 4 year, population based, double blinded, randomized, placebo controlled trial.(an extremely well designed study) .This trial looked at healthy women greater than 55 years old in the Midwest. The studies primary goal was to demonstrate the benefit of vitamin D, at a higher dose than recommended (1000 iu versus 400 iu) and calcium in improving bone density. The improvement in bone density was clearly demonstrated. The secondary part of this study, and I believe represents the most crucial findings, examines the beneficial effect of vitamin D and Calcium in reducing all cancers. Again a much higher dose of vitamin D was used in comparison to other studies which used a much lower, disturbingly recommended dietary amount of 400 IU.

This is a very nicely designed clear and concise study which makes the findings even more powerful. This study had three different groups. One group had the calcium and the Vitamin D at 1100 IU. The second group had calcium alone, and the third group was a placebo, or sugar pill. The women in the community were randomly chosen to go into each group. The study was a prospective trial which means it went from day1 to day four years. Now this study was also a double-blinded randomized placebo trial, which means that neither the doctor nor the patient knew what they were taking. They did this by making all of the pills the same color and therefore no one knew what they were taking. This trial went on for four years, and at that time they stopped the study and opened all the envelopes to see who was in which group. That’s when it really gets good. The women in the Vitamin D and Calcium group had an approximately 60 % reduction in ALL cancers. Colon cancers, breast cancers, lung cancers, lymphomas and leukemias. That is quite impressive, however they looked at the results even more carefully. If they removed the first year cancers, which probably represent patients who were already developing cancer when they started taking Vitamin D , and look only at cancer rates in years 2,3,and 4, they found a 75 % reduction in all cancers. Pretty impressive results. Then how come you never heard about it? Why weren't they having Superbowl commercials about vitamin D3? The problem is that for a one month therapy of vitamin D3 it would cost approximately $1.35. Yes that's it. It's not that it is cheap, because it isn't, it's just very inexpensive. But it reduces cancer by 75%

Even though it looks at the age group specifically, I believe that all ladies and men would benefit from the cancer-protecting effects of Vitamin D3 or cholecalciferol. What's the difference between Vitamin D3 and "normal" vitamin D?,.

Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and colon cancer: eight-year prospective study.
Garland CF, Comstock GW, Garland FC, Helsing KJ, Shaw EK, Gorham ED.
Department of Community and Family Medicine, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla.
Risk of colon cancer was reduced by 75% in the third quintile (27-32 ng/ml) and by 80% in the fourth quintile (33-41 ng/ml) of serum 25-OHD. Risk of getting colon cancer decreased three-fold in people with a serum 25-OHD concentration of 20 ng/ml or more. The results are consistent with a protective effect of serum 25-OHD on colon cancer.
Lancet. 1989 Nov 18;2(8673):1176-8. Links
Intakes of calcium and vitamin D and breast cancer risk in women.
Lin J, Manson JE, Lee IM, Cook NR, Buring JE, Zhang SM.
Division of Preventive Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA. jhlin@rics.bwh.harvard.edu
BACKGROUND: Animal data suggest the potential anticarcinogenic effects of calcium and vitamin D on breast cancer development. However, epidemiologic data relating calcium and vitamin D levels to breast cancer have been inconclusive. METHODS: We prospectively evaluated total calcium and vitamin D intake in relation to breast cancer incidence among 10,578 premenopausal and 20,909 postmenopausal women 45 years or older who were free of cancer and cardiovascular disease at baseline in the Women's Health Study. Baseline dietary intake was assessed by a food frequency questionnaire. We used Cox proportional hazards regression to estimate hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS: During an average of 10 years of follow-up, 276 premenopausal and 743 postmenopausal women had a confirmed diagnosis of incident invasive breast cancer. Higher intakes of total calcium and vitamin D were moderately associated with a lower risk of premenopausal breast cancer; the hazard ratios in the group with the highest relative to the lowest quintile of intake were 0.61 (95% confidence interval, 0.40-0.92) for calcium (P = .04 for trend) and 0.65 (95% confidence interval, 0.42-1.00) for vitamin D intake (P = .07 for trend). The inverse association with both nutrients was also present for large or poorly differentiated breast tumors among premenopausal women (P< or =.04 for trend). By contrast, intakes of both nutrients were not inversely associated with the risk of breast cancer among postmenopausal women. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study suggest that higher intakes of calcium and vitamin D may be associated with a lower risk of developing premenopausal breast cancer. The likely apparent protection in premenopausal women may be more pronounced for more aggressive breast tumors.
PMID: 17533208 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Nutr Cancer. 2007;59(1):54-61. Links
Dietary vitamin D and calcium intake and premenopausal breast cancer risk in a German case-control study.
Abbas S, Linseisen J, Chang-Claude J.
Division of Cancer Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany.
Epidemiological studies and laboratory data suggest that vitamin D may protect against the development of cancer, including breast cancer. Vitamin D supply affects the bioavailability of dietary calcium, which might also have anticarcinogenic effects. However, few studies considered them jointly. We used a population-based case-control study in Germany to examine the independent and joint effects of dietary vitamin D and calcium on premenopausal breast cancer risk. Dietary information was assessed using a validated food frequency questionnaire from 278 premenopausal cases and 666 age-matched controls. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using multivariate models adjusting vitamin D models for calcium intake and vice versa. Breast cancer risk was significantly inversely associated with vitamin D intake. The OR and 95% CI for the highest intake category (> or = 5 microg/day) was 0.50 (95% CI = 0.26-0.96) compared with the lowest (< 2 microg/day; P(trend) = 0.02). Dietary calcium intake was not associated with breast cancer (OR = 0.73, 95% CI = 0.41-1.29) for the highest (> or = 1,300 mg/day) versus the lowest category (< 700 mg/day), P(trend) = 0.29). No statistically significant interaction between the 2 nutrients was observed. Our data support a protective effect of dietary vitamin D on premenopausal breast cancer risk independent of dietary calcium intake.
PMID: 17927502 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Improving calcium and vitamin D nutritional status substantially reduces all-cancer risk in postmenopausal women. This trial was registered

The British Medical Journal has published a remarkable paper confirming that low vitamin D levels obtained in the past are a risk factor for developing colon cancer in the future.

But the study contained an even more significant finding, that Vitamin A, even in relatively low amounts, can thwart vitamin D's association with reduced rates of colon cancer.

This is the largest study to date showing vitamin A blocks vitamin D's effect.

Hidden on page eight of the paper was one sentence and a small table, showing that the benefits of vitamin D are almost entirely negated in those with the highest vitamin A (retinol or preformed, not Beta-Carotene) intake.

And the retinol intake did not have to be that high -- only about 3,000 IU/day. Young autistic children often take 3,500 IU of retinol a day in their powdered multivitamins, which doesn't count any additional vitamin A given in high single doses.

The finding explains some of the anomalies in other papers on vitamin D and cancer -- similar studies sometimes have widely different results. This may be because the effect of vitamin A was not taken into account. In some countries, cod liver oil, which contains very large amounts of preformed vitamin A, and now high levels of PCB’s is commonly used as a vitamin D supplement, albeit a lousy supplement because it not only tastes bad, but blocks all the incredible benefits of Vitamin D.

You need to take at least 2000-4000 units of vitamin D each day, and when you feel a cold coming on need to increase this to 10,000 a day for 3 days.