Re: Cytokine Storm & Vitamin D relationship?
Tom:
While we may know about the benefits of a traditional diet, what do you think are the odds of getting Inuit to give up the easy modern diet? We can't treat indigineous people like an endangered species to be preserved.
I believe nutritional education should be increased, explaining to people how their traditional diets filled a niche in their body's requirements and how they can ensure they find an appropriate substitute from among the modern foods they like to eat. It could also be explained that different ethnic groups have different configurations of their VDR. Their traditional diet may have compensated for this variation, but they need to find a modern way of dealing with that situation.
If I was trying to convince some groups to compensate for their tradition requiring women to cover their bodies, I think I'd talk to their religous leaders and explain how Vitamin D deficiency might be impacting the health and fitness of their men. Have their own academic institutions do the research and the religous leaders could announce the results along with how they will deal with the problem. Don't most religions say people should stay healthy?
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Yes Denise, this is the strategy to use in cultures dominated by men and what my posts have been trying to infer but not state explicitly for a variety of reasons.
Since you have made this explicate, it frees me to extend your remarks.
What we know now or can extrapolate from the scientific literature is that vitamin D deficiency is a problem that affects all humankind and has become more severe due to both the effects of technological change and culture.
Men and women in both the developed and underdeveloped worlds have a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency. The incidence of this condition increases with latitude since with rising latitudes the ability to obtain vitamin D from the sun diminishes.
Modern people be they occupants of the developed or under developed worlds and irrespective of what latitude they live in are all at risk for being vitamin D deficient by virtue of current customs and lifestyles.
What is clear from the literature is that a healthy level of 25 OH vit D is between 50ng and 70ng/ml, serum levels almost no one has today irrespective of where they live or whether or not they take vitamin supplements.
The data in the peer reviewed medical literature clearly shows that those with inadequate levels of 25 OH vit D are at increased risk for wide and diverse serious acute and chronic diseases. A partial list includes infections, cancer, and autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus.
Further more, as pointed out by you and others on this thread, trying to change human cultural practices, even if the recommended change would result in great benefit to those who adopt the change is a doomed strategy.
First, no one has the right to tell someone else how to live their life. This is the basis of human rights and hopefully in the future we humans will come to accept this principal, which is essential for our peaceful coexistence.
That said, there is no reason that universal vitamin D supplementation for all people everywhere should not be persuaded by the public health authorities both within every nation as well as by the WHO and health oriented NGOs that operate internationally.
While there is no controversy over the human need for vitamin D what remains controversial is how much vitamin D humans need. The US RDA of 400iu daily appears to be ridiculously low. The data suggest that people need at least 5,000iu to reach healthy levels of 25 OH vit D and 10,000iu daily to reach optimal levels of this hormone in the blood.
The only way practical way to achieve these levels on a consistent basis by those living today the way we do across the globe requires supplementation for the vast majority.
Supplementing the diet with 5,000 or 10,000iu of vitamin D is a very low cost way to address this problem. This suggestion is not likely to interfere with our customs or religious practices. The widespread adoption of this recommendation will be of great benefit to all humanity irrespective of whether they are rich or poor or live in the northern or southern hemispheres.
With respect to influenza, how might adoption of this practice be of benefit? There are two ways I can think of. Those with optimal levels of vitamin D who become infected with the novel strain can be expected, based upon the experimental and observational data published in the medical literature, to have less morbidity and mortality than similar people who are vitamin D deficient. Secondly, the patient who is vitamin D replete who contracts the pandemic flu and recovers only to become the victim of post-influenza bacterial pneumonia has a much better chance of surviving the second infection than someone who is vitamin D deficient.
Of course, the above is simply my opinion. It is based upon my study of this issue and experience with vitamin D over the last 26 years as a practicing physician and bone and metabolic disease researcher. What is important to understand however that the views I have expressed above are far from the consensus position and therefore must be understood as such.
Grattan Woodson, MD
