There was a discussion here about AM. I think it is a huge mistake to take high doses of a single ingredient. We saw this in the selenium/ vitamin E and in the lycopene trials.
There are plenty of Red Powder, Orange Powder and Purple Powder supplements where you also get the co-factors. From Resveratrol to Cucurmin they are very poorly absorbed and have a short half-life...there is no way a high enough concentration can be delivered to the PCa tumor. Drugs work because of their delivery systems...for supplemets to work you need the co-factors.
It's a meta-analysis of old studies, so there is actually no new data.
The first studies to note excess risk were Nordic - i.e. from countries where almost everyone is deficient for most of the year, & largely insufficient otherwise.
In those countries, cod liver oil has been used for a long time for vitamins A & D. As the Vitamin D Council points out, it's not a good source of D, because the dose is limited due to the potential toxicity of A. Furthermore, A interferes with D uptake.
Supplements of 400 IU / day would also be common, but they too would have little effect in those lattitudes.
Who are the people who manage to achieve adequacy in Scandinavia? I'd doubt that 2,000-4,000 IU would do it. I can't get much above 50 ng/mL with 7,000 IU.
What comes to mind is all of the early studies that reported protection against PCa with higher levels. How many men here have not heard good things about D? It's one of the few supplements that Dr. Myers recommended. Anyone researching PCa would come across it.
This means that "healthy" men with familial PCa, rising PSA, etc, would tend to be using high-dose supplements. Such a change in behavior of men at higher risk, paradoxically taints the supplement through association.
What is lacking, is a vitamin D study of men who do not supplement, conducted in a country where deficiency is not the norm, & a significant percentage of the population is above 40 ng/mL. Those Swedish researchers should head to Greece.
I have been taking 2000 IU a day of D3 for some months. I also have permanent AF of the heart. Recently had two bad turns with heart well out of phase. Probable cause: lack of absorption of magnesium caused by the D3. Mg deficiency is the major cause of AF. Heart condition stabilized when reduced D3 to 125 IU.
Very concerning, Alan. We’re glad the AF is stabilized. Les has no AF yet and takes time release magnesium three days a week and Cal/Mag another three with Sundays off. Please keep us all posted on your new cardiologist’s recommendations. Go well! Mrs. S
Sadly, the last thing my new cardiologist said to me was "I don't think the Vit D and possible Mg deficiency are affecting your AF". I have a book written by a MD that suggests otherwise. It is supported by scientific references.
Today I spoke to a good friend (who was a PCa sufferer), who has had a heart rate of 123 for a month. His cardiologist wanted do an invasive procedure to correct the high HR. A second opinion saw him have an heart inversion procedure today that took 10 minutes total and saw a constant HR of 78.
In my view it is critical to get a 2nd opinion for anything serious.
Good early a.m., Allan. I was up checking on a thirteen hour Apple iOS 11.3 Beta download when I was notified of your reply. Thank you.
I have a friend who lived with our family when I was thirteen and she was twenty. Now, at age 85, she ended up living a few blocks from us. Decades ago the lady had open heart surgery which was successful. More recently she’s had two cardioinversions followed by a stent procedure. She is doing well as is your friend.
Frankly, shocking the heart sounds scary to me. I’d rather dither with Vitamin D and magnesium amounts! Maybe not. If you qualify and decide on the cardioinversion, certainly a long term resolution is preferable.
Our iPad has just been updated and is “ticking along” for the time being. May you say the same of your heart—and soon, not that this tech stuff is at all of comparable importance. Now I must wait another half hour for Les’s three sisters’ gift of a 5s iPhone to catch up to my beloved iPad Pro.
I grew up in high latitude country and took cod liver oil as a child (which I actually liked) for the vitamin A and sun lamps for the vitamin D. Milk is heavily laced with vitamin D also.
My husband’s oncologist recommended he take one 5000 IU capsule of Vitamin D daily which we increased to 10,000 IU for a number of months due to some recommendation (can’t remember whose). Then we listened to a presentation on PBS’s Frontline titled “Supplements and Safety.” Dr. Joann Manson, MD. of Brigham and Women’s Hospital said the following:
“Many people are taking too much vitamin D. The Institute of Medicine also recommended avoiding getting above 4,000 IUs daily because that could be associated with adverse events— calcium in the urine, which can be associated with kidney stones, high blood calcium, calcium in the arteries, vascular calcification, as well as soft tissue calcification. And there are now studies that show a U-shaped curve that those who have high as well as low blood levels of Vitamin D have higher risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as all-cause mortality. So we can’t assume that more is necessarily better.”
How often must a Vitamin D level be tested? There are so many requests to make for levels of T, DHT, E2, and more that I, for one, begin feeling like a pest. Our question is how much is safe to take when not getting monthly blood draws. Can a PCa Stage Four patient ever trust how he feels? Can you simply take 2000-4000 IUs, especially in winter, and get on with life without too much worry? Interesting and important discussion though. Mrs. S
I know a man who was diagnosed with Hypervitaminosis D.
That sounds like a vitamin D condition, but it is really a calcium condition. True, it can be corrected by reducing D intake, but the cause is really vitamin K deficiency.
This particular man had been using vitamin K2 supplements, but had discontinued 1-2 years before diagnosis.
It's something we should all be aware of, since his blood 25-D level was only in the low 30's.
1,25-D had been doing its job of pulling in calcium from the gut, but there was no vitamin K to transport it to bone. So calcium that had been taken from bone was not being replaced, resulting in osteopenia. Don't forget the K2!
...and so until Leswell gets his Vitamin D tested, we are going with Patrick’s amount or thereabouts, i.e. 5000 IU one day and 10,000 the next=7,500. I’d go with his evidence base or even guesses any day. Mrs. S
I had the same reaction you did, Patrick, having read about the Nordic studies. I actually take 10,000, which is recognized as safe, to get to the levels that provide the longest survival times, according to those studies. I hadn't heard about the magnesium issue Alan speaks of. I don't have a heart problem. I do take a magnesium supplement.
What I'm wondering is just what ng/mL level was found to create risk in the Chinese study? Perhaps it was absurdly high, higher than what the Nordic studies found to be the most beneficial level, & higher than a guy in Scandinavia would reach even with supplements? Without knowing that, we don't know whether the Chinese study is a reason to back off from what we thought was the most protective level.
There have been a lot of posts resently regarding vitamins and other supplements and prostate cancer. I have taken many of these supplements in past and they may or may not have contributed to my living past all expectations.
My first surgeon's words still ring in my ears when I told him I was going to become a vegetarian. "You can if you want to, it won't hurt you, but I don't think it will do you any good." That's like telling me go ahead and consume all those bovine growth hormones, and the other chemicals that are fed to domestic animals to make them grow bigger fatter faster. No thank you.
The last thing I want to do to take away someone's hope of living a little longer. And that includes all of the mind / body connections, yoga, guided imagery, and meditation. I practice all of them.
I am tired of reading studies that support the facts straight out of the AMA playbook.
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Here we go again
I asked Perplexity AI what are the best supplements for castration resistant prostate cancer
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