Vitamin D Hypothyroidism Information

This study adds to the growing list of studies indicating that vitamin D deficiency is an important cause of depression—one that is easily treated. It also stresses the importance of Professor John McGrath's work, showing that vitamin D is intimately involved in brain development. If you like your brain, the brain of your loved ones, the brain of the baby developing inside you, be sure to get adequate amounts of vitamin D.

Vitamin D and Hypothyroidism

Dr. Cannell: After reading as much as I could, my parents and I started taking 4000 IU of Vitamin D3 daily, starting in October. Since we live near a very cloudy, northern city (Cleveland), and since we were approaching the late fall and winter months, I felt this dosage was entirely appropriate. So far, my father and I have had absolutely no side effects. My mother, however, is a different story.

For 20 years, my mother has been taking Synthroid. For 15 years she took 75 mcg/day and over the last 5 years had been on 100 mcg/day. By sheer coincidence, less than a week after starting on the Vitamin D, it was time for her annual TSH test. When the results of the test came back, the doctor's office called and notified her that her TSH level was 13 and had "shot way up."

Accordingly, they upped her dose of Synthroid to 150 mcg/day as a result of this test. A few weeks later, she developed a rapid heartbeat (~140 bpm). Sensing that the increased dosage of Synthroid might be causing the rapid heartbeat, I checked Pub Med for any linkage between Vitamin D and TSH levels. I found the following two articles:

We immediately contacted the doctor's office, who took her off the Vitamin D3 and told her to stop taking the Synthroid for 1 week. After 1 week, she resumed the Synthroid at 100 mcg/day, and her TSH levels are now back to normal. Thus, it does appear, in concert with the findings from the above articles, that those patients on synthetic thyroxine should not also be taking supplemental Vitamin D3. Roy Cleveland, Ohio

This is very interesting and, to my knowledge, the first such report. The first thing to keep in mind is that a TSH of 13, while elevated, is no emergency. Secondly, the studies you cite are in Polish and French and I cannot read them. From the abstract I see that the Polish patients were given calcitriol, not vitamin D. However, 4,000 IU per day, a physiological dose of vitamin D, will increase tissue levels of calcitriol. People who work outdoors in the summer sun get about 10,000 IU a day.

Your mother's TSH apparently went up 5 years ago as well—without any vitamin D—as that would be the most common reason why her doctor would have increased her Synthroid back then. It's also possible that her TSH increased before she started the vitamin D, as she had not had a TSH for a year. I predict your mother's TSH will go up again in the future, without any vitamin D, as most thyroid failure is slowly progressive.

The increased dose of Synthroid, 150 mcg/day, is usually not supra-physiological (more than the thyroid normally makes), so she should not have become hyperthyroid from the Synthroid alone, unless she is a very thin person. Furthermore, without additional thyroid tests it's impossible to say for sure that her rapid heart rate was due to hyperthyroidism, although it sounds as if it was.

It may be that vitamin D deficiency is one cause of thyroid failure, like it is with pancreatic failure in diabetes. Furthermore, I have had vitamin D deficient diabetic patients whose blood sugars go up for several weeks when their vitamin D deficiency is treated. Eventually, their blood sugars generally go down and their diabetes becomes easier to control. I have had several patients able to slowly reduce and even stop their oral diabetic medicines, once their vitamin D deficiency is fully treated. Perhaps you have discovered the same is true for hypothyroidism?

However, it is important to realize that as more people take more vitamin D, more people will report they developed heart attacks, headaches, cancer, ear infections, lupus, skin rashes, strokes, or constipation after they started taking vitamin D. Eventually, someone will contract a fatal case of influenza a day after starting vitamin D. Some people will start watching Desperate Housewives after they start taking vitamin D. Eventually, an angry wife will tell me that her hitherto faithful husband started having an affair after he started taking vitamin D. As lots of people start taking vitamin D, lots of things will happen afterwards. Associations are not causations; they often are, as you said, a "sheer coincidence."

The important question is, "What is your mother is going to do now?" I don't know what your mother's vitamin D level is now. If she is not going to take any vitamin D, go into sun tan booths, or vacation down south in the winter, then she will develop vitamin D deficiency, putting her at risk for its many associated diseases.

Summer Diagnosis, Better Prognosis

Dr. Cannell: I have cancer of the colon and the doctors couldn't get it all. I've read about studies showing that cancer patients diagnosed in the summer have a better chance of living. Does this mean vitamin D might help my cancer? How much should I take? Katie Baltimore, MD

That is exactly what these studies mean—vitamin D might help treat cancer. They strongly imply a treatment effect. We won't know for sure until a direct study is done, that is, we need to give relatively high doses of vitamin D to cancer patients to see if they live longer compared to patients given sugar pills. Given what is known, I sure wouldn't want to be one of the cancer patients assigned to take the sugar pills.

At this point, no one knows if oral vitamin D would slow down your cancer or how much you should take. I take 5,000 IU in the colder months and go into the sun in the warmer months, just to maintain my 25(OH)D around 50 ng/mL. Future research may show that 10,000 IU per day is indicated in cancer treatment, we just don't know. Anyone taking that amount should have be under the care of a knowledgeable physician and have their 25(OH)D and serum calcium checked on a regular basis. At this point, the question is not if cancer patients should take vitamin D. The question is, Should Cancer Patients Die Vitamin D Deficient?

Cod Liver Oil Possible Reason for Conflicting Studies

Dr. Cannell: I'm a nutritionist and I'm confused. Two studies came out in the last several months about vitamin D and pancreatic cancer. One showed it helped and the other showed it made it worse. What's up? Kirstin Albuquerque, New Mexico

The male Finnish smokers whose high vitamin D levels preceded their pancreatic cancer had those blood levels measured in the late 1980s, perhaps after a lifetime of ingesting cod liver oil with high concentrations of these known carcinogens. Also, cod liver oil has high amounts of vitamin A and, as I've written before, even the amount of vitamin A in most multivitamins—not to mention the huge amounts of vitamin A in cod liver oil—may be causing subclinical vitamin A toxicity.

Three studies suggest vitamin D reduces the risk of pancreatic cancer and one study suggests it increases the risk. Overall, there are several hundred studies indicating vitamin D, or sunlight, or both, dramatically reduces your risk from dying of cancer, while two studies in cod liver oil Scandinavian countries show high vitamin D levels increase risk. Take your pick.

Influenza in Hong Kong

Dr. Cannell: I live in Hong Kong. We are near the equator where sunshine is strong all year. If vitamin D prevents the flu, why do we get the flu? Deborah Hong Kong

Great question! If vitamin D is antivral and antibiotic, then influenza should be rare around the equator due to the high intensity of year-round ultraviolet B light. However, the incidence of influenza in Hong Kong is comparable to other countries. Understanding influenza in Hong Kong is particularly important because Hong Kong is close to what many consider to be the epicenter of new influenza strains in southern china and the next highly lethal influenza strain, destined to cause a devastating pandemic, may first be detected in Hong Kong. However, Hong Kong, in spite of being just south of the Tropic of Cancer at latitude 22 degrees, has a significant incidence of year-round vitamin D deficiency due to five factors: avoidance of sunlight, use of sunscreens, high rise buildings, terrible air pollution, and rainy seasons.

What is urgently needed is a study assessing vitamin D levels in patients with influenza. Blood from patients infected during the 1997 Avian influenza outbreak is stored in Hong Kong. Six Hong Kong residents died terrible deaths from Avian flu in 1997 while others caught it but had few symptoms. Did 25(OH)D levels decide who lived and who died? Will 25(OH)D levels decide who lives and who dies from influenza this winter?

(Serious) Conflicts of Interest

Dr. Cannell: You recently blasted Dr. James Cherry of UCLA for conflicts of interest. What conflicts do you have? Sarah Los Angles, California

I did blast Dr. James Cherry for his conflict of interest in not, at least, entertaining the possibility that vitamin D might be more effective in preventing influenza than vaccines are. As Upton Sinclair once said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it."

However, let me ask you a hypothetical question. For arguments sake, say that 5,000 IU of vitamin D a day in the winter effectively prevents influenza and even higher doses effectively treat the disease, hypothetically speaking. Then imagine you are a professor with an extra $250,000 annual income from the medical-industrial complex—in consultation contracts, expert witness fees, stock dividends, and patent utilization fees—all from vaccine and antiviral manufacturers.

What would you do? Would you objectively review the evidence, admit that vitamin D works better, and give up your $250,000/year and its associated lifestyle? I've thought long and hard about what I'd do and I'm sorry to say, I don't know what I'd do. Though as a psychiatrist I can tell you what most normal humans would do. The majority would simply conclude, as Dr. Cherry has, that vitamin D couldn't possibly work and that it's just another narcissistic and self-serving claim by the vitamin-industrial complex. They would develop that dialectic and truly believe it—so perhaps I shouldn't be too hard on Dr. Cherry.

As for my conflicts of interest, I am sorry, but there are few to report. I did get $5,000 from Bio Tech Pharmacal, as they were nice enough to underwrite my two-day speaking trip to the International and American Associations of Clinical Nutritionists. I hope they will do so again in the future. To my knowledge, Bio-Tech Pharmacal is the only manufacturer of pharmaceutical strength (50,000 IU) vitamin D capsules in the world (these should be considered a medicine, not a supplement). Because of this I promoted them before their assistance and for the same reason I will continue to promote them—at least until someone else makes a better product. I thought about seeing if the Vitamin D Council could get a percentage of Bio Tech's vitamin D sales from my referrals, but that would tie me to them in the future and someone might start making a similar product. Besides, vitamin D is rather inexpensive. Costco recently started selling 1,000 IU capsules, as do many drug and health food stores.

One conflict of interest I am willingly entering into right now is to promote LifeSpan Nutrition, the supplement business of Bill Sardi's wife. Bill Sardi, an investigative health journalist, is the generous soul responsible for our website's recent improvements, as well as its ongoing maintenance, for he voluntarily provides the funding to pay our webmaster. He volunteered to do this two years ago, yet it wasn't until recently that I learned of his wife's supplement business. LifeSpan Nutrition sells high quality, brand name supplements. If you would like to support our efforts here at the Vitamin D Council, one way you could do so is to purchase your supplements from her website.

One problem with having few conflicts of interest is that you have even less money. Unfortunately, the $5,000 is gone and the Vitamin D Council currently has $213 in the bank. We currently get about $25 a week in donations, often accompanied by a detailed medical history and a request for free medical advice. I would love to be able to attend the upcoming vitamin D meeting. Some of the latest, exciting vitamin D research will be presented! Unfortunately, the Council's current financial state dictates that I will probably be forced to miss it.

So, I have thought about your question and have decided to actively solicit some serious conflicts of interest. I think it's a waste of time for me to solicit the pharmaceutical or vaccine industry, don't you? (In fact, if you own stock in any such company and they agree to fund the Vitamin D Council, you might want to consider selling their stock, as they are obviously unclear on the concept of American business—vitamin D's potential is a formidable threat to the profits of big‑pharma, a fact they are fully aware of.) But, if you know of any vitamin D manufacturer, health food distributors, suntan booth companies, manufacturers of 25(OH)D blood testing equipment, or perhaps charitable foundations with a health agenda, please send them my way so the Vitamin D Council can have some (serious) conflicts of interest of its own—and the (serious) funding that comes with them.