Yet another medical myth gets busted. The findings of the study below are a perfect analogy of the progesterone-progestin fiasco that developed over the last few decades. Namely, doctors have been lying to the public that synthetic progestins are “just like bioidentical progesterone, but better” and have all but stopped prescribing bioidentical progesterone for that reason. Over time, many studies demonstrated that synthetic progestins have very little in common with bioidentical progesterone, and in fact have a number of very harmful effects. One of those negative effects is that many/most of the synthetic progestins are actually estrogenic. Since progesterone is typically prescribed to women with estrogen dominance, giving those women such synthetic progestins likely further exacerbate the estrogen dominance thus leading to increased risks of estrogen-related diseases, especially heart disease and estrogen-driven cancers (breast, uterine, cervical, etc). There is already plenty of evidence implicating the synthetic progestins in increased incidence and deaths from various cancers. Cancers of the nervous system, usually thought not to be related to estrogen, are also found more commonly in women using synthetic progestins. Meningioma and glioblastoma are two such cancers, with the latter one being almost universally deadly. Instead of admitting their error, medicine doubled-down on the fraud and declared that “progesterone is dangerous”, lumping bioidentical progesterone together with all the synthetic progestins, despite the studies clearly showing it is only the synthetic progestins that are harmful.
The study below now exposes a similar situation with vitamin D. In most countries, the only vitamin D available by prescription is D2 (ergocalciferol), and doctors usually prescribe it in doses of 50,000 IU once weekly. On the other hand, our bodies synthesize another form known as vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) from cholesterol under the influence of UV light from the sun. For decades, medicine has claimed that D2 and D3 are “functionally equivalent”. Namely, there is no difference in the physiological end effects between D2 and D3, and since doctors like to prescribe chemicals that are officially approved as “drugs”, D2 became the dominant form of vitamin D prescribed to patients. The study below shows that taking the D2 form depletes levels of D3, and that this depletion is of high importance since apparently the immunological (and probably others) effects of D2 and D3 differ quite a bit. Namely, only the D3 form helps the immune system fight off bacterial and viral infections. In other words, taking vitamin D2 likely leads to (at least partial) immunosuppression. Does anybody remember the COVID-19 pandemic and how several observational studies (usually done with D3) found that vitamin D is highly beneficial for preventing COVID-19 and reducing its severity/lethality, but then Big Pharma conveniently did follow-up intervention studies (usually done with D2) and quickly declared that vitamin D is “useless”? So, once again, we have a situation here where the medical establishment may have handicapped research (as it did with bioidentical progesterone) in order to steer the public towards a toxic, prescription “solution”, and when that “solution” failed the industry declared all vitamin D (including D3) to be useless. Given how important vitamin D is for systemic health, how prevalent vitamin D deficiency is in the general population, and how pervasive is D2 usage by prescription, it may very well turn out that most of the health epidemic of virtually every chronic disease may be iatrogenic in nature. Since most research is focused on side effects of prescription drugs and not on “insignificant” factors such as vitamin D, this false equivalence between D2 and D3 may actually be highly impactful (in a negative way) and durable since it would take years/decades before medicine even admits that vitamin (a type of (seco)steroid actually) D has systemic effects rivaled in importance probably only by thyroid, and only then medicine may be willing to begin discussing whether D2 is the optimal form for human usage or not. Sometimes, it is the little things that nobody pays attention to that cause the most damage.
https://archive.is/o/pg0yr/https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews
“…Taking one type of vitamin D supplement seems to cut the levels of another type that is more easily used by the body, which could affect our immune system. Our bodies create vitamin D when ultraviolet rays in sunlight convert a protein called 7-dehydrocholesterol in the skin into a type of vitamin D known as vitamin D3. When sunlight is sparse during autumn and winter, countries like the UK recommend people take supplements…Two forms of these supplements are available: vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol – which normally comes from lanolin, a waxy substance on sheep’s wool – and vitamin D2, or ergocalciferol, which mainly comes from mushrooms. It was thought that it didn’t really matter which one you took. But now, Emily Brown at the University of Surrey, UK, and her colleagues have performed a meta-analysis of 11 previously published randomised-controlled trials on vitamin D supplements, with a total of 655 participants. They found taking vitamin D2 supplements can lead to a drop in the body’s concentration of vitamin D3. Why this happens, or if vitamin D3 supplements reduce vitamin D2 levels, isn’t entirely clear. Furthermore, in many of the studies, the vitamin D3 levels were lower in people taking vitamin D2 than they were in control groups not taking any vitamin D supplements. “This is a previously unknown effect,” says Brown. A 2022 study suggests vitamin D2 and D3 have overlapping but different roles in supporting immune function. Only vitamin D3 seems to stimulate the type-I interferon signalling system, for instance, which provides a first line of defence against bacteria and viruses. Brown says the findings suggest vitamin D3 supplements may be more beneficial for most individuals than vitamin D2, but adds personal considerations need to be taken into account, such as wanting to avoid animal products.”
