Is Vitamin D An Antibiotic?
Antimicrobial Peptides
VITAMIN D COUNCIL
Dr. Liu and colleagues at UCLA, publishing in this March's edition of the prestigious journal Science, showed that vitamin D might be, in effect, a potent antibiotic. Vitamin D increases the body's production of naturally occurring antibiotics: antimicrobial peptides. Antimicrobial peptides are produced in numerous cells in the human body where they directly and rapidly destroy the cell walls of viruses and bacteria, including tuberculosis. Furthermore, Liu showed that adding vitamin D to African American serum (African Americans have higher rates of TB) dramatically increased production of these naturally occurring antibiotics. Liu PT, Stenger S, Li H, Wenzel L, Tan BH, Krutzik SR, Ochoa MT, Schauber J, Wu K, Meinken C, Kamen DL, Wagner M, Bals R, Steinmeyer A, Zugel U, Gallo RL, Eisenberg D, Hewison M, Hollis BW, Adams JS, Bloom BR, Modlin RLToll-like receptor triggering of a vitamin D-mediated human antimicrobial response.Science. 2006 Mar 24;311(5768):1770–3.
Plenty of you have e-mailed me that pharmacological doses (high doses) of vitamin D (1,000–2,000 units/kg per day for three days), taken at the first sign of influenza, effectively reduces the severity of symptoms. However, has anyone ever studied giving 100,000, 200,000, or 300,000 units a day for several days to see if vitamin D induces antimicrobial peptides to help fight other life-threatening infections? (By the way, doses up to 600,000 units as a single dose are routinely used in Europe as "Stoss" therapy to prevent vitamin D deficiency and have repeatedly been shown to be safe for short-term administration.) No, you say, studies of "Stoss" therapy in serious infections have never been studied or reported in reputable journals. Well, maybe such treatment has been studied—and reported in the best journals—by way of the weirdest medical invention ever patented in the USA.
Before I get into that, I want to compliment the English for their sense of fair play. Last month I pointed out that the English discovered activated vitamin D (calcitriol) before the Americans. It's important because I suspect the Nobel Committee will get around to awarding a Prize for vitamin D sometime in the next several decades, especially if vitamin D turns out to function like an antibiotic. Well, I got an email from an English scientist who pointed out that it was an American who first discovered calcitriol—but none of the ones I listed. He pointed out that Dr. Tony Norman was actually the first to discover calcitriol—in a series of experiments starting in 1968. Too often, we only think of Dr. DeLuca's and Dr. Holick's lab when we think of vitamin D, while Dr. Norman's lab at UC Riverside is overlooked. He has authored 486 papers about vitamin D beginning in 1963 when he was a student in Dr. DeLuca's lab (by the way, Dr. DeLuca also trained Dr. Holick as he has many vitamin D researchers). When a Nobel Prize is awarded, how will they choose? I don't know—perhaps they should all share it. I do know that I love the English sense of fair play. Haussler MR, Myrtle JF, Norman AWThe association of a metabolite of vitamin D3 with intestinal mucosa chromatin in vivo.J Biol Chem. 1968 Aug 10;243(15):4055–64. Haussler MR, Norman AWChromosomal receptor for a vitamin D metabolite.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1969 Jan;62(1):155–62. Myrtle JF, Haussler MR, Norman AWEvidence for the biologically active form of cholecalciferol in the intestine.J Biol Chem. 1970 Mar 10;245(5):1190–6.
Before I get into this, be warned that what follows is bizarre. It might not make much sense in the beginning. However, if you'll bear with me, you'll see where I'm going. Remember how Professor Reinhold Vieth has written about the complete absence of studies using pharmacological doses of vitamin D (100,000 to 300,000 units a day for several days) in serious diseases. Are there frequently fatal illnesses, such as peritonitis (generalized infection in the abdominal cavity), septicemia (infection of the blood), pneumonia (the Captain of the Men of Death), etc, in which pharmacological doses of vitamin D may be clinically useful when added to conventional treatment?
We know that vitamin D has profound effects on human immunity. Quite recently, three independent groups have reported that vitamin D triggers the release of these powerful natural antibiotics called antimicrobial peptides. If you gave someone large doses of vitamin D, would their bodies make large amounts of antimicrobial peptides? vitamindcouncil.org |
