WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.280 Well, welcome to this month's Ask Your Herb Doctor. My name is Andrew Murray and for this 00:00:06.280 --> 00:00:11.660 month Sarah won't be with us but she will be back in December. For those of you who 00:00:11.660 --> 00:00:16.360 perhaps have never listened to the shows that run every third Friday of the month from 7 00:00:16.360 --> 00:00:21.680 till 8pm, we're both licensed medical herbalists who trained in England and graduated there 00:00:21.680 --> 00:00:25.520 with a degree in herbal medicine. We run a clinic in Garboville where we consult with 00:00:25.520 --> 00:00:29.880 patients about a wide range of conditions, recommend herbs, supplements and nutritional 00:00:29.880 --> 00:00:36.600 counselling. So you're listening to Ask Your Herb Doctor on KMED Garboville 91.1 FM and 00:00:36.600 --> 00:00:41.480 from 7.30 until the end of the show at 8 o'clock you're invited to call in with any questions 00:00:41.480 --> 00:00:47.960 either related or unrelated to this month's subject of vitamin D. The number here if you 00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:54.960 live in the area 923 3911 or if you live outside the area the toll free number is 1800 566 00:00:55.960 --> 00:01:02.960 837 23. That's 1800 KMUD RAD. And we can be reached toll free on 1 888 WBM HERB for 00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:14.760 consultations or further information Monday through Friday 9 to 5. Well first things first 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:21.920 we're very close towards the end of the players drive. There's lots of people here doing all 00:01:22.520 --> 00:01:28.640 the support that it takes to run a show like this and a radio station that can't emphasize 00:01:28.640 --> 00:01:35.640 enough is pretty unique in the States in terms of free speech radio. I know in England free 00:01:35.640 --> 00:01:44.220 speech radio was kind of maligned and pretty much kept in a very fringe area in broadcasting 00:01:47.840 --> 00:01:54.840 but not given any support other than local support and that's what keeps this show alive. 00:01:54.840 --> 00:02:02.120 So thanks so much to all the people that are pledging money making donations supporting 00:02:02.120 --> 00:02:07.560 the radio show keeping it on the air to make this kind of program and all the other excellent 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:13.420 programs that KMED brings that are just filled with alternatives. So this is an alternative 00:02:13.420 --> 00:02:20.420 medicine show and the other alternatives are also valuable outside sources of information 00:02:20.420 --> 00:02:28.200 that you're not going to get from the mainstream. I think in this last political campaign without 00:02:28.200 --> 00:02:35.200 being politically sided I would say that more so than ever we have seen the mainstream or 00:02:36.840 --> 00:02:43.840 lame stream media completely eradicated, disingenuous and completely false. So it's excellent to 00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:55.520 see alternative radios, news sites and websites coming with the internet and the age of free 00:02:55.520 --> 00:03:01.520 information. I thought it's a very small piece I just wanted to say about the internet and 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:08.520 it's the ICNN handover. It was under American governance for a long time but the present 00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:15.280 administration decided to pass that off but I'm not too sure whether this incoming administration 00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:21.200 will be able to do anything about that before censorship carries on like it is in China 00:03:21.200 --> 00:03:28.200 for sure. Okay so this month's talk is on vitamin D. Most people will have recognized 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:35.240 vitamin D probably from rickets in the early 1900s I know in England and in many countries 00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:41.200 that are north of 37 degrees there is really very insufficient sunlight especially in the 00:03:41.200 --> 00:03:47.360 winter months to generate vitamin D and so rickets was a fairly common presenting condition 00:03:47.360 --> 00:03:52.680 and still is in some parts of the world. So we're once again very pleased to have Dr. 00:03:52.680 --> 00:03:59.560 Raymond Peat with us who's a wealth of information and never seems to be any end to the things 00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:04.540 that he knows, the things that he's found and his insights are as always outside the 00:04:04.540 --> 00:04:11.240 box so thanks so much for joining us Dr. Peat. I guess first things first would you just 00:04:11.240 --> 00:04:16.480 outline your professional and academic background for those people who perhaps have never listened 00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:22.160 to the show and then I can get into the questioning and I'd like to run along the lines of the 00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:29.160 vitamin D subject. Basically a PhD in biology including reproductive physiology and biochemistry 00:04:29.160 --> 00:04:39.960 at the University of Oregon. I know you've got plenty more in terms of research background 00:04:39.960 --> 00:04:49.600 and I know it's led you in very many different directions. Steroids and their production 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:56.600 and their uses etc. I know you're very interested in the anti-aging for one of the reasons of 00:04:56.600 --> 00:05:08.680 pregnenolone and/or progesterone and its anti-inflammatory and anti-aging effects. Now vitamin D is 00:05:08.680 --> 00:05:15.680 actually a pro-hormone, it's not strictly speaking in the sense of a vitamin is it? 00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:23.720 So in terms of the discovery of vitamin D and its association with rickets, do you think 00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:33.200 there's adequate vitamin D in the general populations? For preventing rickets, pretty 00:05:33.200 --> 00:05:45.480 much all around the world there is very little rickets left but since the early 1900s, there 00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:53.160 was a period when people started thinking about nutritionally and eating a lot of food 00:05:53.520 --> 00:06:00.520 was established. That really cut off thinking and research about what vitamin D really is 00:06:00.520 --> 00:06:09.040 and what it's doing. In the 1950s, there was a period when people started thinking about 00:06:09.040 --> 00:06:21.920 nutrition for themselves like Adele Davis' books came out and the medical establishment 00:06:22.920 --> 00:06:29.920 reacted to discourage the public from using their own therapy. For example, vitamin A, 00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:40.880 there were stories about how horribly toxic it was, it would destroy your brain and make 00:06:40.880 --> 00:06:47.880 your skin fall off and very little evidence backing it up. You can poison rats and mice 00:06:50.080 --> 00:06:56.880 giving them a million or so units of vitamin A. The same, there were some animal experiments 00:06:56.880 --> 00:07:03.880 with gigantic doses of vitamin D and supposedly there was a case of a baby whose mother gave 00:07:03.880 --> 00:07:13.080 it a million or so units of vitamin D or took it while she was pregnant and that supposedly 00:07:15.800 --> 00:07:22.360 caused the bones to thicken so much that there was no room for the brain to develop. So the 00:07:22.360 --> 00:07:29.360 newspaper stories in the 1950s were saying that vitamin D causes brain damage. I had 00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:38.320 been reading Adele Davis in the 1950s but despite that, I was sort of directed away 00:07:39.840 --> 00:07:46.840 from vitamin D because there was such a taboo about anything more than 200 or 300 units 00:07:46.840 --> 00:07:50.280 per day. 00:07:50.280 --> 00:07:57.280 Okay, it's interesting, you've said that Ricketts is relatively unknown in the world. I know 00:07:57.280 --> 00:08:05.840 in England, since I've lived here for 15 years now, but I know I kind of keep in touch with 00:08:06.080 --> 00:08:11.440 some of the news that comes from time to time that's worth looking at. I know in England, 00:08:11.440 --> 00:08:15.720 especially in Northern England, they were saying that Ricketts was starting to appear 00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:22.720 again. It's kind of a little bit off tonight's subject really. But the advent of fear mongering 00:08:22.720 --> 00:08:31.000 from cases of skin cancer, melanoma, the use of sunscreens, the inherent phobia about being 00:08:31.320 --> 00:08:38.320 in the sun, all of this was actually implicated in the British Medical Journal as being causative 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:45.280 for the rise in Ricketts. It was being seen again by doctors and some people had never 00:08:45.280 --> 00:08:52.280 seen it before. It was kind of the first times for 30 and 40 year old doctors. So there is 00:08:52.280 --> 00:08:59.400 definitely an amount of Ricketts that seems to be in the populations at Northern latitudes 00:09:00.400 --> 00:09:06.400 . But in terms of the vitamin D levels measured on blood tests, I know I've seen 00:09:06.400 --> 00:09:19.920 people with very low vitamin D and I know just like TSH as a measure of the call, the 00:09:22.920 --> 00:09:29.920 body's call for thyroid hormone has been down revised by the Endocrinological Association 00:09:29.920 --> 00:09:37.040 of the USA. They brought it down from 4.5 to 3.5, highlighting the fact that there are 00:09:37.040 --> 00:09:43.040 more and more people with hypothyroid type tendencies. And so this figure has been down 00:09:43.040 --> 00:09:50.040 regulated. I know the levels with vitamin D, the beneficial levels have been raised 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:59.120 so that the lower limit I think was 20 nanograms per mil. Now they've raised that to 30 and 00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:06.600 a lot of people and places are advocating levels of 50 to 70 nanograms. In fact, for 00:10:06.600 --> 00:10:10.840 athletes, I think they've even come out with studies that show there's positive associations 00:10:10.840 --> 00:10:17.840 for 100 nanograms per mil blood levels of vitamin D. What do you think about that even 00:10:17.880 --> 00:10:23.280 in the absence of rickets that there is a tendency in the population to have low? Yeah, 00:10:23.280 --> 00:10:30.280 several of the conditions that are well associated with vitamin D deficiency, some of them have 00:10:30.280 --> 00:10:37.920 doubled and tripled in the last 20, 30 years. And it looks like it's because of that fear 00:10:37.920 --> 00:10:47.800 of the sunlight, sunscreen and such. I've talked to a few people who have had vitamin 00:10:48.800 --> 00:10:55.800 D deficiency and they've had a lot of people who had 10 or below nanograms per milliliter 00:10:55.800 --> 00:11:04.800 or 15 or 20 and their condition really corresponded to how low they were. Like one woman in her 00:11:04.800 --> 00:11:14.800 60s said she was so weak she could hardly walk. Her muscles were simply very, very weak 00:11:16.800 --> 00:11:23.800 at 7 or 8 ng per ml. Within a week of taking just a moderate, I think it was 5,000 units 00:11:23.800 --> 00:11:33.480 a day, she could walk around. When you look at the symptoms of people with 15 ng per ml, 00:11:33.480 --> 00:11:45.080 20, 25 and so on, you can see gradations of that weakness, depression, shrinkage, and 00:11:46.080 --> 00:11:53.080 shrinking muscles, insensitivity to insulin, tendency to have high blood sugar, all of 00:11:53.080 --> 00:12:05.400 the most common diseases of stress. Blood pressure is also associated positively, isn't 00:12:05.400 --> 00:12:11.520 it, with a lower level of vitamin D? Yeah, everything related to aging and degenerative 00:12:11.520 --> 00:12:18.520 stress. Atrial fibrillation, enlargement of the ventricle, calcification of the valves, 00:12:18.520 --> 00:12:28.520 degeneration of the valves in several different ways, hardening of the arteries, calcification 00:12:28.520 --> 00:12:35.760 of the coronary arteries, even calcification to the extent of what they call a heart stone, 00:12:40.400 --> 00:12:47.400 a huge mass of calcium. Okay, we'll get into plenty of the different conditions for which 00:12:47.400 --> 00:12:54.640 there's been lots of peer-reviewed papers written on processes that I actually wasn't 00:12:54.640 --> 00:13:01.640 that aware of. I think probably like most people have just associated vitamin D with 00:13:01.640 --> 00:13:08.680 calcium and phosphorus metabolism, weak bones, osteomalacia, and degenerative stress. So 00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:15.520 degenerative skeletal type situations. But there's a very clear and positive link to 00:13:15.520 --> 00:13:19.360 energy production and inflammation. And I know the last few shows that we've done with 00:13:19.360 --> 00:13:26.360 you, you've been looking a lot at inflammation and the processes producing inflammation and 00:13:26.360 --> 00:13:33.560 the sequelae of inflammation and how inflammatory processes in general are extremely destructive 00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:42.600 and counterproductive to energy production. When you look at the mechanism of just the 00:13:42.600 --> 00:13:50.680 outline that calcium helps to balance, or vitamin D helps to balance the relation between 00:13:50.680 --> 00:13:59.480 calcium and phosphate to prevent the over-accumulation of phosphate and to keep up the right level 00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:10.440 of calcium. When you look at the relation of that balance to inflammation, it turns 00:14:10.440 --> 00:14:19.360 out that it's really a serious problem in the population, the amount of phosphate relative 00:14:19.360 --> 00:14:25.480 to calcium. And that's because people aren't eating enough 00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:30.720 dairy? Or green leaves. Green leaves and cheese and 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:37.720 milk are really the major good sources of calcium. And meat, nuts, grains, beans, all 00:14:37.720 --> 00:14:48.000 of those have terrifically high phosphate content. The excess phosphate and the reaction 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:58.240 of the parathyroid hormone to that high phosphate intake, it's exactly the same as a deficiency 00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:07.240 of vitamin D. So too much phosphate, too little vitamin D, and you get what amounts to an 00:15:07.240 --> 00:15:17.440 early stage of chronic kidney degeneration. Parathyroid hormone and phosphate are called 00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:26.760 uremic toxins, late stage kidney disease. But people are starting that process very 00:15:29.120 --> 00:15:31.800 early and they don't eat enough calcium and vitamin D. 00:15:31.800 --> 00:15:38.800 Okay, well I want to talk a little bit about the natural conversion in the skin, the process 00:15:38.800 --> 00:15:47.400 by which sunlight activates the cholesterol precursor, and then how those metabolites 00:15:47.400 --> 00:15:52.320 are changed in the liver first and then in the kidney and how they become active and 00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:58.360 how this could play out in people with liver disease as well as kidney disease and how 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:03.760 this could negatively impact them because they've automatically weakened the process 00:16:03.760 --> 00:16:09.640 by which this pro-hormone is converted into the active form. So you're listening to Ask 00:16:09.640 --> 00:16:16.640 Your Ob-Doctor on KMED 91.1 FM from 7.30 until the end of the show at 8 o'clock. You're invited 00:16:16.640 --> 00:16:21.160 to call in with any questions. Dr. Ray Peat is joining us once again. We're discussing 00:16:21.160 --> 00:16:27.440 the widespread use of vitamin D and how important it is and I think the lack of sunlight and 00:16:27.440 --> 00:16:32.840 the phobia surrounding sun and cancer, how this is all playing into decreasing our levels 00:16:32.840 --> 00:16:37.160 and how there aren't that many foods that really produce or have enough vitamin D in 00:16:37.160 --> 00:16:41.200 them to actually keep levels of vitamin D at good levels and how those levels have actually 00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:46.680 been raised in terms of the reference range for blood tests showing a positive association 00:16:46.680 --> 00:16:52.680 with increasing levels of vitamin D and decreasing disease. So number here if you're in the area 00:16:52.680 --> 00:16:59.680 it's 923 3911. If you live outside the area there's a 800 number which is 1-800-568-3723 00:16:59.680 --> 00:17:08.440 or 1-800-KMUT-RAD. So lines will be open from 7.30 on. Dr. Peat, talking about the conversion 00:17:08.440 --> 00:17:16.200 in the skin and again I wanted to also bring up the fact that I had heard and read that 00:17:16.200 --> 00:17:22.320 washing directly after sunbathing was actually counterproductive because you can wash the 00:17:22.320 --> 00:17:29.320 precursor metabolite off of the skin. I don't know how you view that as true or that's just 00:17:29.320 --> 00:17:35.960 some bad science and then the conversion of the cholesterol type molecule in the skin 00:17:35.960 --> 00:17:42.800 into the 25-hydroxy form and how that is then further hydroxylated downstream by the kidneys 00:17:42.800 --> 00:17:48.200 to the active form. What do you think first about washing if you're sunbathing and I think 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:54.480 I read only 20 minutes was necessary to produce peak amounts of the pro-hormone so that the 00:17:54.480 --> 00:17:59.720 body actually stopped producing more after about 20 minutes so it wasn't necessary to 00:17:59.720 --> 00:18:06.720 lie out in the sun all day to get adequate vitamin D from sun exposure from UVB mainly. 00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:13.720 I think that's only when you're in the middle of the day at a moderate latitude. The UVB 00:18:17.280 --> 00:18:24.280 is so low most of the year in the high latitudes that it takes a long time to get enough but 00:18:24.280 --> 00:18:33.280 in like from 11, 10 to 2 in the summer in high latitudes it only takes 15 or 20 minutes 00:18:33.280 --> 00:18:41.800 to get enough. Okay because there's a definite decrease in UVB exposure with angle of the 00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:49.480 sun I mean yeah so okay given that you're perhaps I don't know down in San Francisco 00:18:49.480 --> 00:18:56.680 or that kind of latitude then from I know probably September through to April, May you're 00:18:56.680 --> 00:19:00.440 probably not again getting exposed to enough sunlight and if you are you probably need 00:19:00.440 --> 00:19:06.680 to be out in the sun probably for an hour or two then rather than 20 minutes. Yeah and 00:19:06.680 --> 00:19:12.920 the color of your skin, the natural color makes a tremendous difference and age makes 00:19:12.920 --> 00:19:19.920 a difference. There is apparently less cholesterol metabolism and such in an old person and just 00:19:19.920 --> 00:19:29.640 the degree of pigmentation influences the amount of reaction you have to the ultraviolet. 00:19:34.320 --> 00:19:41.320 In Mexico for example even the women who are outside all day if they have dark skin and 00:19:41.320 --> 00:19:48.320 are only exposing their face and hands they tend to be deficient in vitamin D even at 00:19:48.320 --> 00:19:57.600 high altitudes and brilliant sunlight. Because I read the association between previous kind 00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:07.640 of agrarian lifestyle or at least labor based lifestyle where most people worked for a living 00:20:07.640 --> 00:20:13.600 with manual labor. I don't mean people don't work at computers or whatever these days but 00:20:13.600 --> 00:20:20.600 a manual labor they're outdoors and more associated with agrarian lifestyles, farming and just 00:20:20.600 --> 00:20:26.480 being outdoors whether it's cutting wood or you know any other outdoor activity. Those 00:20:26.480 --> 00:20:32.960 people obviously then were getting exposed to sun but obviously with our modern lifestyles 00:20:32.960 --> 00:20:38.480 you know most people are kind of indoors and sedentary which brings its own other negative 00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:45.480 components to health. But in terms of the amount of sun that people get and using supplementation 00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:51.200 I think probably supplementation is one of the easiest way to go about getting adequate 00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:56.120 levels of vitamin D because I don't think, do you think people get enough vitamin D from 00:20:56.120 --> 00:21:03.120 the food that they eat? No, that's almost impossible. If you drink say 2 to 4 quarts 00:21:03.120 --> 00:21:13.080 of vitamin D supplemented milk if it isn't whole legally it has to be supplemented with 00:21:13.080 --> 00:21:20.440 vitamin D but that's only, I forget, I don't know what the current amount is but I think 00:21:23.080 --> 00:21:30.080 has been around 300 units per quart, something like that. Okay, per quart. Wow. And I think 00:21:30.080 --> 00:21:38.800 the modern levels that are advocated now up to 2,000, I know 2 to 4,000 IU per day so 00:21:38.800 --> 00:21:44.760 if you're getting 300 IU from a quart of vitamin D 4 to 5 milk it's going to take a lot of 00:21:44.760 --> 00:21:51.360 milk to reach that. And it is in a few other foods, things like oily fish but again I know 00:21:51.360 --> 00:21:58.360 you're not an advocate of oily fish from a PUFA perspective. Egg yolks as well I think 00:21:58.360 --> 00:22:03.880 20 IU per egg yolk so you're not going to get a lot of vitamin D from eggs either. Is 00:22:03.880 --> 00:22:10.440 there any other forms of vitamin D rich foods? Oh well mushrooms, mushrooms. They've been 00:22:10.440 --> 00:22:17.440 exposed to light, have a lot but interesting. During the 40s and 50s the main form of supplemental 00:22:21.040 --> 00:22:28.040 vitamin D was synthetic by ultraviolet radiation of fungus and the research that changed the 00:22:28.040 --> 00:22:42.920 popularity of that claimed that it was responsible for the hardening of the arteries of young 00:22:42.920 --> 00:22:50.360 people starting in the 40s and 50s. And this hardening was because of calcium deposition, 00:22:50.560 --> 00:22:57.560 aberrant calcium? Yeah which normally happens in a vitamin D deficiency but there were publications 00:22:57.560 --> 00:23:05.880 arguing that the use of the synthetic vitamin D might have been contributing to abnormal 00:23:05.880 --> 00:23:13.720 calcium metabolism. I don't know if that's true but that came out around 1970 and milk 00:23:16.200 --> 00:23:23.200 added, it was switched over to vitamin D3 right after those articles came out so I think 00:23:23.200 --> 00:23:30.640 they were just being cautious. So you said earlier that mushrooms exposed to light are 00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:36.240 a significant source of vitamin D. Did you know, have you any figures in terms of per 00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:43.240 ounce of mushrooms consumed what you'd get? No I don't know. It depends on the type of 00:23:44.040 --> 00:23:48.720 mushroom and the intensity of the ultraviolet. Interesting because we always think about 00:23:48.720 --> 00:23:53.720 mushrooms growing in the dark or in the woods or something so they would irradiate with 00:23:53.720 --> 00:24:00.720 UVB then mushrooms at some point in our history. Yeah and if they gather them outside just 00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:10.480 being exposed to daylight for a few hours is enough. There have been studies using mushroom 00:24:12.200 --> 00:24:19.200 powder as a vitamin D supplement. It only took I think it was less than an ounce of 00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:30.320 powdered mushroom to make a distinct rise. It actually depressed the vitamin D3 and increased 00:24:30.320 --> 00:24:39.760 the vitamin D2. Wow that's interesting I've never heard of that. So this would be things 00:24:39.760 --> 00:24:46.760 like the common field mushroom, the white kind of the white agaric mushroom that's kind 00:24:46.760 --> 00:24:53.200 of common culinary mushroom that would be growing in the fields, button mushrooms. These 00:24:53.200 --> 00:25:00.200 would be sources? Yeah if they've been exposed at all to sunlight they probably account for 00:25:00.200 --> 00:25:09.040 quite many people have a measurable amount of D2 in their serum. Interesting. Now the 00:25:09.040 --> 00:25:15.760 other thing I just want to go back a little bit. You've been an advocate of mushrooms 00:25:15.760 --> 00:25:21.440 specifically for something else, certainly for producing a soup of mushrooms and having 00:25:21.440 --> 00:25:28.440 this as a dietary supplement. Yeah for the anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer functions. 00:25:28.440 --> 00:25:37.760 Interesting. Okay so I guess getting on to specific diseases that have been characterized 00:25:37.760 --> 00:25:44.760 with low vitamin D and how the studies have shown in cohorts of people that they've tested, 00:25:44.760 --> 00:25:52.280 those with higher initial levels of vitamin D did better in the outcomes than those with 00:25:52.280 --> 00:25:57.960 low. I know I've always associated vitamin D with bones because of rickets I think most 00:25:57.960 --> 00:26:03.480 people have. I don't know how many people are actually aware of the cancer association 00:26:03.480 --> 00:26:10.480 with vitamin D, how many people associate TB and multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis 00:26:10.480 --> 00:26:17.760 with vitamin D. But I'd like to bring out some of these things and get your perspective 00:26:17.760 --> 00:26:23.200 on the inflammation that's happening and how you tie in the inflammatory process through 00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:28.880 parathyroid hormone which I know you've always said is inflammatory and how through using 00:26:28.880 --> 00:26:35.880 thyroid hormone and pregnenolone being two anti-inflammatories which quell that inflammatory 00:26:35.880 --> 00:26:42.400 cascade how they tie into how you see these inflammatory disorders that I've mentioned 00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:49.400 rheumatoid, MS, etc., cancers. So looking at something that I haven't mentioned which 00:26:49.400 --> 00:26:56.600 is fibromyalgia, I saw that there was a definite, well it was a theoretical mechanism because 00:26:57.800 --> 00:27:03.400 they haven't tested it any further but I know the fibromyalgia syndrome where people have 00:27:03.400 --> 00:27:09.760 very tired, aching muscles and they feel muscle bound and they just can't move because their 00:27:09.760 --> 00:27:14.880 muscles are functioning. I know you'd probably associate that more with hypothyroidism and 00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:21.880 low thyroid state because you've clearly spoken many times about the patella or the Achilles 00:27:22.640 --> 00:27:28.120 tendon reflex and that's a direct response of the muscle not being able to repolarize 00:27:28.120 --> 00:27:35.120 quick enough and this lag phase that happens with the twitch. How do you see fibromyalgia 00:27:35.120 --> 00:27:42.960 in terms of vitamin D deficiency being relative to energy production and repolarization? 00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:51.160 I think it's parallel, almost identical to the hypothyroid condition. All of the energy 00:27:52.160 --> 00:27:58.800 -- all of the inflammations that you get with low thyroid function are structurally and 00:27:58.800 --> 00:28:05.800 functionally similar to those you get from a vitamin D deficiency. The thyroid stimulating 00:28:05.800 --> 00:28:14.560 hormone is an agent of those inflammatory processes. Actually more than the direct effect of thyroxin 00:28:20.040 --> 00:28:27.040 which lowers TSH, the TSH itself directly activates and causes tissue to release the 00:28:27.040 --> 00:28:35.840 inflammatory cytokines, interleukins and so on and parathyroid hormone does that. Just 00:28:35.840 --> 00:28:45.080 by taking vitamin D or increasing your calcium intake or decreasing your phosphate relative 00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:53.480 to the calcium, all of these changes in your diet will lower both TSH and parathyroid hormone 00:28:53.480 --> 00:29:04.560 and both of these hormones are directly involved in things such as mast cell activation, releasing 00:29:04.560 --> 00:29:15.240 histamine and serotonin, increasing all of the cytokines, tumor necrosis factor, nitric 00:29:16.080 --> 00:29:23.080 oxide, all of the things that promote degenerative inflammatory processes. So functionally vitamin 00:29:23.080 --> 00:29:34.400 D and thyroid are really parallel. You can't quite separate them. 00:29:34.400 --> 00:29:44.640 And then looking at the response to the immune system amounts to infection or other symptoms 00:29:44.960 --> 00:29:51.960 like infection or cancer or inflammatory responses. There are lots of papers published for, and 00:29:51.960 --> 00:30:01.240 again this is a little bit of a divergence, I know tuberculosis as a lung disease. There 00:30:01.240 --> 00:30:09.440 were other lung type pathologies which were definitely seemed to improve and had lower 00:30:12.640 --> 00:30:19.640 morbidity associated with it with people that had higher vitamin D levels. 00:30:19.640 --> 00:30:26.440 There are vitamin D levels when they are brought into hospital. The higher the vitamin D when 00:30:26.440 --> 00:30:33.440 they come in, the more likely they are to go out alive. 00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:41.000 I think it's probably a no brainer if somebody is in, for many different, I mean how many 00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:45.240 different illnesses are there that you can say don't have an inflammatory portion to 00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:50.720 them? Not too many, right? I think inflammation is one of those widespread systemic processes 00:30:50.720 --> 00:30:57.720 that happens in many pathologies. And so I think just recognizing that vitamin D is implied 00:30:57.720 --> 00:31:04.440 in inflammation, suppressing inflammation would make anybody want to supplement with 00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:06.280 vitamin D, wouldn't it? 00:31:06.280 --> 00:31:13.280 Yeah, and HIV, AIDS, malaria as well as tuberculosis are very widespread conditions that are known 00:31:13.280 --> 00:31:24.520 to increase their morbidity and mortality in proportion to how low the vitamin D is. 00:31:24.520 --> 00:31:34.040 I read an article about a compound called catholicidin and this was an antiviral defense 00:31:34.440 --> 00:31:41.440 that again was heightened by vitamin D in the body and that lower levels produced lower 00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:49.520 levels of this compound and also decreased natural interferon production. So these would 00:31:49.520 --> 00:31:57.800 tend to implicate viral conditions to be positively associated or the outcomes of viral conditions 00:31:57.800 --> 00:32:00.920 to be positively associated with increased vitamin D. 00:32:00.920 --> 00:32:07.920 Yeah, and I think the viral process is basically an energy process. When the cells are well 00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:18.200 energized they're resistant to infection and replication of viruses. 00:32:18.200 --> 00:32:22.760 And again, you're just saying that's from an energetic point of view to be able to withstand 00:32:22.760 --> 00:32:28.560 the processes that cost energy to drive a system more positively than being overwhelmed 00:32:28.560 --> 00:32:29.640 as it were. 00:32:29.640 --> 00:32:36.640 Yeah, and I think you can see the energy process in the brain conditions that are associated 00:32:36.640 --> 00:32:44.880 with vitamin D deficiency. Brain injured patients have very low vitamin D and probably the injury 00:32:44.880 --> 00:32:54.760 itself is causing it to be lost in some way. 00:32:54.760 --> 00:33:00.600 I read that Parkinson's was also implicated in low levels of vitamin D in some Parkinson's 00:33:00.600 --> 00:33:06.720 patients showing that that was a kind of interference either with dopaminergic type interference 00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:13.720 or another neural signaling interference that vitamin D positively influences. 00:33:13.720 --> 00:33:21.160 And the prion diseases are probably influenced because vitamin D prevents the polymerization 00:33:22.800 --> 00:33:29.800 of the prion protein which is involved in scrapie, mad cow disease, Alzheimer's disease 00:33:29.800 --> 00:33:37.480 and probably several other of the degenerative brain diseases. Anxiety and depression are 00:33:37.480 --> 00:33:43.760 associated with very low vitamin D. 00:33:43.760 --> 00:33:50.600 Yeah, interesting. Again, that's an interesting thinking about things like from a perspective, 00:33:50.600 --> 00:33:56.720 things like hypericin from St. John's Wort being a classic treatment for depression and 00:33:56.720 --> 00:34:03.720 how the alchemists classified St. John's Wort way back before there was any "science" although 00:34:03.720 --> 00:34:11.640 they were very methodical and very scientific in their own right. They classified it as 00:34:11.640 --> 00:34:17.600 heating and drying in the third degree saying that it was a solar rule by the sun. And so 00:34:17.600 --> 00:34:22.840 that again, anxiety and depression with St. John's Wort use is kind of hand in hand with 00:34:22.840 --> 00:34:29.440 the sun and its energizing effects if we want to get kind of holistic about the mechanism 00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:30.440 by which that works. 00:34:30.440 --> 00:34:35.440 Okay, we are listening to Ask Your Rev. Dr. K. Medhi Galvan, 91.1 FM. From now until the 00:34:35.440 --> 00:34:39.400 end of the show at 8 o'clock, you're invited to call in with any questions related or unrelated 00:34:39.400 --> 00:34:44.240 to this month's subject of vitamin D, its metabolism and the effects that it has on 00:34:44.240 --> 00:34:49.440 the body. It sounds like someone's coming into the show to do some plug-in for the pledge 00:34:49.440 --> 00:34:56.440 line so let's bring him in now. 00:34:56.440 --> 00:35:02.280 So we're stealing the airwaves. 00:35:02.280 --> 00:35:07.440 Go ahead. The reason we're here is because people contribute and they pay for it and 00:35:07.440 --> 00:35:10.320 they support it and it wouldn't happen otherwise. 00:35:10.320 --> 00:35:15.160 Right, and we need the community support and there's a reason we have, you know, why you're 00:35:15.160 --> 00:35:19.840 on the air and why we have these talk shows is for the community to communicate with each 00:35:19.840 --> 00:35:24.560 other and it's a really important aspect of KMUD and thank you so much. 00:35:24.560 --> 00:35:25.880 Oh, you're welcome. 00:35:25.880 --> 00:35:29.760 For being here. My name's Ruby, voice in ether by the way. 00:35:29.760 --> 00:35:34.360 And I'm Rob and when I, especially when I started listening to this station when I moved 00:35:34.360 --> 00:35:38.060 out here, I always thought of the talk shows as sort of the community sitting around the 00:35:38.060 --> 00:35:44.560 campfire, you know, exchanging stories and ideas and I don't think that's too far off 00:35:44.560 --> 00:35:45.840 from what actually happens. 00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:48.280 So how far are we from reaching the... 00:35:48.280 --> 00:35:49.680 Oh, we're close. 00:35:49.680 --> 00:35:51.280 Yeah, I saw that. 00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:52.880 We're at $91,146. 00:35:52.880 --> 00:35:57.880 So thank you so much callers for calling in to 923-3911. 00:35:57.880 --> 00:36:04.880 And we only need another 3,500. No, yeah, 91, if you said 91 something, this says 90,800. 00:36:07.080 --> 00:36:08.080 We're so close. 00:36:08.080 --> 00:36:15.080 So please call in and pledge and donate and give. We're not far away. So it's very important 00:36:15.080 --> 00:36:19.240 that we keep this station fully funded. I mean, over and above the 90,000, 95 is the 00:36:19.240 --> 00:36:23.560 goal, but obviously any more over and above that is totally works towards supporting the 00:36:23.560 --> 00:36:24.560 show. 00:36:24.560 --> 00:36:28.600 We always appreciate the extra funds. 00:36:28.600 --> 00:36:35.480 It always disappears at least as fast as it comes in. That's one of the sad realities. 00:36:35.480 --> 00:36:38.200 Where are we at with that thousand dollar? 00:36:38.200 --> 00:36:42.680 We're really close. We made about a third of it, but we still need a little bit more 00:36:42.680 --> 00:36:49.680 and we're trying to reach that before eight. And so let's call in 923-3911. And yeah, so 00:36:49.680 --> 00:36:55.080 the way a challenge works is somebody ante's up a thousand dollars, but we don't get that 00:36:55.080 --> 00:36:58.080 money until other people match that challenge. 00:36:58.080 --> 00:37:05.080 So like I said, we have a little over $600 to go until we meet the challenge. So 923-3911. 00:37:05.080 --> 00:37:08.440 1-800-K-MUD-RAD. 00:37:08.440 --> 00:37:12.080 We've got a whole half hour to do it, but don't waste time folks. 00:37:12.080 --> 00:37:15.640 923-3911. We'll let you get back to it. 00:37:15.640 --> 00:37:22.640 Thank you. No problem. Yeah, you're welcome. 00:37:22.640 --> 00:37:29.640 All right. Okay. Now I will get right back to the topic of vitamin D and its association 00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:37.680 with various pathologies here that I think some of which I hadn't realized until I started 00:37:37.680 --> 00:37:41.000 looking at this information earlier on today. 00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:47.000 Okay. So if you're in the area and or on the internet and you have any questions again, 00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:51.040 923-3911, I know people are going to call in and pledge. That's what we want. So let's 00:37:51.040 --> 00:37:57.240 see the lights lighten up and see who's calling. There is a 800 number, which is 1-800-K-MUD-RAD 00:37:57.240 --> 00:38:02.360 for those people either listening to the internet or in a different state. We often have people 00:38:02.360 --> 00:38:06.480 from the middle of the country and the East Coast calling. 00:38:06.480 --> 00:38:13.480 So Dr. Peat, I said at the beginning when I started introducing this subject for this evening 00:38:13.480 --> 00:38:19.920 that I found a very interesting parallel. But again, I'm always very cautious how far 00:38:19.920 --> 00:38:26.440 down the rabbit hole to go knowing that there's such a lot of misinformation, especially in 00:38:26.440 --> 00:38:33.440 science. I mean, talk about a revelatory electoral cycle, what we've seen from the mainstream 00:38:33.440 --> 00:38:43.160 media, what we've seen, all the stunts they've pulled, all the lies, all the cover-ups, all 00:38:43.160 --> 00:38:49.240 the conspiracy. It's everywhere. And I don't believe that it's not in medical journals 00:38:49.240 --> 00:38:54.880 or in especially in pharmaceutical press releases. 00:38:54.880 --> 00:39:01.880 So getting to the subject of the conversion of vitamin D, first in the liver and then 00:39:01.880 --> 00:39:10.720 in the kidneys before it becomes active, are you aware of anything that would bypass the 00:39:10.720 --> 00:39:17.920 necessity for healthy livers and healthy kidneys in order to have adequate vitamin D? If not, 00:39:17.920 --> 00:39:22.960 that I think is a main stumbling block that people need to know about and hear about. 00:39:22.960 --> 00:39:29.960 I think the low level of vitamin D and calcium is probably the cause of the sick liver and 00:39:29.960 --> 00:39:33.680 kidneys. 00:39:33.680 --> 00:39:36.400 Interesting. Go on. 00:39:36.400 --> 00:39:43.400 Rather than being a product, and so supplementing just with calcium and vitamin D, I think in 00:39:46.880 --> 00:39:53.880 many cases will correct whatever the liver and kidney problem is. It isn't a matter of 00:39:53.880 --> 00:40:05.280 curing the disease so that they can make or activate vitamin D. It's a matter of getting 00:40:05.280 --> 00:40:14.840 the vitamin D and calcium into the system. And maybe you don't need to think about the 00:40:15.160 --> 00:40:22.160 disease of the kidney and liver as having some other mysterious cause such as a virus. 00:40:22.160 --> 00:40:30.280 Okay. Because I read one particular abstract that seemed to show that the... Okay. This 00:40:30.280 --> 00:40:39.400 was the other subject, vitamin D receptors. Now given that, I think you have said that 00:40:39.400 --> 00:40:44.360 there are many different places where the tissues in many different organs and other 00:40:44.360 --> 00:40:51.360 tissues including nerve presumably, where vitamin D receptors are located. So they are 00:40:51.360 --> 00:40:58.480 ubiquitous a little bit like the sites that are binding sites for various different molecules 00:40:58.480 --> 00:41:06.520 or hormones or drugs or other things that the body produces. 00:41:06.520 --> 00:41:13.520 But in terms of what they call the vitamin D receptor and its ubiquity in the body, it's 00:41:14.520 --> 00:41:21.520 reasonable if you know, but is it reasonable to increase the amount of vitamin D receptors 00:41:21.520 --> 00:41:30.120 that your genotype would express in order to overcome any shortfall in the absorption 00:41:30.120 --> 00:41:38.360 of vitamin D or the pickup of vitamin D? 00:41:38.360 --> 00:41:45.360 The receptor is the problem of some of the stress conditions make the receptor disappear. 00:41:45.360 --> 00:41:51.120 Make them disappear? 00:41:51.120 --> 00:41:58.120 Yes. So that I think getting enough calcium and vitamin D and good nutrition generally 00:41:58.120 --> 00:42:08.160 is necessary to make sure that you aren't suppressing the receptors. 00:42:09.160 --> 00:42:16.160 Some of the receptor repression is done by over-methylation and that can be something 00:42:16.160 --> 00:42:25.440 that your mother, for example, was deficient in vitamin D or calcium. That sets up a methylation 00:42:25.440 --> 00:42:36.520 pattern in subsequent offspring that can affect their sensitivity to vitamin D. 00:42:37.520 --> 00:42:44.520 By methylating the receptor or other interacting. 00:42:44.520 --> 00:42:53.680 Do you know how long lived these receptors are then? If you talk about a kind of transcriptional 00:42:53.680 --> 00:43:00.480 event that occurs in DNA to produce all these different things, one of which is the vitamin 00:43:00.480 --> 00:43:04.880 D receptor, which is so important because it has such an implication in so many different 00:43:04.880 --> 00:43:11.880 inflammatory processes, not just degenerative bone disease but down to cancers. How long 00:43:11.880 --> 00:43:18.560 these vitamin D receptors last once they've been produced and therefore if you're talking 00:43:18.560 --> 00:43:24.560 about the over-methylation being negatively associated with these vitamin D receptors 00:43:24.560 --> 00:43:27.200 disappearing or not being produced. 00:43:27.200 --> 00:43:32.440 That would be the rate at which they're replaced and I don't know specifically how long they 00:43:32.440 --> 00:43:39.440 last but other receptors are typically turning over very fast so the cells can remain adaptable 00:43:39.440 --> 00:43:51.000 usually just two or three days and much of the receptor has been recycled. 00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:55.080 Okay, we do have a caller on the air so let's take this first caller. Caller, you're on 00:43:55.080 --> 00:43:56.440 the air, where are you from? 00:43:56.440 --> 00:43:56.680 Hello? 00:43:56.680 --> 00:43:58.440 Hi, you're on the air, where are you from? 00:43:58.440 --> 00:43:58.840 Philipsville. 00:43:58.840 --> 00:44:01.440 Oh, Philipsville, hi. What's your question? 00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:08.440 A while back I had a vitamin D test and I was kind of low and they said to take more 00:44:08.440 --> 00:44:18.080 and then I think I was checked a while later and they said I was on the low end of normal 00:44:18.080 --> 00:44:25.080 but I still needed to up it and they suggested I take 5,000 units a day so I was taking 5,000 00:44:25.080 --> 00:44:30.720 units a day but I also take a multivitamin, kind of a strong multivitamin mineral. I'm 00:44:30.720 --> 00:44:37.720 a little older so I want to make sure I get everything I need and I noticed that the multivitamin 00:44:37.720 --> 00:44:44.920 had 3,000 units in it so that meant if I was taking both every day I'd be getting 8,000 00:44:44.920 --> 00:44:47.040 a day. Is that too much? 00:44:47.040 --> 00:44:54.040 Well, I would wonder first how quantitative the amount was actually in the tablet if it 00:44:54.040 --> 00:44:58.640 said 3,000, how bioavailable it was over a liquid form if that was... 00:44:58.640 --> 00:45:01.360 It was a liquid capsule, the 5,000. 00:45:01.360 --> 00:45:06.160 Yeah, the liquid capsule was a 5,000 but what was the 3,000 one that was in the multivitamin 00:45:06.160 --> 00:45:06.640 and that was in the tablet? 00:45:06.640 --> 00:45:07.640 Yeah, that was in a big pill. 00:45:07.640 --> 00:45:12.240 Yeah, so Dr. Peat, 8,000, if she got 8,000? 00:45:12.240 --> 00:45:19.240 Yeah, if you figure that being in a bathing suit in the sun for 20 or 30 minutes enough 00:45:19.240 --> 00:45:24.440 to just start turning pink, that can make 10 or 15,000 units. 00:45:24.440 --> 00:45:25.320 Oh, okay. 00:45:25.320 --> 00:45:29.080 So 5 or 10,000 units is never going to be harmful. 00:45:29.080 --> 00:45:32.760 So that's not going to be harmful. So if I take... Because I was starting to take the 00:45:32.760 --> 00:45:37.280 5,000 one every other day because I take the other one every day. But you think I should 00:45:37.280 --> 00:45:40.640 go back to taking the 5,000 every day with the multi? 00:45:40.640 --> 00:45:44.720 Yeah, I've never heard of 10,000 a day being harmful. 00:45:44.720 --> 00:45:50.640 All right, and this is only 8. Did you say that you need added calcium for the vitamin 00:45:50.640 --> 00:45:52.800 D to work better? 00:45:52.800 --> 00:46:01.040 You need a good ratio of calcium to phosphate. I think it's really protective to take in 00:46:01.040 --> 00:46:08.080 well over 1,000. I try to get about 2,500 milligrams of calcium per day. 00:46:08.080 --> 00:46:11.520 I see. And what are the foods that are good for that? 00:46:11.520 --> 00:46:17.440 Milk, cheese, and leafy greens that are well cooked and the water they cook in. 00:46:17.440 --> 00:46:21.840 They have to be cooked because I eat a lot of salad, but those aren't cooked. 00:46:21.840 --> 00:46:30.760 We can't digest raw leaves, so most of the calcium is not being assimilated from salad 00:46:30.760 --> 00:46:31.760 greens. 00:46:31.760 --> 00:46:35.280 So I should eat like cooked broccoli or something like that? 00:46:35.280 --> 00:46:36.560 Yeah, yeah. 00:46:36.560 --> 00:46:46.200 Okay, how much? Anything green, like green beans, anything that's green has the calcium? 00:46:46.200 --> 00:46:58.760 One or two big servings of kale or chard would give you a good part of your day's requirement, 00:46:58.760 --> 00:47:05.480 but I think the best way is to have more than a quarter day of low-fat milk. 00:47:05.480 --> 00:47:11.760 Well, I can't possibly drink a quarter day of milk. I eat a little cheese, you know, 00:47:11.760 --> 00:47:15.040 and sometimes a little sour cream. 00:47:15.040 --> 00:47:18.320 Just for example, can I just ask you this? How much do you weigh? 00:47:18.320 --> 00:47:20.360 I'm not going to tell you that. 00:47:20.360 --> 00:47:21.360 No, you should. Come on. 00:47:21.360 --> 00:47:23.200 You don't ask a lady her age and her weight. 00:47:23.200 --> 00:47:25.440 No, no, it's important. I need to ask you. You need to tell me. 00:47:25.440 --> 00:47:27.120 I ain't going to tell you. 00:47:27.120 --> 00:47:30.440 Okay, well, Dr. Peat, thanks for your call. I wanted to do a... 00:47:30.440 --> 00:47:31.880 What does it have to do with my weight? 00:47:31.880 --> 00:47:34.480 Oh, it has a huge amount. So if you like... 00:47:34.480 --> 00:47:36.320 I'm a bit on the heavy side, let's say that. 00:47:36.320 --> 00:47:41.080 Yeah, well, there's been very, very, very positive associations with an inability to 00:47:41.080 --> 00:47:47.200 absorb vitamin D. And I'm not saying you're obese, but in obese people. So the body fat 00:47:47.200 --> 00:47:54.480 has a direct, yeah, a suppressing effect on vitamin D absorption. So Dr. Peat, how about 00:47:54.480 --> 00:47:56.480 that? You understand that. 00:47:56.480 --> 00:48:06.040 Well, vitamin D and calcium both have a direct suppressive effect on fat formation. The fatty 00:48:06.040 --> 00:48:14.280 liver, for example, is in animal studies, it's corrected by both vitamin D and calcium. 00:48:14.280 --> 00:48:19.280 So that suppresses fat. That will help you not get so fat if you eat vitamin D and calcium. 00:48:19.280 --> 00:48:25.040 And the high calcium intake by itself, just with a normal amount of vitamin D, is very 00:48:25.040 --> 00:48:27.960 effective at preventing overweight. 00:48:27.960 --> 00:48:32.640 Oh, that's good to know. And what did you say would happen to the kidneys? That was 00:48:32.640 --> 00:48:37.240 something bad would happen to the kidneys from not having enough calcium or not enough 00:48:37.240 --> 00:48:39.560 calcium and vitamin D? 00:48:39.560 --> 00:48:50.200 Not enough calcium and vitamin D or too much phosphate. The combination, any of those will 00:48:50.200 --> 00:48:58.440 cause your parathyroid hormone to increase. And elevated phosphate and elevated parathyroid 00:48:58.440 --> 00:49:02.760 hormone are very toxic to the kidneys. 00:49:02.760 --> 00:49:09.480 Well, I actually had an overactive thyroid that I had developed a few years ago. I hadn't 00:49:09.480 --> 00:49:17.680 had it before. And that led to atrial fibrillation problems. And I had a radioactive iodine to 00:49:17.680 --> 00:49:25.200 shrink the thyroid. So now I take 88 micrograms a day of thyroid to keep it up to the normal 00:49:25.200 --> 00:49:30.360 level. So I assume I'm getting the normal level of thyroid that I need. 00:49:30.360 --> 00:49:40.120 Yes, thyroid works in many ways similarly to vitamin D and regulates calcium and magnesium 00:49:40.120 --> 00:49:41.120 in particular. 00:49:41.120 --> 00:49:48.360 Well, I'm taking both. So I guess that's a good thing. Okay. Well, thank you. 00:49:48.360 --> 00:49:52.480 Thank you for your call. We do have another caller. So let's get this call. And the lights 00:49:52.480 --> 00:49:57.000 are flashing again. So let's take this call away from. What's your question? 00:49:57.000 --> 00:50:00.400 I am calling you from Finland in Scandinavia. 00:50:00.400 --> 00:50:02.240 Thank you. Finland. Okay. 00:50:02.240 --> 00:50:12.160 I was wondering if yourself or Dr. Peat could enlighten me about sediment in the urine. 00:50:12.160 --> 00:50:20.320 Is this a good thing? Is it normal? Any observation about sediment in the urine? 00:50:20.320 --> 00:50:25.640 Yeah. Okay. Well, first of all, do you know, is this sediment, is it a solid sediment? 00:50:25.640 --> 00:50:30.680 Or are you talking about an amorphous kind of sediment that's actually part of the fluid 00:50:30.680 --> 00:50:32.680 make up? I mean, is it crystalline? 00:50:32.680 --> 00:50:42.640 Yeah, like a dust, like cloudy. If you let it, let's say if you would urinate in a jar 00:50:42.640 --> 00:50:50.480 and let it sit, it would have, it will make a cloud kind of a. 00:50:50.480 --> 00:50:56.520 Have you ever had any investigations for any kind of kidney stones or any type of calculi 00:50:56.520 --> 00:51:03.640 that you know of? I've never had an issue with that. I actually 00:51:03.640 --> 00:51:12.120 started investigating that when I heard claims from people eating mostly fruit that this 00:51:12.120 --> 00:51:21.240 might be a sign of good assimilation of or good function of the kidneys. But I'm not 00:51:21.240 --> 00:51:28.960 sure about the scientific claims. Okay. Dr. Peat, what do you think? 00:51:28.960 --> 00:51:38.520 If you have a fairly high protein intake and your urine is on the acid side, down around 00:51:38.520 --> 00:51:46.960 pH five, and you have a very high calcium intake, say from the equivalent of two liters 00:51:46.960 --> 00:51:56.400 of milk per day, you'll have a lot of calcium appearing in the urine. And if the urine is 00:51:56.400 --> 00:52:05.400 acidic, it isn't likely to form stones. But when it stands, the pH can rise. And as the 00:52:05.400 --> 00:52:17.640 carbon dioxide evaporates, and that can precipitate crystals. So other things being equal, it 00:52:17.640 --> 00:52:23.200 isn't necessarily harmful to have a precipitation in the urine. 00:52:23.200 --> 00:52:28.320 Okay. Did you get that? Thank you very much. 00:52:28.320 --> 00:52:32.120 Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you. Thank you for your call. Okay, just quickly switching 00:52:32.120 --> 00:52:41.160 to urine as a kind of urinalysis. And do you think that people that have clear urine are, 00:52:41.160 --> 00:52:45.640 for want of a better word, healthy compared to those people that have not cloudy through 00:52:45.640 --> 00:52:54.360 pigmentation, but you know, less than see-through, opaque type urines? Do you notice any association 00:52:54.360 --> 00:53:00.360 with that? Because I'm sure people have wide ranging presentations from both color and 00:53:00.360 --> 00:53:04.280 opacity. I think the clarity is largely from the amount 00:53:04.280 --> 00:53:12.440 of fluid you're drinking. And if the urine is acidic, I don't think some cloudiness is 00:53:12.440 --> 00:53:22.160 going to hurt. But there can be bad causes of cloudiness, infection, for example. And 00:53:22.160 --> 00:53:32.760 I think the yellow color of urine is considered to indicate cell turnover. So sometimes the 00:53:32.760 --> 00:53:40.960 morning urine will be yellow and the afternoon urine clear. Because during the night, with 00:53:40.960 --> 00:53:50.040 the high stress hormones, a lot of cells are breaking down. And the fragments of the nucleic 00:53:50.040 --> 00:53:55.320 acids turning over, I think, can produce some of the yellow pigment. 00:53:55.320 --> 00:54:00.480 Okay, well I'm afraid that is all we've got time for because we're coming up close to 00:54:00.480 --> 00:54:04.200 two minutes to eight. Thank you very much for your time, Dr. Peat. 00:54:04.200 --> 00:54:09.840 I wanted to mention that the clotho protein that we talked about a few months ago, which 00:54:09.840 --> 00:54:20.000 is the anti-aging protein, it's very similar to vitamin D in some of its functions. Vitamin 00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:28.280 D deficiency produces the degenerative changes that a mutation or deficiency of the clotho 00:54:28.280 --> 00:54:32.160 protein can produce. Interesting. Well, I really wanted to talk 00:54:32.160 --> 00:54:38.440 more to you about the vitamin D receptor and how that could be enhanced. Because I think 00:54:38.440 --> 00:54:44.280 vitamin D is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the process of inflammation and all 00:54:44.280 --> 00:54:50.000 the diseases associated with it. So maybe next month we can pick up just the last part 00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:54.840 of what I wanted to look at with vitamin D and maybe bring the vitamin D receptor into 00:54:54.840 --> 00:54:59.440 more light and help people understand how important vitamin D is to get, especially 00:54:59.440 --> 00:55:03.720 now we're going into the darker times of the year. So thanks so much for your time, Dr. 00:55:03.720 --> 00:55:07.200 Peat. The calcium metabolism and sugar oxidation 00:55:07.200 --> 00:55:12.120 is another subject we talked about. Excellent. Good. I've got some notes here. 00:55:12.120 --> 00:55:14.160 Thanks very much. Okay. Thank you. 00:55:14.160 --> 00:55:18.800 Okay. So for those people that have listened to the show this evening, thanks for either 00:55:18.800 --> 00:55:22.880 calling in or listening. I can only hope that there's lots of people out there who listened 00:55:22.880 --> 00:55:29.360 and didn't call. But I would also stress the point that this is a funded radio station. 00:55:29.360 --> 00:55:34.560 We do need your financial support. So hopefully the phone will ring off the hook once 8 o'clock 00:55:34.560 --> 00:55:39.680 comes around here and people will start pledging. For those of you who've listened to the show, 00:55:39.680 --> 00:55:44.040 thanks so much. The truth is out there. There's lots of information on the internet. Don't 00:55:44.040 --> 00:55:48.040 believe the media. The media is dying. In fact, the media is virtually dead. I think 00:55:48.040 --> 00:55:53.600 it's got a 6% trust rating at this point in time. So thanks for listening and until December 00:55:53.600 --> 00:55:55.240 next month, good night.