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Bret Weinstein discusses Vitamin D and Covid
Interesting discussion on Vitamin D hosted by Bret Weinstein. I can't even picture Garrett Smith in the same room with these guys...
Garrett: Supplemental Vitamin D is nothing but rat poison!
Bret & Co.: Actually, a comprehensive review of the published literature by independent academics shows that...
Garrett: But they poison rats with it, so it's obviously nothing but poison, you just need to stop making ASSumptions.
Bret: [delivers an ironic pun that somehow makes you want to gag and snicker at the same time.]
Bret is the most honest thinker I have come across in years, maybe ever. He's not always right, but he's ready to admit when he's not, and like he says in this video, he considers himself an expert at becoming less stupid over time 🙂 And unlike many others, he is very careful to express his level of uncertainty in his chosen hypotheses.
To be fair, I still think Garrett is trying his best to help people, I just don't think his ideas are always as level-headed or reserved as they should be. Nevertheless, in the spirit of true science as advocated by Bret, we should treat all of his ideas as potentially valid hypotheses that should be judged by the available evidence just like every other hypothesis out there.
Based on the above summaries I shall take a listen. I love the ‘expert at becoming less stupid over time’ quote. This is the way to think imo. Life is learning. Never stop.
Edit: listened to first part of above video. Didn’t like the snigger when they talked about vitamin A toxicity. As we all know it’s no joke.
My thoughts on vitamin D are not fully formed. I’ve come down on the side of not supplementing, but this may be wrong, particularly in some circumstances. I completely think that good levels of vit D are an important thing. I believe they certainly correlate with good health. However, I do question whether pushing them up with supplements actually achieves good health. What if low Vit D levels are a marker of bad health, not the cause? We know that vA toxicity correlates with low Vit D. What if it’s vA toxicity that is the true causal element?
In 2014 it was picked up that my Vit D was very low. I supplemented I raised my Vit D to a high level. Did I feel better? No. I still had vA toxicity. When I had my hair tests with Garrett Smith in 2018 he pointed out that my high calcium, low potassium, no boron was the classic picture he saw if someone had been supplementing with Vit D. As I reduced my vA toxicity my Vit D rose again.
Another issue that isn’t talked about is that the testing is of inactive D not active D. I’ve read that people often can have low inactive (which is tested) but high active. Therefore they don’t need more. I’ve seen many people talk about that.
All in all it’s a very confusing imo. Many people I respect don’t agree with supplementation, preferring a Sperti lamp. It seems that making Vit D is not the same as supplementation (it’s better). However, many people I respect think supplementation is important. Also remember that Vit D needs sulphating. Many people can’t sulphate. Epsom salt baths help some. What we all need is a nice tropical holiday in Jan/Feb 🤣
Edit 2: https://youtu.be/aCAvvZXUW08
Interesting debate bringing up the correlation v causation issue.
I agree that it is probably a complex issue and that we would know more if all of the different forms of Vitamin D were tracked together in the studies. However, if I remember correctly, they stated in the video that at least some of the validated studies showed improvement in health parameters just from supplementing Vitamin D. If Vitamin D was just a marker, you wouldn't necessarily expect supplementing to help with anything.
I'm certainly not suggesting that Vitamin D is an antidote to Vitamin A, but it appears that storage forms increased via supplementation do have real world health outcomes, and the case in which the dairy company accidentally overfortified their products with Vitamin D and yet there was virtually no sign of health problems in the consumers was pretty compelling evidence that Vitamin D toxicity is very difficult to accomplish.
First of all, let's step back for a moment and remind ourselves that the whole theory of vitamin D deficiency is a house of cards. Vitamin D in the serum in no way reflect your storage capacity. Similar to how your serum retinol levels are poor indicators of Vitamin A status. The literature proving the supposed "deficiency" is purely based on these useless serum levels.
Second we must free ourselves of this bias to look for deficiencies to explain illness, and recall that vitamin D is not a vitamin at all, but a hormone. In particular, it's a steroid that is an immuno suppressant. Finally, let's recall that dexamethasone is another steroid with similar effects on the immune system that is known to be a very effective Covid therapeutic. The conclusion is deduced with Occam's razor: Vitamin D is likely useful for the same reason.
Do not supplement "Vitamin" D. Do not mess with your hormones. Mess with your immune system at your own peril.
Dr. Smith with his vit D is rat poison therefore it's bad for you is laughable. It's more than obvious that the dose is what matters. Get your vit D tests and if it's low take no more than 10 000iu a day for lets say 30 days and go retest again. If the blood work looks good lower the dose to 5000iu and 30 days later retest again. If the number is the same keep taking 5000iu. If it's up again lower the dose again to lets say 2000iu and after 30 days retest again. Obviously I am talking about people who can't have sun exposure for some reason.. If you can have sun exposure just have sun exposure and don't worry about taking vit D capsules...