21st September 2022
Once again, saturated fat is found not guilty [yes, once again]
I suppose that what I am about to tell you is pretty much old hat. Many people, including me, have been saying – for many years – that saturated fat has no impact on cardiovascular disease. Never has, never will. The scientific support for it has always been non-existent, and the hypothesis has always been complete fact-free, evidence-free, thought-free, nonsense.
Indeed, it is more likely that saturated fat may have beneficial effects. It certainly does if you replace fat in the diet with carbs, carbs, carbs … and more carbs. Which is what most people have done. Happily following the idiotic advice of nutritional experts around the world.
Anyway, mainly so that I can sit back and say, ‘I told you so’ once again, here is the abstract from a paper that was published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology a couple of weeks ago ‘Saturated fat: villain and bogeyman in the development of cardiovascular disease?’1
Key comment – to be found at the end.
‘…there is no scientific ground to demonize SFA as a cause of CVD. SFA naturally occurring in nutrient-dense foods can be safely included in the diet.’
Abstract
Background
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading global cause of death. For decades, the conventional wisdom has been that the consumption of saturated fat (SFA) undermines cardiovascular health, clogs the arteries, increases risk of CVD and leads to heart attacks. It is timely to investigate whether this claim holds up to scientific scrutiny.
Objectives
The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss recent scientific evidence on the association between dietary SFA and CVD.
Methods
PubMed, Google scholar and Scopus were searched for articles published between 2010 and 2021 on the association between SFA consumption and CVD risk and outcomes. A review was conducted examining observational studies and prospective epidemiologic cohort studies, RCTs, systematic reviews and meta-analyses of observational studies and prospective epidemiologic cohort studies and long-term RCTs.
Results
Collectively, neither observational studies, prospective epidemiologic cohort studies, RCTs, systematic reviews and meta-analyses have conclusively established a significant association between SFA in the diet and subsequent cardiovascular risk and CAD, MI or mortality nor a benefit of reducing dietary SFAs on CVD rick, events and mortality. Beneficial effects of replacement of SFA by polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fat or carbohydrates remain elusive.
Conclusions
Findings from the studies reviewed in this paper indicate that the consumption of SFA is not significantly associated with CVD risk, events or mortality. Based on the scientific evidence, there is no scientific ground to demonize SFA as a cause of CVD. SFA naturally occurring in nutrient-dense foods can be safely included in the diet.
Will this paper have any effect on anything? Will it heck!
Although maybe, just maybe, a few people out there will stop for a moment to ponder the known fact, verily the truth, that saturated fat causes cardiovascular disease. As for the rest …
‘Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he just picks himself up and stumbles on.’ Winston Churchill
Just so I am not accused of sexism. Women do this do too. Please now write out one hundred times:
Saturated fat does not cause cardiovascular disease
Saturated fat does not cause cardiovascular disease
Saturated fat does not cause cardiovascular disease rpt x 97
Postscript
In my last blog I asked the question. Why did COVID19 lead to a spike in overall mortality in England, but not (or far less so) in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland? In a number of age groups, there was no impact on mortality – at all.
The most likely answer, I think, is the proportion of ‘non-white’* people living in each country. England has far more non-white people. Around 18% – it is difficult to be absolutely certain about this figure. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland it is about 4%, maybe even less in Northern Ireland.
This difference could also explain Sweden and Norway. The Norwegians do not publish data on ‘race.’ It is considered racist to do so. Which of course leads to problems in situations like this where you might need the data to help protect those of different races.
So, ironically, it could be considered racist to have no data on different races? Discuss. However, the estimate is that around 3% of the Norwegian population is ‘non-white.’ In Sweden the proportion is very similar to that in England.
Therefore, my working hypothesis is that non-white people living in countries at a high latitude, are significantly more likely to be vitamin D deficient.
‘Non-white populations in Europe are at higher risk of vitamin D deficiency than their white counterparts. For example, compared with white populations in the United Kingdom, Norway, and Finland, the non-white population subgroups have 3- to 71-fold higher yearly prevalence of vitamin D deficiency.’ 1
Vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of mortality from COVID19:
‘The all-cause 30-day mortality was 13.8% in the group of patients with sufficient plasma 25(OH)D levels and 32.1% among those with deficient plasma 25(OH)D levels. Cox regression showed that plasma 25(OH)D levels remained a significant predictor of mortality even after adjusting for the covariates sex, age, length of the delay between symptom onset and hospitalization, and disease severity.
Conclusion
Vitamin D deficiency predicts higher mortality risk in adults with COVID-19’ 2
The ratio between 13.8% and 32.1% is 2.3. Which is big.
A number of people suggested race, and vitamin D, as a possibly hypothesis. I agree with them. Now, what are we going to do about it …before winter arrives that is. I recommend several thousand units of vitamin D each day, until March.
I recommend this for everyone.
I would like to reinforce this, because other studies have shown that giving people Vitamin D, once they are infected, does nothing. It is too late. So, start now. In this case prevention truly is better than (no) cure.
*I use the term non-white as it appears to be most acceptable way of describing those who are not, genetically, native to countries such as England. I do realise that whatever term is used to try and describe ‘racial difference’ some people will be offended. This is the reason why the term BAME: black, Asian and minority ethic is not being used anymore (Please be assured that I mean no offence).
1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5527850/
2: https://clinicalnutritionespen.com/article/S2405-4577(22)00293-5/fulltext
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick 
Here here on saturated fats…
Hope not sounding too stupid, but what and where would you get the vitamin d from. Any old health shop and quantities?
Keep up the good work.
I buy it on-line. I take 9,000 units per day from the end of Sept to the middle of March. This, I hasten to add, is not medical advice. I am merely reporting my own actions.
Worth considering VitD is fat soluble so best taken with a meal containing fats ! There are gel D capsules on-line containg olive oil – doctors best !! Goood co-factors too – VitK2-MK7 and Magnesium. Dosing can be based on results – on-line postal testing available. Around 100+ is good if the measurement on pmol/L.
http://www.grassrootshealth.net
I take 10,000 except in the summer when I’m outside daily here in the Midwest. My Vit D as measured here in the USA is consistently 70 to 90. 74 yo. I had a runny nose Covid February 2021 before jabs. Not one sniffle since and live a full out and about life with travel. . I have remained unjabbed. Best decision I ever made for myself even with the badgering and shunning I received. Most of those who did the badgering have since contracted Covid. They are silent now. Ha. The saturated fat issue was something I learned about a decade ago. I studied it as I could. I then started paleo nutrition and now keto-ish. I always feel better with very low carbs while my friends bemoan failure at losing weight as they slam “healthy whole grains” and tons of fruit. I quit talking about it. The cognitive dissonance on every level of life is toxic now. Thanks for your post.
9000? Is that a case of shake, rattle and roll? In winter I take 10000 (one capsule) and even in summer often 5000 (one capsule). I’m not sure I have ever seen anything, other than 5000, between 2000 and 10000.
I thought that you had been taking 4,000 units of D3 per day in winter. Did you up the dose?
So is 9,000 units of D3 that about 100 units per kg of cholecalciferol?
Do you stock any calcifediol in the cabinet for emergencies (perhaps even to share)?
My partner and I take 3000 units of D3 and 1 gram of vitamin C daily.
My general rule is not to take excessive quantities of any supplement, just in case there are some hidden surprises for those that do.
For example, selenium is required at a low level, but is definitely poisonous at higher levels!
I didn’t get any sickness over the pandemic, until earlier this year, when I got a slight sore throat and a sniffle for a couple of days. Since I didn’t get tested, I’ll never know if I caught the dreaded omicron!
I didn’t try to avoid crowds, or wear masks unless actually asked to do so. I quickly decided that rubbing alcohol gel on my hands might not be good for them – so I didn’t take that precaution either.
Given your age (heh) I’d recommend spreading these 9,000 IU out over the day in 2, 3 or more portions. A Dr Bruce Hollis has held a very nice talk on vit D and the prostate: youtu.be/QrU1yrmNIqc&t=18m12s
Basically only the vitamin D (cholecalciferol) can diffuse into the prostate, where it can be converted into 25(OH)D and 1,25(OH)2D which inhibits proliferation of cancer cells in the prostate. The problem is that the free floating vitamin D is consumed/bound quite quickly, so that a few hours after intake there’s nothing left anymore. Therefore, to mimic constant sun exposure there should be a constant vitamin D intake.
That’s not practical, so I suggest spreading out the one daily bolus into a limited number of parts.
There is a simple blood test to determine vit d levels in the blood. Best to take it for a few months, get tested and go from there. There’s no need or guess work.
I have to wonder, if high Viatamin D levels are protective against death, but taking vitamin D once you get sick does nothing…is vitamin D really the thing that protects? Or are D levels a surrogate marker for something else that is produced by sun exposure? Something that is actually protective. Meaning, sunshine brings up your D levels, but it brings up levels of other, protective, things at the same time.
Offhand, I recall nitric oxide and mitachondrial melatonin are both byproducts of sun exposure. Both also seem to be recommended treatments for Covid infection.
I also wonder whether the people protected by high D levels attained those levels through sun exposure, through supplementation, or whether it was irrelevant. I’ve never seen that analysed. I would think it important.
Vitamin D is the fuel that powers the T cells to produce antibodies. If you don’t have enough D when you encounter a bug that you have existing T cell immunity to, nothing will happen. Or rather, what happens is that the bug runs rampant such that by the time you take D, it’s too late for the T cells to produce enough antibodies to fend off the initial attack. Your immune system is overrun.
Excellent question
In a paper published in 2016, Richard Weller wrote: “A substantial body of evidence shows that sunlight has health benefits and that these are independent of vitamin D and thus cannot be reproduced by oral supplementation.” – RB Weller. Sunlight Has Cardiovascular Benefits Independently of Vitamin D. Blood Purification 2016; 41: 130-134.
There is a lot of conflicting research (funded by whom?) around Vit D, sunscreen etc. I supplement but also endeavor to get as much from the sun as possible in our Northern reaches.
I enjoy reading Stephanie Seneff if you want to follow up on sulfated Vit D.
“is vitamin D really the thing that protects?”
Depends on the form of vit. D. “What are pharmacokinetics for 400, Alex?”
We buy combined Vit C & Zinc pills usually from Boots. (They often used to be on offer on Tuesdays. Maybe still are.) We use Boots because their containers are easier to open than, for example, Sainsbury’s.
We buy Vitamin D spray, usually from Waitrose or Tesco. It’s on offer from time to time too.
We’ve been taking the combo since early February 2020 when I realised that I, with no medical knowledge except that gleaned from blogs written by a few contrary GPs, was more on the ball than the governments of the previously civilised world.
Oh how I wish we could have a reckoning.
Here is my experience. Before the Covid business, was taking 1000 units/day. (25 microgram little hard white pills from Holland & Barratt store within Tesco)
Had a blood test Sept 2020 – serum total 25-OH vit D level 80 mmol/L (32.1ng/mL) So I upped the dose to 2000 units/day since then.
Recent blood test was 143mmol/L (57.3ng/mL) in May 2022. I guess that’s quite enough, but I have lowish BMI (20). No vax and not sure if I got covid symptoms once – but they passed within the day.
I buy liquid vitamin d on amaz.. One drop is 5.000 i.u. und I take two drops a day, so 10.000 i.u. a day👍
Thank you for this, though it will be heresy to many . There is little hope while the BBC denies almost any fact, and describes supplements as “expensive urine” Are they just taking the pi**?
ABC Radio in Australia also commented that Australians did not need to take any Vit. D whatsoever. People hide from the sun and slip slop slap with sun screen to avoid melanoma.
That really amazes me.
I live in Queensland, and I’m able to get vitamin D from the sun all year round. We are so blessed to have magnificent beaches and fantastic weather, and yet the few people I see on the beach have more clothes on than when they go to the pub.
I’m usually the only one (with my wife) enjoy the sun, the others are usually walking the dog with long sleeves tshirts and hats “because melanoma”. Of course, pretty much everyone I know had some skin cancer removed, most likely a consequence of not having enough vitamin D.
It’s the same as saturated fats: all my friends (usually over 50) had at least one heart attack, one very fit and healthy looking had 6 stents and he lecture me about eating all that fat while drinking beer and eating white bread.
They just don’t see it, it’s like their brain can’t get any data from the real world anymore. They are mostly very intelligent persons, mind you, but they refuse to see the reality around them and stick with the narrative.
As a retired GP I can tell you that plenty of Australians have low vitamin D levels even in summer. Many people do not go out of doors much and in the southern areas such as Victoria and Tasmania UV levels get very low during winter. As a rule I do not trust ABC for health advice. They are partisan and tightly tied to academic medicine.
Pre-Covid, say, three years ago, I got my D checked. 50, right on the limit. Despite a reasonably high meat/eggs/fish diet, but not keto back then, and plenty of Queensland sun daily with no slip/slop/slap, ever. Bizarre concept. So that’s strange, unless the D is being used for something lurking in the background.
D is also implicated in fighting cancers, and my PSA was creeping up. I prevaricated for a while until Covid arrived after which I started on 5,000iu a day, later adding some K2. I must check my D levels again, but the PSA is on the down, and I’m keto now.
As a rule I do not trust ABC. 😁
Are there differences in the vitamin D tablets available over the counter? What should we take?
Marjorie: I would suggest that vitamin D from a gel cap is probably better than that from a tablet. Also, I buy the ones with vitamin K2 as well as D3. The ones I’ve gotten in recent years have 5-6,000 IU of D3.
AHN
Dont bother with the BBC then, you strike me as informed enough to make you own mind up
Yank here. I’m aware “take the pi**” is UK argot meaning “to make fun of.” Yet in American slang, it means to urinate, as to take a pi**. In any event, lately it occurs to me that many drugs, such as statins, are equally “expensive urine.”
“Saturated fats do not cause heart disease”. Correct!
“Vitamin D deficiency weakens the immune system” . Correct!
Non- Caucasian people are prone to vitamin D deficiency during the Winter months. Correct!
Unfortunately it is not “POLITICALLY correct” to say, acknowledge nor even think such ‘heresies’ in this neo- liberal ( dare I say “woke”?) age. We, the enlightened ones must keep on banging the drum, otherwise our population will continue to die at ever younger ages. ( Or maybe that’s the plan?).
Well said Ian, but please don’t say ‘woke’. The English language is adequate enough without intelligent people (like Dr Kendrick’s admirers for instance. We, the enlightened ones! ) resorting to made-up words.
Thanks for your support, Shirley Kate! The “made-up” word you refer to has been in the Oxford English Dictionary since 2017. Languages continually develop ( perhaps not always for the better) and I will strive to “keep up” , although I understand your distaste for the word in question. Best wishes!
Shirley,
Every word was made up at some time, and ‘woke’ denotes a unique phenomenon of our time.
Woke is the past participle of wake. To say that someone is woke in its new context implies that they are extra aware, more awake, than others. That they did wake (woke) up to injustices that surround them. Injustices that by and large never existed until they were promoted. Like the misappropriation of gay, rainbow, pride, trans, bi- etc, this Orwellian doublespeak of woke should be fought against.
Once again you are way ahead of the curve. You think deeply about all this and, personally, I believe you deserve a medal.
I started eating carnivore about 3 months ago. It was to get better (58 and menopausal but on bhrt). I lost alot of weight, fast. Many problems cleared up but I had an issue with fatigue. I started researching again and discovered that magnesium helps control electrolytes and enables copper and iron to do their jobs and thus my fatigue and brain fog disappeared, within an hour of my first dose of pico ionic magnesium plus pico ionic electrolytes.
I eat alot of fat in fact, I feel better when I do. Nothing better than some pork belly or a juicy ribeye! Lots of grass fed butter too! The weight is still coming off, slowly but steadily now, and I’m not a bundle of anxiety that can’t squeeze into some jods!
You Dr K have been crucial part of my learning. I enjoy your books so much and iritate my husband no end with exclamation of wonder when reading quotes from your boos, at night, whilst he’s engrossed in a Jack Reacher book or such like.
Thank goodness for you!
Thanks for this. I use Vit D3 + K2 drops. How does ‘several thousand units a day’ convert to their recommended ‘0.5ml daily’, please?
Yes! Yes! Yes! It’s the same tune but even sweeter today.
Animal and cell culture studies do suggest that saturated fats can be harmful. The problem is that this does not translate to dietary studies in humans, which show the opposite. The issue here is that humans do not eat “pure” saturated fat. In fact, meat and eggs are a good source of PUFAs. Purified carbs on the other hand are converted to pure (monoun)saturated fats in the body. Meat and eggs also include a certain fatty acid that neutralizes the toxicity of saturated fat. This fatty acid is not obtained from vegetable oils. See my book for more details.
Glucose is converted to saturated fats, and only saturated fat in the liver though de novo lepogeneis. About 90% is C16 palmitic acid. Why woud the live choose to synthesize a toxic substance? There is no such thing as a purified carb. All carbohydrates are made up of simple sugars, primarily glucose and fructose. That is, what they are. Fructose is converted to glucose, glucose to saturated fats.
No. Saturated fats are readily desaturated to monounsaturated fats in the body, mainly in the liver but also other tissues. High MUFA in the blood is a risk marker of disease. Sugar is a purified carb. But yes, all carbs are converted to (monoun)saturated fats. Pure saturated fat can be “toxic”, as shown by cell culture studies. However, in the body there is no “pure” saturated fat, as they are accompanied by other fats. This is exactly the point I’m trying to make. Saturated fats (also cholesterol) are needed for normal cell function, but when lacking other fats they become “toxic”.
Why not give a copy of your book to Dr Kendrick? If he agrees with you, I’m sure a lot of people will then buy a copy 🙂
Jasoer, I never heard of such theory, that seems t go against, well, pretty much everything else (not that it couldn’t be a good thing).
But forgive me if I’m skeptical, if you have scientific data to suppory it, why not publish a research instead of selling a book? I’ve looked on Pubmed and there are some researches published by a Jesper Lundbom, but I couldn’t find anything related to those hypothesis.
I love books, but I usually an author publish also some useful articles, freely available, that explain his understanding of the matter, thus making it more likely to sell the books. Like Dr. Kendrick for example.
Actually the idea was first published in 1956. All scientific data supports it, as I have detailed in my book. However, the narrative that saturated fat and cholesterol are “bad” basically become so dominant that nobody tested the “fat deficiency” theory.
A peer-reviewed paper is forthcoming. In the meantime, I suggest you read my book, it is quite affordable as an ebook.
Malcolm
What always amuses me is that Palmitic acid is a component of breast milk, so the body produces something harmful to babies and to be avoided in later life?
Pull the other one
Maybe vitamin C is a factor. Most animals make their own as needed and do not suffer heart attacks. Humans do not make their own vitamin C. I think it’s not just fats that need to be considered, but numerous other factors.
Great post. Thanks again Dr Malcolm
Just wonderful to see that you are continuing to produce sensible, reasoned comment amongst the babble and brouhaha
With regards to severity of CoViD19 this is an interesting paper, highlighting another area of difference between populations https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2589-5370%2821%2900379-5
Thanks. Very informative.
I take Vitamin D supplements every day all year. Have done so since March 2020. To my knowledge, I either have never had Covid or have been 100% asymptomatic (itself an interesting concept!). I stupidly took a course of two vaccines in 2021, which did make me feel slightly ill. Will not take more of that experimental and unproven toxin.
Agree very much on fat and carbs. I have lost 4 stone / 25 kilograms since late 2019. The main change I made was to cut out carb rich, low fibre processed food and instead eat a higher proportion of fibrous and protein rich food. That has also meant eating more fat. Such a diet enables me to consume far fewer calories whilst not feeling hungry. Blood pressure (an indicator in my view, not an end in itself to “treat”) is down from where it was and I believe my risk of a heart attack is much reduced.
Most of the mainstream “advice” is nonsense. It mainly seems to be linked to selling various products on the part of the “health”, pharma and food industries.
I remember reading in one of your many previous blogs a comment on vitamin D through a sun bed session but when I tried to find it later, it seemed to have disappeared.
I’m assuming the mainstream medics are still disapproving of sun beds but I would suggest the risks of their reasonable use are outweighed by the benefits.
Anecdotally, when covid hit the news in March 2020, I thought upping my vit D levels quickly after a Scottish winter would be beneficial. I had a 5 minute sun bed session and came out rejuvenated with what felt like every cell in my body tingling happily with gratitude for being given what they obviously were in need of!
Good unless you do what a friend of mine did & fall asleep on one many years ago. Results were lizard like skin shedding.
Is this a urban myth? I haven’t seen a sunbed without a timer that switches if off after the set time.
This was back in the 80’s. I saw him. The lads laughed & he did become a bit of a joke. I do remember white skin peeling from around his eyes & nose.
I had a nursing colleague who had a similar misfortune around 1980. We didn’t laugh though; horrified was the majority response.
In the early 80’s I once used a sun bed and developed a nasty rash over my stomach. My GP laughed, and said he wasn’t surprised by this reaction to a sun bed.
Hadn’t they yet invented timers for this?
Cant say- I never used one – & this was I reckon about 1985 or so
Not an urban myth. People have died after too long a tanning bed session.
Do you measure plasma Vit D when supplementing and is there any concern if levels reach 400 against a reference range of 50-200 ?
Dear Dr Kendrick
Thank you for this post. I have read most of you books and it must be gratifying to you to know ‘I was right and have been right for ages’ on the question of saturated fat. I’m not a medical person but like you I take an avid interest in these matters
Similarly on the vitamin D hypothesis. I think you are again right to suggest a link to Covid mortality – which naturally leads to a bias towards non whites.
May I suggest that you put forward a mechanism of action to back up the hypothesis? As far as I am aware this is to do with Vit D’s role in moderating cytokine storms but there may be other reasons to strengthen the argument.
It might also be worth mentioning the role that magnesium plays in the activation of Vit D. I suspect that with such bad diets a lot of people are also magnesium deficient so that even if they go in the sun it may not raise the active level.
Finally, if people are taking statins (your favourite word), then their ability to manufacture Vit D is reduced because their cholesterol level may be too low. (A nice link between the two parts of your post).
Anyway, please keep up the good work.
John Howard
Sent from my iPad
>
There seems to be a clear link* between statins and serum 25(OH)D (a.k.a. Vitamin D). In 2011 a wise doctor investigating my peripheral neuropathy prescribed a blood test which revealed a level of 9ng/ml! My consumption of statins (I had taken Rosuvastatin 5mg a.k.a. Crestor for five years) rapidly dropped to zero. I supplemented VitD and have generally maintained a 25(OH)D level of 50+ng/ml (range 35-86) ever since.
*I no longer have my 2011 research to hand, but with statin-induced low levels of serum cholesterol, there can’t be much if any available for manufacture of VitD.
a level of 9ng/ml!
Of what?
And you mean mg not ng?
Thanks.
Of 25(OH)D – I thought clear from the context.
25(OH)D is measured in nanograms/ml (hence ng/ml), alternatively in nanomoles/Litre (22.5 nmol/L = 9 ng/ml) & 9 is VERY deficient.
Thank you once again Dr Kendrick, for your logical and sensible observations, the problem generally seems to be that it takes years for the “sensible” stuff to filter through to the medical profession.
I also think there is an element of “saving face”.
For years GP’s have been pushing statins to reduce cholesterol and promoting a fat free diet as the only way to prevent CVD, the chances of them admitting that the advice they have been giving for decades is fundamentally wrong is, sadly, pretty slim.
Sorry if I’m being thick here: sometimes I need it explicitly explained. Is there a known issue that those with darker or black skins have differences in the way their body / skin reacts to sunlight and thus they naturally metabolise (may be wrong word) / produce vitamin D to a lesser extent? Would they benefit from supplements equally well as white skinned people? (I know, whatever terms you use feels uncomfortable, but its a non personal discussion!).
From the internet: “The amount of melanin in the skin affects vitamin D status because the skin depends on UV rays to synthesize vitamin D, and darker skin inhibits its production. It takes about 15 minutes in the sun for a person with lighter skin to generate enough vitamin D for the day, whereas a person with darker skin needs anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours.”
Yes, the melanin (colour) in skin blocks the light that creates the vitamin D. Non-white people have more melanin and thus darker skin than white people, and thus create less vitamin D when exposed to the same amount of sunlight.
It also applies to darker skinned Caucasians as well, thinking of those from the Mediterranean and also those from Jordan or Saudi Arabia for example.
There are also evolutionary differences even within the same ethnic groups, for instance sickle cell disease is found in people living in an area of Africa with malaria, yet in the uplands a few miles away in the same country there is little or no sickle cell disease.
Sickle cell disease is protective against falciparum malaria I recall, so that is to be expected.
Confounder alert: Malaria is spread exclusively by mosquitos. Mosquitoes need standing water to breed. Uplands = better drainage = less pools of water. My parents spent the last two decades of their lives at about 2,000 feet altitude in the Blue Ridge mountains. Although I wasn’t there full time, over a period of many summers, I never saw a mosquito that I can recall. Plenty of ticks, but no mosquitoes. [grin]
Hi Carl, I believe it should not feel uncomfortable to discuss a person’s skin colour, as long as no insulting terms are used. Any more than saying dark-haired or fair-haired. Or even Ginger!
I have read (randoms on Twitter) that it is dangerous to supplement vit d without also supplementing k2 because (Google) “without vitamin K2 it is thought that excess calcium gets deposited in plaque buildup in the arteries”. Is this right?
Vitamin D transports calcium from the intestines into the circulation, then K2 and magnesium help transfer the calcium from soft tissue into the bone matrix.
Another thought: I had to work in Dubai for the last two weeks (I know…tough job…). In discussion over a beer (attempting to explain the statins issue to an Arabic friend who has just been prescribed statins for life at some expense – another book sale there I hope 🙂 ) it came up in conversation that many people there have vit d deficiency. Amazing, right!? BUT, given the intense heat, they live an indoor life of air conditioning. I wonder what the excess mortality stats look like for UAE?
Exactly and we also have gps who say b12 Injections are purely because we are vain and are addictive,no mention of the fact they keep us alive.
Thank you once again for your informative article much appreciated
Hi Dr K hope your well.yes I’ve been taking my chips cooked in best dripping for many years and have no intention of changing that habit,like everything we eat and do “moderation” is the key word.
Look what happened with a certain fitness goddess who told us all to eat low fat etc,huge upturn in osteoporosis in women,wonder if she’s still preaching that??
I so wish some of our celebrities would take up the b12 – pernicious anemia battle we go through he’ll with this week in week out just trying to keep that essential life saving injection its every bit as important as vit D when will they ever properly train gps in nutrition.we even have to do bloody battle with nurses who think they know better than consultants and refuse us our shots but then I suppose the fact that unlike covid shots they’re not paid per victim eh??
It still does not explain why it all started in my region, Lombardy, and in particular around Bergamo. The population affected there could not exactly be defined as comprising a high percentage of “non-white”. Not a particularly high latitude population either, to be especially Vit D-deficient. But who knows. It would be worth investigating. Early during the pandemic I published a paper in Medical Hypotheses speculating that statin use might depress the immune system and increase the probability of severe effects from contagion. I suggested that a double blind study sould be performed looking at possible correlations between cholesterol levels prior to infection and disease outcome. Several papers then appeared, dismissing the hypohesis. Some even suggesting that statins might be protective. However the statin groups evaluated in these studies were defined on the basis of drug prescription in the medical record, not actual measurements of cholesterol levels. In principle, satins could also affect our endogenous synthesis of vitamin D from an immediate precursor of cholesterol. Here, again, anything can be found in the literature, from decreased levels of vitamin D, to INCREASED levels, in statin users. This is because of a complex interplay between common routes in the liver that metabolize statins and vitamin D, where statins would inhibit the catabolism of Vit D. So, go figure. Really complicated situation. What makes Lombardy so different from Northern Ireland? One cannot avoid thinking that a major component is population density. However, personally I am back to the beginning, triple-vaccinated (lest I should be fired) with pretty much all the questions still open.
“What makes Lombardy so different from Northern Ireland?”
Probably not population density – Belfast is about 40% of total NI pop & density 2500/km2(!) while Lombardy is only about 417/km2 . Air pollution in Lombardy is probably an important factor in working against VitD levels.
I can remember reading articles in April / May 2020 about the high pollution levels in London, New York and the Po Valley and how poor air quality could be a factor in Sars-Cov2 infection.
Bergamo is in the top 10 most polluted cities in Italy. Source: https://www.legambiente.it/comunicati-stampa/malaria-2019-il-rapporto-annuale-annuale-sullinquinamento-atmosferico-nelle-citta-italiane/
I read somewhere that the possible reason why Covid appeared to spread fast in Lombardy was due to the very large number of Chinese working in the garment/fashion industry there and that many of these travelled to and from Wuhan fairly often.
You assume that people in that area of Lombardy died of covid. How do you know it? Just because they said so? Have you seen any autopsy report?
For the non Italian readers, I’d like to cite the curious story of the medical director of the biggest hospital in that area of Lombardy, accused in 2021 by two nurses to have voluntarily killed several patients with Propofol
and Succinilcholine. He was arrested but later judged innocent by the court, but a lot of questions remain, like for example why he didn’t write down those medication in the patients’ records.
“You assume that people in that area of Lombardy died of covid. How do you know it? Just because they said so? Have you seen any autopsy report?”
No, that is exactly one of the open questions. Many died from the consequences of, i.a., sloppy intubation procedures, remedesivir…
But then, something must have been different in Lombardy, that started the whole thing there and not, for instance, in Florence (another region swarming of Chinese) or Rome.
Heavy trialing of a new quadrivalent ‘flu vaccine might have had something to do with it.
I’m trying hard to stop my OH from having a ‘flu. Jab. I noticed thimerasol is listed as an ingredient.
Penny: All the multi-dose vials of the flu jab contain the full dose of thimerosal. If the vial hasn’t been shaken properly between jabs, it is possible the last one in the vial has lots of it. Run like hell from all jabs, I say.
Is public transport very crowded in Milan?
Yes it is. But another early ourburst took place in Vo’ Euganeo, a hilly place 50 km West of Venice, a small village of 3000 inhabitants far from main communication routes. It is where Dr Andrea Crisanti found out, at the very beginning, that >40 of positives were asymptomatic. So, what Dr Kendrick wrote “virtually everyone in the world has been exposed to/infected by Sars-Cov2 and at least once” is the only thing that, to me, makes sense in this huge mess. The virus was everywhere, spreading more or less easily depending on population density and mobility, but showing up clearly where more frail people lived. The humans then started screwing up the natural evolution of this disease, with the result that nobody could understand anything more. Knowledge before action is a rule that has been long forgotten, or never applied, especially in the pragmatic, anglo-saxon culture.
I was never positive in three years now, despite having being in contact with positives, and, with my teaching, with all potential spreaders among students. I’m only glad I was never hospitalized, because I’m sure that I would have succumbed to medical malpractice.
hello Gian Paolo
i wondered about this too.
I came up with two possibilités:
contact with Wuhan région, one super infecter, as with spread from Austria to Germany
disease was présent and suddenly flared up?
Thanks for that
My mum was quite a medic, doing a long nursing course, but not finishing it, as her father refused to let her tend to the First World War injured, it being too horrific. I do remember her saying “little black boys often get Rickets, because they can’t get enough sunshine in this country to penetrate their skin pigments”. We may be finding this with our too-low doses of Vitamin D. I have had no jabs, but have taken vitamin D supplements for the past two years. I feel pretty damn good for 74. Cheers, Geoff. J.
Always enjoy reading your posts, keep up the good work.
Malcolm
Thank you for the bit on saturated fat, and the possible correlation between D3 and Covid problems. Can you explain one day why D3 is sometimes considered a hormone and sometimes a vitamin?
I’ve read on Mercola’s site that you should take vitamin K2 and Magnesium with vitamin D supplements
Does anyone know if this is true, or should I keep my money?
It is my understanding that vitamin D stimulates active calcium from the intestine to the circulation; K2 and magnesium are necessary to move the calcium from the soft tissue into the bone matrix.
Frederica Huxley.
Thanks for that information.
Random and off-message but asking anyway….if statins and fats have been debunked, a little question about BP. How do we know we can trust the pharma figures? Were there more strokes and heart attacks in the 70s, when systolic was said to be ok at 100+your age as you get older. So, at 73, mine would be ok at 173/90. Famous story of how Pharma made half of USA have hypertension overnight by lowering the ok numbers. How do we know what to trust?
I’d like to know this, too.
Here is a link to my favorite paper on BP: https://www.math.ucla.edu/~scp/publications/mortality.PDF
One of the authors is a statistician at UCLA (at least when the paper was written in 2000). The paper has models for both men and women based on age. Check it out.
Many thanks for the link. The paper is full of mathematical jargon which I’m finding slow going. However, it does offer this:
“The model… allows rules of thumb for the
threshold for a person of a given age and sex:
threshold=110+(2/3)(age) for men and threshold=
104+(5/6)(age) for women.”
This means that for people like me (a 64 yo male) a systolic blood pressure of 152.6 mm Hg is the calculated threshold above which our relative risk of death increases and that BP lower than this is not beneficial.
The paper goes on to say:
“The rules of thumb show: an
older person can have a higher systolic pressure than a
younger person with no increased risk; a woman of a
specified age older than 36 years can have a higher systolic
pressure than can a man of the same age, with no
increased risk. The increase in the odds ratio of death, for
a specified increase in systolic blood pressure higher than
the threshold, is the same for all ages and both sexes.”
So the battle for ever lower blood pressure may well be wasted resources.
Dear Dr Kendrick
Thank you.
Re saturated fats.
1 After our grandson was weaned his parents gave him top-ups of semi-skimmed milk, especially at bedtime. He would devour a couple of bottle’s worth and his nappy would be drenched in the morning. When we cared for him we gave him full cream milk. He never asked for a second bottle. He needed satiation from fat and as a bonus, his nappy was capable of absorbing his nocturnal output.
2 We have countless generations of evolution enabling us to metabolise milk and milk fats. How can our bodies possibly know how to safely process artificial, low-fat alternatives?
Sherard Wilson
It really annoys me seeing those morons tipping milk over floors and shop fittings; a waste of really good food.
I certainly hope this does not fall on deaf ears but I won’t hold my breath
Anyone who found anything offensive in this article has the mentality of a moron. I suggest you do not apologise as it just encourages them.
I’m curious whether there is any difference between absorbtion of Vit D through natural foods (nuts, liver, mushrooms etc) and taking them as vitamin pills?
Bayrok, it is impossible to get the 2-4000 iu per day necessary to eliminate deficiency thro diet alone
300 g of salmon and 6 eggs is approximately 4000 IU of vitamin D.
The answer will be. “Saturated fat is not cholesterol or LDL-C, they are the culprits”.
All white people were Africans back in the day. White people are white people for one reason only. Go figure. Sunshine matters. The only thing in life that really, really matters is that the sun comes up in the morning. Throw away your stupid creams, and if you are given to worrying, dress appropriately. You have been had. Get over it.
Except that in Northern Latitudes, the sun does not come up in the morning.
And if you have dark skin as well, you’re in trouble.
Quite. Given time any black person would become white over generations, and not just due to intermarriage. A quick look in the mirror is proof of that. Anyway, amongst my enumerable grandchildren, I have a couple of delightful mixed-race kiddywinks and nothing pisses me off more than my daughter slathering them with bloody sunblock!
It doesn’t take generations. Look at people like Evonne Goolagong, she is a lot lighter after years of living in England. Just like I’m a lot darker after years of living in Queensland (7.00a.m. on the third day of spring and already an hour of sunshine).
I doubt that a black person could become white within generations. Without the evolutionary pressure, it won’t happen.
If Darwin was right, you need the descendant of black people with a fairer skin to have more chance to survive and having children for that to happen, and I doubt that an African with very dark skin living in London could not have children, even with low vitamin D levels.
But what evolution can’t do, large doses of IV glutathione seem to work (not recommended).
Given time… That is the course of evolution and a measure of how critical vitamin D could be. Our heritage is mostly an out-of-Africa journey. At midday in summer, here in the UK, I can get my daily requirement of D in about 10-20 mins – if stripped to the waist. It’s argued that it would take my black son-in-law about 6 hours to get the same dose.
I think it’s called Natural Selection.
Hi, I just checked “seed oils” in your blog, and there is not so much. This topic might be worth exploring, not all fats are alike. Pufa 6 is unique in many (bad) ways.
Omega 6 is precursor for endocannabinoids, so you get high by eating excess of them, promotes further eating . They also miss a few reactions in Krebs cycle due double bonds, creating less signaling ros (I am full). They turn up enzymes promoting storage. They end up in phospolipids and oxidise (degrade) easily. They create unique poisonous molecules when oxidised. As FFA, they promote for less insulin secretion (allowing more energy into blood than needed?)
Willet Hu and Mozzafarian found french fries the most fattening food! Epidemiology, but a combination of sugar and seed oil is not good, something Weston A Price also observed 100 years ago. As a bonus, seed oil degrade in heat but are being ingested normally.
An obese person has a problem with metabolic balance; too much mufa converted and stored, too much pufa stored, and problems with glucose metabolism. Brad Marshall has compared this to torpor, like pre hibernating condition. Nice…
So, you get all the needed pufa6 by trying to avoid them. Even tallow has up to 6% of them. But saturated fat protects your liver, at least if you are a mouse. Human trials in the US are still on going; intralipid is soy oil based pufa 6 rich iv fat, which your liver can cope with for max 1-2 years. Luckily, not in Europe.
JR
Thank you
You are a gem…. I hope your health has improved/is improving … Many thanks….
Thank you, Dr. Kendrick. Absurd, the idea that nutrient-dense foods, rich in saturated fats, the foods which seem to have caused our evolution into the big-brained (except politicians) creatures we are today are now killing us. Also, thank you for your analysis of excess mortality by vitamin D status. One critical detail I don’t often see spoken of is that, like infection, the jab reduces vitamin D stores, as well, exacerbating risk.
Big pharma, cardiologists and the statinites are cringing. I take 5,000 units of D, get as much sun as I can, some K2, C, magnesium and several others like 180KHU cayenne herbal tincture. Thanks for providing this report. I still think much of medical science is unfounded and supported by nothing more than hot air. It sure sells $billions in useless drugs.
Excellent post; thank you. I take Vit D + K2 drops every morning. I’m 66, and live in west-central Wisconsin (halfway between equator and North Pole), so there’s no way for me to get enough D from the sunlight.
P.S. It’s sad that you feel the need to fall all over yourself apologizing for even discussing ‘race’.
Hmmm… it’s my understanding that there is only one human race, indeed that there are more genetic differences between people of the same ethnic background than between different ‘races’. Surely, there has to be a more precise method of identifying differences between people from different backgrounds that removes the alleged necessity to group people into ‘racial’ groups? Is it the legacy of European supremacy, which created the hierarchal pyramid, with, of course, whites at the top?
You have just stated Lewontin’s Fallacy. There is one human SPECIES but (at least by pre-Woke science) there are several different races. They could even be called sub-species. The idea that races might have varying norms is distateful to the egalitarian mind, but the science is what it is.
One of my favorite snacks is a hunk of grass-fed butter on a healthy cracker!
Interesting stuff Malcolm..,,again.
When do you predict we will return to cutting out tonsils in young kids? 😉
Soonish
Latvian lady informed md of a belief among Latvian medical practitioners that the tonsils hav a role to play in prevention of heart disease.
A very important role; tonsils filter out harmful bacteria as part of the lymph system.
Thank you for this post. If I can get my adult children to read this, then maybe they will listen to your advice and supplement with vitamin D on a more regular basis. Goodness knows, many children don’t believe their moms know anything.😁
AhNotepad – supplements as “expensive urine”.
They always throw this in your face and never get tired of doing so.
My replies include (1) this applies to medications too (2) this applies to everything we eat and drink.
In the case of vitamin C, Dr. Suzanne Humphries had a few observations and figures on what gets absorbed and also that some spill in the urine can be good for the bladder and other things.
You can watch it here, at about 1hr 15 mins:
https://drsuzanne.net/dr-suzanne-humphries-oral-intravenous-vitamin-c/
Dr Paul Marek advocated vit C for sepsis – and was vilified.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27940189/
what of: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/saturated-fats-increased-heart-disease-risk/
Just sent your details and the cholesterol study to Dr Gregor (US)…. he’s still spouting dangerous animal fats …
Sent from my iPhone
What is the biological definition of race? Ah, you’re concerned with the concentration of melanin in the skin, which affects vitamin D status. Why not use that specific and objective term rather than “race”?
It would be interesting to know if Dr. Kendrick has any views on the importance of exposure to Near Infrared radiation in addition to the recognised importance of UVB for Vitamin D production. Recent articles have pointed out how NIR seems to promote the production of intra-cellular melatonin, a powerful anti-oxidant.
On another note I have to thank Dr. Kendrick for his work. I read “Doctoring Data” shortly before Covid broke out and it opened my eyes (and caused my jaw to drop) with regard to drug trials. This put me on my guard and when the “vaccines” became available I remember thinking – shall I just go with the flow for an easy life or shall I check this out?
Of course I had to check it out with my own research and I am now 100% convinced that my decision to remain unvaccinated was the right one.
I have read that vitamin D supplementation is best done with the addition of vitamin K2 and magnesium.
Today is the Autumn Equinox. It is my understanding that the sun is now too low to make any useful vitamin D through the skin so tomorrow is the day I start supplementing until the Spring Equinox.
Actually a Spanish study showed that administration of activated vitamin D (calcifediol) improved outcome in ICU patients with covid.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsbmb.2020.105751
So even when you enter low in vit D, you can quickly elevate levels with activated D.
Do you recall Mr ‘Handy’ Hancock saying that the studies they had carried out involving vit D and the coronavirus showed no improvement in outcome? It transpired that there had been no study and this was a direct lie.
Unfortunately, for the true believers it will continue to be “Don’t bother me with the facts!!!! My mind is already made up!!!”
And one is left with the forlorn hope that these people will never be on a jury.
Great research Malcom ; as always.
When I discussed the matter with an acquaintance some weeks ago, the same acquaintance who preached a gospel of no dairy & no caffeine, he drew my attention to our nearest relations-chimpanzees and gorillas , the latter in particular who live on a diet exclusively consisting of vegetation, the former having only a very occasional indulgence in meat.
So much depends on your gut bacteria, hence the success of fecal transplants. Mother’s milk contains a high proportion of fat because we need fat. Either you eat it directly, or you have gut bacteria that can eat your chewed-up food and produce fatty acids as a by-product.
There are healthy people on a variety of diets with a mix of ingredients that have been found over the years to support good health. But the diet dictators can’t accept this. It is not enough that their diets succeed; other diets must fail.
People often refer to the kids at Woodstock, mentioning how they are healthy and slim. But they ate ordinary food — meat and potatoes, sandwiches, a packet of chips and a couple of beers, some fruit and salad — nothing special. So why were they slim and healthy? Step away from your test tubes, scientists, and figure it out.
Why do you think those kids at Woodstock were slim?
Sasha: Woodstock came before the (Senator) McGovern Committee, which established the Dietary Guidelines. Americans have gotten fatter and sicker ever since, especially with the tripling of the vaxxine schedule in the late ’80’s. Iatrogenocide is what the U.S. government specializes in.
Trip to Toronto, Ontario, early 80’s – most jaw dropping sight was not the CN Tower but the size of Canadians – fast forward to today, 40 years of “official dietary advice” in the UK …….jaw dropping yet again.
I’m not a gorilla.
Very true. But we do share, 98 or so % of our DNA with this cousin- (cousin that is I suppose if U assume darwin was correct of course)
We also share 70% of the genes with marine worms, and 92% with mice.
You would be surprise how even a 0.1% difference in genetic could make a huge difference. The 2% difference between us and chimpanzees is approximately 500 genes.
Also, I share 99.9% genetic with Maasai, who are entirely carnivore and drink fresh blood in large quantities. White teeth, no cavities, no CVD, no cancers.
60% with a banana.
I do not dispute your Maasai claims. However, it turns out that such primitive tribes have short life expectancy, by the standards of the developed world. A quick Google for such re the Maasai indicates a figure of about 45 years.
Note that the above by itself may have little or nothing to do with their diet. There may be other factors involved. I “lost” a few arguments online until I was advised of the short life expectancy issue. At least in “rich” nations, cardiovascular disease and cancer are the leading killers. But it’s notable that they usually “attack” well after middle age. So if most of your people are popping off well before then…
Average life expectancy is not a helpful metric in less developed races. If many you g children die, and women in childbirth die the average will be low. You need to ask what is like expectancy after age 16.
My sharing that much genes with a Maasai didn’t mean I am a Maasai, as my nickname should suggest, just that any human being does.
And life expectancy if a very academic measure, it has its uses but not to ascertain if a group would generally live longer than other. The biggest factor in it is infantile mortality.
But the average adult Maasai is healthier than a Westerner.
Sure. You never ever broke anyone’s legs for not paying a debt to Sharky.
Let’s not have any animal shaming here. 😉
Yes, us Italians are all mafia enforcers. Pizza, mafia and mandolin?
Still not a gorilla, therefore my natural diet is mostly carnivore.
Good morning Dr. Kendrick. You mention several thousand units of Vit.D through the winter. Are you able to be more specific (for a 60yr.old)? Also, what would the ratio of Magnesium and Vit.K2 be per 1000 IU? Kind regards. Lynn Churchill
PS For many years I have been taking 5000 IU Vit D3, 200mg Magnesium and 200mcg K2
Despite spending a lot of the year in shorts and tee shirt, 5 years ago I was vitamin D deficient despite a good diet. It has now been replaced (checked the levels) and is now supplemented daily. In retrospect I was over cautious with sun block (Irish skin) and now hardly use it.
I 100% agree re animal fats, and eat vast amounts. I average a lot less than 130 g of carbohydrate a day though, and am normal weight and BP. I think that the chief culprit for raised blood pressure is insulin, the level of which we keep raised if we ingest a lot of carbohydrate. Excess Insulin is associated with raised Blood pressure, perhaps because it retains salt and thus water.
I advise hypertensive individuals to try a low carb diet, and see how much you pee, and how much your BP drops. You may be able to come off your meds.
As a once very fair Italian (my mother was a ginger), I used to burn like a vampire even with a mild exposure to the sun.
After a few years of a chetogenic diet, with no seed oils, I can withstand the sun at the Tropics all day long, without burning.
I know, it’s anecdotal, N=1 and so on, but it seems it’s a common occurrence in the low carb/keto community.
I used to be unable to bronze my skin–it would just redden, though unburnt, but that has changed with reducing seed oils and carbs in my diet.
Me, too. I spend hours in the sun, and seem to have a permanent tan. I was fair-skinned and blond as a youngster, and had some nasty sunburns. One other intriguing thing: I’ve had lots of skin cancers removed, but they seem to have stopped cropping up. The carnivore diet reduces PUFA ingestion to a very low level (with the exception of fish, which I don’t eat much of any more). I wonder if a low-PUFA diet inhibits skin cancer.
The more you tan, the longer you have to spend in the sun. Tanning indicates UVA damage.
No, tan indicates increased melanin and pigmentation.
What impact does increased pigmentation have on the rate of vitamin D production?
I’m not sure, since there is no scientific proof that it has a significant influence, researches are contradictory. In UK for example, Carabbeans seems to have higher level than Indians, even if their skin is darker. I’d love to see some good research, since I’m very dark skinned.
All I can say is that the popular app dminder severely underestimate my vitamin D intake because of the reduction factor applied because of my skin colour, as showed by tests.
Age for example I believe is more important than skin pigmentation, and low cholesterol could be another factor.
“In UK for example, Carabbeans seems to have higher level than Indians,”
Which group is more likely to work indoors? Is there much of a difference?
Vitamin D metabolism gets very complicated very quickly. Mutations that affect vitamin D binding protein come into play when measuring 25OHD levels. VDBP affects the serum half-life of 25OHD quite a lot.
Also, pigmentation is observed using visible light, but its impact on UV radiation at vitamin D levels _may_ be somewhat different. Different pigments may impact UV absorption very differently. Indians have a wide variety of pigmentation with different pigmentation from Caribbean individuals. Keratin may well absorb more vitamin D producing UV than melanin. The visible reflection spectrum for pigment doesn’t necessarily indicate the UV absorption spectrum for pigment.
Fitzpatrick wasn’t a physicist, so he wouldn’t have known these things.
This paper looked interesting…maybe get UVB benefit while reducing exposure to UVA.
“Vitamin D effective ultraviolet wavelengths due to scattering in shade”
“Compared to that in full sun, pre-Vitamin D3 effective UV wavelengths were at levels of approximately 52 and 55%, respectively, beneath the shade umbrella and in tree shade. UVB irradiance levels in the shade of a northern facing covered veranda and in a car with windows closed were significantly less than those beneath the shade umbrella, with levels of approximately 11 and 0%, respectively, of those in full sun. Shade is important as a UV minimisation strategy; however, it may also play an important role in providing the human body with adequate levels of UVB radiation for pre-Vitamin D3 production without experiencing the relatively higher levels of UVA irradiances present in full sun. ”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16005208/
terrestrial solar UVB (∼295 to 315 nm)
If someone can access this article and report back about absorption in the UVB region, it would be much appreciated.
“Reflectance Spectra of Pigmented and Nonpigmented Skin in the UV Spectral Region†”
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-1097.2004.tb00113.x
Reduces it I would imagine
You can get about 50% of the intensity of UV rays from direct exposure if you stay in the shade because of scattering of light (we know this from physics), which reaches the shade…to protect your eyes, you may want a pair of clear UV-protection lenses to wear in the shade, which you may have to have made. As we get older, our maintenance systems aren’t as effective at repairing damage to our eyes.
You can still get sunburnt in the shade, with irish skin, but it takes longer than with direct sun, of course. Deep shade (say, under a huge tree) may offer almost total protection from UV radiation.
An interesting Quora thread: https://www.quora.com/Is-there-definitive-and-widely-accepted-proof-that-saturated-fat-causes-heart-disease
I’m surprised that people here report taking varied amounts of supplementary vit.D without apparently knowing the resulting blood level. I only settled on 3,000 IU/day all year after about three tests.
Dr.Stasha Gominak, who used to do a lot of online videos, said that
1) a few people develop what she considers an ample blood level on an intake of only 1,000-2,000 IU/day, so it’s vital for individuals to test themselves
2) in her patients, levels of 120-150 nmol/ltr seemed to be associated with good-quality sleep, but >200 nmol/ltr almost certainly worsened sleep.
On 2) good sleep is essential for health.
Dr Cicero Coimbra recommends 10,000iu per day regardless (from memory) and will prescribe 100,000iu+ for autoimmune diseases.
A former VP of Ecohealth Alliance has come forward and made statements about the shenanigans surrounding the Wuhan lab, NIAID, Baric, and others.
Cached by attorney Thomas Renz.
Click to access Senator-Johnson-Final.pdf
The vitamin D hypothesis is very convincing. On another matter, what do you think about nasal flu vaccine for 3 year olds?
First question is what’s in it? Second is why is it needed? Why get a pharma product, with all the undisclosed attendant risks instead of leaving it to nature, which has done a much better job overall than arrogant pharma monetised products? Does it really provide any benefit? Is it another system damaging treatment that will make the human race (or what’s left of it after the 8 jabs, yes you read that right) dependant on pharma poisons instead of natural adaption?
Alternatively to AhN’s questions, firstly, where are the results of the clinical trials, secondly, how effective was it in children under 5?
Here is not a clinical trial that measures effectiveness:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT04110366
Which was based on 40 people over 18. Of whom 78% shed the vaccine virus (these are live attenuated vaccines).
So, you have a hotchpotch of chemical and viruses that you are expected to squirt up the nose of a three y/o which have not been tested anywhere for efficacy (which is different to effectiveness) or effectiveness, not been trialled on anyone under 18 and has a 78% chance of turning the little darling into a virus spreader to all their contacts.
Therefore my answer is where do you think that people who go ahead with this rate on the scale of insanity? The real trick here is the concept of the nasal spray. It’s sounds so much more innocuous than a jab, a quick squirt up the nose, now, that couldn’t possibly be harmful, could it?
On a totally unrelated note, I see that Albert Bourda, the Pfizer CEO, has just contracted Covid for the second time in two months. After four jabs of his 100% effective toxin.
I would have thought people might have learned something about vaccines over the last couple of years.
Apparently I was wrong, judging by your question.
I would only like to add that Vit D with K2 is the better option. I attended a seminar on this about 15 years ago and was told how unlikely it was to overdose on Vit D and in fact to take a higher amount of it because it became stored within the body and got metered out as and when needed?
Similarly, I attended a Seminar by Patrick Holford in Manchester in 2006 where he had the Greek Doctor as his guest regarding reversal of Diabetes through diet and supplements. It was also during this Seminar that Patrick also mentioned the lack of Vit D in peoples’ diets and that although he did not condone it, the only way for people to get the necessary intake of Vit D was to go on a sunbed once a month because a person could not get the necessary Vit D wearing clothes or being in the shade through the summer.
It is all up for debate, but from what I have seen during the few years, it seems that this commonsense and WELL RESEARCHED approach to Vit D as well as Vit C was ahead of its time and worked!
Thanks Dr K because you are and always have been ahead of your time and that’s why we love, admire and thank you so much for prompting so much well thought, intelligent communication/debate on this site.
Corinna
If I understand it ? Comments welcomed.
Vit D on its own, in high doses (>4000iu), can cause problems with calcium build up in the blood. Taking Vit K2 with the Vit D negates this issue. Is this correct ?
According to Dr William Davis, that doesn’t happen.
Do the UK death statistics identify the race of the deceased? It would be helpful to know if the excess deaths skew by race.
There was actually an interesting trial out of Spain that showed injecting ACTIVE vitamin d did prevent people from going into the ICU. The problem with giving vitamin d once infected or hospitalized is that it takes the body a few days to make that conversion and the virus replication has run too far at that point. This piece of nuance is lost on our public health leaders. But yes having adequate levels prior to infection is massively beneficial.
If you have the time this group (the Vid is 4 hours), have ALL the answers as to what the WHOLE Covid-19 imbroglio is all about. Watergate? Iran-contra? Kids stuff. Insurgency – Round Table: Charles Rixey, Johanna Dienert, Jessica Rose, Spartacus, Walter Chesnut, Mathew Crawford, Richard Fleming, Kevin McCairn
Click link for the preferred platform (more available)
https://rumble.com/user/KevinMcCairnPhD
Am I being dumb or is this the wrong way round or badly worded? : it is more likely that saturated fat may have beneficial effects. It certainly does if you replace fat in the diet with carbs, carbs, carbs … and more carbs.
“it is more likely that saturated fat may have beneficial effects” –
more likely indeed, nothing wrong with that.
“It certainly does if you replace fat in the diet with carbs, carbs, carbs … and more carbs.”
Mmmm. Certainly does what ?
“If U replace fat in the diet with carbs” etc
Well no that won’t be good !
Thank you for confirming what I already suspected. I’ve been supplementing with a vitD spray 8000 per day in Winter and 4000 on cloudy or indoor days in Summer for a long time now plus K2.
If anyone were to ask me what my most precious possession is I would say “my robust immune system.” Without it all else is a tad irrelevant.
Brilliant post(s)
JanB
Dr. Kendrick,
How is it that you have managed to keep a clear head when having to treat covid patients in the atmosphere of fear-mongering this past 2.5 years?
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs….”
Individual doctors and the medical community as a whole have some self-examination to do wrt 1) having been gripped by irrational fear, 2) having to realize the source of the irrational fear, 3) having to accept that they were manipulated and treated as fools, 4) having to accept that their medical education did them little good in the pandemic, 5) having to accept that those not medically trained who kept a clear head made better medical decisions than doctors.
Perhaps you might post on lessons from the pandemic for doctors. Maybe call it “Panic-demic.”
I am amazed at how doctors tamely and without protest accepted the taking away of their traditional right to treat patients with whatever medication or therapy they thought would be effective. Had off-label use been allowed we might have quickly found better and cheaper treatments than the experimental vaccines forced on us by the authorities.
Liability factors in heavily. If a doctor uses an unapproved treatment, he potentially faces a lawsuit or possibly the loss of liability insurance. The FDA practices meta-medicine and everyone dances to its tune.
A comment on another platform that Dr asseem mulhatra’s contention now, (contradicting his earlier endorsement of the rushed experimental concoction , that the MRNA jab is not at all good etc etc, was challenged by a declared non medical & non expert civilian wondering out loud why he, Dr mulhatra, with so many years of training behind him, is only seeing this now, while he the civilian, saw it coming all along. Our bewildered amateur finishes with, “can we trust the healthcare field any more?”
What if women live longer than men because they make more cholesterol? After all, their oestrogen gives them far more cholesterol-made gallstones.
(But I also wonder if their generally lower metabolic rate is a factor too – remembering the sluggish cold blooded Greenland shark’s lifespan of sometimes 500+ years, compared to the poor little frenetic shrew’s two years if he’s lucky. Then there is the male adrenaline factor to include too, the male hunter fighter, etc….…). Still, extra cholesterol could be a big advantage since every body cell depends on the stuff.
The most likely answer, I think, is the proportion of ânon-whiteâ* people living in each country. England has far more non-white people. Around 18% – it is difficult to be absolutely certain about this figure. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland it is about 4%, maybe even less in Northern Ireland. (Malcolm Kendrick)
I remember watching something on TV about this a year ago. Sorry but I canât remember which program.
In summary it said something like a lot more people of colour are affected by Covid. Why?
Then it listed jobs than had a higher % of people of colour. NHS, London transport, taxis and service industries including working in shops.
Firstly, England has a larger population, bigger cities and a higher BAME population. There is a much higher BAME population in the cities.
Secondly, thinking only about about London â 35% of Londoners are BAME, 44.9% of London NHS staff are BAME, 1/3 of the people employed on the underground are BAME, BAME people are more likely to travel on the overcrowded London underground and buses to get to work.
My conclusion: BAME people are more likely to come in contact with Covid because of the jobs they do in overcrowded cities. (Add that to your idea, which I believe, that BAME people are more likely to have vitamin D deficiency and you have a recipe for unmitigated disaster.)
Maura Over
References
https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/workforce-and-business/workforce-diversity/nhs-workforce/latest https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/workforce-and-business/workforce-diversity/nhs-workforce/latest
Summary
· 77.9% of NHS staff were White (out of staff whose ethnicity was known), and 22.1% were from all other ethnic groups combined
· people from Asian, Black, Chinese, Mixed and Other ethnic backgrounds made up 19.7% of non-medical staff overall
·
The data shows that:
· around 1.3 million people were employed by NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups in England at the end of March 2020
· White people made up 77.9% of all NHS staff (out of those whose ethnicity was known)
· Asian people made up 10.7% of NHS staff, compared with 7.2% of working age people
· Black people made up 6.5% of NHS staff, compared with 3.4% of working age people
· people from the Other ethnic group made up 2.6% of NHS staff, compared with 1.1% of working age people
https://www.england.nhs.uk/london/our-work/equality-and-diversity/london-workforce-race-strategy/
Londonâs NHS has one of the most diverse workforces in the capital, with 44.9% of staff being from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds, including the majority of doctors, nurses and midwives.
https://content.tfl.gov.uk/BAME.pdf https://content.tfl.gov.uk/BAME.pdf
35% of Londoners are BAME
Click to access tfl-ethnicity-pay-gap-summary-report-2019.pdf
Around 1/3 of people employed by the London Underground are BAME
Click to access BAME.pdf
People who use public transport in London
âThe purpose of journeys made by public transport during the week varies slightly according to ethnicity. BAME Londoners are more likely than white Londoners to travel by public transport for reasons relating to education and âotherâ (which includes worship and accompanying a child). Conversely, white Londoners are more likely to use public transport during the week for leisure purposes and shopping/personal businessâ
https://citymonitor.ai/environment/where-are-largest-cities-britain-1404
Biggest cities in UK
https://populationdata.org.uk/population-of-scotland/
The Fortaro shop has been taken down. For those who cannot benefit from D3, this is a disaster. Or is Ampl-D available somewhere online?
Hello Dr. Kendrick,
I read all your emails and books as far as i can. I just found this article on the brains connection to the adrenal gland, might it have implications for heart attacks caused by stress?
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1605044113 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1605044113
Thank you all you do
Vamsidhar Ippagunta
>
I have a new post up about the pandemic response disaster that occurred in 2021.
In 2020, there were 68,000 more US working age deaths than in 2019–these were mostly due to covid.
In 2021, there were 205,000 more US working age deaths than in 2019–these were mostly _not_ due to covid.
Whether your working hypothesis for the massive increase in working age deaths is due to suicides, failure to seek health care, or vaccines (mine), the pandemic response was a disaster.
Public health and doctor influencers need to acknowledge the massive loss of life and provide _believable_ answers.
https://navigatingthecovidconfusion.wordpress.com/2022/10/02/proof-of-covid-pandemic-response-disaster/
Thank you Doug from Canada. You encouraged me to listen to this:
Dr Malcolm Kendrick Feb 2016
“Essentially, if you sunbathe, NO is released throughout the body and your blood pressure drops (as your arteries open wider). Other studies have found many other major benefits of sun exposure on lung, breast, prostate and colo-rectal cancer…..”
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2016/02/08/what-causes-heart-disease-part-iv/
I wonder if these other benefits of sun exposure, like NO, infrared etc, are possible even when the sun is not strong enough to produce vitamin D? In the UK we have limited time in strong sunshine. I believe there are psychological benefits just from being in bright sunlight, entering the body through the eyes.
Any thoughts anyone?
ShirleyKate: Right you are! A search of “melatoninsunexposure” yields a wealth of information; especially important is early morning sun exposure. The more time I spend in the sun, the better I feel.
For people living in the UK this advice is ‘challenging’. 13.10.22 is a wonderfully sunny day here but the sun’s too low to synthesise any vit.D although I may be getting some useful UV-A. Only about 35% of daylight hours are sunny and at times the sun is virtually on the horizon and purely ‘decorative’, with no perceptible warmth.
If Dr. Kendrick wants new topics to discuss on his blog, they might include a) the resulting value of sunlamps at this latitude and b) salt intake. I had frequent salt cravings in summer 2022 due I presume to a lot of exercise and a diet of unprocessed food with too little salt. If one needs an intake of >6 g/day, >possibly 9-10 in Jul/Aug 2022, where does it come from? Few ‘natural’ foods have >1-2 g per 100g added, most have none.
I learned from painful experience – i.e. leg cramps!! – to supplement and ignore mainstream dietary advice. It gets worse in theory for people on a plant-based diet. Even fatty plant foods like coconut, olives, nuts or avocados are lower in salt compared to meat, eggs or dairy and a HFLC diet increases the need for salt.
The fact that many cultures were born close to a salt source, and that salt was prized by any known civilization, should give you an answer.
The other is: do the opposite of what ”science” tells you to dom
Dr. Kendrick,
Are you still of the opinion that sunlight creates NO? If so, is this apart from the D3 effect of sunlight?
It was nice to see Göran Sjöberg comments from back then. I suppose he has past on….
Philip Thackray
I am. I don’t think it is an opinion. I believe it is a proven fact?
I think that it has been shown that UV-A production of NO occurs in the absence of UV-B, unless there’s a problem with the radiation source also producing UV-B.
Where has this been shown ? I hate the idea that the sun is of no use.
Sun lamps, maybe?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-11567-5
My understanding, I think from these pages is that nitric oxide is also released by bone marrow, (particularly when exercising)
Extract from below is the nearest I can get to that assertion – with no reference to exercise & on a separate topic “nitric oxide released by host bone marrow stromal cells”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10856968/
Looks like normalized ONS data shows clear evidence of all cause mortality covid vaccine harm for _all ages_ relative to unvaccinated. Simpson’s Paradox looks excluded.
https://expose-news.com/2022/10/09/gov-confirms-covid-vaccination-increases-risk-death/
OMG! I am 82, I’ve followed official guidelines up to now (jabbed full of holes) with no obvious side effects. I’ve never had covid although I don’t mix in crowds much. But these ONS figures are so convincing. I’m no statistician but I can interpret these black lines, red lines, blue lines. The conclusion seems obvious, it must be widely published, shouted from the rooftops. So no more vaccines for me. Vulnerable? Yes, we are – to a system where vital information is withheld. I’ve booked a flu jab but am having doubts about that now.
The question is whether the ONS data is any good at all, isn’t it? I’m waiting for Norman Fenton to weigh in.
I think you should be careful about reading too much into such statements. If you look at the ONS’ own statements on e.g. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19byvaccinationstatusengland/deathsoccurringbetween1january2021and31may2022 they say: “Changes in non-COVID-19 mortality by vaccination status are largely driven by the changing composition of the vaccination status groups; this is because of the prioritisation of people who are clinically extremely vulnerable or have underlying health conditions, and differences in timing of vaccination among eligible people.” Which explains why they do not use statistics such as those on the third-party site, as they are very misleading.
Thanks Dave H, I think I get your drift. It’s not just a question of numbers then. I don’t know what to do – to boost or not to boost. That is the question. Whether ’tis …. etc
More like the problem is that the ONS statistics are extremely dodgy because ONS has been categorizing unvaccinated people as vaccinated. Did you miss the part where all-cause mortality is raised for all age groups, so the ONS explanation doesn’t satisfy?
Did you mean that? I thought it was classifying vaccinated people as unvaccinated, sorry, jabbed as unjabbed if they had fallen behind in the jabbing program.
Maybe some in both directions, likely on someone’s whim.
Off Topic: Injections.
I do not know enough on the subejct,so I’m asking here.
Injections, like Covid-19.
Are they injected into the muscle in the arm because it’s something to aim for or because what’s injected is released into the bloodstream over time.
If they are supposed to be injected into the muscle for this reason what effect does missing the muscle and going directly into the bloodstream have for Covid-19, but also all the other vaccines we take?
Lastly, if the norm is to hit the muscle, and missing it has a notable negative outcome, how many Injections actually hit/miss their mark?
TFS. Doesn’t really matter where you stick it, it don’t do what they said it did:
“A Pfizer executive said on Monday that neither she nor other Pfizer officials knew whether its COVID-19 vaccine would stop transmission before entering the market in late 2020.”
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/10/12/covid-19-vaccine-was-not-tested-on-stopping-transmission-pfizer-exec-concedes/
In the case of COVID jabs, where the goal is to transform cells so they produce the spike protein, surely if some of the jab misses its target and enters the bloodstream via a capillary, surely endothelial cells may get transformed and recognised by the immune system – causing a blood clot.
In the case of COVID jabs, where the aim is to transform cells (e.g. muscle cells) into spike protein makers, Is it possible that if a jab hits a capillary, it is endothelial cells that get transformed to produce spike? If that happens I would have thought the walls of certain blood vessels will evoke an immune response – probably causing a blood clot.
Great read–“Turtles All The Way Down”
Some of the fundamental vaccine safety issues covered in the book are:
How is safety demonstrated before a new vaccine is licensed? What technique do vaccine manufacturers use in clinical trials to make vaccines appear safer than they actually are?
What “last ditch” technique is employed when the above one cannot be, and what are its grave (and damning) ethical implications?
What is the scientific foundation of the safety of vaccination, and what practical tools does this body of science provide physicians to anticipate, diagnose, and treat vaccine injury?
What fundamental flaws are built into vaccine adverse events reporting systems, and how are these systems used (or misused) by health authorities to support their safety claims?
What kinds of post-marketing vaccine studies are conducted, and how can they be manipulated by researchers to produce “favorable” outcomes?
Why would researchers want to skew vaccine research, and how could skewed results be promulgated by the scientific community?
Why would medical journals publish faulty vaccine science? What is the role of the famed “peer review” in this process?
What are “the studies that will never be done” by the medical establishment and how long it has resisted doing them? (Hint: more than 100 years!)
What key CDC-recommended childhood vaccination guidelines were arbitrarily set, without an adequate scientific basis?
Very detailed—-basically argues that the process of approval for vaccines is completely corrupt, and has been from the very beginning.
We always knew it, but now they have proved it…
‘The researchers compared information on drug pricing and R&D expenditures. They discovered no connection between pharmaceutical corporations’ R&D spending and the prices they charge for new drugs. The therapeutic value of a product was also evaluated by the researchers, but they discovered no link between therapeutic value and price.
‘“Our findings provide evidence that drug companies do not set prices based on how much they spent on R&D or how good a drug is. Instead, they charge what the market will bear,” said senior author Inmaculada Hernandez, PharmD, Ph.D., associate professor at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.’
— https://scitechdaily.com/why-are-drugs-so-expensive-its-not-what-you-think/
Using the CDC’s own data, when we compare US working age deaths for 2021 v. 2019, the pre-pandemic year where changes in immigration will have little impact, we see an increase of 230,000 deaths over the 765,000 deaths in 2019. That’s a 30% increase in relative US working age mortality in 2021 over 2019.
2019 CDC mortality data
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db395-tables-508.pdf#page=3
2021 CDC mortality data
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7117e1.htm
Isn’t it a tiny bit strange that the CDC hasn’t communicated about this? Has it not been noticed? Has it been noticed but there is fear that an answer would be inconvenient if an investigation were done? Has an investigation been done and the answer is incovenient? Does the CDC think that no one will notice?
Oops, tiny error. 707,000 deaths in 2019. Sorry.
That means that there was a 32% increase in US working age deaths in 2021 over 2019.
“The Great CDC Coverup of a Massive Increase in US Working Age Mortality in 2021”
https://navigatingthecovidconfusion.wordpress.com/2022/10/20/the-great-cdc-coverup-of-a-massive-increase-in-us-working-age-mortality-in-2021/
Here I explain more about the statistics behind why a statistician ought to compare 2021 mortality with 2019 and not with 2020.
What this thread needs is a cheerer-upper. Here’s some saturated Fats.
Yes! Butter, fatty bacon, fatty steak, cheese, fatty lamb, fatty goat, fatty llama.
Sometimes difficult to find fatty steak etc, since the fat in meats is frowned upon. It does give the meat fantastic taste.
Please note me new email address is malcolm@dalriata.life
best
If anyone’s interested, I was on a statin for about 2 1/2 years and after reading Kendrick et al I decided to quit. Now, the statin “worked” in the sense that it knocked down some of my lipid numbers. By end of November I quit the statin, I also made some dietary changes, primarily to minimize junk (refined) carbs and eat more fats. Also upped some supplements. I had pre-statin lipid panels to compare, so I compared the average from five years ago with a recent panel:
Cholesterol dropped from 233* to 209, a reduction of 24 points => -10%.
HDL: 37 to 44 = + 7 => +19%
LDL: 164 dropped to 141 = – 23 => -14%
Trigycerides: 165 dropped to 119 = 46 => – 28%
The test is “happy” with the numbers save TC which it insists shouldn’t be higher than 200 and the LDL limit which is a ridiculous 100.
Of course, I can’t be sure, but I credit the changes mostly to a slightly healthier diet.
My poor doctor, if she’s looked at the panel, probably thinks I have terminal hyperlipidaemia since my numbers have suddenly jumped. We are going to have a nuts and bolts discussion of what I’ve recently learnt about several very useless prevention regimes I’ve recently divorced myself from.
*US units. Apologies to the UKans. Cholesterol measure may be the one example in the world where the USA and the UK use divergent measures, both of them metric.
Lowering cholesterol may not be something to be happy about – my understanding is that people with high cholesterol live longer than those with low levels – particularly so with women.
From 2009 – benefits of saturated fat.
https://tim.blog/2009/06/06/saturated-fat/
However, LPa (small a) is seen to be bad – the cure being saturated fat. But is LPa not prevelant when the body has inadequate levels of vit C, LPa being a quick but inadequate fix for scurvy.
Lesson being- get yourself plenty of Vit C