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Vitamin D Quiz
Vitamin D Quiz
Source Dr. John Cannell, MD
1) Most of the infants born in the northern half of the US are at risk for rickets,
especially if they are breast-fed.
A) True B) False
True.
Dr. Joyce Lee, at the University of Michigan, has recently confirmed that both newborn infants
and their mothers in Boston are severely vitamin D deficient. Fifty percent of the mothers and
65% of the infants had vitamin D blood levels below 12 ng/ml (30 nmol/L), which is low
enough to cause rickets in the infants and osteomalacia (adult rickets) in the mothers.
Healthy levels are at least 40 ng/ml.
Lee JM, et al. Vitamin D deficiency in a healthy group of mothers and newborn infants. Clin
Pediatr. (Phila). 2007 Jan;46(1):42-4.
Make no mistake, rickets is a serious problem in the US, even in the summer. This disease of
the industrial revolution is getting to be a common problem in African-American infants.
Ironically, the incidence is higher in infants who consume the Zion of nature's perfect food,
breast milk.
Weisberg P, Scanlon KS, Li R, Cogswell ME. Nutritional rickets among children in the United
States: review of cases reported between 1986 and 2003. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Dec;80(6
Suppl):1697S-705S.
Ziegler EE, et al. Vitamin D deficiency in breastfed infants in Iowa. Pediatrics. 2006 Aug;118
(2):603-10.
It's not just rickets these breast-fed infants must contend with, but seizures and heart failure
as well, both of which can be fatal.
Alouf B, Grigalonis M. Incidental finding of vitamin-D deficient rickets in an otherwise healthy
infant – a reappraisal of current vitamin-D supplementation guidelines. J Natl Med Assoc.
2005 Aug;97(8):1170-3.
Ashraf A, et al. Prevalence of hypovitaminosis D in early infantile hypocalcemia. J Pediatr
Endocrinol Metab. 2006 Aug;19(8):1025-31.
Balasubramanian S, Shivbalan S, Kumar PS. Hypocalcemia due to vitamin D deficiency in
exclusively breastfed infants. Indian Pediatr. 2006 Mar;43(3):247-51.
Bloom E, et al. Variable presentations of rickets in children in the emergency department.
Pediatr Emerg Care. 2004 Feb;20(2):126-30.
Cramm KJ, Cattaneo RA, Schremmer RD. An infant with tachypnea. Pediatr Emerg Care.
2006 Nov;22(11):728-31.
It's not just infants who are having seizures and breaking their bones. A 17-year-old New
Yorker had a seizure from low blood calcium caused by vitamin D deficiency; the seizures
broke the necks of both of his femurs, usually the strongest bones in the body.
Schnadower D, et al. Hypocalcemic seizures and secondary bilateral femoral fractures in an
adolescent with primary vitamin D deficiency. Pediatrics. 2006 Nov;118(5):2226-30.
The reason breast-feeding (still the best way to feed an infant) is a risk factor for infantile
rickets, seizures, and heart failure is that breast milk, like any milk, is only as nutritious as the
mother who produces it. As most mothers are vitamin D deficient – in spite of their
consumption of multivitamins and vitamin D fortified cow's milk – breast milk is a poor source
of vitamin D. Even mothers who go into the sun will have deficient breast milk in the winter in
northern latitudes. However, as Bruce Hollis and Carol Wagner showed several years ago,
mothers who take 4,000 IU of vitamin D daily can safely breast-feed their infant without
concern their baby will develop any of these medieval diseases.
Hollis BW, Wagner CL. Vitamin D requirements during lactation: high-dose maternal
supplementation as therapy to prevent hypovitaminosis D for both the mother and the
nursing infant. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Dec;80(6 Suppl):1752S-8S.
Furthermore, it is time to shed a tear for mothers, especially African-American mothers, who
followed La Leche League's advice to breast-feed their infants without taking vitamin D
supplements. These mothers were dedicated enough to breast-feed and concerned enough
to bring their child to an emergency room when their child's bone's started to break – only to
be unjustly accused of child abuse. "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we
wept, when we remembered Zion."
Bloom E, et al. Variable presentations of rickets in children in the emergency department.
Pediatr Emerg Care. 2004 Feb;20(2):126-30.
Paterson CR. Vitamin D deficiency rickets simulating child abuse. J Pediatr Orthop. 1981;1(4):
423-5.
2) If you take a multivitamin and drink three glasses of milk a day, but totally avoid
direct sunlight, you will become vitamin D deficient.
A) True B) False
The answer is false.
I know several years ago I said "true," but research steadily goes on. Dr. Turnbull, working
with Dr. Kimlin in Australia, showed that UVB light in the shade is strong enough to activate
vitamin D production in the skin. Think of UVB as a ping-pong ball. It bounces off lots of
things. When you go into the sun – if the sun is high enough in the sky – UVB light comes
through the atmosphere and then starts bouncing around. It bounces at you from the ground,
buildings, cars, and even the bottom of clouds. Sitting under a shade tree delivered about
half as much UVB as sitting in the direct sun. Furthermore, the damaging UVA radiation
under direct sun was three times more than under the shade tree. Sitting in the shade in the
summer (and the winter in subtropical and tropical latitudes) is a good way to get vitamin D.
You even get some in the car, as long as the windows are down.Turnbull DJ, Parisi AV, Kimlin
MG. Vitamin D effective ultraviolet wavelengths due to scattering in shade. J Steroid Biochem
Mol Biol. 2005 Sep;96(5):431-6.
3) The US Federal Government recommends you take a rat poison every day.
A) True B) False
True, but they don't recommend enough. Vitamin D has been used as a rat poison
(rodenticide) for years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodenticide).
However, as I said three years ago, it's the dose, the dose, the dose. Humans would have to
take tens of thousands of standard 1,000 IU vitamin D capsules to risk chance of death from
overdosage. With the 50,000 IU capsule, this margin of safety is 50 times lower. Not one
person has ever been reported to have died from taking vitamin D supplements, unless they
purchased low-quality supplements that had hundreds of thousands times more vitamin D in
them than reported on the label. Not one person has ever been reported to have
successfully committed suicide with vitamin D. In fact, water is more toxic than vitamin D. Not
only are there more deaths – a lot more – from water intoxication than from vitamin D
intoxication, water has a lower therapeutic index (the ratio of toxic to therapeutic doses). The
words of the father of toxicology, Paracelsus, ring true over the ages, "All things are poison
and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous."
4) In a recent study, HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol) was strongly associated
with vitamin D blood levels.
A) True B) False
True.
The association was strong (P<.005) among 120 women with polycystic ovarian disease.
However, like dozens of other studies, the authors also found a strong inverse correlation
between obesity and vitamin D levels – the higher the vitamin D levels, the thinner the
patients – and this may explain the association with HDL cholesterol. Unfortunately, the
authors did not look further at their data to see if the association with HDL held after
correction for body weight.
Hahn S, et al. Low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations are associated with insulin
resistance and obesity in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. Exp Clin Endocrinol
Diabetes. 2006 Nov;114(10):577-83.
5) People can reach 100 years of age without any vitamin D in their blood.
A) True B) False
True.
When researchers went to an Italian nursing home, they found that 99 of 104 residents had
no detectable vitamin D in their blood. All the 104 residents were over 98 years old! But the
key word is "can." Before you stop your vitamin D so you can live to 98, know that the study
said nothing about what the residents' levels were before they came to the nursing home. A
recent large study showed good evidence that low levels are not only associated with going
into nursing homes, but with dying as well.
Passeri G, et al. Low vitamin D status, high bone turnover, and bone fractures in
centenarians. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2003 Nov;88(11):5109-15.
Visser M, et al. Low serum concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in older persons and the
risk of nursing home admission. Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 Sep;84(3):616-22; quiz 671-2.
6) Being in the sun helps protect you from being in the sun.
A) True B) False
True.
Dr. Dixon, at the University of Sydney, working with Professor Rebecca Mason's group, has
presented additional evidence that vitamin D metabolites protect the skin from sun damage
and do so via rapid acting pathways that do not involve genetic transcription. As anyone who
has ever taken 5,000 IU a day for several months can tell you, your skin is much less likely to
burn when you are no longer vitamin D-deficient.
Dixon KM, et al. In vivo relevance for photoprotection by the vitamin D rapid response
pathway. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2007 Jan 11; [Epub ahead of print]
7) It looks like vitamin D deficiency is a major cause of Parkinson's disease.
A) True B) False
True.
In an excellent paper, Drs. Harold and Jonathan Newmark (father and son), present the
considerable evidence that vitamin D deficiency is one cause, perhaps the major cause, of
Parkinson's disease. (Muhammad Ali has this disease, and, in his case, it may have been
caused by boxing. However, a lot of boxers never get Parkinson's disease, and most people
who have Parkinson's disease never boxed.) Drs. Newmark remark on a 1997 case report in
which a patient with Parkinson's disease steadily improved when treated with 4,000 IU daily.
However, their recommendation for an interventional study using only 2,000 IU daily in
Parkinsonian patients is regrettable. Such a low dose in such a severe disease may tragically
miss a treatment effect and would only have to be repeated in the future with physiological
amounts of vitamin D. All clinical interventional studies – in any disease – should use enough
vitamin D to obtain and then maintain blood levels at levels obtained from natural
summertime sun exposure (at least 50 ng/ml). For many people – the aged, African-
Americans, and the obese – this requires 5,000 IU daily. If you know Muhammad Ali, or
anyone with Parkinson's disease, suggest they start taking 5,000 IU a day. If they or their
doctor are concerned about toxicity, have them read the literature. If they can't do that, have
the doctor measure their 25(OH)D and calcium levels every four months. Both patient and
doctor will soon realize that 5,000 IU is a physiological dose.
Newmark HL, Newmark J. Vitamin D and Parkinson's disease-A hypothesis. Mov Disord. 2007
Jan 17; [Epub ahead of print].
8) There were at least 100 courageous people in Boston in 1919.
A) True B) False
True.
Five controlled human studies were conducted on volunteers in the desperate days of 1919
when 50,000,000 people in the world had just died from influenza. All five attempted to show
influenza is transmitted like the common cold, from the sick to the well. It gave me chills to
read what the 100 Boston volunteers were willing to risk in the largest study, one published in
the Journal of the American Medical Association. Rosenau, MJ. Experiments to determine
mode of spread of influenza. JAMA. 1919;73:311-313.
In the above study, Rosenau and his six colleagues took 100 volunteers, "all of the most
susceptible age," none of whom had ever had influenza. That is, "from the most careful
histories that we could elicit, they gave no account of a febrile attack of any kind," during the
previous year and thus no evidence they would have had immunity to the 1918 virus. The
authors took great care to select their influenza donors from patients in a "distinct focus or
outbreak of influenza, sometimes an epidemic in a school with 100 cases, from which we
would select typical cases, in order to prevent mistakes in diagnosis of influenza." Rosenau
went on to say, "A few of the donors were in the first day of the disease. Others were in the
second or third day of the disease."
Now, read this to see if you would volunteer for the experiments, knowing the lethality of the
1918 virus.
Then we proceeded to transfer the virus obtained from cases of the disease; that is, we
collected the material and mucous secretions of the mouth and nose and bronchi from cases
of the disease and transferred this to our volunteers. We always obtained the material in the
following way: The patients with fever, in bed, have a large, shallow, tray-like arrangement
before him or her, and we washed out one nostril with some sterile salt solution, using
perhaps 5 c.c., which is allowed to run into this tray; and that nostril is blown vigorously into
the tray. That is repeated with the other nostril. The patient then gargles the solution. Next,
we obtain some bronchial mucous through coughing, and then we swab the mucous surface
of each nares and also the mucous membranes of the throat.
Then they mixed all this "stuff" together and squirted it into the noses of the volunteers!
"None of them took sick in any way." Undaunted, Rosenau reported they conducted another
experiment on ten of these brave souls:
The volunteer was led up to the bedside of the patient; he was introduced. He sat down
alongside the bed of the patients. They shook hands, and by instructions, he got as close as
he conveniently could, and they talked for several minutes. At the end of five minutes, the
patient breathed out as hard as he could, while the volunteer, muzzle to muzzle, received this
expired breath, and at the same time was breathing in as the patient breathed out. This they
repeated five times, and they did it fairly faithfully in almost all instances. After they had done
this five times, the patient coughed directly into the face of the volunteer, face to face, five
different times. I may say that the volunteers were perfectly splendid about carrying out the
technic [sic] of these experiments. They did it with a high idealism. They were inspired with
the thought that they might help others. They went through the program in a splendid spirit.
After our volunteer had had this sort of contact with the patients, talking and chatting and
shaking hands with him for five minutes, and receiving his breath five times, and then his
cough directly in his face, he moved to the next patient whom we had selected, and repeated
this, and so on, until this volunteer had had that sort of contact with ten different cases of
influenza, in different stages of the disease, mostly fresh cases, none of them more than
three days old. We will remember that each one of the ten volunteers had that sort of intimate
contact with each one of the ten different influenza patients. They were watched carefully for
seven days – and none of them took sick in any way.
Rosenau concluded, "We entered the outbreak with a notion that we knew the cause of the
disease, and were quite sure we knew how it was transmitted from person-to-person.
Perhaps, if we have learned anything, it is that we are not quite sure what we know about the
disease."
Can you imagine volunteering for this study, the year after 50,000,000 people died in the
world from influenza? Courageous volunteers who knew nothing about the evidence vitamin
D protects one from influenza. I wish modern virologists would read these 1919 studies, which
are the only ones that ever attempted to show human influenza is transmitted from the sick to
the well. If any reader knows of any controlled human study, in any language, of any date,
that proves influenza is propagated by an endless series of transmissions from the sick to the
well, I invite its citation for my continuing education.
One last note: Marc Sorenson has written a fine book about vitamin D for the general public:
Solar Power for Optimal Health. Marc's book is available through Amazon.com.
Source: The Vitamin D Newsletter, February 2006.
The Vitamin D Newsletter is a periodic newsletter from the Vitamin D Council, a non-profit
trying to end the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency. The Council is a non-profit and relies on
donations to publish the newsletter and maintain the website. Please send your tax-
deductible contributions to the following address: The Vitamin D Council, 9100 San Gregorio
Road, Atascadero, California 93422.
Source Dr. John Cannell, MD
1) Most of the infants born in the northern half of the US are at risk for rickets,
especially if they are breast-fed.
A) True B) False
True.
Dr. Joyce Lee, at the University of Michigan, has recently confirmed that both newborn infants
and their mothers in Boston are severely vitamin D deficient. Fifty percent of the mothers and
65% of the infants had vitamin D blood levels below 12 ng/ml (30 nmol/L), which is low
enough to cause rickets in the infants and osteomalacia (adult rickets) in the mothers.
Healthy levels are at least 40 ng/ml.
Lee JM, et al. Vitamin D deficiency in a healthy group of mothers and newborn infants. Clin
Pediatr. (Phila). 2007 Jan;46(1):42-4.
Make no mistake, rickets is a serious problem in the US, even in the summer. This disease of
the industrial revolution is getting to be a common problem in African-American infants.
Ironically, the incidence is higher in infants who consume the Zion of nature's perfect food,
breast milk.
Weisberg P, Scanlon KS, Li R, Cogswell ME. Nutritional rickets among children in the United
States: review of cases reported between 1986 and 2003. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Dec;80(6
Suppl):1697S-705S.
Ziegler EE, et al. Vitamin D deficiency in breastfed infants in Iowa. Pediatrics. 2006 Aug;118
(2):603-10.
It's not just rickets these breast-fed infants must contend with, but seizures and heart failure
as well, both of which can be fatal.
Alouf B, Grigalonis M. Incidental finding of vitamin-D deficient rickets in an otherwise healthy
infant – a reappraisal of current vitamin-D supplementation guidelines. J Natl Med Assoc.
2005 Aug;97(8):1170-3.
Ashraf A, et al. Prevalence of hypovitaminosis D in early infantile hypocalcemia. J Pediatr
Endocrinol Metab. 2006 Aug;19(8):1025-31.
Balasubramanian S, Shivbalan S, Kumar PS. Hypocalcemia due to vitamin D deficiency in
exclusively breastfed infants. Indian Pediatr. 2006 Mar;43(3):247-51.
Bloom E, et al. Variable presentations of rickets in children in the emergency department.
Pediatr Emerg Care. 2004 Feb;20(2):126-30.
Cramm KJ, Cattaneo RA, Schremmer RD. An infant with tachypnea. Pediatr Emerg Care.
2006 Nov;22(11):728-31.
It's not just infants who are having seizures and breaking their bones. A 17-year-old New
Yorker had a seizure from low blood calcium caused by vitamin D deficiency; the seizures
broke the necks of both of his femurs, usually the strongest bones in the body.
Schnadower D, et al. Hypocalcemic seizures and secondary bilateral femoral fractures in an
adolescent with primary vitamin D deficiency. Pediatrics. 2006 Nov;118(5):2226-30.
The reason breast-feeding (still the best way to feed an infant) is a risk factor for infantile
rickets, seizures, and heart failure is that breast milk, like any milk, is only as nutritious as the
mother who produces it. As most mothers are vitamin D deficient – in spite of their
consumption of multivitamins and vitamin D fortified cow's milk – breast milk is a poor source
of vitamin D. Even mothers who go into the sun will have deficient breast milk in the winter in
northern latitudes. However, as Bruce Hollis and Carol Wagner showed several years ago,
mothers who take 4,000 IU of vitamin D daily can safely breast-feed their infant without
concern their baby will develop any of these medieval diseases.
Hollis BW, Wagner CL. Vitamin D requirements during lactation: high-dose maternal
supplementation as therapy to prevent hypovitaminosis D for both the mother and the
nursing infant. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Dec;80(6 Suppl):1752S-8S.
Furthermore, it is time to shed a tear for mothers, especially African-American mothers, who
followed La Leche League's advice to breast-feed their infants without taking vitamin D
supplements. These mothers were dedicated enough to breast-feed and concerned enough
to bring their child to an emergency room when their child's bone's started to break – only to
be unjustly accused of child abuse. "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we
wept, when we remembered Zion."
Bloom E, et al. Variable presentations of rickets in children in the emergency department.
Pediatr Emerg Care. 2004 Feb;20(2):126-30.
Paterson CR. Vitamin D deficiency rickets simulating child abuse. J Pediatr Orthop. 1981;1(4):
423-5.
2) If you take a multivitamin and drink three glasses of milk a day, but totally avoid
direct sunlight, you will become vitamin D deficient.
A) True B) False
The answer is false.
I know several years ago I said "true," but research steadily goes on. Dr. Turnbull, working
with Dr. Kimlin in Australia, showed that UVB light in the shade is strong enough to activate
vitamin D production in the skin. Think of UVB as a ping-pong ball. It bounces off lots of
things. When you go into the sun – if the sun is high enough in the sky – UVB light comes
through the atmosphere and then starts bouncing around. It bounces at you from the ground,
buildings, cars, and even the bottom of clouds. Sitting under a shade tree delivered about
half as much UVB as sitting in the direct sun. Furthermore, the damaging UVA radiation
under direct sun was three times more than under the shade tree. Sitting in the shade in the
summer (and the winter in subtropical and tropical latitudes) is a good way to get vitamin D.
You even get some in the car, as long as the windows are down.Turnbull DJ, Parisi AV, Kimlin
MG. Vitamin D effective ultraviolet wavelengths due to scattering in shade. J Steroid Biochem
Mol Biol. 2005 Sep;96(5):431-6.
3) The US Federal Government recommends you take a rat poison every day.
A) True B) False
True, but they don't recommend enough. Vitamin D has been used as a rat poison
(rodenticide) for years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodenticide).
However, as I said three years ago, it's the dose, the dose, the dose. Humans would have to
take tens of thousands of standard 1,000 IU vitamin D capsules to risk chance of death from
overdosage. With the 50,000 IU capsule, this margin of safety is 50 times lower. Not one
person has ever been reported to have died from taking vitamin D supplements, unless they
purchased low-quality supplements that had hundreds of thousands times more vitamin D in
them than reported on the label. Not one person has ever been reported to have
successfully committed suicide with vitamin D. In fact, water is more toxic than vitamin D. Not
only are there more deaths – a lot more – from water intoxication than from vitamin D
intoxication, water has a lower therapeutic index (the ratio of toxic to therapeutic doses). The
words of the father of toxicology, Paracelsus, ring true over the ages, "All things are poison
and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous."
4) In a recent study, HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol) was strongly associated
with vitamin D blood levels.
A) True B) False
True.
The association was strong (P<.005) among 120 women with polycystic ovarian disease.
However, like dozens of other studies, the authors also found a strong inverse correlation
between obesity and vitamin D levels – the higher the vitamin D levels, the thinner the
patients – and this may explain the association with HDL cholesterol. Unfortunately, the
authors did not look further at their data to see if the association with HDL held after
correction for body weight.
Hahn S, et al. Low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations are associated with insulin
resistance and obesity in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. Exp Clin Endocrinol
Diabetes. 2006 Nov;114(10):577-83.
5) People can reach 100 years of age without any vitamin D in their blood.
A) True B) False
True.
When researchers went to an Italian nursing home, they found that 99 of 104 residents had
no detectable vitamin D in their blood. All the 104 residents were over 98 years old! But the
key word is "can." Before you stop your vitamin D so you can live to 98, know that the study
said nothing about what the residents' levels were before they came to the nursing home. A
recent large study showed good evidence that low levels are not only associated with going
into nursing homes, but with dying as well.
Passeri G, et al. Low vitamin D status, high bone turnover, and bone fractures in
centenarians. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2003 Nov;88(11):5109-15.
Visser M, et al. Low serum concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in older persons and the
risk of nursing home admission. Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 Sep;84(3):616-22; quiz 671-2.
6) Being in the sun helps protect you from being in the sun.
A) True B) False
True.
Dr. Dixon, at the University of Sydney, working with Professor Rebecca Mason's group, has
presented additional evidence that vitamin D metabolites protect the skin from sun damage
and do so via rapid acting pathways that do not involve genetic transcription. As anyone who
has ever taken 5,000 IU a day for several months can tell you, your skin is much less likely to
burn when you are no longer vitamin D-deficient.
Dixon KM, et al. In vivo relevance for photoprotection by the vitamin D rapid response
pathway. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2007 Jan 11; [Epub ahead of print]
7) It looks like vitamin D deficiency is a major cause of Parkinson's disease.
A) True B) False
True.
In an excellent paper, Drs. Harold and Jonathan Newmark (father and son), present the
considerable evidence that vitamin D deficiency is one cause, perhaps the major cause, of
Parkinson's disease. (Muhammad Ali has this disease, and, in his case, it may have been
caused by boxing. However, a lot of boxers never get Parkinson's disease, and most people
who have Parkinson's disease never boxed.) Drs. Newmark remark on a 1997 case report in
which a patient with Parkinson's disease steadily improved when treated with 4,000 IU daily.
However, their recommendation for an interventional study using only 2,000 IU daily in
Parkinsonian patients is regrettable. Such a low dose in such a severe disease may tragically
miss a treatment effect and would only have to be repeated in the future with physiological
amounts of vitamin D. All clinical interventional studies – in any disease – should use enough
vitamin D to obtain and then maintain blood levels at levels obtained from natural
summertime sun exposure (at least 50 ng/ml). For many people – the aged, African-
Americans, and the obese – this requires 5,000 IU daily. If you know Muhammad Ali, or
anyone with Parkinson's disease, suggest they start taking 5,000 IU a day. If they or their
doctor are concerned about toxicity, have them read the literature. If they can't do that, have
the doctor measure their 25(OH)D and calcium levels every four months. Both patient and
doctor will soon realize that 5,000 IU is a physiological dose.
Newmark HL, Newmark J. Vitamin D and Parkinson's disease-A hypothesis. Mov Disord. 2007
Jan 17; [Epub ahead of print].
8) There were at least 100 courageous people in Boston in 1919.
A) True B) False
True.
Five controlled human studies were conducted on volunteers in the desperate days of 1919
when 50,000,000 people in the world had just died from influenza. All five attempted to show
influenza is transmitted like the common cold, from the sick to the well. It gave me chills to
read what the 100 Boston volunteers were willing to risk in the largest study, one published in
the Journal of the American Medical Association. Rosenau, MJ. Experiments to determine
mode of spread of influenza. JAMA. 1919;73:311-313.
In the above study, Rosenau and his six colleagues took 100 volunteers, "all of the most
susceptible age," none of whom had ever had influenza. That is, "from the most careful
histories that we could elicit, they gave no account of a febrile attack of any kind," during the
previous year and thus no evidence they would have had immunity to the 1918 virus. The
authors took great care to select their influenza donors from patients in a "distinct focus or
outbreak of influenza, sometimes an epidemic in a school with 100 cases, from which we
would select typical cases, in order to prevent mistakes in diagnosis of influenza." Rosenau
went on to say, "A few of the donors were in the first day of the disease. Others were in the
second or third day of the disease."
Now, read this to see if you would volunteer for the experiments, knowing the lethality of the
1918 virus.
Then we proceeded to transfer the virus obtained from cases of the disease; that is, we
collected the material and mucous secretions of the mouth and nose and bronchi from cases
of the disease and transferred this to our volunteers. We always obtained the material in the
following way: The patients with fever, in bed, have a large, shallow, tray-like arrangement
before him or her, and we washed out one nostril with some sterile salt solution, using
perhaps 5 c.c., which is allowed to run into this tray; and that nostril is blown vigorously into
the tray. That is repeated with the other nostril. The patient then gargles the solution. Next,
we obtain some bronchial mucous through coughing, and then we swab the mucous surface
of each nares and also the mucous membranes of the throat.
Then they mixed all this "stuff" together and squirted it into the noses of the volunteers!
"None of them took sick in any way." Undaunted, Rosenau reported they conducted another
experiment on ten of these brave souls:
The volunteer was led up to the bedside of the patient; he was introduced. He sat down
alongside the bed of the patients. They shook hands, and by instructions, he got as close as
he conveniently could, and they talked for several minutes. At the end of five minutes, the
patient breathed out as hard as he could, while the volunteer, muzzle to muzzle, received this
expired breath, and at the same time was breathing in as the patient breathed out. This they
repeated five times, and they did it fairly faithfully in almost all instances. After they had done
this five times, the patient coughed directly into the face of the volunteer, face to face, five
different times. I may say that the volunteers were perfectly splendid about carrying out the
technic [sic] of these experiments. They did it with a high idealism. They were inspired with
the thought that they might help others. They went through the program in a splendid spirit.
After our volunteer had had this sort of contact with the patients, talking and chatting and
shaking hands with him for five minutes, and receiving his breath five times, and then his
cough directly in his face, he moved to the next patient whom we had selected, and repeated
this, and so on, until this volunteer had had that sort of contact with ten different cases of
influenza, in different stages of the disease, mostly fresh cases, none of them more than
three days old. We will remember that each one of the ten volunteers had that sort of intimate
contact with each one of the ten different influenza patients. They were watched carefully for
seven days – and none of them took sick in any way.
Rosenau concluded, "We entered the outbreak with a notion that we knew the cause of the
disease, and were quite sure we knew how it was transmitted from person-to-person.
Perhaps, if we have learned anything, it is that we are not quite sure what we know about the
disease."
Can you imagine volunteering for this study, the year after 50,000,000 people died in the
world from influenza? Courageous volunteers who knew nothing about the evidence vitamin
D protects one from influenza. I wish modern virologists would read these 1919 studies, which
are the only ones that ever attempted to show human influenza is transmitted from the sick to
the well. If any reader knows of any controlled human study, in any language, of any date,
that proves influenza is propagated by an endless series of transmissions from the sick to the
well, I invite its citation for my continuing education.
One last note: Marc Sorenson has written a fine book about vitamin D for the general public:
Solar Power for Optimal Health. Marc's book is available through Amazon.com.
Source: The Vitamin D Newsletter, February 2006.
The Vitamin D Newsletter is a periodic newsletter from the Vitamin D Council, a non-profit
trying to end the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency. The Council is a non-profit and relies on
donations to publish the newsletter and maintain the website. Please send your tax-
deductible contributions to the following address: The Vitamin D Council, 9100 San Gregorio
Road, Atascadero, California 93422.