“Vitamin D” Pills Deplete Your Minerals
& Do Not Support Immune Function
Taking “Vitamin D” pills appears to deplete magnesium, potassium, calcium, Vitamin A, copper, and perhaps other nutrients, over time.
Many people spend years recovering after long periods of taking “Vitamin D.”
Notice I’m putting “Vitamin D” in quotation marks, because it is not a vitamin, and you should know that these pills are not natural at all, and what’s in the pill is not the 12 or potentially even 17 or more molecules your body makes when you’re in the sun.
It’s just two of these molecules, and they are highly manipulated using various chemical solvent processes–solvents known to cause cancer, like benzene.
Taking these pills may increase a lab result, but may have many negative unintended consequences that harm your immune system rather than benefiting it.
One practitioner says he’s never tested anyone taking "Vitamin D" pills who DIDN'T have dangerously low potassium levels.
Do we have low D levels in America because we're potassium-deficient? (If so, why not quit eating D pills and eat a whole potato? Every day for a long time, since it takes a good while to recover from taking these steroid pills daily, for some time.)
I’m half joking because lots of whole foods contain potassium, not just potatoes.
So you know that calcium is critical for strong bones and teeth, and many other functions in the body, but taking Vitamin D pills also depletes your regulatory nutrient, magnesium, which is profoundly necessary for human health.
And the foods high in both potassium and magnesium are all the whole plant foods: leafy greens, vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds, and whole grains.
I am very frustrated that every study on “Vitamin D” levels in the blood that I have reviewed explored correlation and NOT causation.
"Low D" appears to be a consequence, or a correlate, of inflammation caused by low magnesium and potassium and other nutrient deficiencies, maybe toxicities.
But that “low D” biomarker is treated like a cause, instead of the correlation, or effect, that it is, of inflammation.
So, one million Vitamin D pills can be made from the dirty grease from the wool of one sheep--and this is the answer to what we’re told is a widespread "Vitamin D" deficiency?”
Yes, you heard that right. 99.9% plus of Vitamin D pills are made from the grease they wring out of sheep’s wool.
The supplement makers argue that the sheep is in the sun, it licks the Vitamin D off itself, and then they wring the dirty grease out of the sheep’s wool, to try to extract the Vitamin D that was in the sheep’s saliva.
Does this make sense to you? Do you think God intended for you to get your Vitamin D from a pill made from Australian sheep’s wool, instead of your own skin being in the sun now and then, or often?
It fails on a logic level, for me, but when you understand research and science, any honest deep dive into the research literature also causes the Vitamin D pills narrative to fall apart, too.
On a side note, it appears to me that the Vitamin D extracted from dirty sheep’s wool is more lucrative to the sheep industry than the wool is.
It’s actually more valuable than gold and none of it makes any sense because your body makes Vitamin D itself from exposure to sunlight and you aren’t likely deficient at all.
Why, then, do inflammatory markers remain high, not addressed by taking the dirty sheep's wool-grease pills, and most people are low in potassium, magnesium and other nutrients, when they take these pills?
(And by the way, a few rare Vitamin D brands claim to "derive" their product from a vegan source, but good luck finding out what solvents and synthetic processes are used in that manufacturing process.
I have not succeeded at getting these companies to disclose this. I haven’t YET found an isolated nutrient supplement that DOESN’T use petrochemical solvent to create the product.)
Vitamin D is not a vitamin at all, but rather it’s a secosteroid. And possibly one of the most powerful substances made in the human body.
So it matters a lot how much you’re getting and from what source. My references page also points you to the Merck manual for what happens to your pet if they actually ingest the Vitamin D that you leave out to kill rodents, it takes a week or more for the rat to die as calcium leaches out of the rat’s body after eating the Vitamin D, but if your dog eats one of those pellets he’s going to get very sick.
But you’re to take that pill yourself, if you believe the Canadian Vitamin D Society who tripled the amount of Vitamin D you’re supposed to get in 2010, thereby also tripling its potential customers.
Its founder, Dr. Michael Holick, has the patent on both the lab test and the supplement itself, which it appears to me from many hours of research, may deplete your body of several nutrients and over time, cause harm to your health.
You can join a group of 19,000 people on the Secosteroid Hormone D Group on Facebook or the Magnesium Advocacy Group of 224,000 people, also on Facebook, and both of those are found on my references page.
Both groups have put together extensive references of their own, showing how problematic taking these D pills can be to human health. I’ve linked to both groups in my references page as well as their own compilation and analysis of the research.
Saying low D is the cause of anything is like saying that flies cause garbage. All the studies showing any benefit of having high D levels in the body or taking the D pills, are essentially assuming, metaphorically speaking, that because there's flies in garbage, the flies caused the garbage.
That’s what getting correlation and causation mixed up does and it creates massive profits for many industries, who falsely assign causation, where correlation is clearly more likely.
What they’re calling the cause, may actually be an effect instead. And most of the studies actually show harm or no benefit.
If you believe someone who tells that the evidence on Vitamin D is positive, you owe it to yourself to do a bit of research yourself, and I’m making that easy for you.
I’m not telling you to just trust me on this. The person who told you that Vitamin D is helpful, probably isn’t intentionally lying to you, he or she probably just read the one paragraph abstract of one meta study and hasn’t gone into PudMed to review all the meta studies.
Again, please don’t take my word for any of this. I’ve compiled a list of references, where you can learn about all this from the published data on “Vitamin D” studies for yourself.
Anyone who tells you that the meta analyses of Vitamin D show that it supports immune function may have read an abstract of one study, but they cannot possibly have done a deep dive into this subject, themselves or perhaps they don’t understand that correlation is not always causation, which can cause great confusion for people.
I would invite you to look at the evidence, yourself. Even if you don’t have graduate-school level statistics background, I still think you can understand it, with 30 minutes of your time reading through my references.
I invite you to explore it for yourself and I am all ears, if you write me, with how you come to different conclusions. Just please actually review the published literature first.
Thank you for your support of this blog. My References follow.
REFERENCES:
GreenSmoothieGirl Robyn Openshaw’s references on the consequences of taking cholecalciferol (“Vitamin D”) pills.
https://greensmoothiegirl.com/vitamindreferences/
Extensive commentary and sources from the founders of Magnesium Advocacy Group on Facebook reviewing the evidence that “Vitamin D” pills deplete potassium, magnesium, Vitamin A, copper, and more.
https://therootcauseprotocol.com/vit-d-faq/
Extensive research and commentary on the dangers of taking “Vitamin D” can be found on the Facebook page called Secosteroid Vitamin D.
Hypercalcemia found in routine screenings of people taking even at doses recommended to the general population at doses considered safe:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30294301/
How the drug “Vitamin D” is made and processed, with solvents, from the grease from sheep’s wool:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-019-01634-6
Merck Manual on poisoning of dogs by eating rat poison (cholecalciferol):
Merck Manual on the “narrow margin” between an appropriate and lethal dose of D3 for cows:
Meta-analysis showing no decrease in bone fractures, across 3,930 studies, in those taking Vitamin D:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24119980/
Cancer meta-analysis says in Abstract it shows low D is correlated to high cancer (note correlation, not causation), and then when they review totally contradictory findings, twice, they try to dismiss it:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5802611/
Meta-analysis of 22 breast cancer studies showing HIGHER rate of breast cancer in those supplementing with D and with higher overall Vitamin D:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30904218/
Meta-analysis of 10 Vitamin D cancer studies, showing slightly lower mortality from cancer, but no difference for cancer diagnosis:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30796437/
Meta-analysis of 52 studies show no effect on all-cause mortality from taking Vitamin D:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31405892/
An experiment by a PhD student showing that one sheep’s wool’s grease yields ONE MILLION doses of “Vitamin D,” making it more valuable than gold, to supplement manufacturers, making the dirty byproducts of sheep’s wool a very lucrative industry:
https://www.vitamaniathemovie.com/how-to-make-vitamin-d/
Read what Dr. Benjamin McLean writes about “hypervitaminosis D” (nausea, vomiting, excessive urination, kidney problems) from overconsumption of Vitamin D, and contraindications with taking steroids and more:
https://www.quora.com/How-safe-is-taking-vitamin-D3-5000-IU-daily
A few, of many, studies showing harm from taking cholecalciferol (“Vitamin D”) (please go to PubMed and search on topics like hypercalcemia, etc, with “Vitamin D”):
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/1107961
Robyn, I'm curious whether you're familiar with The Library of Atlantis. It's analysis is consistent with your views on vitamin D. I wonder who is behind The Library of Atlantis, something that is not disclosed on its website and about which I haven't been able to find any information. https://library-of-atlantis.com/vitamin-d-answers/. Separately, Dr. Mercola among many other well-known, highly-regarded, and thoughtful sources has published about vitamin D. He argues vitamin D is key to good health and, not surprisingly, emphasizes it is best obtained naturally by exposure to sun (without sunscreen). However, he also makes clear that supplementation can be beneficial esp for those in northern climates or who otherwise can't get sun exposure. He does recognize there can be issues with mineral depletion, esp magnesium, and cautions that vitamin D supplementation often needs to be accompanied by supplementation with magnesium and K2 (to prevent calcification of arteries). https://open.substack.com/pub/takecontrol/p/magnesium-vitamin-d-supplementation. Among the many problems laypeople like me encounter is that there often (always?) is credible support for at least two sides to everything. Your article makes good points that are supported by the sources you cite. Meanwhile, there are many well-regarded people like Dr. Mercola who can cite support for the opposite view, including that vitamin D supplementation is/can be beneficial. And there are lots of published papers that conclude vitamin D supplementation is beneficial, like this meta-analysis that concludes it reduces all cause mortality. The authors claim no outside funding. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10146299/. About vitamin D as rat poison -- true enough, but that doesn't end the debate. Lots of things will kill us if we get too much of them. Water often is used as an example -- drinking too much water can dilute sodium and other minerals and kill people just like a poison. It would be interesting to know how Dr. Mercola or other well-known and generally knowledgeable and thoughtful people respond to your arguments. I wonder whether you know of any such sources who have addressed head on the arguments you make about vitamin D supplementation. I'm going to ask them.