Posted on 01/28/2022 9:33:48 AM PST by Red Badger
Study of older adults is 'first direct evidence' of protection against rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, other conditions
In a new study, investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital found the people who took vitamin D, or vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids, had a significantly lower rate of autoimmune diseases — such as rheumatoid arthritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, autoimmune thyroid disease, and psoriasis — than people who took a placebo.
With their findings published Wednesday in BMJ, the team had tested this in the large-scale vitamin D and omega-3 trial (VITAL), a randomized study which followed participants for approximately five years. Investigators found the people who took vitamin D, or vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids had a significantly lower rate of AD than people who took a placebo.
“It is exciting to have these new and positive results for nontoxic vitamins and supplements preventing potentially highly morbid diseases,” said senior author Karen Costenbader of the Brigham’s Division of Rheumatology, Inflammation and Immunity. “This is the first direct evidence we have that daily supplementation may reduce AD incidence, and what looks like more pronounced effect after two years of supplementation for vitamin D. We look forward to honing and expanding our findings and encourage professional societies to consider these results and emerging data when developing future guidelines for the prevention of autoimmune diseases in midlife and older adults.”
“Now, when my patients, colleagues, or friends ask me which vitamins or supplements I’d recommend they take to reduce risk of autoimmune disease, I have new evidence-based recommendations for women age 55 years and older and men 50 years and older,” said Costenbader. “I suggest vitamin D 2000 IU a day and marine omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil), 1000 mg a day — the doses used in VITAL.”
VITAL is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled research study of 25,871 men (age 50 and older) and women (age 55 and older) across the U.S., conducted to investigate whether taking daily dietary supplements of vitamin D3 (2000 IU) or omega-3 fatty acids (Omacor fish oil, 1 gram) could reduce the risk for developing cancer, heart disease, and stroke in people who do not have a prior history of these illnesses. Participants were randomized to receive either vitamin D with an omega-3 fatty acid supplement; vitamin D with a placebo; omega-3 fatty acid with a placebo; or placebo only. Prior to the launch of VITAL, investigators determined that they would also look at rates of AD among participants, as part of an ancillary study.
“Given the benefits of vitamin D and omega-3s for reducing inflammation, we were particularly interested in whether they could protect against autoimmune diseases,” said JoAnn Manson, co-author and director of the parent VITAL trial at the Brigham.
Participants answered questionnaires about new diagnoses of diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, autoimmune thyroid disease, psoriasis, and inflammatory bowel disease, with space to write in all other new onset ADs. Trained physicians reviewed patients’ medical records to confirm reported diagnoses.
“Autoimmune diseases are common in older adults and negatively affect health and life expectancy. Until now, we have had no proven way of preventing them, and now, for the first time, we do,” said first author, Jill Hahn, a postdoctoral fellow at the Brigham. “It would be exciting if we could go on to verify the same preventive effects in younger individuals.”
Among patients who were randomized to receive vitamin D, 123 participants in the treatment group and 155 in the placebo group were diagnosed with confirmed AD (22 percent reduction). Among those in the fatty acid arm, confirmed AD occurred in 130 participants in the treatment group and 148 in the placebo group. Supplementation with omega-3 fatty acids alone did not significantly lower incidence of AD, but the study did find evidence of an increased effect after longer duration of supplementation.
The VITAL study included a large and diverse sample of participants, but all participants were older and results may not be generalizable to younger individuals who experience AD earlier in life. The trial also only tested one dose and one formulation of each supplement. The researchers note that longer follow-up may be more informative to assess whether the effects are long-lasting.
This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health grants R01 AR059086, U01 CA138962, R01 CA138962.
This may be old but is still valid!
Heart Surgeon Speaks Out On What Really Causes Heart Disease
Dr. Dwight Lundell
Prevent Disease
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:58 CST
We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.
I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labelled “opinion makers.” Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.
The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.
It Is Not Working!
These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.
The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.
Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.
Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.
Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.
Inflammation is not complicated — it is quite simply your body’s natural defense to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process, a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.
What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body? Well, smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.
The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels. This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity.
Let me repeat that: The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine.
What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.
Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding. you kept this up several times a day, every day for five years. If you could tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that became worse with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now.
Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally, it is the same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall. Several times a day, every day, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.
While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone.
How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make you sick?
Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works.
When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.
What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels.
While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over 5,000 surgical patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator — inflammation in their arteries.
Let’s get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6 oils for longer shelf life. While omega-6’s are essential -they are part of every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell — they must be in the correct balance with omega-3’s.
If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane produces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation.
Today’s mainstream American diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of imbalance ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favor of omega-6. That’s a tremendous amount of cytokines causing inflammation. In today’s food environment, a 3:1 ratio would be optimal and healthy.
To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated.
There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils.
There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to their natural state. To build muscle, eat more protein. Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut down on or eliminate inflammation- causing omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and the processed foods that are made from them.
One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of omega-6; soybean contains 6,940 mg. Instead, use olive oil or butter from grass-fed beef.
Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labeled polyunsaturated. Forget the “science” that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today.
The cholesterol theory led to the no-fat, low-fat recommendations that in turn created the very foods now causing an epidemic of inflammation. Mainstream medicine made a terrible mistake when it advised people to avoid saturated fat in favor of foods high in omega-6 fats. We now have an epidemic of arterial inflammation leading to heart disease and other silent killers.
What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet.
Reader Comments Damage Control Freaks By: bluenorther I hope that within twenty years, coronary bypass surgery will be as discredited as pre-frontal lobotomies.
This article follows exactly what Gary Taubes has written in “Why We Get Fat”.
I had a six-tuple bypass operation to save my useless life, two years ago. It was the worst experience anyone could endure; I would never inflict it on anyone I care about. From what I’ve read, I seem to have got off easy compared to other people’s experiences!
The doctors can’t honestly tell us how bad it will be, because we’d all opt out.
What infuriates me is the total lack of effort made by my doctors to investigate WHY I ended up on their operating table. All of my friends and family are mystified, asking how this happened. In fact, I would have died in a few more days. I don’t smoke, I’m not overweight, and I exercise enough to kill most ordinary people.
All the doctors have done is prescribe meds that don’t work, and then get angry when I won’t take them. I haven’t seen a single blood test result that might give me a clue
That is wonderful! I am wondering if there are studies on how this works for kids....w/ADs.
As others have said....it’s a miracle supplement.
Thanks for the personal report.
Duh! 🙄
“Both substances/ supplements are noted anti-inflammatory agents. More and more health issues or being found that are rooted in inflammation.
20 years ago my cardiologist told me that they were finding evidence that clogged arteries were caused by inflammation.
26 years ago, I had taken early retirement at age 57, and I was having a FIB, not that I noticed and had high levels of the evil fat.
The cardiologist, I was referred back to told me not to worry about the evil fat, and he encouraged my wife to prepare food like the Italians did and have good snacks around the family room, my office and in the kitchen and work on eliminating refined carbs and food with additives. He never rxed a statin for me.
3-4 years ago, I needed a stent and one was installed. The plumbers and my new regular Cardio doc put me on Eliquis and a baby aspirin and another blood thinner until I was at the one year re having a stent. Now, I am on Eliquis bid and one baby aspirin at night.
My wife’s cooking and healthy food resulted in normal fat levels. They don’t even test for bad fats for me. At 83 they and I are not worried about bad fats in my blood stream.
Our current family doc uses my wife’s lab reports as an example of how an 80 year old woman without statin drugs has levels of a college age athlete at age 81. We eat minimal if any carbs and basically fresh veggies and smoked salmon every morning and salmon fillets twice a week for dinner. We have beef, pork, chicken and lamb once a week.
In the late fall, winter and early spring, my wife prepares most of our dinners on a cookie sheet pan and parchment paper in our oven.
I charcoal/grill most meals the rest of the time.
Vitamin D is used in so mnay different processes in the body
Technically its actually a hormone.
A master hormone used by so many different things. Extremely important.
You need more in winter. You need more when older.
New Study Found 80% of COVID-19 Patients Were Vitamin D Deficient
AMAZING!!!!...I’ve known this for 10 years. I take a simple compound of Vit. D3, Zinc and Magnesium. About a dime a day and never worry about getting Fauci’s Phony Covid crap!
The wife & I are at about 60 for the last several years. 4000-5000 units a day
About 8 years ago my wife at 59 or 60 shattered her wrist in a freak fall. Surgery and plate inserted. The surgeon said it was completely healed at 4 weeks. He said he had never seen anyone of any age have that injury heal so fast.....our family doctor had found she had a D deficiency a couple of years before that and put her and me on a serious program of D supplementation. The surgeon was suitably impressed with the results.
“Get sun, full sun, daily, without sunscreen. If you can’t strip down, go shirtless.”
not possible in the higher latitudes in the winter ...
Not everyone can go out all the time. Not everyone lives in climates where you can spend much time outside during certain months or where it’s particularly sunny. Melanin also affects Vit D.
At the beginning of the pandemic, doctors were finding that black patients had almost non-existent levels of Vit D. Since then, a number of peer-reviewed articles (some of which I’ve read; I used to follow research before retiring) found low levels of Vit D in covid patients that they recommended 3000 units a day.
It’s great to get Vit D outside when you can, but supplements are good for people who can’t.
Dinner I can have whatever I want. But that breakfast and lunch, along with about five miles of walking, pretty much locks in my excellent health no matter what I have for dinner.
Never been sick in the COVID era and I never wear a mask nor do I social distance.
Incredible. Researchers say something that has been known for at least a century.
Now if the could just figure out osteoarthritis.
My family makes me sick. First it was my son and now it is my wife.
True. D3, Zinc and Quercitin is a good Covid cocktail since Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine have essentially been banned and Quercitin is the only substitute for Ivermectin.
True, however there is risk of skin cancer from too much direct sunlight.
Good boy. Wife and I are on a similar cocktail of D3, Zinc, Quercitin…
I've heard that 15 minutes is sufficient. That won't kill anyone.
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