More on vitamin D

[copyman]

not sure if this has been posted already but here is more on vit D. I think most people should be supplementing with 2000+ IU's per day.

Vitamin D Has Benefits in Chronic HCV Infection
Megan Brooks

Authors and Disclosures

November 5, 2009 (Boston, Massachusetts) — Supplementing pegylated interferon-alfa2b and ribavirin with a daily dose of vitamin D might increase virologic response rates, according to results of a late-breaking abstract reported here at The Liver Meeting 2009, the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).
"Vitamin D is a potent immunomodulator whose impact on virologic response rates of interferon-based treatment of chronic HCV [hepatitis C] is unknown," lead investigator Saif M. Abu-Mouch, MD, from the Department of Hepatology, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, in Hadera, Israel, and colleagues note in their abstract.

"This preliminary study confirms the benefit of adding vitamin D to conventional antiviral therapy in patients with chronic HCV," Dr. Abu-Mouch told meeting attendees.

In the study, 58 patients with confirmed chronic HCV (genotype 1) were randomly assigned to peginterferon-alfa2b (1.5 µg/kg once weekly) plus ribavirin (1000 to 2000 mg/day). Thirty-one patients also received vitamin D (1000 to 4000 IU/day; serum level >32 ng/mL).

The vitamin D group had a higher mean body mass index (27 vs 24 kg/m2; P < .01), viral load (68% vs 58%; P  F2, 55% vs 18%; P < .001) than the group that did not receive vitamin D. Demographics, disease characteristics, ethnicity, baseline biochemical parameters, and adherence to treatment were similar in the 2 study groups.

A rapid virologic response was seen at week 4 in 44% of the vitamin D group and in 18% of the control group. At week 12, Dr. Abu-Mouch told Medscape Gastroenterology, 96% of the vitamin D group (26 of 27 patients) were HCV RNA-negative, as assessed by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, as was 48% of the control group (15 of 31 patients), which was a significant difference (P < .001), he said.

The combination of peginterferon and ribavirin, the standard of care for chronic HCV, achieves a sustained virologic response in 40% to 50% of naïve patients with genotype 1, the investigators explain in a meeting abstract. Vitamin D in combination with peginterferon-ribavirin "may have synergistic effects," Dr. Abu-Mouch said.

Meeting attendee Laurent Tsakiris, MD, from the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Melun in France, who was not involved in the study, told Medscape Gastroenterology that "the study is surprising and promising because vitamin D is something very easy to use and there is no toxicity."

"It's also interesting," he said, "that the group treated with vitamin D had more severe disease than the control group. I think this can be considered a strong result from a small study.

The study did not receive commercial support. Dr. Abu-Mouch and Dr. Tsakiris have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

The Liver Meeting 2009: 60th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD): Abstract LB20. Presented November 2, 2009.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/711902

[Bali05]

I have done 3 VitD tests so far.

First my GP ordered it , came back 34 (low). He gave me VitD shot and I started

4000 IUs/daysuppl. Next test was 53 (much better) than tested again 2mo later

still 50 even though I went in the sun a lot (did not do anything) so I upped it to 6000

IUs. Need to test again soon want to be at 60.

Sorry about not listing units do not have lab report in front of me.

[jusjames]

i suppose you will say ng/ml now, whereas before you said nothing, you have not even been tested yourself yet you are telling people they should be tested , ! why ?

[Marcia2202]

copyman
Thanks for posting this interesting info on vit d related to tx

all
I had my vit d levels tested before starting, during and after tx. My levels were low
(35 ng/ml) to start with and I was put on a quite high dose of vit d. It corresponded to 4000 units, as we use other units here.

Here is a link to some general info on vitamin.

http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/02/23/vitamin-d-deficiency-part-one.aspx

If you find the video annoying, just turn it off and read the text instead.

and here is a page with a lot of different articles on vit d

http://search.mercola.com/Results.aspx?k=vitamin%20d

[jusjames]

60 what?
if you have done a test why are you taking 6000iu? what was your result

[Bali05]

run a VitD test
recommended level of 60 comes from several MDs I spoke to plus lab reference range.

[jusjames]

where do you get these figures from and what units are you using