What did you find after those 90 days, or have you done that testing yet? I stopped taking the D3 and my level plummeted to 42. I am now taking minimal D3 (when I travel to cold places) and sometimes take a 400 IU pill during the week.

I’d still love to hear Robb talk about the LpPLA2 test sometime on the blog.

Cheers,
Ashley

I had the same problem….I took to much vitamin D3 and mine was tested at ’101′ supposedly toxic range….but my doc was more concerned that my lp-pla2 number being 278.03! remnan lipoprotein 32! and vldl3 13…… I stopped talking vitamin d3..im going to wait 90 days…and then retest and see what happens to all of those 4 numbers……I can not find anything on the web that discusses vit d3 and pla2, etc

just wandering if you have more insight for us on this topic?

thanks
maurice
maurice.totry@yahoo.com

I googled the case and I got an answer that “large doses of vitamin D can cause loose stools” and that it´s a sign of overdosage of Vitamin D.
What are your thoughts? Is overdose the cause or do you think that it has something to do with the Crohns?

He is not eating paleo, although he is the one person who I think would benefit the most from paleo diet.

Thanks.

Thanks!
L

Thanks. Is 85 safe though? I live in Tucson Arizona so I do get me some good sunshine…wondering if I should stop the supplementation.

I recently learned that if a person has really high vitamin D, that taking supplemental calcium can be very bad – as in, the calcium can settle in the arteries. (I don’t take calcium anymore!) What are your thoughts on this arterial calcification? Do you think that arterial calcification (in general) can be reversed via an anti-inflammatory, paleo diet? Or is it permanent, and something to be managed?

Cheers,
Ashley

P.S. I have been dumb in the past and taken Citrical – lots of it. I’m wondering if this might have led to some calcification – and if a high HS-CRP (3.5) and a relatively high LP-PLA2 test (198) might indicate that this has happened? Do you have thoughts on the LP-PLA2 test? It seems pretty legit…

Is there such thing as too high of a vitamin D blood level? Specifically, something like 85 ng/mL? I’m confused as hell about whether I should continue supplementing with 2000 IU per day. My guess was that my digestion has been so poor for so long that I needed to supplement due to poor absorption…

(Now I’m 90% strict paleo (little bit of pastured dairy), grass-fed beef (never corn fed), with HDL of 98 (total 204)).

On another note, I love the Now Foods mag citrate. They make a dye-free version that is just great and cheap on amazon.

Loved your book. I’m hoping to have a “consult” with you in the future, when I can scrape the cash together.

Cheers,
Ashley

My wife is a critical care nurse and she had a cow when I told here I was going to take 54 fish oil tabs a day. I am new to paleo have been crossfitting for about 6 months now and have not lost any weight. about 30lb overweight, with arthitic knees so I went with the .75 factor.

The missus told me that those level of fish oil represent a denager for bleeding problems

what is your take on this?

What is your experience with eczema in general (and sebborehic dermatitis in particular).

I switched to strict Paleo a couple of weeks ago (inc. eliminating nightshades) and have seen some improvements – however, today I had a small flare up despite not eating anything out of the ordinary.

I’ve started supplementing with Vit-D (5,000 IU) and fish oil 10 days ago.

Would deeply appreciate any input you might have.

Kind regards,
Victor

Just saw your post for the seminar at Potomac CF in Arlington. That’s literally 5 minutes from my house…BUT as my luck would have it, I’m in Vegas that weekend for my Bach/Bachelorette party…I don’t think the 20 people going to Vegas for us would appreciate me backing out. haha
Any chance you’re in this area leading up to or following this seminar for another one???
-Kari

http://www.rawmeatybones.com/

For one, you’d also have to be very confident that your supplement was high quality — it’d sure be a waste of $$ and health to be scarfing down fish oil that was either contaminated or oxidized!

For another, I’ve seen that Chris Masterjohn (whom you seem to respect) is recommending that dietary EPA be kept fairly low (like .5% of calories), which is in the ballpark of just 1g for a 2000 cal diet.

Not sure if you care, but I called and apparently Innova is being sold (or has been sold) to Proctor & Gamble. Not sure how honest they are about their “natural” products….Just FYI

A little off topic.

I just brought your book on Amazon. I can’t wait to get it, but I don’t want to rush my summer.

I hope to get it signed when you come to New Jersey.

Maybe sometime soon?

I started taking 500 mg magnesium a day about 2 months ago. Among its benefits: helps with heart rhythm, assists muscle function, and increases calcium absorption (bone density). So it kinda helps everything feel better!

For me, taking magnesium has virtually gotten rid of my PVCs (premature ventricular contractions)–I only get those when I’m really really tired and hungry; NO MORE MENSTRUAL CRAMPS–zilch, zero, nada. Not so interesting for you, but ladies with cramps should take note!

I guess I have not addressed this because unless folks are on Lithium or suffer from hyperparathyroid it’s not much of an issue, especially when considering the benefits of adequate Vit D.

Roelant

My wife, a cardiac nurse, makes disapproving, Marge Simpson-like sounds when it comes to VD supplementation, citing concerns about increased risk of calcification in the hearteries and inability to excrete super-optimal amounts.

No-one seems to be addressing this but I’m very much down with the suggestion to get out in the sun. Maybe this is another rule of thumb: If your paleo comes in pills something’s amiss.

I’d just like to mention that WAPF is nor really recommending Carlsons CLO, but rather raw, unrefined and fermented cod liver oil(Blue Ice) which has all the vitamins intact, which means better VA to VD being that most of VD is lost in regular processing. Also during the fermentation the vitamin content increases as in the case of VK.

I’d really like to know your take on the Blue Ice CLO. My family and I had great results with it which surmounted any benefits we got from regular fish oils that we were taking for few years before that.

http://ask.metafilter.com/155273/help-me-get-my-fat-cat-slim#2226472

Thanks for the write-up. One question – you’ve mentioned on the podcasts and in writing about Mg supplements. I haven’t found or missed the area where you talked about the specific reasons for Mg supplementation.

Can you go into that? I have been taking 400mg/day Mg citrate for a couple of months and feel better. It’s tough to put a finger on specifically why I feel better, just better. (in addition to 4000iu VD, 6-7g EPA/DHA, 750mg glucosamine/750mg chondroitin per day).

it seems like the people getting the best results in terms of health optmiziation/disease prevention/symptom mitigation, performance enhancement and body comp changes, are ‘experts at the basics’. kind of like the best world class elite athletes, the best results come from consistently executing the basic (i.e. rookie/beginner stuff)/fundamentals at a higher level of excellence. take home i get from you? get really damn good at the simple stuff. i preach the same message when people come to me for advice, become an all star rookie then worry about some of this other stuff. an analogy i’ve had success with? worrying so much about these supplemental details is like trying to dust the coffee table when the house is in fire. first things first right?

Btw, Dr. Mike Eades has recommended on his blog to get omega-3 from krill oil to avoid many of the contaminants in fish oils. And I’ve read that they have a better DHA/EPA profile, closer to what our body uses. (I could be off on this, just dumping from a shoddy memory).

Love your podcasts, btw. I’m up to #28 on my daily commute.

Keep it up!

And thanks, Matt. I’m going to make sure never to use that other abbreviation again!

No (or few clothes) and an 1/2-1 hr in sun (depends on time of year, latitutde etc) and the body makes 10,000-20,000 IU’s of D. Primitive man spent a lot of time outside and did not wear much in the way of clothes. Modern man tends to spend a lot of time inside and wears clothes. This reduces surface area exposed and duration of exposure to UVB. Unless people are able to spend enough time outside, wearing little clothing, between about 10-4pm on a regular basis then the VD levels will not be optimal. (Note for other readers -avoid getting sunburnt if you choose to cautiously sunbath as there is definitely increased risk of skin cancer in “traumatised” skin, generally speaking cancers find traumatised tissues a good site to develop in especially if the trauma is severe, repeated or of low grade but long duration).

Also, in winter due to the angle of the sun most of the UVB is absorbed in the atmosphere and sunbathing will not generate much VD- supplements are the way to go here.

What I do is to take 2-3,000 units of vitamin D in spring, summer and autumn on days I do not get out into sun. I take the same amount most days in the winter as I know there is no way I am getting much VD at all even if I am out in the sun a lot on a given day. I also take fish oil and a little chelated magnesium.
OB
The other curiousity is that cod liver oils vary in composition, these days nearly all are “hot” processed and tend to have a lot more vitamin A relative to vitamin D. Prior to (I think) around 1960-1970 the cod liver oils were all cold processed with much higher vitamin D content (from memory the cold processed oil has 3-5 times as much VD per unit volume with vitamin A about the same). I think there is still one manufacturer using cold processing.

http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2009/6/22/fats-and-oils.html

Thanks for covering this.

I couldn’t agree more with you on the benefits of obtaining nutrients from food rather than supplements. Along those lines, CLO is really more of a nutrient-dense food than it is a “supplement”. When I think of supplements, I think of synthetic, isolated compounds.

Traditional cultures have a long history of using highly prized foods for special purposes. For example, many cultures had a “pre-conception” diet that women wanting to get pregnant would follow. It included especially nutrient-dense foods like salmon roe, and perhaps cod livers, that weren’t necessarily a normal part of the diet for everyone. I think it’s best to consider CLO in this vein: a food with medicinal properties.

As for the VA toxicity issue, I think the evidence is pretty clear that the 5:1 ratio of A:D in CLO is not problematic for people. In animal studies where A was shown to antagonize D, the ratios used were more like 5,000:1. Add to that the long history of safe use and anecdotal reports like Diane’s above, and I think it doesn’t make sense to tell people that CLO is a bad idea.

Finally, I personally believe 20g/d of fish oil is a really bad idea. As you well now, the historical intake of PUFA was about 4% of calories max. At 20g/d on a 2,000 calorie diet, that’s 9% of calories just from n-3 PUFA, without even considering n-6 (which for most people even on a paleo-type diet is at least 3%). So now we’re talking about 12% calories from PUFA.

The problem is that PUFA is highly unsaturated and thus highly vulnerable to oxidative damage. While there will be anti-inflammatory benefits to bumping up n-3, we could also expect a rather dramatic increase in oxidative stress.

Keep up the great work.

I’ve had longstanding problems with my dental health. Even though my teeth were cleaned by my hygienist every three months and I was brushing with a Sonicare, flossing daily, etc., I had inflamed gums, sensitive teeth, and new cavities with every set of x-rays. And yowza, those cleanings were painful!

Paleo made no difference in that… until I added cod liver oil and butter oil. (I buy them at https://www.building-health.com — I’ve got no financial relationship with them.) Within a few days, I noticed that my teeth were smooth almost all the time. Over the course of a few months, they built up a noticeable new mineral layer. Since then, my gum inflammation has completely disappeared, my cleanings are painless, and I’ve not had a single cavity.

Also, a few months ago, I was having problems with an area where I’d had gum surgery. (The gum receded before I began taking CLO & BO, so I had some tissue transplanted from the roof of my mouth. The whole thing was downright awful.) A few months after the surgery, the gum tissue was inflamed, and the tooth underneath it was horribly sensitive. I was worried that a huge problem was brewing, and that I might lose the tooth. So I rubbed a few drops of fermented CLO into it every day for a few weeks, and that made a HUGE difference in short order. That tooth and gum is now nearly perfect. (Bewarned! Fermented CLO is the most disgusting substance known to man.)

Oh, and I’ve given up my fancy toothbrush too. I still floss, but I brush with a regular toothbrush, mostly just with water but sometimes with baking soda.

I’d never take CLO as a source of Vitamin D or as a substitute for fish oil. (I supplement those separately.) But in small doses of 1-2 capsules per day, cod liver oil plus butter oil has worked wonders for me.