I was invited as the outside expert for a Clinical Pathology Conference for the Harvard Medical School and New England Journal of Medicine about a child presenting with seizures who had severe vitamin D deficiency rickets. I also edited a book on bone health in children entitled Perinatal Calcium and Phosphorus Metabolism and served on the editorial board for the Journal of Pediatrics. I have done and continue to do both basic and clinical genetics research and was the author for the chapter Genetics of Vitamin D Disorders for the textbook Genetic Diagnosis of Endocrine Disorders. I wrote the review on Vitamin D Deficiency for the New England Journal of Medicine1 and alerted health care professionals worldwide about the unrecognized vitamin D deficiency and rickets epidemic in the review Resurrection of Vitamin D Deficiency Rickets in the Journal of Clinical Investigation 2006.2
I have published over 600 manuscripts in well-respected peer-reviewed journals and more than 200 reviews and book chapters. There have been more than 150,000 citations for my work in the field of calcium, vitamin D and bone metabolism on Google scholar. I served as the Chair for the Endocrine Society’s Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee for Vitamin D that published recommendations for how to treat and prevent vitamin D deficiency in children and adults.3 I have been considered by Castle Connolly as one of America’s Top Doctors for the past 19 years. Thompson Reuters in 2014 considered me to be one of the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds, Clinical Medicine. In 2019 I was elected as a Fellow in the American Society for Clinical Nutrition and was elected into the Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame. In 2019, the journal Current Opinion in Pediatrics invited be to write an up-to-date review on bone fragility for pediatricians. The review, Diagnosis and management of pediatric metabolic bone diseases associated with skeletal fragility was published in Current Opinion in Pediatrics 32;560-573: August 2020.4
Vitamin D Intoxication
Recently a patient presented at Boston Medical Center with vitamin D intoxication. We have identified that the patient was taking this product called ‘Bone Health’. Its states on the label that the product contains in each capsule 25 mg of vitamin D3. Users are instructed take two capsules a day. We analysed the capsule and found that it does contain 25 mg which is equivalent 1 million IUs vitamin D3. The company likely made a mistake of thinking that they were adding 25mcg (micrograms) which is 1000 IUs vitamin D3. This amount of vitamin D can cause severe vitamin D intoxication. I recommend that patients taking this product should stop taking it immediately.
Genomic or Non-Genomic? A Question about the Pleiotropic Roles of Vitamin D in Infammatory-Based Diseases
A recent large study reported that increasing vitamin D intake can reduce risk of autoimmune disorders including psoriasis. rheumatoid arthritis among other autoimmune disorders. This review provides an up to date review on the role of vitamin D on immune function and it’s anti-inflammatory activities.
‘Genomic or Non-Genomic? A Question about the Pleiotropic Roles of Vitamin D in InFammatory-Based Diseases’
Vitamin D Articles on Bottom Line Personal
100th anniversary of the discovery of vitamin D
Last year was the 100th anniversary of the discovery of vitamin D. I was given the opportunity to provide a historical record of its discovery and my personal experiences in identify the major circulating of vitamin D and active form of vitamin D when I was graduate student of the University of Wisconsin.
The One- Hundred-Year Anniversary of the Discovery of the Sunshine Vitamin, D3: Historical, Personal Experience and Evidence-Based Perspectives. Nutrients 2023, 15, 593. https:// doi.org/10.3390/nu15030593
Vitamin D Supplementation Linked to Fewer Suicide Attempts
Vitamin D Supplementation Linked to Fewer Suicide Attempts
This is a very large study of veterans evaluating vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 supplementation on suicide rates.
Those veterans who took vitamin D2 supplementation had a 48,8% reduced risk in suicide/self-harm and those on vitamin D3 supplementation had a 44,8% reduction in suicide attempt-self-harm risk.
For black veterans who took vitamin D2 supplementation they had a 57,9% reduction in suicide attempt and self harm risk compare to 46,3% lower risk for white veterans.
The same observation was made for black and white veterans for vitamin D3. 63,8% and 48,7% lower risk for black and white veterans respectively.
1 Holick, M.F. Vitamin D Deficiency. New Engl. J. Med. 2007. 357:266-81