Dr. Sears podcast with Carole Baggerly about Vitamin D (with transcript) - July 2019

Audio of Podcast

Dr. Sears Podcast 19 - All about Vitamin D with Guest Carole Baggerly

• "Carole Baggerly, founder of GrassrootsHealth.net, joins the show to teach us about the amazing head-to-toe health benefits of Vitamin D. She shares how research is showing that proper levels of Vitamin D can prevent an incredible amount of health crises such as breast cancer, colon cancer, diabetes, arthritis and many more. We also discuss blood tests for Vitamin D levels, its significance for breastfeeding and pregnant moms, the importance of quality "sun time," and the issues regarding sunscreen."

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Podcast Participants

Dr. Jim Sears - son - Pediatrician, author of a few books
Ms Haden Sears - daughter - one of 5,000 health coaches

Dr. William Sears - father - author of 40 books of children and pregancies
   also excellent "The Omega-3 Effect: Everything You Need to Know About the Supernutrient for Living Longer, Happier, and Healthier " 2010
   also "The Inflammation Solution: When Everything Works and Nothing Hurts" 2015

Carole Baggerly - Grassroots Health

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Carole Baggerly - interviews, etc

• Vitamin D Might Be Able to Slash Your Breast Cancer Risk by 90 Percent - Baggerly, Mercola: May 2013
• Vitamin D Webinar - cost of pre-term birth etc- Baggerly Nov 2013
• Vitamin D is being used to prevent premature births – Baggerly interview – Dec 2015 Vitamin D Councll
• Vitamin D improves health in many ways - Interview of Baggerly by Mercola - Aug 2018

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More about the Sears Family

Ask Dr. Sears
Dr. Sears Wellness Institute Colorado
    has trained > 5,000 coaches?
      Top 100 Health Coach Blogs in 2019
Additional Sears family co-authors/authors on Amazon
Robert Sears - Vaccine book for children started in 2011 has been updated for COVID
Martha Sears RN

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Transcript

Formatting, hyperlinks and indented comments by Hanry Lahore, founder of VitaminDWiki
Note: comments by W Sears often show up as J Sears
[music] [vocalization]
0:00:22 Dr. Jim Sears: Alright, yes. Welcome into the Dr. Sears Family Podcast. I'm your host Dr. Jim Sears, alongside my sister, a certified health coach and mother of three, Hayden Sears.
0:00:32 Haden Sears: Hello.
0:00:33 J Sears: How are you doing there?
0:00:33 H Sears: Good. Hi everyone.
0:00:34 J Sears: Alright. And across the room... Oh, we're missing soundman Matt, our little brother.
0:00:38 H Sears: Oh, soundman Matt. [chuckle] He gets the day off.
0:00:40 J Sears: Where did he have to go?
0:00:42 H Sears: He said, "Oh, I have to go to San Diego," but he was vague, so... We'll have to bug him later.
0:00:45 J Sears: Anyways, yeah. So he essentially set up the... He said, "Hit the red button and... " So I'm gonna make sure it's going. Yes, it looks like it's going. So hey, we are here to celebrate the many joyful moments of parenting, and then hopefully help you through some of those moments that are a little less than joyful. [Laughter]
0:01:01 H Sears: Those never happen. Ever. Everything is happy all the time.
0:01:06 J Sears: Yeah, so we got some really fun topic today and some actually very special guest. A repeat, a returning guest on the show. The man who is responsible for all of this.
0:01:18 H Sears: Responsible... For our lives.
0:01:19 J Sears: Dr. William Sears, our dad. Hey, how you doing Dad?
0:01:24 H Sears: Hi, Daddy.
0:01:25 Dr. William Sears: Hi guys. I've been called many things, but responsible? I like that, thank you.
0:01:29 H Sears: Responsible for our lives. [laughter]
0:01:31 J Sears: Thank you.
0:01:32 J Sears: Right. And then, we are so pleased to have... Oh man, I don't have her last name. Baggley? That... No.
0:01:37 H Sears: Baggerly, Baggerly.
0:01:40 J Sears: Baggerly. Okay, Baggerly.
0:01:41 H Sears: We've just been calling her Carole.
0:01:42 J Sears: Yes. And then we have Carole Baggerly, who is the founder of Grassroots Health, which is a non-profit public health organization that focuses on moving research into practice. Which is pretty cool. 'Cause, right there, I just sound... As a pediatrician, we try to keep things really, really simple, and use small words like polka dots, and favorite color being yellow. So, welcome. Thank you Carole for joining us.
0:02:06 Carole Baggerly: Thank you for inviting me.
0:02:07 J Sears: And essentially I think what we're talking about today is Vitamin D, and just the massive importance of this. And this... Man. When I, I think when I finished medical school, if you would have asked me, "What's up with vitamin D?" I'm like, "Oh if you don't get it, you get Rickets." And that was it. That was literally the understanding that we had of vitamin D. And now 25 years later, we know that Vitamin D is massively important. As a matter of fact, I like to call it hormone D. It's a... [chuckle] 'Cause when you call something a vitamin, it's like ehh, it kind of plays it down. Okay take it and you...
0:02:45 H Sears: Yeah, it does.
0:02:46 J Sears: But, this is a hormone, it acts like a hormone. So thank you for joining us, Carole.
0:02:51 Baggerly: You're welcome.
0:02:52 J Sears: And I'm excited, because I think you've said we are gonna literally go head to toe. All the organ systems of the body that are massively important for vitamin D.
0:03:03 H Sears: Yes. And as a mom, we're gonna get into some really super practical things, like how vitamin D is related to the sun. And then, since it's summertime, we're gonna talk about sunscreen. 'Cause I, as a health coach and as a mom, I get that question so much. What type do to use, what brand? What about all the chemicals? Do I need it, do I don't? Carole's gonna really talk to us about how to use sunscreen efficiently. So stay tuned, 'cause we're gonna get to that.
0:03:29 J Sears: Yeah, but first... Although, let's, before we do comments with Hayden, let's have Dr. Bill tell us how he met Carole.
0:03:39 H Sears: Yeah.
0:03:39 J Sears: Well, thank you Jim and Hayden. About a month ago, very close friend, Terry Leron, at our house, a guest at our house from France, Terry's from France, says, "There's a person you must meet. One of the country's experts in vitamin D." And as soon as he said vitamin D, I'm like, "I need to know more about that." So Carole Baggerly comes up to our home for dinner, and we start our vitamin D evening, I called it, with a little dose of sunshine outside. And then I served Carole the number one nutritional source of vitamin D, wild salmon. And I'm listening to Carole. Three hours later, my mind was, "Wow. She knows so much about vitamin D and practical things." The head-to-toe vitamin, we call it. And as Jim says, really the hormone. So Carole, I was most fascinated with your personal health recovery story, that got you so passionate in becoming an expert in Vitamin D. Could you share us that health story that got you started?
0:04:53 Baggerly: I always love sharing my health story, because it didn't just get me started. It maintains me every single day. In 2005... Actually, there are a lot of women that call themselves breast cancer survivors. I personally have always used the term "breast cancer treatment survivors." I had breast cancer in 2005, it was a very large tumor. I had a mastectomy. I had both chemo and radiation, which partly mid-treatment, I chose not to do any more because I found that the effects were so violent on my body, and there's something inbred that I'm a very peaceful person. And believe it or not, I just quit. And one time, on one of those with the chemo, when I chose to stop taking it, because the neuropathy in my legs was getting so bad, the doctor walked out of the room, period, that was the last time I saw him. So at the end of the various sessions... My background is scientist, and creator of new and engineered things, and I said, "There's gotta be a better way. There has got to be a better way." I'm blessed with a son who has spent many years at MD Anderson Cancer Center, so I had a different kind of resource there. And one time I told him, "There's gotta be a better way." And his response was, "Mom, we're doing the best we can." My response was, "It's not good enough."
0:06:33 Baggerly: And so for two years after the 2005 incident, I really did nothing. Well, I guess I ate and slept but... [chuckle] But study cancer. What causes it? How do you deal with it, so forth and so on. And almost by accident on February the 13th, 2007, I remember the day, and I will always remember it. I had a medical appointment for a standard physical and the doctor said, "Carole, it looks like you have kind of the beginning stages of osteomalacia." And I said, "Why? I work out. I do all these good healthy eating things, what's wrong?" And she says, "Well you might be vitamin D deficient." And I said, "What's that?" And so she gave me some pills and told me to go home. Okay. I went back to my computer to start working on cancer again. And I, to this day, I apologize to the vitamin D researchers and say it took me two hours before I keyed in vitamin D and cancer. What came up changed my life. There was a research paper which had just been published by Dr. Cedric Garland of UCSD, showing that you could prevent, prevent, you got that word?
0:07:53 H Sears: Mm-hmm.
0:07:53 J Sears: Mm-hmm.
0:07:53 J Sears: Prevent at least 50% of breast cancer with nothing more than vitamin D.
0:08:00 H Sears: Wow.
0:08:01 J Sears: Wow, 50%?
0:08:02 Baggerly: 50%.
0:08:03 J Sears: Wow.
0:08:03 Baggerly: And this was known back in 2007, okay? Remember, this is 12 years ago. So after I cried a little bit and shook a little bit, I also had the scientific hat which I put on and I said... I called a friend of mine at UCSD. I know a lot of people there, and I said, "Is this guy a flake? Really, this is too good to be true. Is this guy a flake?" And she said, this is 2007, "No, Carole. He's not a flake. He's probably the best known vitamin D and breast cancer researcher in the world. And he's very discouraged." I said, "Why is he discouraged?" He's been doing this research for 30 years. 30 years.
0:08:51 J Sears: Wow.
0:08:51 Baggerly: And he felt like nobody was listening. I said, "I'm listening." I really have to share with you, if I may, the next step that really got me into this.
0:09:01 J Sears: Please do, yes.
0:09:03 Baggerly: I looked online and saw that there was coming up, literally in barely a month, in March, a National Cancer Institute conference actually of researchers on vitamin D and cancer. And I said, "I've gotta go to that. Because they're gonna talk about it. I need to know more." And I tried to enroll and they chose to tell me at that point in time that I didn't qualify. I wasn't a doctor, I wasn't a researcher, blah, blah, blah. And then I met up, through a friend, another gentlemen Dr. Anthony Norman, at UC Riverside. And Dr. Norman, I learned later not then, was actually one of those grand-daddies that actually got the whole science of vitamin D going many years ago. I was invited by him to come visit him at his house. And I did, and I walked in the door. And a couple of minutes later he says, "Carole, would you like to sit down?" I had just walked in the door and started asking him questions. [laughter] But then I told him about I really wanted to go to this seminar, and but they had told me I couldn't. And he says, "Oh you can come. You can come as my guest." I said, "Fine." "Because I'm leading the seminar." So I meet the right people to start with.
0:10:20 Baggerly: At any rate it was that enormous point of view that you can only treat cancer, or do something with it after it occurs. And at that very meeting, I was blessed actually with the information that really changed my life because they presented all these papers. Many of them were very good, very, very good on cancer and what they were doing with mice and everything. And at the end the leader asked a sub-group of people, "Where do we go from here?" And I learned the famous, oft-repeated research word, which is, "We need to do more research." I stood up, shortly after. After my heart started... Out of my throat. And I said, "Where is your sense of urgency?" And this was addressed to the scientists in the room. It was rather silent after that. The meeting was actually over. And I was ready to go back home and do something else. All of a sudden there was a line of at least 50 of those scientists waiting to talk to me. And they had one question, "What can you do to help get the word out? What can you do to help?" And all of a sudden the mission got clear. [chuckle] And we took off.
0:11:45 J Sears: Well, that's great. Your website is grassrootshealth.net. Correct?
0:11:51 Baggerly: That is true.
0:11:52 J Sears: And I'm curious... I know everybody's waiting for comments. "We're waiting." But...
0:11:56 H Sears: I know that's the best part.
0:11:56 J Sears: We'll get to that in a second. I'm curious if... You alluded to the study that essentially saying that you can prevent half of... Was it breast cancer cases?
0:12:08 Baggerly: Yes. Yes.
0:12:08 J Sears: Is that the study, or... And 'cause I was gonna ask you, is that the study that kinda compared people with levels of under 20 versus levels over 40? Is that...
0:12:17 Baggerly: Over 60.
0:12:18 J Sears: Okay, it was over 60?
0:12:19 Baggerly: Actually, no. No, no, no. Dr. Garland's study was done before the 20 kind of thing. And I'm sorry I don't honestly recall his baseline thing there. And so he had done studies since then.
0:12:26 J Sears: Gotcha. Gotcha. 'Cause I had seen somewhere that it was essentially, if you're under 20 your risk of... I'm pretty sure it was cancer, was double versus if you're over, I thought it was 40, but which is still too low, but anyway. So...
0:12:41 Baggerly: We published a paper just last year with our cohort with all these beautiful people that have signed up for this project which demonstrated an 80%...
0:12:50 J Sears: Yes, wow.
0:12:51 Baggerly: 80% reduction in breast cancer comparing 20 to 60 nanograms per ml. And 60 is still safe, folks.
0:13:00 J Sears: And everybody listening...
0:13:02 J Sears: Right. And I read that, Carole. You sent that to us.
0:13:04 Baggerly: I did.
0:13:05 J Sears: And what was so impressive about our meeting with you is, we as a family, one of our mantras is, "Show me the science," because when we're talking about family health, they're too precious. Just to throw out a bunch of flaky stuff. Show me the science. And that's what you did. Show me the science. And that one paper you sent me, almost 80% reduction, prevention of breast cancer if your vitamin D level's over 60. I thought, "Wow." And what I was hearing from you too is so much emphasis is focused on treatment, and not enough on prevention. And if you can prevent most breast cancer by keeping your levels of Vitamin D up, I wanna hear more about that.
0:13:55 J Sears: Yeah, sure. I'm curious. Everybody listening right now, if you don't know what your vitamin D level is, you're flying blind, essentially. I'm curious, who in this room doesn't know what their latest vitamin D level is? [chuckle] I'm curious, do you? Have you been...
0:14:10 H Sears: I don't know the specific level, but I get it tested every other year, and it's... Yeah.
0:14:13 J Sears: Okay, gotcha. I was blown away that not long after I visited a dermatologist to have him take a look at all the sun damage of my skin, I'm a surfer, a sailor. I'm in the sun a lot. I figured, "I'm good with vitamin D," right? So I'm going to see the dermatologist to deal with sun damage to my skin. Yet about a week or two later, I go see my physician, my own personal physician for my annual blood work and everything. And I get my vitamin D level back, and I was blown away that it was 25.
0:14:47 H Sears: Wow.
0:14:49 J Sears: And I was like, "Okay, whoa." And that's where I kinda... I thought I was going along just fine. I get plenty of sun.
0:14:56 H Sears: And it's a simple blood test, right?
0:14:57 J Sears: Yeah.
0:14:57 H Sears: I think when any time you're gonna be getting blood anyway, just ask your doctor. Say, "I wanna keep an eye on my vitamin D," and they'll throw that in there.
    Note by VitaminDWiki – US Medicare only pays for a single Vitamin D blood test
0:15:05 J Sears: Absolutely. And Jim, I had the same. I was... Mine was 30. And I thought, "I'm in the sun all the time."
0:15:10 H Sears: You guys are in the sun all the time.
0:15:10 J Sears: I'm in the sun all the time.
0:15:11 J Sears: This guy literally writes his books in Speedos on the deck.
0:15:11 J Sears: I even have a bikini at home and I'm in the sun all the time.
0:15:17 H Sears: [laughter] Men call them Speedos, Dad.
0:15:18 J Sears: I eat salmon all the time and I'm 30.
0:15:20 J Sears: What did he call them? A bikini?
0:15:21 J Sears: A bikini. [chuckle]
0:15:21 J Sears: So there must be people who are not...
0:15:22 H Sears: Listeners, my dad has never worn a bikini.
0:15:24 J Sears: He does not wear a bikini, it is a Speedo. [chuckle]
0:15:25 H Sears: As a disclaimer, he does not wear a bikini. It's a Speedo, which I think we threw away last year. I think we stole it and threw it away.
0:15:29 J Sears: Right. We finally did.
0:15:30 J Sears: You threw away my Speedos.
0:15:31 H Sears: But it's true...
0:15:32 J Sears: Okay. Let's take a quick break and I wanna tackle comments because...
0:15:36 H Sears: [laughter] We've made such a big deal about it.
0:15:38 J Sears: Or we could always do it later, I don't know.
0:15:40 H Sears: Well, I'm just gonna do it now 'cause we're... Okay.
0:15:41 J Sears: Okay, wait. And then now it's time for comments with Hayden.
[music]
0:15:46 H Sears: Okay, we have a couple cool ones. This is from Justin512, "Love the podcast. It's funny and I learned a few things." Thanks Justin.
0:15:55 J Sears: Well, good.
0:15:55 H Sears: That's cool.
0:15:56 J Sears: That's exactly what we're going for. [laughter]
0:15:58 H Sears: Right? Sweet. We nailed it.
0:16:00 J Sears: We first... 'Cause if you don't make anybody laugh, I don't think you can make them learn. So that's a...
0:16:02 H Sears: Right. And that's probably why he learned a few things.
0:16:04 J Sears: Amen.
0:16:05 H Sears: And he's a man, so that's cool.
0:16:05 J Sears: Make them laugh and then make them learn, and then... What was his name? Jason?
0:16:08 H Sears: Justin.
0:16:09 J Sears: Justin. Justin. Justin, do you know your vitamin D level?
0:16:12 H Sears: Yeah. If so, comment below.
0:16:14 J Sears: Okay, so anyway...
0:16:14 H Sears: Okay. Then...
0:16:15 J Sears: Do you wanna comment?
0:16:17 Baggerly: One of the things that GrassrootsHealth started doing in 2009 was to offer kits that you can do in your own home. You don't have to go to your doctor's office.
0:16:28 J Sears: Oh, excellent. Okay.
0:16:29 Baggerly: And so for any of those of you who don't know your vitamin D level, you can log on and do that.
0:16:34 J Sears: I'm so glad you brought that... 'Cause that was actually one of the questions I wanna ask because I've asked... Every time I meet an expert, and I ask... One of the questions I ask them is, "Do you know of a reliable finger-prick method to test your vitamin D?" And most of the... Actually, all the experts have always said, "It's not as good as the full arm in the lab blood draw, which the moment I try to get a mom to take her three-year-old to the lab to stick a needle in the arm, versus a little finger prick that we do in the office easily...
0:17:04 Baggerly: We have tested those, so we know that they're good.
0:17:06 J Sears: Oh good, excellent. So we're gonna put a link to your particular test kit, and the parents can get and... So that's wonderful news. So, excellent. And feel free, Carole, if you jump in any time and I take... She...
0:17:21 Baggerly: Comments with... Yeah.
0:17:22 J Sears: While Hayden was reading the comment, Carole raises her hand. I'm like...
0:17:25 H Sears: 'Cause it's good.
0:17:27 J Sears: Okay, so...
0:17:27 H Sears: Okay, but we're in the middle of comments with Hayden and the music's still playing, [chuckle] which is fun. I love it.
0:17:30 J Sears: Which is fun. It goes like, doot-doot-doot-doot-doot-doot-doot-doot.
0:17:32 H Sears: It is. Okay, the last comment is from HappyTrina, which I love that, HappyTrina. Okay, she says, "Thanks so much for your podcast. I realized my son was listening more than I thought. He surprised me when we went to the store and asked to pick out the veggies. Just like Dr. Jim said. L-O-L. Love it. Thanks guys." Well, that's cool. So he must have listened to that podcast where we were talking about how to get your kids to eat more veggies. And one of them was, "Take your kids to the store and let them pick out the veggies." That's cool.
0:18:01 J Sears: Excellent.
0:18:01 H Sears: Yay. Glad we can help.
0:18:03 J Sears: Alright, cool. That's the comments, right?
0:18:04 H Sears: Yeah.
0:18:04 J Sears: So that was, comments with Hayden. Alright, good deal. So Carole, I'm on your website and I'm looking through... It said... I clicked the button that said tests or whatever it said, order tests or whatever, and I see all of the vitamin D tests, and the omega test, and all this great stuff that I'm so relieved... This is gonna really change my practice because I've... Like I said, I love to measure things. And every time I'm getting blood work on a child for an other reason, for whatever it is, anemia or whatever, I always throw in a vitamin D level. And over the last couple of years, literally, probably 95% of the levels I check are even higher, it's almost unheard of that I get a level that's adequate. All my kids are low, in the 20s.
0:18:56 H Sears: And we live in California, sunny California. [chuckle]
0:19:00 J Sears: You're in the 20s and the 30s, which are just too, too low.
0:19:02 Baggerly: The range that was agreed upon by a consensus of ((Need 40 to 60 ng of Vitamin D – 48 scientists call for action – 2015
S |48 vitamin D researchers)), which we also have on our site, is that your vitamin D level needs to be between 40 and 60 nanograms per ML. The standard medical practice right now, the lab comes back and if you're 30 or above, they say you're fine. And our recommendation is, "No, you're not."
0:19:26 J Sears: Yeah. [laughter]
0:19:27 H Sears: Yeah, 'cause the... It's 60% and that's when the breast cancer rate goes down. Right, 80% that's what we were talking about, if it's a 60%, so...
0:19:36 J Sears: So your doctor might have said, "Oh it's 35, you're good". You are in the...
0:19:40 Baggerly: Exactly, that's more likely than not.
0:19:43 J Sears: So the lowest level is 40. Maybe you shoot above 40.
0:19:45 Baggerly: The lowest level that our panel recommends covers an awful lot of conditions. It doesn't cover everything and that's another interesting little factoid out there, is different vitamin D levels like for rickets, that Jim mentioned earlier. Rickets can be prevented by having vitamin D level of 20 but that's not enough for cancer. It's not enough for heart conditions, it's not enough for pre-term birth so that's why you...
0:20:14 J Sears: Which is why I'm not seeing rickets in my... Oops. There. Sorry. I had my phone on the silent...
0:20:18 H Sears: Jim, [chuckle] Except for alarms.
0:20:19 J Sears: You know what other than... Carole, I learned I was... This was fascinating, I learned from you that night was that as we age, we absorb less vitamin D from the sun. So really, we need to eat more vitamin D the older we get. Why is that? Is that true?
0:20:39 Baggerly: It is true that you need more vitamin D intake other than the sun, probably, in our society as you age. Mostly, it's not very available in foods and that's the other thing somebody says, "What kind of food can I get to get enough vitamin D?" and my answer is, whale blubber. [Laughter]
0:21:00 J Sears: Yeah, that's fine.
0:21:00 Baggerly: The average person adult in the United States needs probably a minimum of 5000 international units a day and 8000 more likely. And if you look at what fish contains, the salmon or whatever, it might have 400 IU per serving. That's 20 servings a day, you're not gonna do it, you can't. So vitamin D has always come from the sun and we've come indoors. Flat out.
0:21:36 J Sears: For years now, especially for the kids, you gotta get the sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen and I think that we're finally seeing that okay, there's a consequence.
0:21:47 J Sears: There's a downside to that, yeah. Maybe we're not seeing as much skin cancer, maybe. I don't have those statistics but this is pretty significant. So when I look at a... It's like a mom might get one of these packets, which are great. I love the way they're put and you turn it over at the back. There's the picture of an iceberg and at the top, it's like this little part sticking out that says rickets. 'Cause that's what we've always thought for a long time, that Vitamin D is good for, but then underneath that, you have a list of probably 20 things. Probably the top 20 things I would not want to get, right? That is the list.
0:22:20 J Sears: Would you read some of those off?
0:22:22 J Sears: Yeah, allergies, asthma, autism, cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic pain, colds and flus, dental cavities, diabetes type 1, eczema, fetal growth impairment, gestational diabetes, growth development and learning problems, pre-eclampsia, prenatal infections and pre-term birth that's the list of things that are the lifetime impact of deficiency on a developing child. So what this says, if I'm reading it correctly, that if a child is deficient in vitamin D, these are the things that are gonna be impacted for their whole life. They have a higher rate of getting these things if they're deficient as a child. Am I reading that correctly?
0:23:07 Baggerly: Well, if they're ongoingly deficient. There are many conditions that can be affected in later life by getting your serum level up in your blood.
0:23:14 J Sears: I wanna add two more things to that, Hayden. Mental un-wellness. The incidence of depression goes way up as your vitamin D level is down and I just learned last week, Alzheimer's. The higher the incidence of Alzheimer's is among those who have the lowest Vitamin D levels, which makes sense, doesn't that makes sense? Because it's a hormone for the brain.
0:23:42 Baggerly: There's a very sad statistic that Alaska has the highest level of suicides in the nation, guess why.
0:23:49 J Sears: Wow, Alaska.
0:23:50 H Sears: Oh, interesting. The lack of the sun.
0:23:50 Baggerly: Yeah, think of where they are.
0:23:50 J Sears: Yeah.
0:23:52 Baggerly: And these suicides happen in the winter time when there's essentially no sun.
0:23:56 H Sears: And this is tragic because vitamin D is a very inexpensive vitamin, in my experience.
0:24:02 J Sears: Oh yeah, sure.
0:24:02 H Sears: And in fact, it's very inexpensive so...
0:24:05 J Sears: Yeah, and I actually brought my Vitamin D supplement. I'm gonna ask you, Carol about it. I don't know if you're... 'Cause I just went into the Sprouts and as a physician, I picked what I thought was good and I'm curious. I'm gonna ask you but so we're gonna take a quick break but before we do, I wanna tease a few things, the questions we're gonna hopefully talk about. I'm curious, your theories on why my levels are low despite being a very tan type of person, I'm curious how often people should be maybe test getting their vitamin D level tested, once a month, once a year, once every two years, every other... I'm curious and then some important information on breastfeed... For breastfeeding moms and just how vital...
0:24:48 H Sears: In pregnancy, yeah.
0:24:50 J Sears: And pregnancy that is and then I'm sure we'll think of much... Many, many, many, many more questions, so lets... We'll come back. Did you get those? [laughter] Cool. We'll come back and get into this, I'm excited 'cause this is pretty cool. Alright, we'll be right back.
[music] [vocalization]
0:26:42 J Sears: Alright we are back. That is so cute.
0:26:43 J Sears: Oh! I love him. He's like our little podcast mascot.
0:26:47 J Sears: I think he has a future in voice over, so... It's funny. Normally, I have Matt to keep us on track time wise, so I have to start the timer here. Boom. Okay, good, alright, Carol, hopefully, now we can go head to toe on all the organ systems and... But first, before we get into that, I'm curious, do you have a theory why... 'Cause I don't use enough sun screen and my levels were low. I've heard that if your liver is maybe busy dealing with... Because you eat too much McDonalds, and toxins and all that, that maybe it doesn't have enough extra left over, to process the vitamin D into how it needs to be. I'm curious if you have a take on that.
0:27:34 Baggerly: One of the reasons that... Well, first of all, if you do an analysis of lots of people who are taking 2000 international units a day, for example. The variation on what their results in blood or serum level is, it varies by a factor of six. Somebody might be a 20, somebody might be at 120 with exactly the same intake why and that's why intake is not the relevant measure. If you think about your own body, at this point in time, there are many things that affect one's vitamin D level other than just intake or exposure to the sun. We are finding out at GrassrootsHealth is, that if you have a high enough omega-3 index level, it affects your vitamin D level.
    Low Omega and Low Magnesium are among the 40 reasons to have low Vitamin D
0:28:23 J Sears: Interesting effect.
0:28:24 J Sears: Positively?
0:28:25 Baggerly: Positively, yes.
0:28:26 J Sears: And that makes sense, because mine was in the middle zone, it wasn't the bad zone, but it wasn't the great zone, it was the middle zone.
0:28:32 Baggerly: That matters. And then a similar kind of statement for magnesium. Magnesium is probably the second most efficient mineral as it were, compared to vitamin D as a different kind of thing. And we're now starting a magnesium project. But if you really kinda read kind of low on the magnesium intake, it affects your vitamin D level. And one of the exciting things that we're able to show, with our research and all of our beautiful participants is the interaction of all these nutrients. You cannot look at one. You have to look at the whole picture.
0:29:08 H Sears: Yeah, I like that a lot.
0:29:09 J Sears: Yeah, if we could just learn that over and over and over.
0:29:12 J Sears: Well, that's what mom said, put a lot of color on your plate.
0:29:15 H Sears: There you go.
0:29:15 J Sears: That nutritional principle of synergy. We all work together as a team.
0:29:20 Baggerly: Exactly.
0:29:20 J Sears: And it reminds me of the story I tell in my lectures that 500 years ago, we knew that citrus prevented scurvy yet vitamin C wasn't discovered till about 100 years ago. So for 400 years, we knew there was something good about Mother Nature and fruit, of citrus fruit and...
0:29:40 H Sears: Well, we didn't have McDonald's and all the convenience 500 years ago.
0:29:43 J Sears: So I'm curious. So I was 25. I'm guessing, you probably test your levels pretty darn frequently just 'cause you probably have them sitting around your office and... But for everybody out there listening, how often do you think they should have their levels checked?
0:30:01 Baggerly: You need to do what we call a baseline test, like your very first test and see where it is and then very likely adjust or do some kind of supplementation. We have a calculator on our site that says if you... Alright, this level it takes what your current level is in your weight and what you want to be. So if you key in anything, it'll tell you an estimate of what you ought to try to get to that level.
0:30:29 J Sears: Okay, good.
0:30:30 Baggerly: Then you should test again after about three months.
0:30:33 J Sears: Okay.
0:30:34 Baggerly: Because it takes about three months for your vitamin D level in your body to stabilize. And then…
    For some people it takes Respond to daily Vitamin D in 2-12 months 3 to 12 months to stabilize
0:30:41 H Sears: I really like that real quick, Jim will you give that website again? 'Cause now people are like, "Ooh! I wanna to go to their website." Yeah.
0:30:46 J Sears: Now, they're probably gonna be 'cause they could go do this calculation. Actually, I'm trying to find them. GrassrootsHealth.net.
0:30:50 Baggerly: Right. Okay...
0:30:52 J Sears: Okay, so go ahead.
0:30:53 Baggerly: And the calculator's on the home page. So it's down there.
0:30:54 J Sears: Okay, cool. Oh, let me hit the home page.
0:30:57 J Sears: The three steps were, you calculate the baseline level.
0:31:01 Baggerly: Well, you test first.
0:31:02 J Sears: You measure your base level, yeah.
0:31:03 J Sears: You measure first, and then you go on your website to calculate how much you need to take to get to the level you wanna reach and then you give it three months and re-test. Those are the three steps?
0:31:13 Baggerly: Yes. That's it, but we're not through.
0:31:15 H Sears: Okay.
0:31:15 Baggerly: The probability is you're gonna be pretty close, but maybe not. Maybe your body is one of those really low responders. So then adjust your level, again and then test again, in another three months. And almost everybody seems to be able to get their levels where they want in that time of period. And then it's really up to you and how interested you are. At a minimum, you should test once a year. And that once a year, ideal time is late March, early April, after a winter, where you would have been inside or whatever. And it will probably be at the lowest it will ever be. It's kind of that time period, so if you do it once a year, do it then. And then you can adjust and whatever. But we have lots of people that test at least twice a year.
0:32:06 J Sears: Oh yeah. I think I'll be one of those people 'cause I just did my calculation. It was easy. I put my weight in there, I put my level of 25. I put a desired level of 60.
0:32:18 Baggerly: And what did you get?
0:32:18 J Sears: I should be taking 9000 IUs a day.
0:32:22 Baggerly: There you go.
0:32:22 J Sears: Which is a lot, that's about... I'm only take... This supplement, the one I grabbed off of at Sprouts is 5000. I figured, "Hey 5000's good." I'm taking that most days. You've missed days, and I think, I bet yah, I'm taking it four times a week, which obviously, probably, not nearly enough. So, the interesting to see... I'll test my levels.
0:32:43 H Sears: Yeah, let's do it and then...
0:32:44 J Sears: And see where it's at.
0:32:45 H Sears: In three months, we'll talk about it.
0:32:46 J Sears: So Carol, you're sitting next to two doctors who are vitamin D deficient.
[chuckle]
[overlapping conversation]
0:32:53 Baggerly: I am so glad to have met you. [chuckle]
0:32:53 J Sears: We are two sun worshipping, sunburned doctors with low vitamin D.
0:32:57 J Sears: Yeah, sunburned doctors. Yeah, and you know it's funny, because I wanna protect my... I'm out in the sun all time, and one more trick I learned, and I'd like your comment on, is if you apply coconut oil to your skin you can protect a bit against sun damage, but still not screen out the vitamin D from sunshine like the SPF of 30 or 50 would do. What do you think about coconut oil on skin?
    Coconut oil SPF is ~4
0:33:25 Baggerly: I don't have an educated opinion on coconut oil at this point in time. So...
0:33:30 J Sears: Well yeah, I love coconut oil.
0:33:32 Baggerly: But would we like to talk about sun screen?
0:33:33 H Sears: Yeah, let's do that. Let's pause and do that.
0:33:34 J Sears: Yes, let's go to sunscreen, yeah.
0:33:36 Baggerly: Anyway, this is a good lead into that.
0:33:37 H Sears: Yeah, let's do that.
0:33:39 Baggerly: There was recently a paper published just a few months ago, actually saying that actually sunscreen... Most sun screens are harmful, because of the chemicals they have in them, and...
0:33:52 J Sears: If they're bad for a coral reef... [Laughter]
0:33:54 H Sears: Seriously. Like microorganisms.
0:33:57 J Sears: How can it possibly be good to put on your skin. In a coral reef, it's microscopic, 'cause it's peeling off your skin into the water being deluded, and it still kills the coral reef. What is it doing to your baby's skin being absorbed?
0:34:12 Baggerly: And one of the surprises to some people, I don't... In one sense know why, it was a surprise, but they said, "Oh my gosh, that sun screen gets absorbed into your skin." Well, so does everything else you put on your skin. But anyway, there are really only two chemicals in a sun screen that you should look for that are truly safe. One is zinc oxide and the other is titanium dioxide.
    Overview Suntan, melanoma and vitamin D
0:34:38 J Sears: Yes, yes!
0:34:39 Baggerly: Okay, that's it.
0:34:40 J Sears: That's what I say. I'm so glad I got it right. [chuckle]
0:34:42 Baggerly: Alright.
0:34:42 J Sears: Yes, so all those other things like Avobenzone and...
0:34:45 Baggerly: Bad, bad, bad.
0:34:46 J Sears: Things with much longer lines.
0:34:47 Baggerly: Don't do this.
0:34:48 J Sears: Yeah.
0:34:48 Baggerly: Now, the real issue with sun screen though, is mostly, I would consider it like moms, especially, with their children. But even on their own bodies, they don't apply enough. People don't realize it takes a real slathering to get that out there. And then the other part of the not working is that people, "Oh, I've got sun screen on, I'm gonna stay here three hours". And low and behold, they got a burn.
0:35:17 J Sears: Yeah, right.
0:35:18 Baggerly: The real message with the sun from my standpoint is not sun screen, it's just don't burn. Get out in the sun as much as you can and don't burn, and when you start to get that kind of beginning pinky tinge, cover up with your children or even yourself wearing a cap or something, a big floppy cap to keep your face protected. That's a very sensitive point, but the body will actually be protected from even the basal cell and squamous cell cancers that occur if you have a tan. So a tan is protective. Alright? And the other thing that people have, in my mind erroneously come to some association with is melanoma, which is a deadly form of cancer.
0:36:08 J Sears: Sure.
0:36:09 Baggerly: There is zero evidence that says that comes from the sun.
    Overview Suntan, melanoma and vitamin D
0:36:14 H Sears: Really?
0:36:14 Baggerly: Really. And I can provide anybody documentation on that.
0:36:18 J Sears: I think my dad is living proof of that. [laughter]
0:36:20 H Sears: Yeah, seriously. If you ever wanna know where my dad is, he's outside.
0:36:30 J Sears: He's in the sun. In his Speedos in the sun, literally. [laughter]
0:36:30 Baggerly: There you go.
0:36:30 H Sears: We're gonna get so many comments about that.
0:36:30 J Sears: And this is not just like in his older years. I remember fifth... When I was a tiny kid, he was out in the sun all day long.
0:36:37 H Sears: And dad, have you ever had any sort of skin cancer or anything?
0:36:41 W Sears: No, never have. The only effect I have is we have a family trait, although in the males. The males in their 90's have a full head of hair. Well, I never wore a hat. So I would put a qualification on that Jim. If I had to do it all over again I would have worn a hat and maybe protected a little bit of my hair that I lost.
0:37:03 H Sears: Dad's that Hat Police. Whenever we go outside or our kids goes, he's like "Put on a hat. Put on a hat." [Laughter]
0:37:07 J Sears: Put on a hat.
0:37:08 J Sears: Luckily, mom loves you even without the nice full head of hair.
[chuckle]
0:37:11 H Sears: Yeah, that's true.
0:37:13 J Sears: Men have gray hair, but ladies have silver hair.
0:37:18 Baggerly: I have white.
0:37:20 H Sears: As a mom, I just have a couple of comments about the sun screen, because it's... We're programmed from such an early time as the moms to really be scared of the sun.
0:37:30 Baggerly: I know.
0:37:30 J Sears: Yes.
0:37:30 H Sears: And it actually brings a lot of anxiety, and sometimes when my kids wanna go outside or to the beach, I'm like, "I just don't wanna deal with it." [chuckle] Like I don't wanna deal with the sunscreen battle, the hassle. And sometimes we choose to not go outside because we don't wanna do sunscreen, which is ridiculous.
0:37:46 J Sears: Yeah, and I know my wife, she often doesn't wanna go in the sun 'cause she doesn't wanna get the crow's feet.
0:37:51 H Sears: The wrinkles, yeah. And so the other programming that women, we see it in men too is sun damage with wrinkles and spots and stuff like that. And so, I think that the message has been perpetuated that there is this fear of the sun, and so sunscreen is the answer. And it's not just in sunscreen, I was looking at my beauty products, my face moisturizer, my foundation, it all has sunscreen in it. So, this is really interesting.
0:38:16 Baggerly: Please take a look at our website under our videos. We had a session in 2014, and it was recorded. You'll see videos on UCSD's website. But the whole seminar, it was a full day of scientists talking about the sun and public health. We have reached a point certainly in the United States where the message about staying out of the sun is hurting people. It is really hurting people.
0:38:46 J Sears: Yes.
0:38:48 Baggerly: And we need to get past this fear. And again, the message is don't burn. Please keep that in mind. If your kids wanna go outside, let them go, really, they're okay.
0:38:57 H Sears: And, it's a big thing now with having those sun protect... Like those sun shirts.
0:39:01 J Sears: Yeah, the big rash guards or the full sun suits.
0:39:03 H Sears: Yeah, the sun shirts are really popular now and that's great. So, I work with a lot of moms, who have sensory sensitive children and so sunscreen, and I have one, has always been a problem, always. And so the sun shirts, the hats is a really great answer to that. And then the other thing is the spray sunscreen now is a huge thing.
0:39:22 J Sears: Oh, man.
0:39:23 J Sears: I hate that. I hate that.
0:39:24 J Sears: I hate when somebody at the beach next to me is spraying it and, now I'm breathing it in.
0:39:27 H Sears: Yeah, and you're breathing it.
0:39:27 J Sears: Oh, I hate that.
0:39:27 H Sears: And now I'm breathing it in. It's like I'm breathing in hair spray. It's awful, however, I've gotta tell you, and I'm a educated mom in all this. I will grab it because it's easy, it's simple, my kids can do it on them by themselves, and I don't get the hassle. So, it is... There's this draw, even though, deep down I know it's not good for them, it's like I'm choosing not to pick that battle in the moment but...
0:39:52 J Sears: And Hayden, I wanna yell when I'm in the pool and they're spraying it and I'm smelling it. I just wanna yell, "Stop spraying your children."
[chuckle]
0:40:00 J Sears: Yeah, right, exactly. Parents may wanna go... Oh, what were those two ingredients again? It's essentially zinc, or zinc oxide or titanium? [overlapping conversation]
0:40:09 J Sears: Now, those are the two, they're gonna turn you white or a little bit bluish and it's gonna be really hard to rub in, which is fine. Those are... That's it.
0:40:17 Baggerly: Yeah, but that's okay.
0:40:18 H Sears: I remember my daughter, she's now 16. She now gives me crap for all these really super healthy things I did when she was little, which just feels amazing, right? 'Cause I tried so hard. But she remembers me getting the sunscreen and she's like, "Mom, it was like your peanut butter being spread on my body." [laughter]
0:40:35 H Sears: She's like, "I could have eaten it." And it's like, kids are not... Most kids won't put up with that. She just was like... We tried it once and she was done. So, it's hard when you get those all natural sunscreens because kids really don't wanna put them on. And if I'm being honest, I don't wanna put them on either if it's gonna keep my face white. So I get why we reach for these alternatives, but I think it's important to keep in mind that maybe a hat, maybe not going outside in that really blistering hot of the day.
0:41:06 Baggerly: My eyes are going wild with this.
0:41:09 H Sears: [chuckle] Wild? Okay, go for it.
0:41:10 Baggerly: The time to get your vitamin D from the sun is between 10 and two which is exactly when people are told not to go out.
[overlapping conversation]
0:41:17 H Sears: Not to go in the sun, okay.
0:41:18 Baggerly: But the different rays of the sun that create the vitamin D versus the burning, the vitamin D is between 10 and two. After that, anything you do is much more liable to cause you problems or create burns.
0:41:33 H Sears: Really? Wait, so...
0:41:34 Baggerly: And, naturally... People who are indoor workers have more melanoma than outdoor workers. Another kind of thing here.
    Cancer - far less for outdoor workers
0:41:41 J Sears: Really? Say that again. Really? So the people that have gotten the worst kind of skin cancer tend to be inside people?
0:41:49 Baggerly: Be inside workers, right, right.
0:41:50 J Sears: Interesting.
0:41:50 H Sears: Yeah. So, of course, I'm conspiracy theorist person. [chuckle] No, I'm serious. I actually have heard quite a bit of people from more of the natural side of things say that the sunscreen industry is this huge industry and that's who's telling us these things.
0:42:05 J Sears: Yeah.
0:42:05 J Sears: Oh, for sure. If I was selling sunscreen I need to be saying the stuff. [chuckle]
0:42:10 H Sears: Same here.
0:42:10 J Sears: Sure. And Carole, I love your bottom line message to parents, you want your children to tan but not burn. Tan but not burn. Is that correct?
0:42:19 Baggerly: Yes. Tanning is good for you, actually.
0:42:21 J Sears: Yeah, sure.
0:42:22 Baggerly: It actually protects your skin.
0:42:24 J Sears: Yes.
0:42:24 J Sears: Excellent. So, should we move on from sunscreen?
0:42:26 Baggerly: Yeah. [laughter]
0:42:27 J Sears: One last point, often a parent will go, "Oh, my child is allergic to this particular sunscreen, 'cause they got a rash." What I see often happening is they go to the beach, they run around, they get hot and sweaty and then they put sunscreen on and the pores are wide open, and you put anything on a hot, sweaty skin, you're gonna probably get a bumpy rash. And, so I often say, "When you do sunscreen, put it on before you leave the house and just put on a little layer and then go for it." Okay, enough with sunscreen, right?
0:43:00 H Sears: [chuckle] Sunscreen, yeah.
0:43:01 J Sears: What are we gonna do next?
0:43:01 H Sears: So, do we wanna do the head-to-toe benefits of vitamin D or what... Yeah, go ahead.
0:43:05 Baggerly: Actually before we do that I have one other really, really, really big item I would like to mention...
0:43:09 J Sears: Okay.
0:43:09 H Sears: Yes, please.
0:43:10 Baggerly: Since so much of your group is in the pediatric kind of thing. The vitamin D, getting a preconception woman's vitamin D level up to this 40 to 60 level, alright, can literally prevent asthma from ever occurring in that child. They've demonstrated that in clinical trials, and it helps with so many things, but the pre-term birth part. We have done our own study on changing the standard of care in a major hospital. And literally all that was done, was testing every single pregnant woman that walked in the door for her vitamin D level and helping her adjust it to get to at least 40. It reduced pre-term birth by 40% to 60%.
    Preterm birth rate reduced by vitamin D – 78 percent if non-white, 39 percent if white – July 2017
0:44:00 J Sears: Wow.
0:44:02 H Sears: Wow.
0:44:02 J Sears: 40% to 60%?
0:44:02 Baggerly: 40 to 60, that's enormous. Now, the higher level was due to, for the most part, it's darker skinned people because they're already very low, but once they got to that higher serum level still the 40 to 60, this so-called racial disparity disappeared.
0:44:22 J Sears: Wow. Interesting.
0:44:22 Baggerly: Yeah, so make sure that...
0:44:26 H Sears: So the thing you first said, I just wanna make sure I understand it. If a pregnant mom had adequate levels of vitamin D, her child then for the rest of their life would never get asthma?
0:44:36 Baggerly: Well, we haven't tracked the whole life. Yeah, so I can't quite say that.
0:44:37 H Sears: Okay.
0:44:38 J Sears: Or at least a much lower rate.
0:44:39 H Sears: Much lower rate, okay. Okay, much lower.
0:44:41 Baggerly: Yes.
    Overview Asthma and Vitamin D
0:44:42 J Sears: Wow, so I... That means I need to call my daughter right now, she just got engaged. So, there'll probably be a wedding next summer and then kids, so.
0:44:51 Baggerly: Please, make sure she get's her vitamin D.
0:44:52 J Sears: And I bet you she has never had her vitamin D level checked.
0:44:55 Baggerly: Yeah, put that on there.
0:44:56 J Sears: I bet you that. I'll just text her right now.
0:44:57 H Sears: I know, we're all like...
0:44:58 Baggerly: I'm hoping that within your pediatric practice actually the focus on this for those women who might have another child can get up there and going. Okay, head-to-toe. Are you ready?
0:45:09 H Sears: Okay, yes. Let's do head-to-toe but just for time efficiency, 'cause I know we could talk for 10 hours. We'll have to be brief on each part and then... And brief on each part and then if there's something specific, we'll go into detail.
0:45:22 Baggerly: First of all, vitamin D is in every cell in your body. Every cell. So, there's nothing it doesn't affect. Alright, so that's kind of an important perspective.
   History of Vitamin D from 500 million years ago to orthopaedic practice today – 2019
0:45:30 J Sears: Gotcha.
0:45:33 Baggerly: Head to Toe, you've already heard it mentioned. The Alzheimer's and cognitive decline are all associated with low vitamin D levels as is Parkinson's. We don't have enough information on that yet to be very conclusive about it. But Alzheimer's, yes, I've actually seen the lab studies and seen the things. The whole upper respiratory system, major impact, that's where a lot of the immune system stuff happens. And there have been lots of studies there, having a higher vitamin D level will actually prevent more cases of the flu, than any flu shot will.
    Overview Alzheimer's-Cognition and Vitamin D
0:46:17 J Sears: Really? Will you say that again?
0:46:19 Baggerly: Having a higher vitamin D level of at least 40 nanograms per ml will prevent more cases of the flu than any known flu shot.
   7X less risk of influenza if Vitamin D levels higher than 30 ng
    Flu category in VitaminDWiki
0:46:28 J Sears: Wow, with zero negative side effects?
0:46:32 Baggerly: To the best of our knowledge.
0:46:32 J Sears: There you go, there you go, yeah.
0:46:33 Baggerly: So we actively encourage people in flu season to do that. We've talked a little bit...
0:46:40 H Sears: Real quick though, flu season comes what, October? And I heard you say that three-month thing. So we wanna be... Which is interesting, yeah, we wanna be taking... Making sure our vitamin D levels are adequate before the flu.
0:46:53 Baggerly: Oh, we've got problems all year we can talk about. I just wanted to tell you about this.
0:46:56 H Sears: No, but you know what? This is a big deal right now, that flu shot and you'll hear of people wanting alternatives because we sometimes get... There's this fear mentality, about not getting the flu shot. So, moms are then asking, "Okay, if we're not gonna do the flu shot, what can we do?”
0:47:12 Baggerly: Get your Vitamin D level up.
0:47:13 H Sears: Yes, and start that way before the flu season comes. So and colds too, I saw colds and flus.
0:47:18 Baggerly: Yes. The other possibility is also you can take large doses of vitamin D to pump it up a little bit faster, alright? So if somebody reaches a point, and they're kind of low and flu season's coming, they can take 10,000 IU a day for a few days, so it's not bad to do that.
    VitaminDWiki recommends 50,000 IU daily for a week
0:47:39 J Sears: This popped in my mind, what about some of the supplements that are say 50,000 then you take it once a week. Are you a fan of those or would you prefer...
0:47:47 Baggerly: I'm not and I'll tell you why, and we had talked very briefly before about kind of top to bottom here. Let's talk about breastfeeding a minute, alright?
0:47:55 J Sears: Okay, yeah.
0:47:57 Baggerly: They actually clinical trial-wise, the documented amount of vitamin D that the average mom needed to have her breast milk replete, a mom needed to be taking 6400 IU a day, alright? So they really need to get it up there. And at that point, you can say, you don't need to give your baby vitamin D, but the reason that the societies continue to recommend it is because mom isn't taking care of herself, alright? But the other point with giving it to the baby is they're not all consistent with that. So again, if you make yourself replete. But it was 6400 IU a day for a breastfeeding mom, so...
0:48:37 J Sears: Wow, wow.
0:48:40 H Sears: Okay.
0:48:41 J Sears: So if mom doesn't have enough, she's not giving it to the baby and baby is not getting it anywhere?
0:48:48 Baggerly: Exactly, and that's where I wanna come back to the daily versus weekly dose. With the baby and with the type of vitamin D that's going across in the breast milk, it takes daily dosing, okay?
    Vitamin D once every two weeks is OK, daily is nice but not required – Aug 2014
0:49:03 H Sears: Oh okay. Yeah.
0:49:04 Baggerly: Because they're not getting the 25 OHD, they're really getting D3 which is almost like taking a pill. There are so many things we don't yet know about vitamin D, okay? How many other systems need it daily, that we just don't know about. So I find it personally very easy. Believe it or not, my vitamin D gets taken every morning as I'm doing my... Brushing my teeth, just associate it with a routine.
0:49:33 J Sears: Should you take it with a fatty meal or on a empty stomach, what would you recommend here?
0:49:38 J Sears: Just probably, just take it, as long as you take it. [laughter]
0:49:41 J Sears: Just take it.
0:49:42 H Sears: Well no, some vitamins don't process well outside of fat. So is this one of those vitamins you wanna take with food?
0:49:47 Baggerly: It is processed better if you take it with fatty something, but again, then you're constraining when you can take it and it's more important to take it in one sense to us than it is to do that, but yes, knowing that it absorbs better with a fatty meal is always good.
0:50:05 H Sears: I wanna circle back around to something you had said concerning colds and flus, 'cause I mean all the stuff is concerning. But the cold and flus are so in the moment, practical, nobody wants those. And I was talking to a naturopath a while ago and she said, "When you get that first tingle of something you know something's coming, you can take around 25,000 a day, even up to 50,000 a day for a few days." And is that…
   Influenza prevented by 40 ng levels or treated with vitamin D hammer (50,000 IU) – June 2015
0:50:30 Baggerly: Yes, that's true. That's fine, that's fine.
0:50:30 H Sears: That's accurate? Is that for an adult and child?
0:50:32 Baggerly: Probably not for a child, I think I would stick to the 10,000.
0:50:35 H Sears: The 10,000? And for about how many days?
0:50:37 Baggerly: Five.
0:50:38 H Sears: Five days, okay.
0:50:39 Baggerly: Yeah.
0:50:40 H Sears: And then you wanna go back to your kind of baseline what you usually take?
0:50:41 Baggerly: Your lower that you...
0:50:42 H Sears: Okay. I like that a lot. And for moms out there, I have these gels that are tiny. I mean, probably a two-year-old could swallow them, they're really tiny. It's like...
0:50:50 J Sears: Yeah, the size of a Tic Tac, maybe even.
0:50:52 H Sears: Yeah, and it's like 5,000. So if they take two of those a day when they're starting to get that cold or flu, it's kind of easy. And drops, there's drops you can just put in their orange juice or... They won't even know.
0:51:01 J Sears: Hey, since we're on the subject, can I...
0:51:03 H Sears: Yeah.
0:51:03 J Sears: Carole, can I get your opinion on Mind. [chuckle] Essentially, it's a pretty name brand, it's got 5,000 D3 with K2. Is that... Did I pick a good one?
0:51:14 Baggerly: Yes and no.
0:51:15 J Sears: Okay.
0:51:16 Baggerly: Okay. The good part is, it's D3. So you need to make sure of that. The "no" that I would put in here is that it also has vitamin K, calcium and phosphorus. Because people's Vitamin D intakes vary so much, we always recommend you get something with only vitamin D in it. And then you can adjust all those other intakes however you need to. Whereas if you said, "No, I need two of these." Well, you need twice as much of this other one.
0:51:44 J Sears: Well then you're taking... You're saying you're taking extra of the phosphorus and you may not need that?
0:51:47 Baggerly: Right, exactly.
0:51:48 J Sears: So I should not even get the K2 then?
0:51:50 Baggerly: You can get K2 in a separate bottle.
0:51:52 J Sears: Okay, gotcha. So I should be doing it...
0:51:53 Baggerly: That's really my point.
0:51:54 J Sears: I see.
0:51:55 H Sears: 'Cause you don't wanna mass dose K2.
0:51:56 Baggerly: Exactly, exactly.
    Founder of VitaminDWiki disagrees. Vitamin K dosing should gincrease with Vit D
0:51:57 J Sears: Oh, okay, gotcha.
0:51:58 Baggerly: It's a little bit bottle clumsy. But we think it's better, because we don't know how you're gonna do it.
0:52:02 J Sears: Well, yeah. And I need to get this right, because even my levels a year ago were 25 and I was using your calculator to guess what my levels probably are based on... And I'm guessing I'm averaging about 2,000 a day, 'cause I miss days and I bet you because... Your calculator says I should be at about a 35, right now, which is still not enough. So I gotta bump this up and then...
0:52:25 H Sears: So optimally, if you wanna be just optimal health, what would you want to see your level be at? If you're like, "Yes," you're nailing it, you're so protected. What would that level look like?
0:52:37 Baggerly: The 40 to 60 gets most people in that healthy range, but I personally, my level is slightly above 60, because I've been now umpteen years, since 2005, I have not had a recurrence of breast cancer. I'm very healthy, and I'm close to 80 years old. So I think that matters a great deal.
0:52:58 H Sears: And so for our listeners, and for us personally, the whole breast area, with breastfeeding, breast cancer, is like that's probably at the top of our list. So my kids, their grandma on their paternal side, she had breast cancer when she was 15 and again when she was 22, so that indicates a very hereditary type of breast cancer. So breast cancer prevention has always been on my radar since the beginning. And every few weeks I hear of a new... Somebody close to me, their parents or their somebody, gets breast cancer. So I imagine a lot of our listeners out there may be even crying, pulling their hair out. This is so simple. My mom didn't have to pass, or my friend didn't have to struggle so much, or my... All these things that we're seeing in our society because of breast cancer, and it's maybe as simple as a tiny, little pill every day, a little soft gel.
    Founder of VitaminDWiki – No, a softgell is often poor. 50,000 every 2 weeks is much better
0:53:52 Baggerly: The 80% reduction I was referring to earlier was the standard breast cancer. And that's a lot, that's almost all breast cancers, it's about 80% of all breast cancers, that standard kind of breast cancer. There are some other highly invasive or inflammatory cancers which need special treatment and vitamin D doesn't do its thing with them in prevention. But, my gosh people, if we can prevent 80%, that's huge, enormous.
0:54:21 J Sears: Oh man, right.
0:54:23 H Sears: And the cost of preventing it is so and it's tiny, and it's tiny.
0:54:30 J Sears: Yes. And Carole, your message and your mission is so timely because I think we are in the age of, "What can I do to prevent?"
0:54:38 Baggerly: Exactly.
0:54:39 J Sears: "What are my take-home skills, not just the pills I can take by prescription but Doctor, what can I do to prevent it?" And that's why your message is so timely.
0:54:51 Baggerly: Thank you. We have been working at this for quite a while and I'm sure Dr. Garland and others will be happy to know it's finally timely.
[chuckle]
0:55:00 Baggerly: It's timely in lots of ways. Financially, I mean the healthcare industry is extremely expensive. By vitamin D alone, it would save at least 35% of our entire medical costs in the nation.
0:55:12 J Sears: 35%?
0:55:13 Baggerly: 35% with nothing more than vitamin D.
0:55:16 H Sears: Well, that sounds alarming but it's really not because if you look at all those things we mentioned towards the beginning, all the things that decrease the likelihood, that decrease if your vitamin D levels are sufficient, everything on here is what that money goes towards. Even type diabetes and all those is huge.
[overlapping conversation]
0:55:35 J Sears: Right, yep. That was a big one, diabetes.
   Overview Diabetes and vitamin D there are >400 studies
0:55:35 Baggerly: Oh, I wanna talk about that one too. [laughter]
0:55:36 H Sears: Yeah. We do, we need... Let's talk about that one.
0:55:38 J Sears: What I was reading, diabetes came at probably the top of the list and it's the type 2 diabetes, the most preventable type.
0:55:45 Baggerly: Oh, that's easy, yeah.
0:55:46 J Sears: And I thought, "Vitamin D preventing type 2 diabetes? Wow."
0:55:51 H Sears: And with Type 2 diabetes, the cost to our nation is astronomical.
0:55:56 J Sears: It is, yeah.
0:55:58 Baggerly: The assumption has been made, though, and I really want to clarify this, that type 1 diabetes is not preventable, and the assertion is wrong. And there is a chart which you can see on our website and it shows the occurrence of type 1 diabetes at different parts in the nation... Excuse me, in different places in the world, and it's really close to zero occurrence at the equator, which is associated with higher D levels. And we are in the middle of running a very large and exciting project right now with helping stop the progression of type 1 diabetes, as well as preventing it with a very, very large group of people. So that's...
0:56:45 J Sears: Gotcha. Which is why I'm going to move to Hawaii. See you guys later! [Laughter]
0:56:50 H Sears: Bye. [laughter]
0:56:51 H Sears: Jim out.
0:56:51 J Sears: Jim here. Aloha, everybody. [laughter]
0:56:54 Baggerly: There is another... Going down the body just a little bit, colon cancer.
0:56:58 H Sears: Oh, yes. And that's.
0:57:00 Baggerly: It's close to 100% preventable by vitamin D, that's been demonstrated. Prostate cancer, big impact, at least 60% of it, men who had some evidence of prostate cancer agreed to watch and wait, and about 60% of them didn't have lesions anymore after about six months with doing no more than vitamin D.
0:57:22 H Sears: That's huge because on our family, the Sears family, we have colon cancer on both sides of our family, and my dad's a colon cancer survivor. I'm actually supposed to get my colonoscopy done last year when I turned 40.
0:57:34 J Sears: I was supposed to have it yesterday and they called me to cancel and they wanted to do it today, and I'm like, "No, I'm doing this podcast." This will be my fourth one.
0:57:44 H Sears: And I really like that, Carole, that's really good to know 'cause colon cancer is... I already talked to my kids about prevention with breast cancer and colon cancer. So that's great.
    Overview Cancer-Colon and vitamin D
0:57:56 J Sears: Right there, that'd be enough for me, melanoma, colon cancer, diabetes, breast cancer. I'm sold. [overlapping conversation]
0:58:06 Baggerly: Let's talk about that a little.
0:58:07 J Sears: But wait, there's more!
0:58:09 Baggerly: Strokes. We had a presentation one time by a cardiologist, and he showed us the plaque that people get, unfortunately, for good or ill, and don't avoid by food and all that stuff. They get all this plaque in their arteries. What causes the stroke is the plaque shatters, or it comes apart, and a piece of it goes floating through your blood stream and gets up to your brain. Vitamin D actually makes the cap on that plaque soft, so it doesn't crack.
    Overview Stroke and vitamin D
0:58:44 J Sears: Gotcha.
0:58:44 Baggerly: So the probability of it coming apart and then going floating up to your brain is almost nonexistent.
0:58:52 H Sears: Oh, that's fascinating.
0:58:53 Baggerly: So there are other things that D does for your heart but that was a very, very big one. What other body part would you like to know? I can tell you... [Laughter]
0:59:05 H Sears: Gosh, What else is... Do you think will make us go, "Oh my gosh."
0:59:10 Baggerly: The very first thing, when we first started this project, my phone rang off the wall with people saying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." And I said, "what are you thanking me for?" It has an immediate, within a couple of weeks, effect on chronic pain.
    Overview Pain and Vitamin D
0:59:25 H Sears: Aww, interesting.
0:59:27 J Sears: There you go... Whether just kind of all types...
0:59:28 Baggerly: Mostly musc...
0:59:29 J Sears: Arthritis...
0:59:29 Baggerly: Musculoskeletal type pain.
0:59:30 J Sears: Okay. Yeah, yeah.
0:59:31 Baggerly: But within a week or two, many people notice a change. And they...
0:59:34 J Sears: And how many of us are dealing with chronic pain?
0:59:37 Baggerly: Yeah, too many. Too many.
0:59:38 J Sears: And the opioid crisis and everything. Oh my God. Okay.
   Opioid use in palliative cancer patients far less if high level of vitamin D – May 2015
   Off Topic: 4X increase in Americans taking morphine-type drugs in last decade (consider Vitamin D instead) – Aug 2014
0:59:42 Baggerly: I'm always concerned about mental illness and its relation to Vitamin D.
0:59:48 H Sears: And that's... I don't see this on this list on the brochures. There are some good studies done on that?
0:59:52 Baggerly: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's plenty.
0:59:54 H Sears: 'Cause I know that that's something we...
0:59:55 J Sears: Now we can find these studies on your website, right? GrassrootsHealth.net.
1:00:01 Baggerly: And...
1:00:02 J Sears: And... Sorry, go ahead Carol.
1:00:03 Baggerly: Multiple Sclerosis seems to be very much again like that, where do people live, who get multiple sclerosis? It's all in the no sun places. There is a very well-known researcher down in Brazil who has given people with MS, very serious MS, very big doses of vitamin D, not that you ever wanna do on your own, but he also monitors other medical values. And after a very short period of time, six months, I consider that six months or whatever, the lesions they had from MS decline, and even go away. He cures it, alright?
   Successful high dose vitamin D (Coimbra Protocol) should be evaluated – June 2019
    Multiple Sclerosis - Coimbra Protocol (high-dose Vitamin D) - by one of the 120 doctors of 20,000 patients - Dec 2018
1:00:45 J Sears: Wow.
1:00:45 Baggerly: So that's another piece of evidence about different conditions needing something specific. Alright, so that's another biggie there that we'd like to bring to your attention.
1:01:00 J Sears: And fractures.
   Overview Fractures and Falls and Vitamin D
1:01:00 Baggerly: Oh, of course.
1:01:01 J Sears: As you get older, falls are about probably toward the top of the list of medical problems as you get older. A fall, a fracture and it's literally downhill after that.
1:01:12 Baggerly: Exactly.
1:01:12 J Sears: So prevention of fractures is really hard.
1:01:13 J Sears: Anybody out there dealing with MS, I think I'm pulling up the doctor's protocol for that. And this website is great 'cause all the stuff that we're talking about that sounds almost too good to be true, I'm seeing the evidence on your website, it's really great. Good.
1:01:30 H Sears: And that kinda leads into cavities. I'm reading here cavities and I... 'cause I'll take my kids to the dentist hopefully soon, and I always kind of go in so, with some trepidation like, "Oh how many cavities are we gonna get? And I'm often told, Well, cavities are somewhat genetic 'cause you can have all three of my kids do same dental care and one of them seems to get cavities more than the other. And I'm curious if I were to test their vitamin D levels, if that child would have a lower vitamin D level than they're supposed to.
   Dental category in VitaminDWiki has 68 studies
    No tooth decay in children with adequate Vitamin D (small study) – June 2018
1:02:00 Baggerly: Or might need more vitamin D than the others.
1:02:02 H Sears: Than the others. Oh, that's interesting, okay.
1:02:04 Baggerly: Okay. It's the whole genetic thing has also misled us, I think, into allowing that to dominate something when as a matter of fact, sure, you may have a genetic pre-disposition for something, but that doesn't mean that taking extra vitamin D, or some other nutrient might not counter that. Our whole lives are built around our life experiences with our family, our friends, our foods, and stuff. Our genes are only part of it.
1:02:33 H Sears: I like that a lot.
1:02:34 Baggerly: But there's everything, I mean it's like...
1:02:39 H Sears: Think bottomline...
1:02:39 Baggerly: Is just too much.
1:02:41 J Sears: Yeah, bottomline. Yeah, if somebody is listening and is not convinced, then I don't know what else are we gonna say, just good luck and... [chuckle] It's funny, I was just thinking, my health insurance every month is a lot of money and it goes to pay for all this stuff, where that could be prevented or drastically reduced by a $20 bottle of vitamin D.
1:03:08 Baggerly: Oh, yeah.
1:03:08 J Sears: And so, wow.
1:03:11 Baggerly: And the... Just another crazy note, rickets is on the rise.
    Overview of Rickets and Vitamin D
1:03:15 H Sears: Is it really?
1:03:16 Baggerly: Yep.
1:03:16 J Sears: Yeah.
1:03:17 Baggerly: Again, kids are indoors, they're watching TV, they're playing with their cell phones and not going outside at all.
1:03:23 H Sears: Wow.
1:03:24 Baggerly: So let's stop that. I mean that there's just no need.
1:03:28 J Sears: Okay, wow, so [chuckle] Yeah, I mean, it's... I'm just kind of blown away.
1:03:33 H Sears: Yeah. Like I'm thinking about...
1:03:35 J Sears: My brain literally hurts.
1:03:36 H Sears: Like 10 friends I wanna text right when we get off this podcast.
1:03:38 J Sears: Yeah, right.
1:03:39 H Sears: Get your vitamin D checked.
1:03:40 J Sears: I'm gonna be ordering these tests for every single one of my patients. [chuckle]
1:04:00 H Sears: Yeah, but I think it's really good for parents to know, ask your doctor to test your children, get tested really, really, this is a simple thing that you can do. I know as a mom, we're kind of bombarded with all these things we feel like we need to do that are so important and sometimes it's overwhelming that we just... We don't know which are the most important. And so we kinda have this thing in my mind as a mom. There's some things that are high yield, they take a lot of energy, they're hassles but maybe the benefit is not very much, so kinda the scale. If it's gonna be a super hassle to do, it has to be huge benefit, but this one seems like the benefits are astronomical.
1:04:38 Baggerly: They are.
1:04:38 H Sears: And that hassle factor is very, very low, there's almost no hassle, so this is a no-brainer for parents.
1:04:45 Baggerly: I have one big caution for you all listeners.
1:04:47 H Sears: Okay.
1:04:47 Baggerly: Have your doctor test it, but make sure you get what the exact reading is, do not rely upon your healthcare professional to tell you everything's okay.
1:05:00 J Sears: Right. Oh it's normal. It's normal. Right.
1:05:01 Baggerly: Insist upon... Exactly.
1:05:02 J Sears: What was my level.
1:05:02 Baggerly: Insist upon getting your level and make sure it's in that 40 to 60 range.
   Is 50 ng of vitamin D too high, just right, or not enough
1:05:07 H Sears: Yeah.
1:05:08 Baggerly: We have an awful lot of literature that patients or people actually print out and take to their doctors so they can get more knowledgeable about vitamin D.
1:05:18 H Sears: Yeah, and that's key because if... Pretty much with any blood tests, and I kind of geek out over at my doctor's kinda laugh at me 'cause I like study it. I look at it, 'cause if you're in a level that's like the medium to low range, you wanna know that so it never has to dip into the low range. This is information, so that why not have everything be in the high range, in the optimal range especially something like this, that is so easy and simple. There's no reason to be in the medium to low range of this. Get yourself up there 'cause it's so simple.
1:05:47 J Sears: Let's maybe let's finish today with a little...
1:05:51 Baggerly: May I... One other suggestion. We have this massive worldwide project going on where people can enroll in our grassroots health projects and capture data, do their tests and all of this sort of stuff. And yes, there's a fee for enrolling in this, but by enrolling it, you are sharing your experiences with thousands and thousands of others and it makes it even more valuable so you can get your own personalized health system and everything for this.
1:06:18 J Sears: So it sounds like you're essentially tracking people's levels.
1:06:21 Baggerly: Of course.
1:06:22 J Sears: And then you use that data to help people know what a good dose would be, I'm guessing. I'm guessing your calculator is gonna be based on...
1:06:30 Baggerly: Exactly. And to help themselves. Our system allows them to see, "Hey I took 5000 IU of Vitamin D I got to 35, and I'm looking at a pain chart, which has 10000 peoples ' levels on it, and it tells me there very easily that, "Oh, if I got up to 50, I might reduce my pain level even more.”
   40 charts from Grsssroots Health
1:06:51 J Sears: Okay.
1:06:51 Baggerly: So because we have so many people out there and their data, we show it all back to the end users so that they can...
1:06:58 J Sears: Sure.
1:07:00 Baggerly: Take action.
1:07:00 J Sears: Wow, All right.
1:07:01 Baggerly: Thank you.
1:07:03 J Sears: Okay, wow... [Laughter]
1:07:06 J Sears: So my brain hurts, I'm moving to Hawaii [laughter] and...
1:07:10 J Sears: With your Vitamin D pill. [laughter]
1:07:11 H Sears: Everybody. I think we should just all relocate.
1:07:15 J Sears: I'm really curious to... You guys out there, if you know your levels, let us know. And...
1:07:21 H Sears: Yeah. Is there any...
1:07:22 J Sears: I like Good morning, Sunshine. What a favorite, what a great song to sing to your children. Good morning, sunshine! [laughter]
1:07:30 J Sears: Or how about "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FvfCCHF7nA |You are my sunshine}... My only sunshine... You make me happy when skies are gray. You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away." [chuckle]
1:07:47 J Sears: Cool... Alright, so that's it. Good show everybody, and that music tells us that we are at the end of today, and literally my brain hurts. And this is probably one of our longest shows and let's go through the website. I don't have it. It's grassrootshealth.net, right?
1:08:05 Baggerly: Yes.
1:08:05 J Sears: Okay, see I did that by memory.
1:08:06 H Sears: Nice!
1:08:07 J Sears: I've said it enough that I remember it. And if you wanna find us on social media, you can find this at Dr. Sears Family Podcast on Facebook or Instagram. On the Internets, you can find us at www.askdrsears.com/podcast]. We are here to celebrate the many joyful moments of parenting and hopefully help you through those ones. It sounds like you can avoid a lot of the unjoyful moments by just taking Vitamin D, and getting your levels checked. I mean, yeah, it's I think one of the important things you really stressed Carol, is that just picking a number for intake isn't good enough. I could take 5000, somebody else could take 5000, it might be enough for him. It's probably not enough for me. And unless you get your levels checked, you are flying blind. And the stakes are very, very, very high for this. So let's get your levels checked and thank you so much.
1:09:00 H Sears: Yeah, thank you for coming...
1:09:01 J Sears: Thank you, Carol.
1:09:01 Baggerly: All of you for listening, too.
1:09:03 J Sears: And it's great having Dr. William Sears in with us as well, and for Hayden and I'm missing sound man Matt, I'm your host, Dr. Jim Sears, and we will see you next time. [music]

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See also VitaminDWiki

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Many genes can limit vitamin D in the blood from getting to tissues

Not mentioned in podcast

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Details at VitaminDWiki page

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Details at VitaminDWiki page

Example: Vitamin D Receptor and Cancers
89+ Vitamin D Receptor pages with CANCER in the title
This list is automatically updated

Fortunately, there are 12+ low-cost ways to increase the activation of the Vitamin D Receptor
Compensate for poor VDR by increasing one or more:

Increasing	Increases
1) Vitamin D supplement  Sun Ultraviolet -B	Vitamin D in the blood and thus in the cells
2) Magnesium	Vitamin D in the blood  AND in the cells
3) Omega-3	Vitamin D in the cells
4) Resveratrol	Vitamin D Receptor
5) Intense exercise	Vitamin D Receptor
6) Get prescription for VDR activator    paricalcitol, maxacalcitol?	Vitamin D Receptor
7) Quercetin (flavonoid)	Vitamin D Receptor
8) Zinc is in the VDR	Vitamin D Receptor
9) Boron	Vitamin D Receptor ?, etc
10) Essential oils e.g. ginger, curcumin	Vitamin D Receptor
11) Progesterone	Vitamin D Receptor
12) Infrequent high concentration Vitamin D Increases the concentration gradient	Vitamin D Receptor
13) Sulfroaphane and perhaps sulfur	Vitamin D Receptor
14) Butyrate especially gut	Vitamin D Receptor
15) Berberine	Vitamin D Receptor

Note: If you are not feeling enough benefit from Vitamin D, you might try increasing VDR activation. You might feel the benefit within days of adding one or more of the above

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Transcript Text and PDF

 Download the Transcript Text from VitaminDWiki
 Download the Transcript PDF from VitaminDWiki
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