Sleep Apnea and vitamin D - Jan 2011

Hypothesis by Dr. Gominak in Texas: Sleep problems and Sleep Apnea are due to a lack of vitamins D3 and B12

Update by Dr, Gominak Nov 2011 Poor sleep and lack of vitamin D - Nov 2011

She recommends a vitamin D level of 70-85 ng/ml, with daily dose of 10,000 IU vitamin D (weekly not work as well)

Here are links to her video, a few of the slides, and the PDF

Comment by a person who has seen both:

"The video does not compare to the PDF. The PDF lacks all her passion and ALL her medical practice examples."

Dr. Gominak video (in 5 parts) on Sleep and Vitamin D Nov 2010?

Pt. 1, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDqxJCzyV0U
Pt. 2, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYZRXs_vyP8
Pt. 3, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeEECHr9WQY
Pt. 4, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCXH3Gp_QiA
Pt. 5, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8Jde_4ZK8M

Rough notes from the video

Part 3

• Air conditioning is one of the reasons we are vitamin D deficient
• Cholesterol connection
• Have to sleep better before the vitamin D can help the repair function during sleep
• FDA should not be in charge of vitamin D – it is a hormone, not a vitamin

Part 5

• D2 50,000 (not D3) caused sleep problems
• Magnesium – leg cramps
• Leg pain, back pain
• She has a web site : http://drgominak.com/vitamin-d

CLICK HERE for Dr. Gorminak PDF (Nov 2010?) - which appears to be the basis of the video

---

^Very interesting email response from the Doctor
Thanks so much for writing to me. I thought there might be a lot of emails generated when that lecture hit youtube.
I did not really know it was going to end up there and would have perhaps been a bit more cautious in my statements had I known that it would go national.

I am a neurologist in Texas, got into D a year ago through a relatively unusual portal; sleep.

So... first started my fascination, confusion and wonder about why every one of my patients had sleep disorders. Then I stumbled, unexpectedly, into the fact that there are vitamin D receptors concentrated in the part of the posterior brainstem that runs the timing and paralysis of sleep.... and so I'm not the least bit interested in supplements, healthy habits (as sold currently by Medicine; "you eat wrong, you sleep wrong, you don't exercise enough".... in essence, blame the patient for their disease.) or vitamins but very, very interested in the fact that the difference between healthy people and non healthy people usually has more to do with what their sleep. As you know our grandparents seem to live to old age in rural settings without taking nearly as many medications and they ate what they had, not what the doctor told them.

I also found that there was an infinite amount to learn about D and that the most important information to start with, in my opinion, is that of Dr. Walter Stumpf who concisely "explained" the bigger picture 30 years ago but was basically ignored by the rest of the vitamin D crowd. In the intervening years all the basic science to back up his hypotheses has been published.

My web site is an effort educate my patients; www.drgominak.com. Go there, read the powerpoints and see what you think. I myself got my D level up too high (95) and paid the price with lots of body pain, balance difficulties etc. I feel strongly that the patients who are between 60-80 (ng) consistently say they feel great, those above and below start to accumulate symptoms of various types depending on their genetic makeup. Sleep is particularly difficult to monitor because we're unconscious, therefore the right question is really not only "how is your sleep?" but also "how do you feel when you wake up?" and how many pills do you have to take every day.

My last lecture to the family practitioners points out that the sleep experts recommended 10 years ago that any American with hypertension needed a sleep study because they all have sleep disorders. The doctors don't do it because their only choice is sleep study = CPAP and it's very hard to do for the patient and the doctor, and it's not always what is indicated based on the results of the study, i.e. if there's no apnea it's pretty hard to recommended a CPAP. If the recommendation was; all americans who have hypertension have a sleep disorder that might be related to a hormone deficiency state that is more akin to thyroid than "vitamin" . You should measure and treat that deficiency first. I think the family practitioners would be more open to the idea of treating hypertension as an early sign of a sleep disorder if it were treatable with a pill instead of a CPAP device.

I am trying to find the time to put together the data to publish and will be trying to do that this year but felt that in the meanwhile it's not really fair to make everyone who's not sleeping well wait until the rest of Medicine agrees with the concepts that I stumbled on. This is over the counter.... I think it shouldn't be, but it is, and most of America is suffering from the very bad consequences of non restorative sleep while we doctors slowly catch on to the bigger picture of what a creator or biology originally made perfectly.

I have to add though that this chemical is extraordinarily powerful and has effects on thousands of parts of our biology. It is therefore, also very dangerous when the level goes over the normal biological top, which I think, based on my patients, is 80 (ng) , which is just where Dr. Cannell on vitamindcouncil draws the line also. As this chemical is talked about more and supplemented without the levels being checked there will be more and more illness and death due to the same diseases coming from a sleep disorder induced on the high side. Poor sleep is dangerous to our body from any cause, including vitamin D when it goes too high and because you can't really feel the effects of this chemical immediately it's hard to sort out the cause and effect without having a level drawn every several months.

Stasha Gominak March 1, 2011

See also VitaminDWiki

• Severe sleep apnea increased chance by 4.8 X of cancer death: low vitamin D – May 2012
• The worse the sleep apnea, the lower the vitamin D levels – meta-analysis 2017, 2020
• COPD – Bone Metabolism – Osteoporosis – Vitamin D appear related – Mar 2011
• COPD and vitamin D in a vicious circle – April 2011
• Crescendo of papers on Asthma, Allergy, and Vitamin D – Sept 2011
• Breathing and vitamin D 452 items
• Lung and Vitamin D – Special Issue Dec 2011 many articles on COPD and Vitamin D
• Lack of Vitamin D reduces lung volume – Feb 2011
• Metabolic Syndrome and vitamin D - view of many papers Aug 2010
• Magnesium and vitamin D seems related to Metabolic Syndrome - many articles
  • wonder how many citeria will apply for Sleep/Sleep Apnea
  • includes a chart of vitamin D interaction with diseases, drugs - including vicious circles
• Another paper by Dr. Gominak - on Migraine and Vitamin D
• Many sleep disorders cured with vitamin D levels of 60 to 80 nanograms – May 2012 Dr. Gominak
• Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (4 in 10 seniors) and Vitamin D
  • Note: High BMI ==> Fatty Liver Disease ==> Low vitamin D which is associated with sleep apnea
• All items in category Sleep on VitaminDWiki 101 items
• All items in category SLEEP 101 items
• All items in category METABOLIC SYNDROME 105 items

See also web

• EurekaAlert Feb 2011 From Feb 15 Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine
  • "poor sleep quality correlated with higher levels of depressive symptoms, greater pain severity, increased fatigue, and greater functional disability in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)"
  • all of which are associated with low levels of vitamin D
• Post from an individual Jan 2012
  Had been using CPAP, took more vitamin D, read this current page, then monitored his blood oxygen and found his CPAP was no longer needed
• The relation of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin-D levels with severity of obstructive sleep apnea and glucose metabolism abnormalities Jan 2012
  Observation the OSA had much less vitamin D. No intervention
• Alternate to CPAP devices New York Times April 2012
  half of people end up not using CPAP devices. Provent works well for 2/3 of people with sleep apnea but is not covered by Medicare, etc
• Micro CPAP which is hoseless - runs on batteries 2015
  Indiegogo funding was 9X more than requested. predicted to cost just $3. uses one zinc air battery each night

• Tonsillectomies (for sleep apnea) May Trigger Weight Gain In Kids July 2014 - no mentiion of antibiotics used with Tonsillectomies
  Kids' weight rose over 6 % within 18 months of their surgery (and associated antibiotics)
• Diagnosis of Sleep Apnea Moves From Lab to Home April 2012
  200 % increase in a decade

• Predictors of obstructive sleep apnea in males with metabolic syndrome 2010
• PubMed "Sleep apnea" and metabolic syndrom" 611 papers as of Dec 2015
• Obstructive Sleep Apnea-Hypopnea Syndrome - May 2010
  Which has the following chart

Note: OSAHS = Obstructive Sleep Apnea Hypopnea Syndrome

• Serum Vitamin D Is Significantly Inversely Associated with Disease Severity in Caucasian Adults with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome Feb 2016 free PDF online
• Vitamin D Levels and Obstructive Sleep Apnea in Children free PDF online
• Vitamin D and Sleep Apnea: Beyond a Simple Association Nov 2015

http://tylersleep.com/ has the following