Michael Carlston, M.D. – Family Practice & Complementary Medicine
homeopathy . nutrition . herbs . sports medicine
Several years ago when I attended the first medical conference on vitamin D designed for clinicians, the limited data we had were very exciting. There was also many reasons to be skeptical and many were. It all sounded too good to be true they thought. Maybe higher vitamin D levels just told us who was […]
We are supposed to make mistakes so that we learn. Sometimes medical authorities, especially those who issue official guidelines, are remarkably intellectually dull. A current example is the US Preventive Services Task Force recommendation not to take vitamin D and calcium to prevent bone fractures. If they were correct, if this were based upon […]
The results of a recent trial were disappointing to some but I think that disappointment is unwarranted. Subjects were given 1000 iu of D3 daily. This dose did not reduce their body weight. That would have been nice for those wanting to lose weight. However, the subjects did significantly lower body fat and abdominal fat, […]
A study was just published with exclamatory headlines warning about vitamin D and calcium raising the risk of kidney stones. They studied the blood and urine of 163 healthy, postmenopausal women for a year. Investigators gave the women from 0-4,800 iu of vitamin D and raised their calcium to 1,200 – 1,400 mg/day. 1/3 of […]
900 pages and zero thought. That is my summation of the IOM’s new calcium and vitamin D statement. Having been a member of such consensus panels in the past, I am sympathetic to their tendency to fall to the most conservative “lowest common denominator” opinion. However, this document is far from a reasonable scientific assessment. […]
Vitamin D has been all the rage for a few years. Ironically, despite the fact that everyone knows that our bodies create vitamin D in response to sunlight and most of us experience mood changes during the darker months, the high likelihood of a link had not been researched. A study was just published correcting […]
Forgive me for rattling on about vitamin D, but it is VERY important. The latest news is even more important than usual, and it is notable for at least three reasons, maybe four, if we count the fact that Mother’s Day is fast approaching. The most meaningful studies are designed as interventional trials, where people […]
Health advocate Gary Null has provided an unintentional educational lesson for those of us using dietary supplements. Taking one of his own products, he developed vitamin D toxicity. As there have been only a few cases of vitamin D toxicity ever reported, there is an inevitably interesting story behind this announcement. The story is that […]
Although we have lots of evidence showing that vitamin D lowers the risk of many diseases, the lingering concern is that vitamin D levels might simply tell us who was healthier to begin with. In other words, healthy people go outside more often because they are healthy not the other way around. With the passage […]