A blog reader (thanks, Ron!) gave me an interesting bit of news this morning, but I had to leave for work and didn’t have time to share it with you. Now that I’m back home again, here goes…
First, though, I’d like to thank my friend “Sherlock.” Shortly after we met (via my blog…a great way to meet great people, btw! 🙂 ), she insisted that I have my vitamin D levels checked, which turned out to be verrrrrry low. Thanks to her, I went to see an endocrinologist and began taking a vitamin D supplement. Boyohboy, based on everything I keep reading about vitamin D, am I glad that I listened to Sherlock. Sooooo incredibly glad! I take my vitamin D drops every morning…
But let me get back to what Ron sent me this morning. It’s an abstract on the importance of vitamin D especially for IgG kappa folks (what’s that all about? I guess we’ll have to wait for the full study to be published…uff), and it’s going to be presented at a conference next month in Dijon, France:Â http://goo.gl/QIXkU
Discussion:Â Vitamin D could be considered as an effective prognostic factor and treatment of MM, especially in patients with monoclonal IgG kappa immunoglobulin.
Okay, it’s getting late over here. Almost time for dinner…Soooo, ciao for now! 🙂
P.S. I began writing about vitamin D in 2009 (perhaps even earlier). Click here if you’d like to read some of what I have collected throughout the years on vit D, including the 2009 Mayo vit D-myeloma study, which showed that MM patients with low vitamin D levels have poorer outcomes:Â http://goo.gl/TSqoEÂ Hey, if you haven’t done so already, please have your “D” levels checked!Â
Hi Margaret!
So you take Vitamin D drops, not tablets?
Also, I cannot find our correspondence about the top 10 things we do as asymptomatic myeloma-ers. I loved that back&forth, so if you find it, would you forward to me?
Best,
ES
Elisabeth
I think that the liquid drops or an oil based geltab not dry form tabs or caps of D3 are the way to go for best absorption.
Ron
And yet I am lGg lambda dn Vit D threw me dramatically into hypercalecmia…and the start of treatment if by calicum levels did not return by STOPPIONG the Vit d.
I cannot stress enough just what damage Vit D did to my calicum levels which went from 2.56 to 2.69 in 2 months.. 2.10 – 2.55 is the range.
I was told by the haematology to STOP takign it IMMEDIATELY..!!!!!!!!!
and my levels returned to 2.56 within 2 months..
In order to get the most out of the vitamin d you are taking………..as much as 50% higher serum 25 OH d level, consider taking your vitamin D-3 with your largest meal of the day, according to the following abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20200983
Art
Paula
did you have your d levels checked before you started
Ron
My naturopathic doctor advised me to take my Vitamin D drops with Coconut milk. She said the good fat in the coconut milk helps with absorption. I use Thai coconut milk, it is really thick and very tasty.
Paula
Yes I had the level checked before starting. With D there is no correct dose that fits all it is about obtaining the level that is optimal for you.
Ron
Ron
Yes my levels were normal, but the Centre for advanced medicine knew that Vit D was good for cancer, so gave it to me. I read later in cancertutor.com when googling ‘Vit D and myeloma’, that I should not be taking it. It was Vit D3
So if anyone notices their calicum levels shoot up suddenly beware..and know what it proabably is.
I am spending time in the early morning and later afternoon sun..to get my Vit D naturally.
I’ve read that you need to take vitamin K2 with D3 and Calcium or risk buildup in arteries. So that says to me that it is in your blood and not going to the bones. Forgive my scientific approach–lol.
My wife , who has MM had a cardio scan last month and it showed calcification buildup in the heart arteries. Not severe; but, it was there. I took a scan and it was clear. Both in our sixties. I really don’t take much calcium or D or anything. She does faithfully. So, I can omnly draw the conclusion that it supplements may be promoting the buildup. She started on K2 supplements.
Vitamin K2 has various components M1-10, I think. The ones needed to take are K2 MK-4 and MK-7. These do not cause clotting. I was initially concerned because she is on Rev/Dex. After alot of reading, I’m confident it will not harm her. Don, over at Myeloma Hope, takes 30 mg daily of MK4. She is taking MK-7, 100 mcg (Vitacost) and MK-4, 5 mg (Carlson). She also eats one ounce a day of Japanese Natto. It comes frozen in 3oz containers with four containers to a package for about $2.50 US. It is a natural food source for K2 MK7. Gets it at the Korean supermarket.
I’m reading up on amino acids to help disolve the calcification. Not quite there yet. After, a year or so, we’ll have another scan done.
My wife has had mm for over a year, and I have tried to add the vitamins needed through food sources rather than supplements. Oily fish being rich in vitamin d, and the most useful of all, spinach, being rich in vitamin k which is good for blood, and will help absorbtin of other vitamins. I actually have a glasshouse here full of baby spinach plants, as I want to produce everything possible here as organically as possible, giving me a much closer relationship with her disease and recovery. Plenty of other plants have been investigated, which is how I found this very useful site originally!