Fringe reports; Elevated hormone D levels and irritability

I found an interesting article about mainstream media while looking for the source of a quote by Ted Koppel. I didn't find the source of the quote but it is included towards the end of the article "A citizens guide to understanding corporate media propaganda techniques," by George Orwell for earthblognews, Jan. 9, 2010:

“People shouldn’t expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the ‘fringe’ media.” – Ted Koppel – (American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for Nightline) [1]

A book that also included the quote by Ted Koppel also states that most newspapers do take his "advice seriously," and the chapter continues with a quote by politician Donald Rumsfeld which may suggest that sensible people in positions to know things also know enough not to talk to the media. And on the next page a quote by Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the U.S., gives the impression that a lack of information in newspapers has been a concern for many years: "The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." [3, from the first two pages of Chapter Six of "Extreme Money: The Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk," By Satyajit Das]

So news may not become news in the mainstream media until the subject is already being talked about by enough members of the public to suggest to the mainstream media that there will be plenty of viewers who are interested enough in the news story to be willing to sit through paid advertisements. Commercial advertisements and product placement fees are what pay for salaries and supplies for the news industry. Cigarette commercials were banned from television when the negative health risks became clear but it took decades for the change to occur. Cigarettes were advertised with physician endorsements and images of beautiful people in beautiful places - smoking was represented as sexy and smart by the popular media for many decades before the health risks became overwhelmingly clear.

Direct to consumer advertising for prescription medications is only allowed in two nations, in New Zealand since 1981 and in the United States since 1997. There is some concern that commercials for prescription drugs may lead to their being over prescribed to consumers who may not need the medication but who became worried enough by the ad to ask their physician for a prescription. [4] I would also be concerned that allowing ads for prescriptions might have led to changes in the programs as well. Producers might encourage writers to incorporate more prescription drug references within TV shows in order to sell more commercial time to the companies who market the prescription medications.

The use of the non-euphoric cannabidiol oil (CBD) that can be extracted from some strains of medical marijuana has been found very effective for some children with severe types of epilepsy. Children may have seizures non-stop for hours regularly for years and may have tried many prescriptions that may cause their own negative side effects. More parents and young adults are speaking out about the effectiveness and safety of the CBD oil for seizures. Parents can lose custody of their children for helping the child use medical cannabis products and parents may also lose custody if it becomes known that they are using medical marijuana for their own health condition. One of the parents in the following article lost custody of her child when it became publicly known that she was using medical marijuana to help control her Crohn's Disease, which is an autoimmune inflammatory bowel condition. [2] THC, the euphoric part of medical marijuana has been found helpful for suppressing inflammation which might be helpful for autoimmune conditions with inflammation such as colitis. [3]

Crohn's Disease was one of the autoimmune conditions listed in yesterday's post as a disease that may be caused by an infectious bacteria that may be able to survive within human cells and cause elevated hormone D levels.

As a high risk nutrition counselor I have learned professionally about the difficulty patients suffer from Crohn's Disease. It is an inflammatory bowel disease that can greatly shorten lifespan and can be so devastating to quality of life that patients may not leave their house much in order to stay near a bathroom. During flair ups a patient may have explosive diarrhea randomly throughout the day many times. Severe weight loss and multiple nutrient deficiencies due to poor absorption in the intestines can occur. Shortened lifespan is common, patients may not make it to their fifties. So if Benicar, antibiotics, and avoiding vitamin D could help patients with Crohn's Disease go from a disease flair up into a state of remission, then I think most patients with Crohn's Disease would really like to know about the treatment earlier in their lives rather than suffer many uncomfortable years first.

But health professionals can't really legally/ethically make recommendations to patients about an alternative protocol until it becomes accepted by the mainstream medical industry. Until a therapy is widely accepted as the standard of care it would be considered potentially dangerous for a health professional to recommend and therefore unethical for them to recommend. A health professional would be less at risk legally or ethically if they simply were providing information to a patient so the patient could look into it and learn more about it on their own.

So according to the quote by Ted Koppel reporting on the news is the job of fringe investigators - and so my work may fall into that category too. In the last post I tried to share what could be life saving information about autoimmune disease and the complicated interaction of vitamin D, hormone D, calcium and magnesium .)

So is there something in it for me? Not directly -- talking about topics that aren't mainstream can be dangerous for one's career. Fact checking the work of the fringe is probably part of the job of the mainstream and it can be common to try to discredit alternative information with the publication of negatively slanted stories. [1]

But to me it would be great if more experts and more individuals did become interested in looking into the information and maybe add further understanding and research, and then maybe sooner than later we would develop a national blood and organ supply that is tested for intracellular infectious pathogens; and develop clear guidance about the importance of measuring both hormone D and vitamin D levels in order to clearly see which patients are actually deficient in both the vitamin and hormone forms and would therefore need to increase their sun exposure or their intake of vitamin D and which patients actually have elevated hormone D levels instead of being deficient. Low vitamin D levels with elevated hormone D levels may suggest the person has an underlying infection with an intracellular pathogen and that person would actually benefit more by limiting their sun exposure and their intake of vitamin D - and they might be able to treat the underlying infection with Benicar and antibiotics.

I've written about this topic for several years because I know from my own illness how uncomfortable it is to have even moderately elevated levels of hormone D. It causes increased loss of calcium from the bones and can lead to osteoporosis over time, and excess free calcium in soft tissue can cause muscle cramps and headaches in the short run and lead to calcification of soft tissue over time, such as atherosclerosis, a type of hardening of the arteries. Elevated hormone D can also affect the mood and may cause extreme irritability - I learned about this directly one summer when I tried tanning booths for the first time. It was before I had learned about the Marshall Protocol or had my own vitamin D and hormone D levels checked. I got a nice all over tan but that summer I was irritated at everything, like silly minor things like rattling-silverware-noise or seconds-too-slow-wait-service, things that I wouldn't normally be annoyed about. I recognized the feelings weren't real anger and did my best not to let my internal irritable mood leak out to others.

I learned about the vitamin D/infection theory later that year and after sharing the research with my family physician I was able to follow the Marshall Protocol with his help. I took medications for the treatment for a year and a half and since then I haven't had the severe migraines that I'd been having regularly for over a decade. I've continued to avoid having much sun exposure though and avoiding vitamin D sources since and my autoimmune thyroid condition is currently in remission, thank goodness and thank search engines which had led me to the medication protocol in the first place.

The Marshall Protocol was first developed for treating sarcoidosis but has been used successfully for a variety of conditions. It is still not widely accepted in the medical industry but progress has been made; the FDA did approve use of the blood pressure medication for use with the antibiotic protocol, making it easier for physicians to order for patients who want to try the protocol. [See the last post for more information about the Marshall Protocol and vit.D]

Note/ Updates added at 2 and 3 pm. The save Draft feature hasn't been working well and Publish is a different software feature that allows edits after posting.

/Disclosure: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes./