Where is the rest of this article? It just stops pretty much out of nowhere. And why do the health articles keep having titles with questions the articles never answer?
37
Questions are better than false answers
3
One time, via blood tests, my doctor called to tell me my Vit. D level was '2.' So, not too that far from zero ...
Since then, daily supplement. Which do seem to 'bind.' Though, I do not ever get to, or seem able to sustain nearly the level that most other people do.
The blurb under the headline states that she took "supplements." Were these over-the-counter supplements or pharmaceutical grade supplements? Which supplements? Maybe part of the understanding of having no Vitamin D in her bloodstream needs to be researched outside of her body.
7
Interesting. At 60 years old I took some time off from work in Stockholm and went to live in Sicily for nine months. During that time in the sun and living near the Mediterranean sea, my joints stopped cracking, the skin on my face tightened up and I got a great tan. I looked and felt 20 years younger. Of course the relaxed lifestyle and the fresh fish and vegetables helped.
33
while the need for vitamin D regards bone maintenance is very much settled science, its prob one of THE most important supplements to take regularly; most Americans are deficient.
it comes mainly from spending too much time in front of computers and not outside. but also from too many people here are overfed but undernourished.
24
This case should reinforce the notion that we still know very little about the body, even if we have identified many of its mechanisms. It is why the medical establishment, as well as industry, should not be so eager to tinker with genetic modification, an even more complicated, mostly unknown system, than vitamins and proteins.
8
There is a link in the article to the case study, which explains that the patient is the only person known to be missing both copies of the gene that codes for the vitamin-D binding protein. The researchers did some interesting comparisons between the patient, her healthier siblings, and previous studies on mice. They suggest unknown cellular processes are compensating for the missing protein. Their next step ought to be to apply for a grant to do more research on vitamin D deficiency.
21
Is the patient still living? Is she still being examined for research purposes? I agree, the article is too short on information.
19
Those who want or need to take vitamin D supplement (or any vitamin supplement) are at a disadvantage, because the supplement industry is unregulated. No one can be sure that the pill they take contains the amount of the vitamin the label states, or any vitamin at all (some supplements that have been tested are found to contain nothing but filler). If vitamins are important, how are consumers supposed to know which brands can be trusted? The supplement market is mostly a scam (see the junk sold by the likes of Alex Jones), and should be regulated to protect consumers.
49
How about looking at where vitamin D is sequestered. Is it not possible that her fat deposits had enough D? Perhaps they are released through some as yet unknown mechanism. Is it possible that her diet ensured a reasonable daily intake of vitamin D?
Most Asian and middle eastern countries shun the excessive sunlight to a bare minimum. It is possible that her condition has been exacerbated by complete lack of sun exposure. How about exposing her daily to natural sunlight and then evaluating her?
3
@Meena: One doctor quoted in the article states that it may be possible that this woman's production or intake of free vitamin D (from sunlight or food) may have been sufficient to keep her alive. But she had no vitamin D (or vitamin D fixing protein) in her blood. Under those circumstances any vitamin D deposits in her fatty tissues would have been long depleted.
4
@Stan Sutton
It’s all very vague. We know that an absence of Vit D in blood leads to an absence of sequestered vit D in adipose? That I would say is presumption unless they actually analyzed fat tissue, both subcutaneous and omental would be great. Vit D binding protein is not very well elucidated. Yes, one function is to bind Vit D, there are many more parameters not well understood with regards to the immune system, sugar metabolism etc. I find it rather curious that she has survived so many years without what seems to be a rather important biological switch. Perhaps if they reanalyse, they may find other proteins that weakly bind Vit D and account for her survival. It is possible with age, the efficiency of such systems deteriorate.
Again, we have no clue if she could synthesize Vit D from sun. At no point have they given us information about this. And from food, I wonder how all that D3 and D2 was transported to other organs to generate any calcitriol? Surely one would need a protein to bind it and ferry it. Lots of questions. But this is indeed a good beginning.
9
And, isn't vitamin D also produced as a part of skin exposure to sunlight? Perhaps at one time the patient was well exposed to sunlight, then later underexposed, leading to calcium binding issues. This piece hints at so many questions, begging for a follow-up on the nuances.
9
I wish this article provided a bit more clinical information about not only the patient, including necessary lab testing information about her calcium levels, intake, but explained more about how the body uses available vitamin D. It also fails to explain how Vitamin D2 and D3 differ.
This article is too incomplete to comment further.
25
is it possible that she was the victim of a recent mutation, i.e. her body had access to typical vitamin D for part or most of her life, and then lost that ability?
5
No.
That would require millions of individual cells to independently mutate the same gene.
1