The Vitamin D Cure
by Diane Stafford, James Dowd
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Book Reviews of The Vitamin D Cure
Book Review: Unhealthful Diet Recomendations
Summary: 1 Stars
When it comes to the best kind of diet to eat, one size does not fit all. Some people need more protein and fat, others need more carbohydrates, and still other people need a mix of protein, fat and carbohydrates. Author of "The Vitamin D Cure," Dr. Janes Dowd, would have everyone eating a low fat, almost no carbohydrate diet. The mainstays of the diet are fruits, vegetables, and lean meat. Yuk! Being a person who needs more fat and protein, this diet definately isn't for me. Dr. Dowd's book is just another rehash of the the modern Atken's diet. The original Atken's diet gave you plenty of fat with your protein, fruits and vegies. While the original diet wasn't wonderful, the modern politically correct version of the diet has cut out the fat, which is downright dangerous. I think the reason so many people did as well as they did on the Dr, Dowd's diet is the horrible way they ate previosly.
Another point to consider. Our Creator made us to run on fat, protein, and complex carbohydrates (whole grains). Even though I'm a fat and protein type, I still need some complex carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates give us energy. Proteins are the building blocks for the body, and fats are used inside & outside the cells to enable them to do their jobs. Fats also provide satiation and help us not to over eat. Depending on your need, eating the good fats can help you lose or gain weight. The polyunsaturated omega 3 fats (EPA & DHA) are brain food. The short chain fats found in butter & yes, cocconut oil are antimicrobal, antibacterial and anticarcinogenic, according PhD biochemist and lipids researcer, Dr. Mary Enig. They also give the cell wall stiffness, so that the polyunsaturated Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids won't leak out of the cell. Omega 3 & 6 fats are liquid in the body, just as they are outside of the body.
Some fats are killer ones. Your definately want to stay away from transfatty acids, which are found in products such as vegetable oil margarines. Vegetable oils are high in omega 6 fats, which having a double bound on their fatty acid chain are very unstable and easily oxidized fats. That is why you should never cook with Canola oil, corn oil, sunflower or safflower oils, etc. Saturated fats with no double or even single bonds, which is what monounstarated olive oil has are the best for cooking with. You also want to stay away from the artery clogging oxidized cholesterol. Bake your chicken and fish, don't pan or deep fry any food, french fries or onion rings included. The one food I try to purchase organically grown is meat. The way our animals are raised is nasty. I do not want to be eating gtowth hormones, antibiotics, etc.
What about fruits and vegetables. They are loaded with much needed vitamins and minerals and should be a central part of any healthy diet. Steaming you vegetable until tender crisp is the best way to cook them. I have at least one raw vegetable salad a day, my husband almost always has two of them. We use red or green leaf lettuce, not iceberg and the freshest vegies we can find. Did you know that the minerals in vegetables and fruits need the good fats to enable them to do their job?
Dr. Dowd's onformation on the benefits of vitamin D is good. This almost convinced me to give the book two stars, but the dietary information is so bad, I gave it only one star. Along with Dr. Joseph Mercola, D.O., I contend that the best way to get your vitamin D is from moderate sun exposure. Sun exposure does not provide EPA & DHA, you'll have to get that from cold water fish or fish oil tablets. Also if you live a northern climate, I live in northern Wisconsin, you will either need to supplement your vitamin D or buy a sunlamp or tanning bed. The best book I've read on vitamin D, is by Paul Stitt, "Vitamin D, Is It The Foutain of Youth?" Another most excellent book on magnessium, "Is The Magnerssium Miracle." Mary Enig & Sally Fallon's book, "Eat Fat, Lose Fat" is also eccllent.
Book Review: This book changed my life in a very positive way - A must read!!
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading this book, 3 months ago, I started Vitamin D supplementation at 4000 IU's per day. The information in the first-few chapters, alone, was compelling enough to persuade me to supplement with Vitamin D. In fact, I bought Vitamin D supplements before I even finished the 4th chapter. Normally, I am very skeptical of information pertaining to health and wellness; that is, I force myself to find several other sources and corroborate the facts before I finally commit to make suggested dietary changes. However, after reading only a few chapters detailing Dr. Dowd's personal story and the chronicles of his patients and their case histories - I realized I was Vitamin D deficient. I saw such a eerily similar comparison between the case histories in this book and what I was currently suffering from. I knew I was missing Vitamin D. I was completely convinced that I should start Vitamin D supplementation. I realize this review is not a review on Vitamin D supplementation, nor is it a chance for me to ramble on about me. I'm supposed to review this book and tell you whether or not I think it's a good read. And just so we're clear, the book is not only a good read, but a must read. Oh and I'm getting to the review part.
I have never written a book review before (or at least to the best of my knowledge). I took the time to review this book because it changed my life in a very positive way. I believe that if you follow the advice written in this book, it will change your life as well. Sounds like a big statement, but it's very true. Before reading the book I was suffering from all sorts of ailments. I was in a mt. bike accident in 1997, where I suffered 13 fractures and started my lifelong journey of tolerating pain in nearly every bone and joint I had. Here's where it gets interesting.
I used to own a landscaping business that I had started in college, so I was constantly out in the sun. When my "real" job was enough to pay the bills, I sold my landscaping business. About 8 months after selling my business, what used to be "tolerable" pain, soon became pain I could barely deal with. , I had pain ranging from fatigue to arthritis, tendonitis to muscular atrophy; I even started getting acne (I'm 31 years old and never had it before). I went to a plethora of doctors to see why I was falling apart: Internists/Generalists, Endocrinologists, ENT's, Orthopedic Surgeons and Dermatologists. Unfortunately, they didn't help much. They tried to help by prescribing anti-inflammatories, antibiotics for the acne (which came back every time I stopped the antibiotic), physical therapy, and pills that I never took, but nothing worked. Even more unfortunate was the fact that not one doctor tested me for Vitamin D deficiency. I find that very odd since I visited nearly every specialty doctor I could find and not one of them mentioned Vitamin D deficiency. This goes to show just how groundbreaking and revolutionary the information presented in this book is.
The Vitamin D supplementation was so effective, I decided to take it a step further and follow a few of Dr. Dowd's dietary suggestions. More recently, I've decided to cut out cheese and whole grains as I really thought moderation was OK. Then I noticed, every time I ate cheese or whole grains, I felt kind of crummy. Now, I am 100% committed to Dr. Dowd's diet and D supplementation. I noticed the more suggestions I followed from this book, the better I felt. The end-result is, I now feel great - and I will be purchasing more copies of this book, as every family member and friend that I have, will be receiving the Vitamin D cure for Christmas.
Book Review: Skeptical
Summary: 1 Stars
Though I've read the book, I haven't tried the "cure" yet so perhaps I'm not qualified to write a review. But as I read it, particularly the case histories of the people who have been "cured" of depression, aches, brain fuzz, etc I couldn't help feeling I've heard it all before. Because I have, in books about everything from candida to inflammation, which dovetail some of the recommendations here and books that contradict the recommendations here.
Some of the purported health benefits of vitamin D can be supported by research found elsewhere, but the megadoses he recommends are dangerously high unless you are under a doctor's care and have been diagnosed with a deficiency. While he makes that caveat, he still encourages readers to self-diagnose a deficiency based upon a couple of questions and provides sources for the high dose supplements. That concerns me.
The diet plan is just a rehash of the "Paleolithic Diet" (uncredited) which cropped up 20 years ago and is based on the idea that we should eat only what our caveman ancestors ate because they never got degenerative diseases. Then again, they didn't live long enough to.
The author makes some pretty sweeping generalizations, and presents a severely restricted menu plan that nobody is going to be able to stick with for very long without a financial incentive. For example, while a hundred books are now touting the miracle of anti-inflammatory diets that are rich in whole grains, Dr. Dowd puts grains off limits.
In fairness, I can already hear commentators saying "Try it first...it saved my life!" But I find it difficult to swallow diet information from somebody who repeats popular myths like "green tea is rich in Vitamin K." (p. 92 hardcover) True...if you digest the leaves. The amount in a cup of tea is negligible. He also states the best time of day to take vitamin supplements is "in the morning right after you eat." Well maybe, unless you're a woman over about 45 whose stomach acid is pretty low at that time of day due to hormonal changes. All the menopause books out there recommend taking them later in the day.
I do plan to increase my vitamin D supplementation to 1000 IU daily, seeing as how I live far north and would probably benefit by boosting that. If that's not effective, I'll get tested to see if I have a deficiency that needs more supplementation. And I agree it is good to limit high acid foods and/or balance them with alkaline ones. But the rest of it just feels like the usual perfectionist diet for the severely anxious. Make it harsh enough, and people will experience a placebo effect just because they're paying such a high price in terms of self denial. I know for myself from long experience that many of the symptoms he describes are most consistently managed with stress reduction techniques, meditation and exercise. Diet absolutely figures in, but there's no magic bullet. But his recommendations are simply too severe and not sustainable. People will end up feeling like failures when they sneak a piece of cheese, and therefore will feel stressed, get anxious, tighten their muscles, have pain, and 2 years from now will be looking for yet another "cure."
And there will be one. If you hop from one food miracle cure to the next, let me recommend Health Food Junkies: Orthorexia Nervosa - the Health Food Eating Disorder by Steven Bratman and David Knight.
Book Review: Good info on Vitamin D, didn't agree with dietary recommendations
Summary: 4 Stars
This book had some very good information on vitamin D, but I disagreed with his nutritional advice. Regarding vitamin D, he points out that it's not really a vitamin as our bodies can produce it given enough sunlight. Vitamins are organic substances that we have to get from our diet. Vitamin d is actually a hormone that belongs to the group called the steroid hormone family.
The Mayo clinic found that 93% of patients with widespread musculoskeletal pain for a long time were deficient in vitamin D. Another doctor found that 83% of patients with chronic back pain were vitamin D deficient. Symptoms of vitamin D deficiency include:
* Fatigue, poor concentration or memory,
* Joint pain and swelling, chronic pain, headaches,
* Cramps, muscle pain or weakness
* Uncontrolled weight gain, high blood pressure
* Bowel and urinary problem
The good news is vitamin D
* Relieves symptoms of seasonal depression
* Slows or prevents many types of arthritis
* Reduces the chances of a heart attack
* Improves insulin release and utilization
* Some of it's favorite partners are vitamin A, thyroid hormone, and variations of growth hormone, meaning they develop partnerships to bind to nuclear receptors
* Vitamin D also works with vitamin A and omega-3 fatty acids
* If you supplement vitamin D, you don't need to supplement calcium
He gives you websites, charts, and skin types to figure out how much direct sun exposure you need at least three times per week. That requires you to have on shorts, a short sleeved shirt, no hat and no sun screen. For me here in Indiana, that would require 20-30 minutes per day between 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. in the winter, and it's below zero this week, so I'm certainly not going outside in shorts. Therefore I need to supplement my vitamin D. If you don't want to hassle with the blood tests, he recommends 20-25 IU per pound of body weight.
If you have a blood test, he says your levels need to be at a minimum 35 and ideally they should fluctuate between 50 & 70. He says if you're going to have the blood tests you should have it rechecked every three months. Some people notice an increase in energy and a decrease in pain in as little as two weeks, but more commonly it takes up to three months. Magnesium is also often deficient. I loved the book The Magnesium Miracle if you like reading about nutrition, you'll like it too.
The diet suggestions I didn't like. I felt they were overly harsh. Which is why I gave this otherwise great book only 4 stars. He believes you should eat primarily fresh produce and meat based protein. The subject of how much protein is hotly debated. Dr. Jensen in his classic book Chemistry of Man (Man Series, Second Edition) said that of the longest lived peoples from around the world, they did eat meat, but in small quantities. If you like to read about nutrition, I also loved Putting It All Together: The New Orthomolecular Nutrition.
Book Review: Highly recommended
Summary: 5 Stars
Both my spouse and I are physicians. When we read this book, we were shocked to realize how little we had known about Vitamin D. Following Dr. Dowd's suggestions, we began taking Vitamin D from one of the sources listed in the book.
Within two weeks, we could each see significant improvement in the following:
1.) gums/teeth -- we had both had some gum recession over the years, with associated tooth sensitivity. We had asked dentists, orthodontists, periodontists, and oral surgeons why gum recession occurs. They all said, "It just happens." That never made sense to us, and it is now apparent that they simply did not know about the Vitamin D connection. Our gums now look healthier, and the tooth sensitivity is gone.
2.) tendon/ligament/fascia pain in the ankles and feet -- gone or greatly improved.
3.) skin -- smoother, fresher look with decreased prominence of pores. This isn't talked about in the book and so it was unexpected but most welcome. My personal belief is that it may be related to improved immune function with Vitamin D.
Within four weeks, we had increased muscle strength and decreased muscle fatigue on exercising.
An interesting aspect of this is that we live in Florida, where you might think it would be difficult to be Vitamin D deficient. However, we work inside all week, and when we go out on weekends we use sunscreen or sun-protective clothing.
This book is thoroughly researched and referenced. It is full of specific advice on testing for deficiency, supplements, dietary changes, sun exposure, and more. It discusses the various health problems that Vitamin D can make a difference in, including arthritis, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, heart disease, seasonal depression, diabetes, colon cancer, and many more.
It is important to note that magnesium is essential along with Vitamin D. Though this is discussed in the book, I strongly recommend also reading "The Magnesium Factor" by Mildred Seelig, M.D. It is also excellent and extremely helpful. We have added more magnesium-rich foods to our diet based on Dr. Seelig's advice, and also decided to take one of the magnesium supplements she mentions.
In summary, I think most people could benefit from reading this book and "The Magnesium Factor".