Multiple Myeloma an incurable disease, but I have spent the last 25 years in remission using a blend of conventional oncology and evidence-based nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle therapies from peer-reviewed studies that your oncologist probably hasn't told you about.
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Vitamin D and myeloma immune function have a relationship. Vitamin D deficiency is a known risk factor for a MM diagnosis. But why is this?
I’ve written many times about the importance of vitamin D for bone health, and its anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and neuroprotective properties. But when I read a study declaring that as many MM patients die of infection as die from MM, I knew it was time to figure out how to enhance MM immune systems.
Yes, supplementing with vitamin D can enhance your immune system, particularly if you are deficient in it. Vitamin D plays a critical role in supporting immune function by:
Chemotherapy wears down the MM patient’s immune system. You can see MM patients wither in the months and years following their MM diagnosis. In my mind thinking as a long-term MM survivor, each patient should pursue any therapy that can enhance their immune system.
According to the research below, vitamin D is one such therapy.
Email me at David.PeopleBeatingCancer@gmail.com with questions about your immune health.
Thanks,
“Ever since its discovery by Windhaus, the importance of the active metabolite of vitamin D (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3; 1,25-(OH)2D3) has been ever expanding. In this review, the attention is shifted towards the importance of the extra-skeletal effects of vitamin D, with special emphasis on the immune system.
The first hint of the significant role of vitamin D on the immune system was made by the discovery of the presence of the vitamin D receptor on almost all cells of the immune system. In vitro, the overwhelming effect of supra-physiological doses of vitamin D on the individual components of the immune system is very clear.
Despite these promising pre-clinical results, the translation of the in vitro observations to solid clinical effects has mostly failed. Nevertheless, the evidence of a link between vitamin D deficiency and adverse outcomes is overwhelming and clearly points towards avoidance of vitamin D deficiency especially in early life…
There is an indisputable relation between vitamin D and the immune system. With respect to in vitro, overwhelming evidence exists for a physiological role for the vitamin D system in immune regulation, and immune modulation can be observed by exposing immune cells to pharmacological doses of vitamin D metabolites.
In animal models and humans, a correlation exists between adverse immune outcomes (infections and autoimmune diseases) and vitamin D deficiency, but translation of the in vitro observations of active vitamin D3 on the immune system to solid results of regular vitamin D supplementation in clinical trials have mostly failed.
An important reason might be that the choice of the vitamin D metabolite, as well as its dose and frequency of administration are critical factors that need to be considered when designing clinical trials. Many in vitro effects on isolated immune cells are induced by supra-physiological concentrations of 1,25-(OH)D2D3, which are probably not achievable with regular vitamin D supplements in humans, as these concentrations risk hypercalcemia and soft tissue calcifications.
Moreover, recurrent use of regular vitamin D, for instance daily or weekly (in comparable cumulative doses) instead of every 6–12 months, may enhance long-term compliance depending on the lifestyles of the target groups.
In addition, the timing of vitamin D intervention will be crucial. In animal models, vitamin D metabolites work best in a preventive setting, a time window that is often missed in human trials.
Therefore, future randomized and controlled trials will be needed to investigate whether supplementation with regular vitamin D can indeed prevent or modify the course of inflammatory or autoimmune diseases in at-risk subjects.
For now, the bottom line on the effect of vitamin D in the immune system is that avoidance of severe vitamin D deficiency improves immune health and decreases susceptibility to autoimmune diseases…”
Vitamin D myeloma immune function Vitamin D myeloma immune function