Vitamin D: Are You Getting Enough?

Be Part of the Discussion at an Upcoming Conference

Update, October 18, 2024: The talks in Toronto on November 1st have been moved online. Although there will be no in-person attendance in Toronto, you you can still register to hear these unique talks online. For in-person attendance, please register for the talks in Chatham on November 2nd; these will include talks that will not be given in Toronto. Since I will speak at both events, I hope that I can see some of you in Chatham.

I am thrilled to have been invited to be a speaker at an upcoming symposium about vitamin D that will feature some of Canada’s and the world’s top experts on this subject. As an associate professor of immunology and virology, I cannot over-emphasize how important vitamin D immunosufficiency is to maximize health. For many years I have taught university students that vitamin D is a foundational component of an optimally functioning immune system.

I, along with the many other speakers, envision a future where true vitamin D sufficiency will be rigorously promoted and supported by governments, health care providers, and public health officials. When I use the term ‘immunosufficiency’, I mean having a vitamin D concentration in the blood that optimizes immunological functions. I would like to see costs of regular vitamin D testing covered by governments and for them to provide vitamin D for free to low income earners.

Current guidelines for dietary intake of vitamin D still over-emphasize bone health and de-emphasize immunological health. The immune system has much higher metabolic requirements than the skeletal system, especially when it is responding to diseases. In other words, research shows that current recommendations are too low for most people to have optimal immune systems.

Sadly, vitamin D immunosufficiency was NOT promoted during the declared COVID-19 pandemic. Remarkably, its importance in protection against infectious diseases, based on THOUSANDS of peer-reviewed scientific papers, was actively suppressed. As embarrassing as it was, Canada’s former federal minister of health, Patty Hadju, had the gall to declare vitamin D to be ‘fake news’ in the context of infectious diseases like COVID-19. Her bachelor of arts in anthropology, masters of public administration, and work experience in graphic design gave her insufficient expertise; consequently, she rendered a false and incredibly harmful assertion. In the video link that I provided, she belittled Member of Parliament Derek Sloan for trying to promote rock-solid science. As a real expert I can tell you that a substantial number of lives would have been saved and whole lot of morbidity avoided had vitamin D immunosufficiency been promoted among the global population. Shame on those who failed to promote an incredibly cost-effective way to reduce harms to public health.

But, it is never too late to do the right thing. We need to effect the change that we want to see, especially as global health has declined substantially over the past several years. To do this, I am calling for your participation. The last conference on vitamin D held in Canada was way back in May 5, 2014. So, it is high time to discuss what has been learned over the past decade and to follow that science into the future.

I would like to invite you to join me and a fabulous array of speakers that will be discussing the latest research about vitamin D at a symposium to be held at the beginning of next month, on November 1st and 2nd [in-person attendance on Nov 2nd only; online viewing available for both events].

Two things that I am excited about…

1. I would love to meet as many of you as possible in-person at the conference in Chatham on November 2nd.

2. There will be an opportunity to get your vitamin D status tested on-site [Chatham event only] for a discounted fee by members of my new company ImmunoCeutica. Find out for certain whether you are vitamin D immunosufficient. Most people are not, in which case better health is just a simple supplement away (although dosing should be guided by an iterative testing process, not through guesswork; the optimal dose varies widely from person to person).

Let’s pack out the venue in Chatham and share our collective knowledge about the importance of vitamin D for optimal health.

Although I would love to meet attendees in-person, there is also the option to join on-line. So, I would be thrilled to have those of you that are not within driving distance, including those in other countries, join us remotely.

One of the things that I am really excited about is the prospect of trying to attain a consensus statement among the speakers to suggest a new concentration range that governments should consider to re-define vitamin D sufficiency; in a way that accounts for optimal bone AND immunological health.

Personally, I will be presenting information about the importance of vitamin D in the context of cancers.

I contend that promotion of vitamin D immunosufficiency would substantially increase the average health status of populations and dramatically decrease health care costs. For anyone strongly opposed to this idea, I also cordially invite you to attend to discuss the overall weight of the science. I have noted that many of the people that pushed the nefarious ‘COVID-19 narrative’ are also claiming that vitamin D is ‘misinformation’. They often cherry-pick fatally flawed scientific papers to give the wrong impression that vitamin D is not helpful. I am well aware of the common tricks used in these poor-quality studies and will briefly share these at the conference.

All the details needed to attend the conference can be found at this website.

I really hope to see many of you in Chatham on November 2nd and many others online on November 1st and/or 2nd.

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