PODCAST- Dr. Judson Somerville – Vitamin D3—A powerful healer for our time

About Our Guest- Dr. Judson Somerville – Vitamin D3—A powerful healer for our time

Dr. Judson Somerville is a seventh generation Texan who has a life line learner with a passion to find the truth. As an avid athlete earlier in life combined with both a medical and a chemical engineering degree, it gave him the experience and tools to understand how the body works. Then in childhood where his mother was constantly feeding him cod liver oil and multiple other supplements, it made him aware if given the correct nutrients one can overcome almost any health issue. Thus, he was well prepared when he realized he was dying. He experienced this when becoming severely ill following a Brown Recluse spider bite where traditional medical opinions failed him. After some experimentation he found vitamin D3. He discovered that vitamin D3, actually a hormone, was critical to an optimally functioning body that saved his life. He has since made it his life goal to improve other’s health with the power of optimal blood plasma levels of vitamin D3. 

Full Podcast Transcription

Dr. Judson Somerville 01:31
Whether it\’s autism, whether it\’s autoimmune diseases, or whether it\’s acute respiratory distress, like some people have with this COVID-19 It\’s a ineffectual immune system because vitamin D is critical to produce a class of proteins called defensins. And defensins kill encapsulated organisms, and COVID is an encapsulated organism. At 30,000 units, I get it for sleep and for bone health on my patients. What I found though, was that all of a sudden, no one got the flu again, and two people had the swine flu when I first started, and they were dying, and I gave it to them and both attributed to saving their life. One was my mother.

Diva Nagula 02:17

Hello, this is Dr. Diva Nagula. Welcome to From Doctor to Patient, where our goal is to bring you topics of discussion that will educate you on the various healing modalities to help balance the mind, body, and spirit. Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of From Doctor to Patient. Today I\’m pleased to have Dr. Judson Somerville with us. He\’s a seventh generation Texan, who is a lifelong learner with a passion to find the truth. As an avid athlete early in life combined with both in medical and a chemical engineering degree, gave him the experience and tools to understand how the body works. Then a childhood where his mother was constantly feeding him cod liver oil and multiple other supplements made him aware of how have treated and given the correct nutrients, you can overcome almost any health issue such that he was well prepared when he realized he was dying, dying after become severely ill. Following a brown recluse spider bite and traditional medical opinions failed him. After some experimentation, he found vitamin d3, he discovered that vitamin d3 was critical to optimally functioning his body. And this has saved his life. He has since made it his life\’s goal to improve other\’s health with the power of optimal blood plasma levels of vitamin d3. Dr. Summerville, thank you so much for joining us today. How are you? I\’m good. Dr. Nicola, thank you for having me here. You are an experts both from a clinical experience. And obviously you\’ve done so much research on your own and have published a book about this information. So thank you for being able to provide this information to us in the public. This is this is fantastic. Vitamin D is one of my favorite topics. And let\’s just get right into it. So what exactly is vitamin D?

Dr. Judson Somerville 04:11
That\’s a great question. There\’s several different forms. There\’s vitamin d3 and D two, you want d3. d3 is actually a hormone. It\’s not even a vitamin. It comes from cholesterol it comes typically we get it from the sun when we are exposed to it. But nowadays with sunscreen, clothing being told to avoid the sun. We\’re very, very deficient in it. And this hormone has a profound effect on just about everything in our body. There are vitamin D receptors in almost every cell in the body. Only thyroid hormone is equally as well represented. And basically it\’s the key to being healthy. And when you were saying earlier that it really comes in is derived from cholesterol.

Diva Nagula 04:55

There\’s a levels of vitamin d3 correlate with the amount of cholesterol that we have. So if we reduce our cholesterol using statens, or other cholesterol lowering medications or re In fact, lowering our vitamin d3 levels.

Dr. Judson Somerville 05:08
And, you know, I don\’t really have an answer that but there is a strong correlation between cluster on vitamin D, in the sense that cholesterol is actually your body\’s attempt to patch the arteries that are being destroyed by basically poop leaking from your gut, into your, into your body. in your gut, there\’s gaps and buttons and you want buttons. But when you have inadequate vitamin D, your immune system is inadequate, that you do not actually have an adequate, innate and active immune system to control what\’s in your gut. So basically, what\’s in there leaks into your arteries irritates the inside of your arteries, your release cholesterol, in attempt to repair it. And over time, because you\’re constantly irritating it, you develop elevated cholesterol, and then calcification. And so basically, the lower your vitamin D is, typically the higher your cholesterol. And if you do raise your vitamin D level, over time, I\’ve seen many, many people\’s cholesterol come down.

Diva Nagula 06:18

So well. And is it a dramatic decrease? I mean, do you see the higher the levels are that are more of a reduction in cholesterol? Are we talking like, you know, 10 or 15 points that we\’re reducing here.

Dr. Judson Somerville 06:32
It\’s complicated, because as you know, there\’s so much different genetics in the United States. It\’s hard to say anything with 100%. But it also takes a long time with vitamin D, depending on how long you\’ve been. Ill that is vitamin D deficient and most people it\’s most of their lives, it takes a long time to repair the gut, start repairing the in their arteries and such. And in fact, vitamin K to the nk seven type can really, really help with with that repair process. But it\’s in the people I\’ve seen, it\’s been a gradual, because again, it takes a long time to kind of heal the gut, start healing the body, because with vitamin D, everything from cancer, to autoimmune diseases, to obesity to sleep deprivation to autism to I mean, like I say just about you name it, it sounds almost too, too good to be true. And a lot of people say vitamin D is a very sexy, but it is very sexy. It\’s just the dose is a key.

Diva Nagula 07:38
And that\’s what my next question was. So what is the optimal dose to have these glorious benefits that you\’re talking about?

Dr. Judson Somerville 07:49
Great question. Um, I found in experimentation, I went to a lecture. And I\’m like, you know, the doctor\’s name. Now I\’ve mentioned in my book, because I was dying. And I knew I need to do something. And always my fallback when traditional medicine fail, was to find some kind of supplement vitamin mineral dealt me. And I started experiment with vitamin D, after I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal that I went to this talk, cheered recommended 20,000 units a day, for like six weeks, eight weeks, and they go to 10,000. Well, I was in Thrall, so I went home, started it, and started all my patients on it. And as soon as we all went down to 10,000, we saw a significant drop in our benefits. So I went to 20,000 units a day and kept them on it, of course, checking their calcium, their vitamin D levels, because it was all pretty new. And, you know, the fear that they that they\’ve instilled in us about hypercalcemia and toxicity, and we\’re going to die. By the way No one\’s ever died from vitamin D supplementation. And in Kashmir region of India, they treat millions of units a day, and there\’s only a handful of cases of hypercalcemia. Anyway, so I went up to 30,000 my own and found that I even got better benefits. And I, I eventually put my patients on that again, on certain levels. They did great. And I later experienced with higher levels, but found that that level was the one that worked best and more important is the blood levels of calcifer dial, which is a blood form they measure of vitamin D and you want to between 100 to 140 nanograms per ml they also measure it in an animal\’s per liter which is typically two and a half times higher.

Diva Nagula 09:44

Right and so I think most labs will not mistakenly it\’s like nanograms per deciliter I could be totally mistaken. But I\’m referring to some of the common lab values that are like Questor from lab core, so they usually have the low range at 20. Then the the high range at 100. So within that scope your you think it should be 120. Is that what you were referencing?

Dr. Judson Somerville 10:08
100 to 140. And it used to be in the labs, at least when I was in practice, and they would say above 100, possibly toxic. Yes. Now, in my I don\’t, I don\’t remember the reference right off the top of my head, but I have it on my blog. And also in my book, where the people it talks about when they were deciding how to set the levels. And they decided to set they knew that toxicity didn\’t occur, at least at least until 300. And in the case studies, I\’ve seen it typically, it resolves at 400 nanograms, and they knew it was at least 300. But they wanted to be safe. So they made it 100.

Diva Nagula 10:50

Interesting, okay. And so, when we were in medical school, you know, we were told not to push vitamin d3 because of the hypercalcemia, and any other toxic effects. So that really scared us in terms of prescribing this to people. And so why or how the government come up with these minimum blood plasma levels for d3.

Dr. Judson Somerville 11:14 And a great question again, the thing is, the focus on rickets, the childhood disease because that back in the 30s, they found that cod liver oil and maybe even before then had an effect on rickets. And so their whole focus was solely on the inner critic function, and not the autocrine function of vitamin d3, the inner critic being bone health and having enough vitamin D to prevent rickets. And if you have a level of 20, that should be adequate to prevent rickets. Now, most adults obviously don\’t suffer from rickets. And most people aren\’t, you know, pregnant women. And so therefore, it\’s kind of silly to have that level for the whole rest of the population. But it\’s kind of been perpetuated for that, because most of the effects of vitamin D or autocrine, and that is inside the cells. And like I say, every cell has almost every cell has a vitamin D receptor. And so you need those higher levels in order to have the vitamin D function and get the optimal effects inside the cell. Now, another problem is that 30% of people and 40% of obese people have an issue with either the vitamin D receptor, and or the inner cellular machinery that activates vitamin D inside the cell, because he converted basically, from the blood storage form coli calcif, a dial to co cifre all the active form inside the cell for it to initiate the cellular processes, the autocrine function, well, if you don\’t have enough, it\’s not going to do that. And if the receptor doesn\’t work very well, or it\’s not activated very well, you\’re gonna need higher doses, because even the blood storage form has some activity, so it\’ll help boost the amount of the active form. So I found that that dose, pretty much everybody had the benefits that I was looking for now, some people required more. And there\’s a doctor Cobra that treats autoimmune diseases with even higher doses.

Diva Nagula 13:23
And with the high doses, are we able to get around the high doses of vitamin d3 usage? By using cofactors?

Dr. Judson Somerville 13:33
That\’s a good question. I\’ve gotten some grief because I do mention vitamin K too. And magnesium in my book, but I didn\’t go into a lot of detail. And what I\’ve done is the research I\’ve done and stuff, yes, vitamin K two is important. But our gut, if it\’s functioning properly, will produce it. Now, again, depending on your diet and such, I think most people get an adequate amount. But again, if your genetics are such or whatever, I don\’t think it hurts to take vitamin K to whether it prevents hypercalcemia or not. I don\’t think so. And Dr. Cobra, who treats with even higher units than I do doesn\’t believe in not believe but does not use vitamin K to despite using, you know, doses way higher than I do. But I do think it\’s it\’s beneficial. And in my blog, I talked about it versus the two different main forms commercially available in vitamin K to the Mk seven and n k four type. And I found the Mk four type works better for us to your broses and the Mk seven type works better for immune function and for atherosclerosis.

Diva Nagula 14:41
Did they differentiate that when you purchase k tubes? I\’ve never seen that?

Dr. Judson Somerville 14:44
Yes, yes, they do. And I I typically if somebody has got osteoporosis, there is an article I think it\’s out of China. That shows they use 25,000 units a day and they were able to reverse with calcitonin Reverse osteoporosis. Now, I don\’t think they needed the calcitonin. But, you know, that\’s the only study that that, that looks at those kind of doses.

Diva Nagula 15:10
And then with magnesium, I mean, what\’s the recommendation, if that\’s even needed at all as a cofactor,

Dr. Judson Somerville 15:15
I think it\’s important because magnesium is kind of like if if vitamin D, as my friend says is the queen, then magnesium is the prince. Okay? And, I mean, it does so many different things. Besides improving the absorption of vitamin d3, it also is involved in so many of the enzymatic processes that vitamin D participates in. So from that point of view, it\’s very important. And also meaning meaning people are vitamin D deficient, but many, many people are also magnesium deficient. And kind of my recommendation is take as much as you\’re tolerate. Now I have a friend of mine that thinks maybe that\’s too much, very knowledgeable friend of mine, but I think you know, if you get diarrhea, obviously, you have too much. You know, I mean, kind of titrate it up but I usually 400 800 milligrams, maybe more, I mean, start with a lower dose because some people are more sensitive and magnesium glycinate or citrate I think are the better forms. The problem with oxalate is basically it\’s to induce diarrhea. So I don\’t think that\’s really the one you want to use.

Diva Nagula 16:26

And, you know, I\’m really interested in like a take a little transition to your personal story about how it really helped you with the brown recluse spider bites. I mean, what kind of symptoms were you having, where you were able to reverse these symptoms and improve your overall well being with vitamin D? And more importantly, like what dosage were you using to improve your overall well being?

Dr. Judson Somerville 16:50
Yes, thank you. Um, I started out, like I said, before I went to a lecture, I was taking maybe 5000 years and such and I didn\’t really notice much of anything. I went to 20, then back down to 10,000. And then eventually settled on, but 30,000 units a day, I was having chronic fatigue, I was about 100 pounds overweight, I\’ll eat a large meal and still be really hungry. I was had sleep apnea, I had gastric reflux, I had wound infections that just wouldn\’t heal. And I was chronically anemic. I was malnourished despite eating well, really, I was just really a train wreck. And I mean, I\’m not exaggerating when I was pretty sure I was going to die in two in three to five years, if I didn\’t find a solution. Fortunately, I found vitamin D and some of those symptoms are from the vitamin D deficiency, but the brown recluse spider bite, just because of the wounds and the loss of protein and everything. And the stress on my body just made everything so much worse.

Diva Nagula 18:22

And you\’ve just mentioned a few of the benefits of vitamin D3. But I know they\’re just only a few but would you be able to give us like a laundry list if you will of some of the vitamin d3 primary benefits?

Dr. Judson Somerville 19:26
Yes, I can. I kind of break it down in this there\’s like three main areas that I think it that can relate to everybody. One is deep restorative sleep. When you\’re in deep sleep, you\’re gonna be totally paralyzed, except for your breathing. And if you\’re not, then you become more paralyzed snoring and more paralyzed sleep apnea and or less and less paralyzed restless leg syndrome. So for instance, if you do a sleep study, and it says, you know, a combination of mechanical and for being a term I think it\’s central sleep apnea, basically The mechanical is because you\’re overweight because you lack vitamin D. and the central is because you lack vitamin D in your brain isn\’t working, right. And the reason it is, is I believe it\’s the thalamus, the area of the vitamin D works in. And it basically causes you to be paralyzed except for your breathing. And when you\’re deficient, you end up with either sleep apnea restless leg syndrome. And the reason it\’s so important to get deep restorative sleep, there are a number of reasons. But one is when you\’re in deep, deep sleep, your brain actually contracts 30 to 40%. And they only recently discovered, I said recently, maybe in the last five years, what\’s called the glymphatic drainage system. And that\’s kind of a filamentous, like tubular structure that surrounds the outside of your brain, that when it\’s fully expanded, cannot open or drain. So you need to, to contract your brain, you know, when you\’ve ever been really, really deep asleep, and somebody wakes you up, and you\’re kind of confused for a little bit. I think that\’s your brain trying to rapidly expand and start basically working again. And so with that system, I think you\’re able to drain out the larger waste products and such. And my theory is by not being able to do that, you end up with things like dementia, Alzheimer\’s, Parkinson\’s. And a curious sidebar to that is athletes, the ones that get lots of head trauma, I think damaged that system. So even if they were to get deep sleep, they can\’t adequately drain it. And that\’s why many of them end up with, you know, Muhammad Ali Parkinson\’s, in other diseases, dementia, you know, and such like that. So that\’s sleep it also, when you\’re deep sleep, your brain can reorganize itself, all the traditional things we know. And if you can\’t get that deep sleep, because you\’re constantly being woken up to think you have to go urinate, you know, I mean, if you don\’t urinate eight times during the day, why you\’re going to have to urinate over the eight hours or seven hours, you\’re asleep. It doesn\’t make any sense. But because you know, you did that you woke up and your friends say, Oh, yeah, it\’s because I\’ve got to go urinate, and you assume that\’s why you\’re waking up, when in fact is because either sleep apnea restless leg syndrome is waking you up. Then the next area is metabolism. Is this what you were looking for? Yep. Okay, metabolism. Now, vitamin D is critical. I mean, you think about bears, okay, your animals that hibernate during the winter? Why did they do that? Well, how did they know? And so that goes on with the angular sun and whatever. Maybe that\’s true, I don\’t know. But I know that is the angle, the sun gets lower in the sky, the ultraviolet light, the B fraction, it produces vitamin D lessons. So what happens is their vitamin D level drops. And when you have a low level of vitamin D, your appetite goes way up. Okay, your metabolism goes down 20 to 30%. And your fat absorption goes way up. Because you\’re trying to bulk up to survive the winter. Okay, well, the problem is all of us are basically what I call winter syndrome. We\’re all trying to hibernate, we all think it\’s winter, we want basically fat rolled in sugar, the most core foods we could find. I mean, the thing that we used to freak me out is I was 100 pounds overweight, I would eat a huge plate of food, and I\’d still be hungry. And that just didn\’t make any sense to me. And since I\’ve done the vitamin D, wham, my appetite is I only eat what I need. And you know, what kills diets? Why do no diets ever work? And probably ever will, unless you include vitamin D, because your appetite saying if you don\’t put food on, you don\’t eat food, if you don\’t get fat, you\’re going to starve to death in the winter. And some of us have strong remedies, people that are, you know, really, really large, probably could have survived the worst famine in the world because they can eat a peanut and gained 10 pounds using but you know, it\’s funny though the fat part sells more books than any of the other thing. All right, but the most important is its functioning immune system. And basically, I think, whether it\’s autism, whether it\’s autoimmune diseases, or whether it\’s acute respiratory distress, like some people have with this COVID-19 It\’s a ineffectual immune system because vitamin D is critical to produce a class of proteins called defenses. And defenses kill encapsulated organisms. And COVID is an encapsulated organism. And if you don\’t have enough defenses, you can\’t adequately defend yourself against those types of organisms. And the thing I found is that 30,000 units, I get it for sleep and for bone health on my patients. What I found though, was that all of a sudden, no one got the flu. Again, in two people had the swine flu when I first started, and they were dying, and I gave it to them, and both attributed to saving their lives. One was my mother. Wow. Okay. And so I mean, and it\’s really amazing because people, new patients would come in with the flu and be old don\’t want to touch you. Well, I wanted to touch them. And I wanted to see, you know, what was going to happen, you know, doctors have inoculated themselves with things to see how they would respond. Well, I wanted to know, and I never got the flu. And, you know, I\’m not advising you go out. And, you know, take this and take your bullet proof. But I was recently exposed to COVID. One was two hours in my room with a nurse that I didn\’t know how to until later. Another was, I recently had to be in the hospital. And I was three days in a small room was somebody that was COVID. Positive that I didn\’t know at the time. And so in either time, both times I tested negative, I have one, one old patient who works in the prison system, and a third of the guards and the prisoners were COVID positive, and he was negative. So you know, it really, it really is profoundly important. Because what it does is there\’s a class of cells, called dendritic cells, and they differentiate itself from four. And that\’s really the crux of where autoimmune diseases come in. And your ability to fight off infections is with those Didrik cells, because without vitamin D, they don\’t function properly. And they can\’t tell an antigen form from cell. So they can\’t gear up the active immune system produce antibodies to attack it, or if they do, they\’re, they\’re ones that attack ourselves or they\’re just inadequate, they\’re not it basically blinds the immune system. And that\’s why you end up with, in my opinion, autism, you know, the body just does it says, look, we\’re being attacked, we need to do something, what can we do with the god, it\’s, let me see if I get this right, stromal no thymic, stromal lipoprotein, and hydrogen peroxide, so it ends up irritating the gut, causing more leakage, more issues with autoimmune disease and such, it affects the type of bacteria in there, it just causes a big mess. And it basically poisons your body with cytochromes storm, you can\’t attack the COVID, it\’s going crazy. So what you do is you release all kinds of cytokines, which cause and breed kindness and such that cause basil delectation, all your fluid goes into your tissues, a basically your justice system goes empty, and you basically drop dead. And with autism, it\’s your body, all they can do is jack up the temperature to try to kill whatever it is attacking. And because it can\’t use the antibodies, because, you know, this is my theory on autism. Basically, the mother is vitamin D deficient, the baby\’s vitamin D deficient, and you\’re giving an attenuated virus to someone that is immune depressed, when I mean, when I say attenuated means a partially alive, not a dead virus, and when the country indications is not to give it to somebody, like with AIDS, or any other kind of autoimmune disease. Now, there\’s a myriad of other reasons. And I\’m not saying don\’t get a vaccine, but make sure you know, your kids have enough vitamin D. And there are other reasons for it, too. It\’s it\’s, it\’s not just one size fits all, but the immune system, and then there\’s obviously, bone health. And I just did a nine part blog series about cancer and vitamin d3.

Diva Nagula 28:48

And it\’s really interesting, when you\’re talking about and alluding to the benefits of vitamin D, when it comes to autism, and we COVID specifically with autism, even after the fact the diagnosis and the inciting event has occurred, is there sufficient chances that it can be reversed with adequate levels of vitamin D.

Dr. Judson Somerville 29:12
There\’s a friend of mine, he\’s from India, and he works in a doctor\’s group. And he\’s worked with 60 patients, and given them 60,000 iu three times a day for three days. And then going back to 30,000. He\’s been able to reverse it and all 60 patients. Wow. He read my book and loved it. And he got a study funded by the Indian government to use 30,000 units a day to see how it works against COVID and not a single university will touch it.

Diva Nagula 29:47
Why is that? What\’s your theory on this? I\’d love to hear it.

Dr. Judson Somerville 29:52
Well. I mean, look, this is gonna sound grandiose and I promise you…well, maybe I am crazy, but if I am I like the crazy I am. But the pharmaceutical industry knows, basically vitamin D3…I mean, I think it could have such a profound effect on so many people\’s health, you know, that basically we wouldn\’t be slaves to pharmaceuticals. Look, we need them. Like I talked about before genetic differences and such. Some people no matter how much vitamin D, they take, and some people can\’t because there\’s a CYP 24 A1 gene defect. It\’s pretty rare that people have it that severe. But it can cause hypercalcemia at lower doses. That\’s why, you know, I\’m not giving medical advice here at all, the whole talk, but, you know, ideally, you work with a medical professional, that gets it. And they could check the ionized calcium, your parathyroid level and your vitamin D level. But yeah, I mean, and doctors, I think, are probably afraid. I mean, I\’m a medical doctor, I understand you work so hard, you need to make a living. But once I started doing the vitamin D and stuff, and the way I am, I mean, people would walk through walls to see me and I had more business, I knew what to do with, because people, they just want the truth, and they still get sick. And guess what, you make them healthier. They\’re going to go out and do more things that require medical care, I promise you and not that that was my intention or ulterior motive, but I found it. If anything, it It made my practice boom.

Diva Nagula 31:28

Now and interesting enough with the vitamin d3, no, I know, we\’ve talked about the toxicity. If there is toxicity, it\’s going to be related to hypercalcemia. So can you talk about hypercalcemia? What it really is the listeners purposes, and then what signs to look for if you might become or have toxicity? calcium?

Dr. Judson Somerville 31:49
Yeah, I know there\’s some people are gonna go out and take it and not talk to their doctor. And you know, I mean, that\’s just the way people are. And the thing is, you look for fatigue, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, you know, you\’re not feeling well, kidney stones are the symptoms and that you\’ll get with it, obviously, you know, if you check your your ionized calcium level will be elevated. Again, no one\’s ever died from supplemental vitamin D. And actually, there\’s a handful of cases of people with that CYP 24, a one gene defect, they didn\’t realize they had it. Because usually, it\’s diagnosed early in life it like around birth. And they may have had some kidney stone problems and such. And they start taking it and they started getting really severe symptoms of fatigue and nausea and stuff. And sure enough, when they check their active form of vitamin D, they found that it was it was very high, even though the blood storage form wasn\’t that high, as far as it goes. So those are kind of symptoms that you could typically expect if you if you have hypercalcemia.

Diva Nagula 32:56

Got it. I really want to go into some discussions about vitamin D, and COVID. But before we do that, what is the optimal formulation and extended release? liquid form orally, combination of vitamin d3 and K two Like what? There\’s so many out there? Can you clarify these first?

Dr. Judson Somerville 33:16
Here\’s what I recommend. I recommend vitamin D 30,000 in olive oil or avocado oil. Because I think you don\’t want it in? I\’ve got butter always blank on that seed oil. Grapeseed or? No, it\’s, it\’s kind of like in everything nowadays. Anyway, you want those two forms, and you want the capsules. Okay, if you\’re gonna take vitamin K to the Mk seven type take no more than 100 micrograms a day. Now, I take more and I think it helps me. It just I\’ve known some people this friend of mine in India, he\’s found that if he took more than 100 it causes arteries to calcify or increases arterial pulse velocity, which is not good. And so again, genetics, you know, I don\’t I, there hasn\’t been enough research done, I find that it reversed the atherosclerosis in my feet with a higher dose. And, and for people with osteoporosis, it was 45 milligrams a day with a vitamin D, okay, but, you know, whatever, if you take the MKT, seven type 100 micrograms or less, the B i think is safe and good. Magnesium glycinate, or citrate, you know, 400 800 even more because some people are constipated and they could certainly take more. You want to get to where you\’re kind of back to normal as it were not normal constipated but what a normal vownload should be. And then boron is super important. Okay, it helps with joint pain in treating people with chronic pain. One thing that always occurred to me and no one ever talks about Is that machine textbooks is, I think a lot, a lot of people have microfractures. Okay, and a lot of their chronic pain is from the bones. That\’s why injections may not work. That\’s why shots, you know, procedures may not work. Even back surgery in boron is super critical to strengthening the bones I typically take 18 milligrams a day, take more, and it can boost like your estrogen and testosterone. So you want to be careful about that. And over in France, apparently, there\’s a tremendous amount of boron in the soil, in orthopedic surgeons that are have a heck of a time because people\’s bones are so strong. Okay. good problem to have. Yeah. And then what else? What else? I take some vitamin C, you know, a gram a day? Am I missing anything? You know, I think we\’re gonna talk about COVID in a second. But those are those are the main things I say, the take. And I try to keep it simple because you start making longer and longer list. Yeah, it gets harder. Yeah. And people kind of eyes glaze over. And they say, No, thank you. That\’s, that\’s the critical stuff, I think.

Diva Nagula 36:08

It\’s interesting, you know, we were talking about the benefits of vitamin D with cancer. And me, you know, it really hit home. For me, when I was diagnosed with cancer, one of the first things that I did was get vitamin D levels. And I believe I was diagnosed sometime, you know, early to mid winter, and I was living in Florida at the time, right. And when I got my levels, it was 19 nanograms per deciliter. Wow, wow. And, and this is me, obviously, I have darker skin. So my absorption isn\’t, this isn\’t as great as someone who\’s got lighter skin. But I was always out in the sun, I would play golf, you know, frequently in the weekends, and being out in the sun. But I\’ve also put a ton of sunscreen on. So it was a double whammy. Now the sunscreen block the absorption block the rays from the sun, and then my dark skin, I was just so I was not getting any absorption of vitamin D, and my levels were low. And so it goes to show you that, you know, my immune system was pretty shot. I mean, I was getting sick, quite often, you know, two, three times a year. And so and this is living in Florida. So it really goes to show you that there is a correlation between a healthy immune system and high levels of vitamin d3. This is probably the perfect segue into talking about COVID. And early on when COVID hit a year ago, you know, they were doing some preliminary studies on the correlation of vitamin d3 and people\’s outcomes that have COVID. And the higher the vitamin D levels, you would see the population who did get COVID would have less of a hospital stay, and no time in the ICU. And the reverse was was actually also held true, you know, people who would actually have low vitamin d3 levels, you know, had an awful time with the virus had an X prolongs day, and were often in the ICU. And, you know, there have been more studies that have come out since then that have been in peer reviewed journals. But this is a no brainer to me.

Dr. Judson Somerville 38:04
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, just to touch on cancer a second I well cured me of skin cancer, my brother have skin cancer. And then I had a patient\’s wife that started taking a dose. And she had ovarian cancer is just going to MD Anderson, which is one of the premier cancer institutes in the world. And they told her she has six months. Good luck. Well, she went back nine months later, cancer free. And in this recent blog posts, I list some of the cancers that are most susceptible. Well, they I won\’t go into all the details, because I want to talk about COVID. But it\’s a nine part series and I tried to make them short, you know, like 500 700, less than 1000 words, so people can read one and then come back later. So it doesn\’t tie up a lot of time. But anyway, COVID Yeah, I\’m aware of the study you\’re you\’re talking about. And the problem with all but one study I\’m aware of does one of several things to basically prove that low dose vitamin D three doesn\’t work to prove that vitamin D doesn\’t work, which is, is basically trying to disparage it. Because if you don\’t give the right dose, you know, I\’m saying because what they\’ll do is they\’ll start somebody on a dose but not check their initial levels. They won\’t follow the levels in the study. They won\’t give adequate amount. They\’ll give like three or 5000 when you really need, like I say 30,000 to get the optimal effects. And I think and it\’s a bold statement, I wrote a letter to President Trump, but I just wrote one to Biden, and Sims have copies of book Curiously, after I sent to Trump, there was a sale, not an Amazon of 45 books. Trump hated Amazon. So I think there was a correlation. But anyway, I think that I could have the COVID epidemic over in two months. If you would just let me at it. Yes, you would discover some people with that. See ya. P 24 a gene defect, but nobody ever died from it, it\’s a lot easier to treat people by stopping it and treating, you know, symptomatically treating their hypercalcemia than it is to try to explain to somebody why their loved ones dead, because there was nothing you could do about it. So, you know, like I say, my friend was able to reverse people already had it. And I think, you know, granted, mine\’s an anecdotal study, I was exposed twice heavily, and I didn\’t get it. Not everybody will have that experience. But I really, really, really think, you know, with that dose of vitamin D, this thing would be over two months. And right now it\’s wintertime, and I knew it was gonna get worse. I knew it was gonna get worse. And because we live so far from the equator, what I call the golden ban between the Tropic of Capricorn, Tropic of Cancer, basically, there\’s lots and lots of light. But the problem is, I practice in Laredo, and 98% of the population is Hispanic. So typically, not always, they have darker pigmentation. And melanin absorbs 99.8% of the UVB light, the one that produces vitamin d3, and typically has many people don\’t sunbathe and not really looking to be darker. Okay. So I was amazed at how many people almost everybody was deficient. And lots of people were down in the single digits, like five. And I remember treating one guy, and he had just about everything aside, he\’s his abdomen was really swollen because all the fluid in there because his liver was giving up. And I was amazed at how quickly he improved just with the vitamin D. And I mean, it\’s just basically your vitamin D, I could talk for hours about it. And we\’re talking about COVID. But at the end of your chromosomes are telomeres, and they basically determine how many cell cycles how many times your cells can divide, and the less they need to divide, and the more they can divide, the longer you\’ll stay young, and the longer you\’ll stay healthy, okay, because you\’ll have, instead of using up all the cells, because every time you get sick, you kill more cells than you were if you weren\’t. And so the longer you can say, even a flu kills some cells, you\’re like, Oh, it\’s not that much. It\’s not, but over time, it\’s cumulative, it adds up. And so vitamin D, I think, helps slow the aging process cells, I think it may even help keep the telomeres longer. And basically, your organs are younger, and you stay healthier. And basically, like I think I mentioned earlier, vitamin C to scurvy, vitamin D is to all the aid of diseases of aging. But in particular, we have this crisis with COVID. Now zinc is important, because over in Iran, there\’s a region, it\’s very zinc deficient, they had really high rates of COVID over there. So you need to get some zinc, you don\’t want to take too much more than 40 milligrams a day.

Diva Nagula 43:05
Otherwise, if you take too much, you\’re gonna have a copper deficiency.

Dr. Judson Somerville 43:08
Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, hopefully, I\’m not talking too much.

Diva Nagula 43:14

No, yeah, you were talking about Iran and zinc. So yeah, I mean, this is amazing. This is great stuff. I mean, I\’m sure I could talk to you for hours about this. And I\’m sure the listeners are loving this as well. Yeah, I mean, there\’s more studies. And actually, some of the protocols that are in the intensive care units are also including high doses of vitamin D3 intravenously. And so I\’m sure that – I haven\’t seen the outcomes, long term studies. But you know, with what we\’re talking about, we know that this is definitely helping the survival rates and improving the overall outcome. So it\’s interesting, I thought that my dosing…I thought the levels between 60 and 80 nanograms per deciliter were optimal – I take 10,000 units. So you could be sure that I\’m going to be doubling and maybe even tripling this dose, right after we get off this show.

Dr. Judson Somerville 44:07
Yeah, see how it works for you. Because, you know, like I say, people notice the big difference between 10,000 and 30,000.

Diva Nagula 44:16

Yeah, I mean, and it\’s interesting, because one of my big issues that I\’ve been having is poor sleep. And then the poor sleep as you were talking about, you know, if you\’re not getting enough deep sleep, you\’re not draining the glymphatic system. So as you were alluding to, you\’re often more predisposed to things like Alzheimer\’s and Parkinson\’s. And what you didn\’t include, which I\’m sure is part of it is brain fog.

Dr. Judson Somerville 44:39
Took the words right out of my mouth because if you weren\’t going to mention, I was going to say that.

Diva Nagula 44:43

Yeah. I\’m sure that will clear up because that\’s what I suffer from in the mornings, a lot of brain fog. And I feel it\’s probably because my levels aren\’t adequate, and that\’s causing me to have a deficiency in deep sleep. This is all good stuff. Before we wrap up, are there any other pearls of wisdom that you might be able to share? I mean, the whole podcast has been pearls of wisdom, but anymore that you might be able to have?

Dr. Judson Somerville 45:09
Well, you know, I\’d hate to self promote, but my book has got kind of the basic story in it. And I\’m working on my second book, and the blog, you know, vitaminDblog.com, has all of my posts, and I\’m working right now on one on gut health. And vitamin D, it\’s just quite complicated, as you can imagine.

Diva Nagula 45:31
Can you touch base on on how those two are correlated? D3 and gut issues?

Dr. Judson Somerville 45:37
Yeah, it all comes down again to the immune system. Here\’s what I think – there\’s 150 to 200 million nerve endings in the gut, okay, elementary track from the mouth to the anus. Vitamin D controls our appetite. You know how you get cravings for things? I think that is vitamin D, based on vitamin D, telling your body or brain that you need a certain key component to build some kind of whatever – because your gut produces lots of serotonin, produces GABA, produces all the B vitamins, vitamin K, all these different substances you need. But if you don\’t have the right bacteria, and they\’re not modulated….I think vitamin D, through the immune system, and the ___ cells, like I talked about before, counts, keeps track of, and modulates the organisms in your intestines to produce what you need. And when you don\’t have enough vitamin D, then your innate and your active immune system breaks down. So it can\’t control what\’s in there, plus, the components start leaking into your interstitial tissue, the fluid in between yourself, into your veins into your arteries, into your lymphatic system, and basically poisoning your system, which also contributes to brain fog, and all the other atherosclerosis, diabetes, you name it. So, it\’s really, really fascinating. I\’m just trying to find all the research and stuff because some of this stuff is my ideas. And there\’s been no research on it. So I\’m trying to, how to put it….there\’s several steps, but I\’m trying to find stuff as close to what I\’m saying, to prove what I\’m saying.

Diva Nagula 47:22
And for our listeners, if people want to find out more information about you read about your blog post, what\’s the best way

Dr. Judson Somerville 47:33
www.vitaminDblog.com. Or they could go Amazon or any bookstore and find my book, The Optimal Dose, restore your health with the power of vitamin D3.

Diva Nagula 47:43
Awesome. Dr. Somerville this has been a great show. Thank you so much for being on here. And thank you so much for all the work that you do.

Dr. Judson Somerville 47:50
Well, Dr. Nagula, thank you so much, and I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.