ICU - need Vitamin D ASAP - interview and transcript, Matthews
50 minute Interview of Dr. Matthews by GrassrootsHealth
Highlights
Healthcare providers can make a big difference for their patients simply by increasing their knowledge of vitamin D and by testing for and treating vitamin D deficiency
Supplementing ICU patients with 50,000 IU vitamin D per day caused the mortality rates between different groups to drop to the same; more specifically, it eliminated the disparity between racial groups
Working in the 4th busiest level 1 trauma center in the US, Dr. Matthews was able to cut the rate of heart attacks, strokes, falls, pneumonia, overall mortality, readmissions and the length of hospital stay just with vitamin D
There is a need to get enough vitamin D “from the cradle to the grave” starting before conception, and checking vitamin D throughout life is absolutely vital; vitamin D regulates about 10% of your genes, so when you’re vitamin D deficient, you have lost some function in your body, and something is not functioning properly… usually the immune system…
Listen in to this fun and informative interview with Dr. Leslie Ray Matthews, M.D., FACS, FCCM. Discover some interesting facts about his family and upbringing, and about his experiences with vitamin D in practice as a hospital intensive care doctor and critical care surgeon.
Dr. Matthews’ knowledge of the biochemical and physiological actions of vitamin D within the body, combined with his awareness of the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency, prompted him to test vitamin D levels for all patients upon hospital admission and treat them with high doses of vitamin D. This resulted in improved health outcomes, decreased mortality rates, shorter hospital stays, lower healthcare costs, and zero cases of vitamin D toxicity. As he says, “Vitamin D deficiency is deadlier than vitamin D toxicity!”
Dr. Matthews wraps up the interview with key points and important advice that is essential for other health care practitioners to hear, especially if they are interested in keeping their patients healthy. They can make a big difference for their patients, simply by increasing their knowledge of vitamin D and by testing for and treating vitamin D deficiency.
A big thanks to Dr. Matthews for sharing his time and expertise! Listen in or read the key points below.
Watch the Video
Key Points from the Interview
The nutrition advice that Dr. Matthews got in medical school said that enough of all nutrients could be obtained simply by eating 3 healthy meals a day – which is untrue, especially for vitamin D.
Vitamin D deficiency is among all populations; it is the most common nutritional deficiency in the world.
We are meant to get vitamin D from exposing skin to the sun, but most people hide from the sun, stay indoors, use sunscreen or cover up when outside; cloud cover and air pollution also block vitamin D production. The darker the skin, the longer it needs to be exposed to the sun to make the same amount of vitamin D.
Being sick and staying in the hospital automatically meant vitamin D levels were going to decrease; when Dr. Matthews started testing his patients, he found they were all vitamin D deficient, however, African American women had the lowest levels, followed by African American males.
He began to compare mortality rates to vitamin D levels and found that those with the lowest vitamin D levels had the highest mortality rates as well as the highest ICU cost and the longest ICU stay.
Dr. Matthews started supplementing all of his patients with 50,000 IU vitamin D3 per day and noticed a decrease in mortality rate among all of his patients.
Supplementing ICU patients with 50,000 IU vitamin D per day caused the mortality rates between different groups to drop to the same – it eliminated the disparity between racial groups.
“Healthcare disparities are due to physiologic, biologic vitamin D deficiency, not so much as socio-economic factors. And we noticed that the mortality rates of all these different groups that I described you drop to the same. So, most health care disparities are due to their physiologic or biologic vitamin D deficiency, and not so much as socioeconomic factors like the medical community thought.”
Working in the 4th busiest level 1 trauma center in the US, he was able to cut the rate of heart attacks, strokes, falls, pneumonia, overall mortality, readmissions and the length of hospital stay just with vitamin D
There were also zero lawsuits while he was in practice
– “Normally you have a malpractice lawsuit in trauma, critical care, surgery every 3,000 cases….
We went 30,000 cases without a lawsuit.”
He wrote a paper on the cost effectiveness of vitamin D supplementation in the ICU, which can be found here
He mentioned the importance of understanding how vitamin D works in the body, but because most doctors do not have a deep understanding of this, they don’t understand the need for it
There is no one-size-fits-all dose of vitamin D
Vitamin D controls close to 10% of our DNA, and is especially important for immune cells, immune function, and inflammation regulation
Dr. Matthews is developing a new patent that combines vitamin D, heat shock protein, and glutathione (“the strongest antioxidant on the planet”)
Magnesium is a very important cofactor for vitamin D; Dr. Matthews does not recommend taking calcium with vitamin D since taking more vitamin D will automatically increase the amount of calcium absorbed from the diet
His suggested target level is 50-55 ng/ml, up to 80 ng/ml in special cases, such as with cancer
Vitamin D can also cut the risk of heart attack and could help reverse congestive heart failure by helping the heart pump more efficiently
Dr. Matthews shares 7 key messages about vitamin D:
Because vitamin D regulates about 10% of your genes, when you’re vitamin D deficient, you have lost some function in your body, so something is not functioning properly… usually the immune system.
There is a need to get enough vitamin D “from the cradle to the grave” starting before conception; checking vitamin D during pregnancy is absolutely vital
Even though he got push back from hospital administrators and even hospital dieticians and nutritionists, he pushed forward with his vitamin D protocol (and shared the research to show that it was safe and effective)
“Vitamin D deficiency is deadlier than vitamin D toxicity”
Research has shown that low vitamin D levels can increase the risk of death
According to Dr. Matthews, vitamin D levels should be checked yearly at least, just like any other routine blood test
“Vitamin D is important for bacterial, viral, fungal, parasitic infections, cancer surveillance. So, it does all that. So that’s a gift from God. Actually, I call vitamin D God’s miracle vitamin.”
His message to doctors: Test all patients for vitamin D at admission or first visit!
Transcript
📄 Download the transcript from VitaminDWiki
VitaminDWiki - studies in both of the categories Trauma-Surgery and Mortality
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VitaminDWiki - studies in both of the categories Trauma-Surgery and Loading Dose (often 300,000 IU)
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14+ VitaminDWiki pages have MATTHEWS in the title
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Dr. Matthews has many followers - both in trauma and surgery
Unfortunately, unaware of any hospital that has adopted Vitamin D as standard of practice for ICU or surgery
The medical profession is VERY slow to change
It took, for example, 80 years for the medical profession conclude that Rickets is fought by vitamin D
Note: Many forms of vitamin D activate the immune system far faster than standard Vitamin D
standard (fat soluble) form takes 10-20 hours to get into the blood stream
- Water soluable vitamin D - skips delay thru the lymph system - guess 5 to 10 hours to get to blood
- Also it is more bio-available for people with poor guts, no gallbladder - see Gut-Friendly Vitamin D
- Nanoemulsion vitamin D - swished in mouth. Appears to get into blood in < 1 hour
- It can also be applied topically if the patient unable to swallow
- Calcitriol is a fast acting form - but unaware if it has been tried in trauma or surgery settings
The delay of a Vitamin D test can eliminated 99.9% of the time
Can just ask the person if they have a level > say 50 ng. No need to wait for a test to discover it
25 most-visited pages in Trauma-Surgery
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