Researchers have shown in mice models of Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia, and dementia with Lewy bodies, that the intranasal administration of rifampicin and resveratrol in combination is safer and improves cognitive function more than rifampicin alone. The research results are expected to lead to the development of safe and effective nasal spray for the prevention of dementia.
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Puzzled by the mass deaths of birds and fish in Alabama? It's also happening elsewhere, across the Eastern and Southern U.S. and around the world -- Gizmodo has a handy map of all the U.S. events.
The Activist Post offers some theories. Before you read them, however, bear in mind what Yahoo News has to say about the subject:
"... [M]ass die-offs happen all the time and usually are unrelated ... Federal records show they happen on average every other day somewhere in North America. Usually, we don't notice them and don't try to link them to each other ...
And there have been much larger die-offs than the 3,000 blackbirds in Arkansas. Twice in the summer of 1996, more than 100,000 ducks died of botulism in Canada."
Here are the theories listed by the Activist Post:
Mainstream Explanations: These have included lightning, hail, mid-air collision, power lines, and New Year fireworks for the birds, and a disease for the fish. But this seems like a heck of a coincidence, and where are the roasted birds from a lightning strike?
Meteor showers: During this period of intense seasonal meteor shower, some people reported hearing sonic booms in the area that might have been an indication of a local shock wave.
New Madrid Fault Line: Could it be related to the recent earthquake activity along a fault line that runs along the mid-eastern section of the U.S.? Could it have dispersed pollutants into the water and atmosphere?
Government testing: Only certain species have been affected, but within the entire region. And some reports have indicated that the organs of the birds were liquefied -- could this implicate species-specific bio-weapons?
GMOs: There are other die-offs are happening across other species, such as bees and bats. Some think they could be poisoned by genetically modified plants.
Geoengineering: Could spraying in the area have caused this?
HAARP: Both birds and fish navigate in highly coordinated ways. Could the HAARP array off in Alaska have short-circuited their navigation systems? Or is it the result of electromagnetic pollution for other human devices?
Scalar Weapons: Some wonder if the cause is directed energy beam weapons deployed via satellite.
Project Blue Beam: Another theory is a sound generator weapon.
Geomagnetic and other Earth changes: The magnetic pole is moving. Add to this a dwindling magnetosphere and falling oxygen levels, plus an increase in sun activity and magnetic storms.
Update: A Wisconsin lab has apparently determined that the birds, at least, died of blunt force trauma.
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This article was previously published July 16, 2020, and has been updated with new information.
I've previously discussed the synergy between magnesium and vitamin D, and the importance of vitamin D for optimal immune function and overall health — especially as it pertains to lowering your risk of COVID-19. Previous studies have also highlighted the role this duo plays in cognitive function among older adults, as well as overall mortality.
Vitamin D and Magnesium Protect Cognitive Health
One such study,1 "Association of Vitamin D and Magnesium Status with Cognitive Function in Older Adults: Results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2011 to 2014," points out that vitamin D not only protects neuronal structures and plays a role in neuronal calcium regulation, but also appears to impact your risk for neurodegeneration as you grow older.
Magnesium, meanwhile, aside from being required for converting vitamin D to its active form,2,3,4 also plays a role in cognitive health, and magnesium deficiency has been implicated in several neurological disorders.
Using NHANES data from 2,984 participants over the age of 60, the researchers compared serum vitamin D status and dietary magnesium intake against cognitive function scores.
After adjusting for confounding factors, including total calorie consumption and magnesium intake, higher blood levels of vitamin D positively correlated with decreased odds of having a low cognitive function score on the Digit Symbol Substitution Test.
The same trend was found when they looked at vitamin D intake, rather than blood level. The correlation of higher vitamin D levels and better cognitive function was particularly strong among those whose magnesium intake was equal to or greater than 375 mg per day. According to the authors:5
"We found that higher serum 25(OH)D levels were associated with reduced risk of low cognitive function in older adults, and this association appeared to be modified by the intake level of magnesium."
Magnesium Improves Brain Plasticity
While magnesium intake by itself did not appear to have an impact on cognitive function in the study above, other research has highlighted its role in healthy cognition.
Memory impairment occurs when the connections (synapses) between brain cells diminish. While many factors can come into play, magnesium is an important one. As noted by Dr. David Perlmutter, a neurologist and fellow of the American College of Nutrition:6
"It has now been discovered that magnesium is a critical player in the activation of nerve channels that are involved in synaptic plasticity. That means that magnesium is critical for the physiological events that are fundamental to the processes of learning and memory."
A specific form of magnesium called magnesium threonate was in 2010 found to enhance "learning abilities, working memory, and short- and long-term memory in rats."7 According to the authors, "Our findings suggest that an increase in brain magnesium enhances both short-term synaptic facilitation and long-term potentiation and improves learning and memory functions."
COVID-19 Can Deprive Brain of Oxygen
While we're on the topic of the brain, a July 1, 2020, article8 in The Washington Post reviewed findings from autopsies of COVID-19 patients. Surprisingly, Chinese researchers have reported9 that COVID-19 patients can exhibit a range of neurological manifestations.
A June 12, 2020, letter to the editor10 published in The New England Journal of Medicine also discusses the neuropathological features of COVID-19. As reported by The Washington Post:11
"Patients have reported a host of neurological impairments, including reduced ability to smell or taste, altered mental status, stroke, seizures — even delirium … In June, researchers in France reported that 84% of patients in intensive care had neurological problems, and a third were confused or disoriented at discharge.
… Also this month, those in the United Kingdom found that 57 of 125 coronavirus patients with a new neurological or psychiatric diagnosis had experienced a stroke due to a blood clot in the brain, and 39 had an altered mental state.
Based on such data and anecdotal reports, Isaac Solomon, a neuropathologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, set out to systematically investigate where the virus might be embedding itself in the brain.
He conducted autopsies of 18 consecutive deaths, taking slices of key areas: the cerebral cortex (the gray matter responsible for information processing), thalamus (modulates sensory inputs), basal ganglia (responsible for motor control) and others …"
Interestingly, while doctors and researchers initially suspected that brain inflammation was causing the neurological problems seen in some patients, Solomon's autopsies found very little inflammation. Instead, these neurological manifestations appear to be the result of brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation.
Signs of oxygen deprivation were present both in patients who had spent a significant amount of time in intensive care, and those who died suddenly after a short but severe bout of illness. I believe this is likely due to increases in clotting in the brain microvasculature.
Solomon told The Washington Post he was "very surprised," by the finding. It makes sense, though, considering COVID-19 patients have been found to be starved for oxygen. As reported by The Washington Post:12
"When the brain does not get enough oxygen, individual neurons die … To a certain extent, people's brains can compensate, but at some point, the damage is so extensive that different functions start to degrade … The findings underscore the importance of getting people on supplementary oxygen quickly to prevent irreversible damage."
Magnesium and Vitamin D Impact Mortality
Getting back to magnesium and vitamin D, previous research13 using NHANES data from 2001 through 2006 found the duo has a positive impact on overall mortality rates. This study also pointed out that magnesium "substantially reversed the resistance to vitamin D treatment in patients with magnesium-dependent vitamin-D-resistant rickets."
The researchers hypothesized that magnesium supplementation increases your vitamin D level by activating more of it, and that your mortality risk might therefore be lowered by increasing magnesium intake. That is indeed what they found. According to the authors:
"High intake of total, dietary or supplemental magnesium was independently associated with significantly reduced risks of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency respectively. Intake of magnesium significantly interacted with intake of vitamin D in relation to risk of both vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency.
Additionally, the inverse association between total magnesium intake and vitamin D insufficiency primarily appeared among populations at high risk of vitamin insufficiency.
Furthermore, the associations of serum 25(OH)D with mortality, particularly due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and colorectal cancer, were modified by magnesium intake, and the inverse associations were primarily present among those with magnesium intake above the median.
Our preliminary findings indicate it is possible that magnesium intake alone or its interaction with vitamin D intake may contribute to vitamin D status. The associations between serum 25(OH)D and risk of mortality may be modified by the intake level of magnesium."
Magnesium Lowers Vitamin D Requirement by 146%
According to a scientific review14,15 published in 2018, as many as 50% of Americans taking vitamin D supplements may not get significant benefit as the vitamin D simply gets stored in its inactive form, and the reason for this is because they have insufficient magnesium levels.
Research published in 2013 also highlighted this issue, concluding that higher magnesium intake helps reduce your risk of vitamin D deficiency by activating more of it. As noted by the authors:16
"High intake of total, dietary or supplemental magnesium was independently associated with significantly reduced risks of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency respectively.
Intake of magnesium significantly interacted with intake of vitamin D in relation to risk of both vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency … Our preliminary findings indicate it is possible that magnesium intake alone or its interaction with vitamin D intake may contribute to vitamin D status."
More recently, GrassrootsHealth concluded17 you need 146% more vitamin D to achieve a blood level of 40 ng/ml (100 nmol/L) if you do not take supplemental magnesium, compared to taking your vitamin D with at least 400 mg of magnesium per day.
The interplay between magnesium and vitamin D isn't a one-way street, though. It goes both ways. Interestingly, while vitamin D improves magnesium absorption,18 taking large doses of vitamin D can also deplete magnesium.19 Again, the reason for that is because magnesium is required in the conversion of vitamin D into its active form.
Magnesium + Vitamin K Lowers Vitamin D Requirement Even More
Magnesium isn't the only nutrient that can have a significant impact on your vitamin D status. GrassrootsHealth data further reveal you can lower your oral vitamin D requirement by a whopping 244% simply by adding magnesium and vitamin K2. As reported by GrassrootsHealth:20
"… 244% more supplemental vitamin D was needed for 50% of the population to achieve 40 ng/ml (100 nmol/L) for those not taking supplemental magnesium or vitamin K2 compared to those who usually took both supplemental magnesium and vitamin K2."
How to Boost Your Magnesium Level
The recommended daily allowance for magnesium is around 310 mg to 420 mg per day depending on your age and sex,21 but many experts believe you may need anywhere from 600 mg to 900 mg per day.22
Personally, I believe many may benefit from amounts as high as 1 to 2 grams (1,000 to 2,000 mg) of elemental magnesium per day, as most of us have EMF exposures that simply cannot be mitigated, and the extra magnesium may help lower the damage from that exposure.
My personal recommendation is that unless you have kidney disease and are on dialysis, continually increase your magnesium dose until you have loose stools and then cut it back. You want the highest dose you can tolerate and still have normal bowel movements.
When it comes to oral supplementation, my personal preference is magnesium threonate, as it appears to be the most efficient at penetrating cell membranes, including your mitochondria and blood-brain barrier. But I am also fond of magnesium malate, magnesium citrate, and ionic magnesium from molecular hydrogen as each tablet has 80 mg of elemental magnesium.
Eat More Magnesium-Rich Foods
Last but not least, while you may still need magnesium supplementation (due to denatured soils), it would certainly be wise to try to get as much magnesium from your diet as possible. Dark-green leafy vegetables lead the pack when it comes to magnesium content, and juicing your greens is an excellent way to boost your intake. Foods with high magnesium levels include:23
Avocados
Swiss chard
Turnip greens
Beet greens
Herbs and spices such as coriander, chives, cumin seed, parsley, mustard seeds, fennel, basil and cloves
Major Pharmaceuticals has put out a press release saying that they've been forced to shut down production of all natural desiccated thyroid drugs, a treatment for hypothyroidism that has been in use for over a century. Major received notice from the FDA that their complete line of desiccated thyroid drugs can no longer be manufactured, and that the FDA is pulling the designation that allowed them to sell these drugs.
Major is also saying that the FDA is requiring that all manufacturers that wish to continue manufacturing submit an NDA or ANDA (New Drug Application or Abbreviated New Drug Application) for approval. Desiccated thyroid drugs were in use in the early 1900’s, and already on the market when the government regulatory groups to oversee medications were formed, so they never went through the new drug application process.
Biotech, Time Cap Labs, and Major are no longer manufacturing natural desiccated thyroid drugs. RLC and Forest are now the last makers of natural desiccated thyroid drugs in the U.S., and their products are unavailable or in short supply in throughout the nation.
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According to President Biden, “a winter of death” awaits anyone who rejects the experimental COVID jab which, by the way, has been consistently shown to do far more harm than good.
A December 16, 2021, White House statement reads: "For the unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death. For themselves, their family and the hospital they’ll soon overwhelm." That exact sentence was reiterated the next day by COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients during a virtual press conference.
Backlash Over Biden’s Callousness
As reported by MSN’s Claire Goforth,1 the “prediction” didn’t go over well with the public. “Most people hate it. They feel it's callous and cruel,” Goforth said, quoting a number of Twitter responses, including one from John D. Davidson:
"If you wanted to make half the country hate the administration and resist its edicts and advice, it would be hard to come up with a better strategy than this."
A Twitter user by the name Martyr Made noted, “The aggressive Us/Them language in this White House message is insane.”2 Olivia Nuzzi, a Washington, D.C., reporter for New York Magazine tweeted, “Who is this for? Unvaccinated Americans are not going to be persuaded by messaging like this.”3
White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain defended Biden saying “we have a duty to warn people what they are facing if unvaccinated.”4 But from my perspective, the rub is that they continue to pretend that lies are truth and truth is lies. Everything is upside-down, and many are rejecting this “winter of woe” message for the simple fact that they know the opposite is true.
If we are to go by actual science and data, the warning Biden issued should have gone out to the vaccinated, because everything points to the double and triple jabbed being at increased risk for infection, especially with the Omicron variant.
One reason for this is because the COVID jab reprograms your innate and adaptive immune systems, causing immune depletion.5 Data also show that the more heavily “vaccinated” a population is, the higher the case rate gets.6 And even this fails to account for the massive increase risk of dying from the jab or becoming permanently disabled, as many jabbed millions have already suffered.
Former WHO Adviser Tells Vaccinated to Quarantine Over Winter
Back in August 2021, the U.K. Column interviewed professor Christian Perronne, a French infectious disease expert, long-time vaccine policy chief and former vice president of the World Health Organization’s European Advisory Group, who issued the opposite — and likely far more accurate — warning:7
“Vaccinated people are at risk of the new variants ... It’s been proven in different countries, so vaccinated people should be put in quarantine and should be isolated from society. Unvaccinated people are not dangerous; vaccinated people are dangerous to others.
It’s proven in Israel now. I’m in contact with many physicians in Israel. They’re having big problems now; severe cases in hospitals are among vaccinated people. And in the UK also, you had a larger vaccination program and also there are problems.”
Not surprisingly, despite impeccable credentials, Peronne has been censored and shunned for his contrarian views on COVID countermeasures, the COVID gene transfer shots in particular. During his interview, he didn’t mince words, referring to the European COVID-19 policy as “completely stupid.”
Are Prison Camps for the Unjabbed Next?
As predicted, we are rapidly approaching a time when the unvaccinated might be imprisoned for no other reason than their refusal of an experimental gene transfer injection. In early January 2021, a New York bill (A416) was introduced that would give the governor and his or her delegates the power to remove and/or indefinitely detain anyone suspected of being a threat to public health.
Detainees would be kept in a “medical facility or other appropriate facility” — in other words, a medical prison camp — for a maximum of 60 days, although a court could extend the detention in 90-day increments, indefinitely. As reported by Reason:8
“The bill's language is noticeably vague in defining the parameters around disease type, leaving the government wide latitude in conducting its risk analysis ... The legislation was originally introduced during the 2015-16 session in response to the Ebola virus ... Though [SARS-CoV-2] is a serious virus, it is also no Ebola, which carries an average case fatality rate of 50%, with some outbreaks reaching as high as 90% ...
[T]he vagueness of its approach gives the state a great deal of discretion in locking people up who might have some sort of unnamed illness, as well as people who merely interacted with someone who might have that illness.”
The bill comes up for a vote in the New York Senate and Assembly sometime in the next legislative session, which begins January 5, 2022.9 In addition to indefinite detention for poorly specified reasons, the bill would “require an individual who has been exposed to or infected by a contagious disease to complete an appropriate, prescribed course of treatment, preventive medication or vaccination.”
In other words, this bill legalizes the forced vaccination of anyone who is detained under the mere suspicion of being infected with something or having been in close proximity to someone suspected of being infected. As reported by Rights and Freedoms:10
“There is no explicit reference to what types of contagious diseases qualify a person to be removed from public life, detained in a facility, and forced into medical treatment and vaccination. Anyone can technically be held in isolation until they are deemed non-contagious, which would also raise questions over whether those carrying HIV/AIDS could be released back into society.
The bill has received an overwhelmingly negative response on the NY Senate website.11 Commenters have stated that, ‘this is disturbing and sets up a terrible precedent for future law. The governor can basically detain whoever [he/she] likes on the basis of scanty evidence.
This is un-American. It reminiscent of the Soviet Union locking up political opponents on the basis that they were ‘mentally unstable.’ We CANNOT allow this in our state.’ ‘This is a violation of fundamental human rights. The government should be working for the people, not locking them up without cause.’”
Australia Among the First to Test Medical Imprisonment Model
If you think being tossed into a prison camp without cause or recourse is impossible — after all, this is the United States of America, the land of the free, home of the brave — think again. Australia, another shining star of democracy, has backslidden into totalitarianism at a speed that has everyone’s head spinning.
The Australian government has gone full speed ahead, building a massive COVID quarantine camp, complete with barbed wire fences, guards and video surveillance. Once you’re in, you can’t just waltz out whenever you want to. In the video above, Hayley Hodgson describes what it was like to be detained and transferred to a COVID internment camp, even though she wasn’t sick.
Video surveillance placed her with a friend who had tested positive. They ran her license plate to retrieve her address and showed up at her house, telling her she had to quarantine. Even if you test negative, you still have to spend 14 days in a quarantine camp if you’ve been in close contact with someone who has tested positive. If you refuse, you’re fined $5,000 and forcibly taken there by police anyway.
“You feel like you’re in prison ... It’s inhumane what they’re doing,” she says. “You are so small. They just overpower you. You’re literally nothing. It’s like, ‘You do what we say, or ... we’ll lock you up for longer.’”
If someone can threaten to extend your stay in this “health hotel,” just what kind of medicine are we dealing with? Clearly, this is a prison model, not a health care model. When have you ever been in a hospital and the nurse tells you, “If you don’t eat your pudding, we’re keeping you here another three months”?
Life in the Biosecurity State
Based on Hodgson’s description of the camp, you don’t get much in terms of medical attention. One shudders to think what would happen to someone who actually had a severe case of COVID in there. Will hazmat suit-equipped police drop you at your room and then you don’t see them again unless you’re caught breaking some rule?
Food is delivered and dropped outside your door once a day. Each room has a 2x2 meter deck where you can go, but if you step outside your room or designated outdoor area without a mask, you’re fined $5,000. She was also told that additional infractions would result in her stay being extended past the 14 days — even though she wasn’t sick and there was no reason to keep her there in the first place.
“You’re literally treated like a prisoner in there,” she says. If you’re triple jabbed and think that means you’ll never see the inside of one of these prisons, think again. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been double or triple jabbed.
If you’re found to have been in close contact with someone who tests positive, in you go. And there’s no legal process you can turn to for help if you disagree with the decree to quarantine. During her stay, three teenagers — all of whom had tested negative — managed to escape the camp. The manhunt that ensued is further evidence that we’re dealing with a prison model and nothing else.
US Has Hundreds of Ready-Made Prison Camps
While Australia is building its second camp, the U.S. already has 800 FEMA camps ready for action. As reported by AMG News:12
“FEMA is the executive arm of the coming police state and thus will head up all operations ... The camps all have railroad facilities as well as roads leading to and from the detention facilities. Many also have an airport nearby.
The majority of the camps can house a population of 20,000 prisoners. Currently, the largest of these facilities is just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaskan facility is a massive mental health facility and can hold approximately 2 million people.”
The article goes on to list the many executive orders that can work together to suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, effectively allowing government to seize control over all aspects of life, from food production and transportation to communications and health care functions.
There’s even an executive order that allows the government to mobilize civilians into “work brigades” to carry out whatever functions are deemed necessary, and one that allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate entire communities. To find the FEMA camp nearest you, check out the state listings in the AMG News article.13 Most states have three or more.
Interpret the Media Narrative — They Want Civil War
If you’ve been paying attention over the past couple of years, you may have noticed that you can almost always predict what the next phase of the narrative is going to be. They “advertise” or pave the way for the evolving narrative by putting out articles slanted in a given direction.
Based on recent headlines, I suspect “the powers that be” are hoping to incite a civil war. “CIA Advisor: US Is ‘Closer to Civil War’ Than Thought Possible,” the Daily Mail claims.14 “We’re Edging Closer to Civil War,” an opinion columnist at The New York Times declares.15 “US Closer to Civil War Than Most Would Like to Believe, New Book Says,” announces The Guardian.16
According to Dr. Barbara Walter, a political science professor who serves on the Political Instability Task Force, the U.S. meets several criteria that historically have served as indicators that an “open insurgency” may be imminent. In her book, “How Civil Wars Start,” she writes:17
“No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war. If you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America — the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or the Ivory Coast or Venezuela — you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely. And what you would find is that the United States ... has entered very dangerous territory.”
Government Has Designated the Enemy, and It’s Us
The problem here is that while authoritarian politicians keep paying lip service to “democracy,” their own actions are anything but. Just who is undermining democracy? If you believe the news and CIA advisers, it’s the people who want the Constitution to stand and be adhered to that are the enemies of democracy. Never mind the mental gymnastics required to get to that conclusion.
It’s not hard to predict a scenario in which authoritarian leaders, acting on a falsely constructed narrative that a civil war is imminent, might start rounding up “dissidents.” And that’s in addition to the already existing, thinly veiled threat of tossing the unvaccinated into indefinite detention.
I agree with Walter’s assessment that we’re in dangerous territory, but not for the same reasons as she suggests. I would also argue that just about every country is a powder keg ready to blow, and for the same reason — people are being tyrannized by their governments and by unelected health authorities that claim powers they do not legally have.
Take England, for example. Entrepreneur and COVID blogger Steve Kirsch was recently notified that an anti-COVID restrictions campaign member had been detained for 28 days under the Mental Health Act for not wearing a mask to a dentist appointment.18 Normally, it’s quite difficult to get a person sectioned under the Mental Health Act, but not anymore.
Refusing to wear a mask apparently qualifies as an acute mental health disorder warranting a month-long stay in a psych ward.
The man, Charlie Cunningham, is reportedly being held at Littlemore Mental Hospital in Oxford, “where he's being deprived of sleep under the pretext of being suicidal,” according to the woman who contacted Kirsch. She added, “He's now going to be detained over Christmas and New Year — [he’s] very upset as he feels he's been kidnapped and being held against his will ...”
While all the articles mentioned earlier that warn of civil war blame the decline in democracy on the Trump administration, the Trump administration can hardly be blamed for the civil rights abuses and power grabs that are occurring today. It’s time to judge each tree by its fruit. That said, knowing that a civil war would serve the totalitarian takeover agenda, it would be wise to make sure our resistance remains a peaceful one.
According to health experts, vitamin D1,2 and sleep3,4 deficiencies are at epidemic proportions. It also appears they are related, as vitamin D levels affect your sleep quantity and quality.5 Sleep is an essential strategy for optimal health and immune support, and is at the heart of your circadian rhythm.
You may have heard your circadian rhythm referred to as your body clock. It's a natural, biological timer present in your cells that helps the body recognize sleepiness and wakefulness throughout a 24-hour period. Sleep is vital to remaining alert and awake during the day. But did you know that if you don't get enough sleep, nerve connections begin to break down in your brain?
Animal research6 published in the Journal of Neuroscience looked at the astrocyte activity in the brain of four groups of mice. Astrocytes are a type of brain cell that normally gets rid of unnecessary nerve connections. In mice that were well rested, they noted 5.7% of brain synapses had activity indicating a breakdown of healthy nerve synapses.
In the mice that were sleep-deprived or chronically sleep-deprived the activity jumped to 8.4% and 13.5% respectively, demonstrating that chronic sleep deprivation raises the risk that astrocyte cells will break down healthy nerve synapses.
According to a Gallup poll7 in 2013, 40% of those asked got less than seven hours of sleep each night. Yet, in 1942, participants in the survey slept an average of 7.9 hours. This dropped to 6.7 hours in 1990 and remained nearly steady at 6.8 hours to 2013.
Data from the CDC8 show there appears to be a geographical component to sleep duration. They categorized short sleep duration by state, finding many of the people who slept less than seven hours resided in states east of a line through Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and Alabama. In some cases, sleep deprivation is a choice, but in others sleep disorders impact quantity and quality, resulting in chronic deprivation.
According to the American Sleep Association,9 up to 70 million U.S. adults have some type of sleep disorder, including snoring, insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, narcolepsy and disrupted sleep.
When asked, 37.9% of people reported unintentionally falling asleep at least one time during the day in the past 30 days. While vitamin deficiencies may not influence what time you choose to go to bed, they can influence your sleep quality once you get there.
Improve Sleep by Optimizing Vitamin D Levels
Vitamin D plays a significant role in optimizing health. Scientists are still discovering the many ways in which your body uses vitamin D for regulation and modulation. Although it is found in few foods, it is also a hormone your body makes through sensible exposure to sunlight.10
Fatty fish, such as wild-caught Alaskan salmon, is among the best food sources of vitamin D.11 Depending on how the animals are raised, beef liver, egg yolks and cheese may have small amounts of vitamin D, and mushrooms will provide varying amounts.
The combination of low vitamin D content in foods and spending many hours indoors12,13 each day has likely contributed to the number of people who are deficient in vitamin D. Your serum level of 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25(OH)D) is the indicator used to measure the vitamin in your body.14
Research on Vitamin D and Sleep
Several studies have found a link between lack of sleep, sleep disorders and vitamin D deficiency. In 2012, Dr. Stasha Gominak, featured in the interview below, published a study15 in which she and her colleague used a two-year uncontrolled trial to evaluate the effect vitamin D supplementation had on neurological complaints and abnormal sleep patterns.
They engaged 1,500 people, in whom they maintained a narrow range of 25(OH)D levels between 60 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) and 80 ng/mL. These patients showed improvement in their sleep patterns and neurological symptoms.16
Later studies by other teams of researchers found similar results. One paper17 published in 2014 suggested that recent reports of vitamin D deficiency may increase symptoms of airway muscle myopathy, chronic rhinitis and/or adenotonsillar hypertrophy, which may lead to obstructive sleep apnea.
One study in 2015 showed low levels of serum 25(OH)D in older men decrease sleep duration and efficiency,18 and a systematic review published in 2018 found vitamin D deficiency was linked to a higher risk of sleep disorders.19
Also in 2018,20 a team of researchers evaluated vitamin D receptor genetic polymorphic variations and the impact serum concentration had on the susceptibility for obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. They found that one polymorphism explained 14.5% of the variability in serum concentration and was associated with excessive daytime sleepiness.
Finally, in late 2020, a paper21 published in Current Pharmaceutical Design sought to explore the role vitamin D plays in sleep regulation and the impact deficiency may have on sleep disorders. In a review of clinical trials and correlation studies they found vitamin D receptors and enzymes control activation expressed in the brain areas involved in sleep regulation. The team wrote:22
“Furthermore, vitamin D can affect sleep indirectly through non-specific pain disorders, correlated with alterations in sleep quality, such as restless legs syndrome and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome.”
A Healthy Gut Microbiome Supports Health and Sleep
In this fascinating interview with neurologist Dr. Stasha Gominak23 we discuss the relationship between your vitamin D status, microbiome health and sleep. During the interview, Gominak unpacks a large amount of information clearly and succinctly, describing how vitamin D modulates sleep and metabolism.
Many of her patients use fitness trackers that track sleep information, measuring slow-wave deep sleep, which is one of the sleep phases during which your body is paralyzed. She explains that the only time we are paralyzed is during restorative deep sleep, slow-wave sleep or REM sleep.24
As you consider fitness trackers, I would discourage the Fitbit for two primary reasons. First, it emits a green light that can interfere with sleep quality. Second, the company was recently bought by Google, which is siphoning your personal health and fitness data from these devices for their gain. Overall, I think the Oura ring is a superior device and it doesn't steal your personal data.
As you'll hear in the interview, Gominak used vitamin D and B12 to influence sleep patterns. Later, as patients' past symptoms were returning, she discovered that vitamin B5 may help improve sleep patterns and lower pain. However, in a few short months, she and dozens of her patients discovered that the supplementation levels were too high.
Once the supplementation was reduced, the symptoms went away. Gominak surmised that for some reason gut bacteria was not making enough vitamin B, which resulted in deficiency.25 Through a literature search, she found that B vitamins contribute to the production of acetylcholine in the brain and that vitamin D is one of three components that come together to make acetylcholine.
Optimizing Acetylcholine May Improve Nighttime Brain Repair
Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that has several important functions. Your parasympathetic nervous system depends on acetylcholine. Gominak shared that many papers have shown people with sleep disorders have excessive sympathetic tone. This in turn results in elevated epinephrine and norepinephrine, which are indicative of stress.
According to Gominak, an elevated sympathetic tone may be the result of an acetylcholine deficiency. Additionally, acetylcholine is necessary to help maintain alertness during the day and help you fall asleep at night. It's part of what allows your body to be paralyzed during deep sleep.
She believes once your vitamin D and B levels normalize, your brain can start repairing damage that had occurred during years of poor sleep.26 As a result, patients often find themselves sleeping longer than eight hours and remaining in REM sleep longer.
It's during this phase that cellular repair and regeneration is done. Without deep sleep, your body does not perform the needed cellular repair to maintain health, which is one reason why sleep dysfunction has such wide-ranging health effects. Another interesting piece of the puzzle that Gominak discovered is that sleeping longer increases the need for more B vitamins.
To optimize your gut microbiome to produce the needed B vitamins, she recommends having a vitamin D level above 40 ng/mL and using a B50 or B100 supplement for three months.27 This helps the microbiome produce the ideal amount of B vitamins on its own. She uses these strategies to improve sleep function and repair in her patients.
One-Two Punch for Sleep and Health: Melatonin and Vitamin D
You likely know that your circadian rhythm is in part dictated by the hormone melatonin. But did you know that vitamin D is involved in the pathways that produce melatonin in the pineal gland?28,29
Vitamin D has multiple effects on the body and as discussed, evidence demonstrates that low levels are associated with sleep disorders. An evaluation of clinical trials and correlation studies have shown that “Vitamin D has both a direct and indirect role in the regulation of sleep.”30
Melatonin, the hormone secreted by your pineal gland located near the center of the brain, is crucial for the regulation of your sleep cycle. With enough exposure to bright light during the daytime, the gland starts secreting melatonin during the evening darkness.31
As this amount increases the body prepares for sleep. When you stay up past dark using artificial light, especially light emitted by electronic devices, it inhibits melatonin production. Ideally, you would stop using electronics at least an hour or two before bedtime. This helps to raise your melatonin production and maintain a steady circadian rhythm.
Yet, like vitamin D, melatonin does more than support quality sleep.32 It’s also a potent antioxidant33 that plays an important role in cancer prevention.34 It’s thought to be important for brain, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal health,35 and has been shown to boost your immune function in a variety of ways.36
Melatonin was also found to be significantly reduced in adolescents diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.37 In one paper,38 researchers suggested melatonin may improve the treatment of bacterial disease and combat sepsis. In 2020, sepsis and tissue oxygenation expert Dr. Paul Marik and colleagues proposed melatonin as an adjunctive treatment in severe sepsis and septic shock.39
Optimize Your Vitamin D Level
You know that optimizing sleep is one important way to take control of your health. And as Gominak notes in this interview, your sleep quality and quantity are related to maintaining optimal levels of nutrients and vitamins.
For optimal health, immune function and disease prevention, you want a vitamin D blood level between 60 ng/mL and 80 ng/mL year-round. In Europe, the measurements you’re looking for are 150 nmol/L and 200 nmol/L.
If you live in a sunny locale like Florida and practice sensible sun exposure year-round, you might not need any supplements. The DMinder app40 is a helpful tool to see how much vitamin D your body can make depending on your location and other individual factors.
Many, unfortunately, don’t get enough sun exposure for one reason or another, and in these cases, an oral vitamin D supplement may be required. Just remember that the most important factor here is your blood level, not the dose, so before you start, get tested so you know your baseline.
Here’s a summary of how to determine whether you might need an oral supplement, and your ideal dosage:
1. First, measure your vitamin D level — One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways of measuring your vitamin D level is to participate in GrassrootsHealth's personalized nutrition project, which includes a vitamin D testing kit. Once you know what your blood level is, you can assess the dose needed to maintain or improve your level.
2. Assess your individualized vitamin D dosage — To do that, you can either use the chart below, or use GrassrootsHealth’s Vitamin D*calculator. (To convert ng/mL into the European measurement (nmol/L), simply multiply the ng/mL measurement by 2.5.) To calculate how much vitamin D you may be getting from regular sun exposure in addition to your supplemental intake, use the DMinder app.41
Factors that can influence your vitamin D absorption include your magnesium42 and vitamin K243 intake. Magnesium is required for the conversion of vitamin D into its active form.44,45,46,47 If your magnesium level is insufficient, the vitamin D you ingest orally may simply get stored in its inactive form.48,49
Research by GrassrootsHealth50 shows you need 146% more vitamin D to achieve a blood level of 40 ng/ml (100 nmol/L) if you do not take supplemental magnesium, compared to taking your vitamin D with at least 400 mg of magnesium per day.
Your best bet is to take your vitamin D with both magnesium and K2. According to GrassrootsHealth,51 “combined intake of both supplemental magnesium and vitamin K2 has a greater effect on vitamin D levels than either individually,” and “those taking both supplemental magnesium and vitamin K2 have a higher vitamin D level for any given vitamin D intake amount than those taking either supplemental magnesium or vitamin K2 or neither.”
Data52 from nearly 3,000 individuals revealed 244% more oral vitamin D was required to get 50% of the population to achieve a vitamin D level of 40 ng/ml (100 nmol/L) if they weren’t concurrently also taking magnesium and vitamin K2.
3. Retest in three to six months — Remeasure your vitamin D level in three to six months, to evaluate how your sun exposure and/or supplement dose is working for you.
This article was previously published April 29, 2020, and has been updated with new information.
As the world deals with the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific articles have zeroed in on who is most vulnerable to the virus. It appears those who are elderly, overweight and suffer from an underlying health condition like diabetes or high blood pressure are most at risk. But the consumption of ultraprocessed food is increasingly seen as a risk factor for contracting COVID-19, too.
Ultraprocessed foods increase the risk of conditions like obesity, cancer, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and gallstones, which make you more vulnerable to illnesses like COVID-19. In fact, eating over four servings of ultraprocessed foods daily increased the risk of premature death by 62% in a 2019 study.1
When it comes to fighting off COVID-19, ultraprocessed foods pose another health danger: They compromise the gut microbiome, which has a crucial role in your body's immune response to infection and in maintaining overall health. Even before the virus that causes COVID-19 surfaced, ultraprocessed foods were a bad idea but during the current pandemic they are especially dangerous.
Beware of Ultraprocessed Foods
What are ultraprocessed foods, sometimes referred to as UPFs? According to the NOVA Food Classification system, designed by the Center for Epidemiological Studies in Health and Nutrition, they are:2
"[I]ndustrial formulations made entirely or mostly from substances extracted from foods (oils, fats, sugar, starch, and proteins), derived from food constituents (hydrogenated fats and modified starch), or synthesized in laboratories from food substrates or other organic sources (flavor enhancers, colors, and several food additives used to make the product hyper-palatable).
Manufacturing techniques include extrusion, moulding, and preprocessing by means of frying. Beverages may be ultra-processed."
Ultraprocessed foods, aggressively marketed by giant food producers for their profitable potential, constitute around 25% to 60% of daily energy intake in many countries, according to Science Daily. They include:3
"… packaged baked goods and snacks, fizzy drinks, sugary cereals, ready meals containing food additives, dehydrated vegetable soups, and reconstituted meat and fish products — often containing high levels of added sugar, fat, and/or salt, but lacking in vitamins and fiber."
While it is tempting to dismiss the dangers of UPFs by saying that all foods, to some extent, are "processed," food writer Bee Wilson says that is not the case:4
"UPFs are different. They are processed in ways that go far beyond cooking or fermentation, and they may also come plastered with health claims. Bettina Elias Siegel the author of Kid Food: The Challenge of Feeding Children in a Highly Processed World … 'there's a huge difference between a cooked carrot and a bag of industrially produced, carrot-flavoured veggie puffs' …"
Moreover, cautions Wilson, food giants deliberately mislead consumers. When fat was misleadingly considered the cause of obesity, she says, the food industry rolled out low-fat products. When sugar became the culprit, food giants manipulatively marketed artificially sweetened drinks.5
UPF manufacturers have also launched successful campaigns to convince the public that obesity is not caused by their products, but by lack of exercise. Coca-Cola is among them, and, toward that end, has provided funding to universities and a wide spectrum of medical groups including the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the American College of Cardiology and the American Academy of Pediatrics.6
You can't help but wonder if that is why Harvard Medical School/Partners in Health, a recipient of Coca-Cola funding, writes this about obesity:7
"Obesity results from energy imbalance: too many calories in, too few calories burned. A number of factors influence how many calories (or how much 'energy') people burn each day, among them, age, body size, and genes. But the most variable factor — and the most easily modified — is the amount of activity people get each day."
Obesity is increasingly linked to serious cases of COVID-19 that require hospitalization, even among young people, according to The New York Times.8 The reasons are not entirely clear, but abdominal obesity can cause compression of the lungs and diaphragm, which impairs breathing ability.
Other factors that could explain the link between obesity and serious cases of COVID-19 could include pre-existing respiratory conditions, a greater amount of circulating, pro-inflammatory cytokines and low-grade inflammation, which are all correlated with obesity. Almost 80 million Americans — 42 percent of the population — are obese.9
A report released by the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre on 196 patients critically ill with COVID-19 found 56 patients had a body mass index (BMI) of 25 to 30, which is classified as overweight.10 Fifty-eight had a BMI of 30 to 40, which indicates obesity, and 13 had a BMI of 40 or higher, which is severely obese. In the study, 71.7% of the critical patients were overweight, obese or severely obese.11
Ultraprocessed Food Impairs the Microbiome
Two studies published by The BMJ in 2019 cast ultraprocessed food as a threat to global public health. In a linked editorial, Australian researchers add that the negative effects of UPFs on the gut microbiome must be explored.12
Science has increasingly revealed the huge effect of diet on the human microbiome and its ability to ward off disease. The more diverse with healthy microorganisms a microbiome is, the better it supports the immune system, according to Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College in London — especially as COVID-19 has spread all over the world. Writing in The Conversation, Spector says:13
"As well as mounting a response to infectious pathogens like coronavirus, a healthy gut microbiome also helps to prevent potentially dangerous immune over-reactions that damage the lungs and other vital organs. These excessive immune responses can cause respiratory failure and death …
The fine details of the interactions between the gut microbiome and the immune system are not fully understood. But there seems to be a link between the makeup of the microbiome and inflammation — one of the hallmarks of the immune response. Gut bacteria produce many beneficial chemicals."
Fermented foods and probiotics are the best route to optimal microbiome health, if they are traditionally made and unpasteurized. Healthy fermented choices include lassi (an Indian yogurt drink), fermented, grass fed organic milk (kefir), fermented soy or natto and different types of pickled fermentations of cabbage, turnips, eggplant, cucumbers, onions, squash and carrots.
Unless antibiotics are absolutely necessary, they should be avoided and, if avoidance is not possible, counteracted with fermented food and probiotics. Be aware that conventionally-raised meats are also a source of antibiotics because animals are routinely fed the medications. Genetically engineered grains and chlorinated and/or fluoridated water can also destroy gut flora.
UPFs Have Put Millions at Risk for COVID-19
Ultraprocessed food is designed to be sensually appealing, hyperpalatable and habit-forming, thanks to additives, crafty packaging and marketing and "convenience." Yet UPFs fill you up without the vitamins, minerals, live enzymes, micronutrients, healthy fats and high-quality protein your body needs. UPFs increase how fast people eat and delay how "full" they feel, causing obesity and metabolic dysfunction.
Dr. Aseem Malhotra is an honorary consultant cardiologist at Lister Hospital in Stevenage, England.14 According to an article he wrote in European Scientist, UPFs cause:15
"… chronic metabolic disease which can affect many of 'normal' weight. Furthermore, sarcopenic obesity may misclassify many elderly patients to having a normal BMI on hospital admission with COVID-19 … There's no such thing as a healthy weight, only a healthy person.
A recent commentary In Nature states that 'patients with type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome might have to up 10 times greater risk of death when they contract COVID-19' and has called for mandatory glucose and metabolic control of type 2 diabetes patients to improve outcomes."
Kristin Lawless, author of the book, "Formerly Known As Food: How the Industrial Food System Is Changing Our Minds, Bodies, and Culture," also sees correlations between metabolic dysfunction and succumbing to COVID-19:16
"These underlying conditions correlate with increased morbidity and mortality for those who contract the virus. Preliminary findings show that metabolic dysfunction is causing devastating complications from COVID-19 and, shockingly, only 12 percent of the entire U.S. adult population is considered metabolically healthy.
Metabolic dysfunction has one primary source: our highly processed, sugar- laden, nutrient-poor food supply."
While the millions who suffer from metabolic syndrome from UPFs are not seen as urgent like COVID-19 is, the problems are one and the same, according to Malhotra. Governments, in addition to telling people to stay home to save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, should address diet, he asserts. He writes:17
"[A]n equally strong if not more significant population health message should now be to 'eat real food, protect the NHS and save lives.'
Such implementation backed by policy changes may not just save hundreds and potentially thousands of lives around the world in the coming months but given the high likelihood of another international viral pandemic in the next decade a healthier population … will be much better equipped to handle what would then be a smaller mortality peak on the next occasion."
UPFs Are Especially Harmful to Poor Communities
People living in poverty, whether in developing or advanced countries, are especially vulnerable to health problems from ultraprocessed foods and COVID-19. According to Malhotra:18
"[T]he disproportionate numbers of those from black and ethnic minority backgrounds succumbing to the virus may in part be explained by a significantly increased risk of chronic metabolic disease in these groups."
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, food giants have targeted those with low incomes with aggressive marketing of UPFs. Following initiatives by Brazil to fight the trend, Ecuador, Uruguay and Peru have urged citizens to avoid UPFs in favor of natural foods.19 Food deserts further the dietary exploitation of the poor, according to Lawless:20
"New data show that Black people are dying at higher rates from COVID-19 than other groups. Certainly lack of health care and poor quality of care shape outcomes, and it is well documented that poverty rates among people of color are significantly higher than in white populations.
Perhaps less obvious is the influence of Big Food's targeted advertising to people of color in neighborhoods with little access to fresh, whole foods. This means many people of color often rely on fast-food and cheap packaged foods for meals that provide more caloric bang for the buck.
Nationwide, Black people have much higher rates of diet-related diseases — Black adults are 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes than white adults."
The USDA defines a food desert as a low-income tract where many residents do not have easy access to a supermarket or large grocery store.21 In addition to a lack of food outlets offering healthy food, residents' lack of transportation to get to stores is a big factor. Residents who have to walk with their groceries or take the bus can carry fewer groceries, and transporting perishable items is especially difficult.
According to the USDA, many types of organizations like businesses, local governments and nonprofits are eligible for assistance to address the problems created by food deserts.22 However, like discouraging the consumption of UPFs, such changes take time and certainly will not occur during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other Environmental Causes of COVID-19
A diet of UPFs puts people at risk for COVID-19 because of the metabolic, immune system and microbiome degradation it causes. But the coronavirus pandemic also has environmental causes and repercussions, says Lawless:23
"All over the world, industrial agriculture has pushed small-scale farmers deeper into forests where these types of pathogens exist. The decimation of forests has also sent those who bring wild animals into city markets deeper into remote forest areas, resulting in human exposure to novel pathogens.
What's more, animals confined in factory farms are perfect incubators when these pathogens spill over — unsanitary, cramped conditions among animals with near-identical genetics means that viruses spread rapidly and often become more virulent."
Whether people whose vulnerability to disease has been increased by Big Agriculture or viruses spread from its excesses, most experts agree we need a radical overhaul of the entire food production and distribution system. According to Lawless:24
"First, our industrial food system is decimating our environment. Second, our nutrient-depleted, and chemically saturated processed food supply is changing our bodies from the inside out …
Large-scale mono-crop farms, concentrated animal feeding operations, fertilizers, pesticides, gas-powered machinery, storage facilities, manufacturing plants, and shipping methods are all dependent on and made possible by fossil fuels … A new Harvard analysis shows that exposure to fine particulate matter correlates with COVID-19 deaths.25
Fuel combustion results in dangerous fine particulate matter, which kills 7 million people prematurely each year worldwide."
If ever there were a time to consider our eating habits and the domination of harmful agricultural systems it is during this coronavirus pandemic.
Puzzled by the mass deaths of birds and fish in Alabama? It's also happening elsewhere, across the Eastern and Southern U.S. and around the world -- Gizmodo has a 
Major Pharmaceuticals has put out a press release saying that they've been forced to shut down production of all natural desiccated thyroid drugs, a treatment for hypothyroidism that has been in use for over a century. Major received notice from the FDA that their complete line of desiccated thyroid drugs can no longer be manufactured, and that the FDA is pulling the designation that allowed them to sell these drugs.
