So far I have found that Vitamin D deficiency can be caused by insufficient bile, which can be caused by fatty liver, which can be caused by (more than anything else)polyunsaturated fatty acids. Still looking for other causes. It does have to do with fibrin, too, which usually includes some form of calcium. I wouldn't be surprised if estrogens get caught up in there, too.

Also, Vitamin D deficiency disease of scurvy (osteopenia) can be prevented and cured with citrus juices (Vitamin C).

Hi Sue,

I haven't had my vitamin D measured, from a neighbours experience GPs are reluctant to do it over here. She managed to get hers done purely because she told them her husband was a paediatrician and had just done a scheme testing children in the local area, finding that they were all deficient.

I went to a raw food talk recently and they said that to get your daily quota you needed to be exposed to the sun for 30mins a day thats full body (starkers). That's certainly not going to happen here in the UK. They recommended a sprayable vitamin D: D Lux by Better You available in 1000IU or 3000IU which I have just purchased. The (tiny) container has 100 measured doses in it. I havent started using it yet as I wanted to check if there was anything I should eat/drink at the same time to help absorbtion. I presume one squirt equals one dose. Its not cheap (maybe in the US) especially for the doses you are talking about. I figured if it actually gets absorbed it would be worth it.

As to where it goes I was always under the impression that your body doesn't store vitamin D you had to 'synthesise' it every day but again its not something I have looked into.

Ally

I was just told by my primary that my taking 5000 iu.s was not enough for anyone with a chronic illness and I was to take 10,000 iu.s daily along with a Vit C supplement and to expose as much skin as I could for 20 minutes in the sun. I will have to ask her all of these great questions on here as to all of the why's?

that's interesting, wonder why that is (those with chronic illness needing so much)?

but that's what i seem to be finding. 5000 +~1000 from Ca+D wasn't enough (was dropping), but 10,000 +~1000 from Ca+D was more than enough (was rising) so my need is somewhere in between. both summer and winter, doesn't seem to make a difference if i'm out in the sun a lot (summer) or barely at all (winter).

just good that its something now easy to take a lot of and easy to test.

and yes, i take C (and some other supplements as well)........and after reading that excellent info on Magnesium posted by violetta, realize its all so interconnected.

you do have to synthesize or take it as you said, but it gets processed by the liver, both supplements and even the precursor made with the sunlight.

so if the liver isn't working efficiently, as it isn't for me, that's one place it has trouble. for me, i think that's the smoking gun, as we know the liver is fatty, have seen ALT go up, have seen the fat by US, have seen B12 high. and now this.

first, let me say, thanks for the wonderful feedback!

now to comment on your comments:

1. i eat a lot of fruit and veggies with vitamin C: pink grapefruits in season, berries of all kinds all year longall, clementines in season, fresh squeezed lemon or lime juice on fish, in water, etc every day, etc etc. but also i take 1000 mg Ester C as well. couldn't handle plain C, too acidic for my stomach, but Ester C is good stuff!

and take magnesium supplement too. and btw, thanks for that excellent info on Magnesium the other day.

2. as for the Ca, it could also get deposited into our arteries. and artery and heart disease run in my family along with the diabetes. thus have dropped back on how much Ca i take at any given time. and take the Ca and Mg together to be doubly careful. still i don't get too cocky about it.

3. milk thistle. hadn't started it yet. first tried vit E. not good enough. ALT was getting better, then gained wait and it went back up. so threw alpha lipoid acid into the mix in april. was taking the racemic mixture but ordered the R enantiomer and will take that. then will test again. but if i need to add in milk thistle too, i will.

on reason i held off on it is that my aunt was allergic to it and i was afraid i would be too. but today the rheumy said if you are, you might try just the active ingredient. brilliant! i think i've seen that sold. and more likely that the allergen is something else in the milk thistle.

so, waiting to see what alpha lipoid acid does for me, but prepared to take milk thistle or the active component of it, if needed.

4. the last test was 25 OH vit D but think i've had both done? not sure. but for me, since my liver is fatty, that seems like the most obvious problem. and even if not, have to address it anyway. its fatty, don't want to end up with cirrhosis like grand mom and aunt. i know my liver is fatty, so that's what i'll work on first, and see how that goes.

5. not prone to cavities.

6. have a small gallbladder polyp, but don't think its causing problems. it gets monitored by US every year. and hasn't grown. no symptoms i can tell either.

7. this is what i know about non alcoholic fatty liver:

first, what i know from biochemistry class: glucose (and other sugars) feel into glycolysis. when things work correctly, glucose converted to ultimately to pyruvate which goes into the citric acid cycle, producing NADH, which feeds into oxidative phosphorylation.

so, what happens when there is too much glucose or other sugar (from simple sugars and from complex carbs (polymer of glucose)) (or when one is insulin resistant and can't utilize the glucose in the cells) is that excess glucose goes to making excess pyruvate which makes excess acetylCoA which funnels to making excess fatty acids (in the liver) (Cori cycle).

now, what i know about my family:

a. diabetes runs in my family

b. i have "prediabetes" / insulin resistance
as determined by my shape (weight in the middle)
fasting glucose in the pre diabetes range til i do something then falls into the 90s
glucose intolerance (upon testing)
high triglycerides unless on very low carb diet
high LDLs, low HDLs (though working on it)
borderline high BP

c. my grandmother died from cirrhosis of the liver
my aunt had cirrhosis when shed was 50s.
neither drank.
thus, it runs in the family from the mech described above.

d. B12 high

e. vit D low


thus, taken all together, it all paints one picture. i read in a book somewhere that often a bunch of symptoms come back to a common cause. and here, it all makes so much sense .

thus, gotta lose weight. lost ~1.5 lbs in 1.5 months. so ~1 lb a month. its the best i can do. slow and steady wins.........

dietary glucose part of the equation but the role of dietary fat is also important. this paper is quite interesting - Dietary Fat Content Modifies Liver Fat in Overweight Nondiabetic Subjects

gut inflammation can also exacerbate the situation - "Fatty livers are unusually susceptible to injury induced by a secondary inflammatory stress, including that evoked by exposure to endogenous, intestine-derived lipopolysaccarhide (LPS)." - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hep.20826/full

So there may be the potential for something that reduces inflammation such as tnf inhibitors to also reduce stress on the liver.

@jroc, too bad they didn't clarify what type of fats they used.

Here's a lengthy but good article by Chris Masterjohn. With respect to fats, he quotes studies that show that corn oil (polyunsaturated) caused fatty liver while butter, tallow, and coconut oil protected from it.

http://www.westonaprice.org/health-issues/nonalcoholic-fatty-liver-disease

Here's an article where he says that green tea is good for fatty liver:
http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/2012/01/does-green-tea-protect-against-fatty.html

I personally wonder if the fatty liver comes first and then the insulin resistance and diabetes.

Two things that he says are good for fatty liver are choline and methionine.

in the full paper they do mention which fats were used - the two groups has similar intakes of pufa with low fat group 3% of calories and high fat group 5% of calories. the main difference between the two groups was in saturated fat intake with 5% in the low fat group and 28% in the high fat group. despite a higher omega 3 intake, the high fat group had lower serum levels of omega 3.

interesting masterjohn articles, i've followed his blog for a while, he is definitely one of the better health writers out there.

thanks jroc. will read these more thoroughly again.

jroc and violeta:

i can see all these various factors playing together. and its interesting that the things i'm on and doing (supplements, diet, etc) are good for both inflammatory diseases and insulin resistance, thus killing two birds with one stone.

but for now, i'm thinking as simplistically as possible, occam's razor:

weight goes up, ALT goes up.
weight goes down, ALT goes down.

diabetes runs in family, as does NAFLD.
i have insulin resistance.

i still think its mainly due to not processing glucose properly for me.

but i'll read and think more.
always open to having my views challenged,
and modifying them when convincing arguments come along.

my main fats are:

EVOO, nuts, and fatty fishes.

even use the "light" olive oil in baking now days. so even canola was replaced here, the last place i had been using it.

i'm still on the fence regarding coconut (oil), though do eat coconut milk ice cream when i have a craving for ice cream (mostly in the summer time).

bottom line: first and foremost, i NEED to lose weight!
that is the first obvious thing to do.

and that helped me aunt. losing weight and cleaning up her poor diet. so for her it may have been high fat diet as well as weight.

but for me, i don't eat a particularly high or low fat diet. mostly chicken and fish, veggies, veggies, veggies, fruit in moderation, nuts in moderation, EVOO when i use oil, but don't fry much at all, so not a huge amount of oil.

yep, gotta lose weight. lost 1.5 lbs in 1.5 months. its so hard to lose weight when insulin resistant! but i have no choice.