Never shy with this opinions, Alex Vasquez, DC, ND, DO offers wise advice on what to consider when the 
conversation about negative vitamin D studies comes up with your colleagues or patients. In this published paper from the International Journal of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine, Dr. Vasquez offers a thorough review of the latest science involving vitamin D and many of the flaws associated with contradictory research. We offer a summary, a video and a downloadable study of the entire report.
How to Understand, Refute, and Plan Studies Using Vitamin D, by Alex Vasquez DO ND DC FACN
Defining the problems
- The (primary) problem: Most doctors and researchers have zero expert-level training in Nutrition (let alone Clinical Nutrition, Therapeutic/Interventional Nutrition, Functional Nutrition) and therefore the studies they design using vitamin D are methodologically flawed, as described in the attached paper below.
- The (secondary) problem: Too many studies using vitamin D (cholecalciferol) have used vitamin D in 1) doses that are inadequate, 2) for durations that are inadequate, and thus these studies are therapeutically underpowered, tending to lead to lackluster or negative (inefficacious) results, thereby leading to the false conclusion that vitamin D is ineffective when in fact it either is or might be effective.
- The (tertiary) problem: As a result of therapeutically underpowered studies, too many research articles paint a false picture of inefficacy when in fact vitamin D is or may be highly efficacious; as a result, patients are denied a safe and effective therapeutic route that offers low-cost efficacy, high safety, and numerous collateral benefits.
- The (quaternary) problem: Another major problem is that too many doctors and researchers are unaware of the major paradigm-shifting studies that should have resulted in major acceptance of vitamin D utilization in preventive public health and clinical medicine; as a result of this ignorance, too many research projects are essentially starting from zero or a very shallow foundation rather than progressively building on a foundation of good science and appropriate pattern recognition. Researchers who have not studied the history of nutrition and the decades of literature are essentially ignorant of the history and direction of the field into which they enter; one can be amused by the prospect of a researcher placed in a position of authority to shape and define the direction of a field which he/she has never studied, ie, many researchers quite obviously wear no clothes.
