During the 1960s, a large number of studies began to point to the idea that estrogen therapy might ease the pangs of menopause. In a best selling book called Feminine Forever, a Brooklyn gynecologist named Robert Wilson argued that menopause was an illness rather than a natural state associated with aging. Soon, an increasing number of older women began to take supplemental estrogen in an effort to replace the hormones that their own bodies had stopped secreting. The treatment, known as hormone replacement therapy or HRT, became one of the most popular medical treatments in America.

The American Heart Association, the American College of Physicians, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists all agreed that a sufficient number of studies had been done to prove that HRT was unequivocally helpful in helping older women ward off heart disease and osteoporosis. By 2001, 15 million women were taking HRT, including 5 million elderly women.

Then, in 1998, a clinical trial concluded that estrogen therapy actually increases the likelihood that women with heart disease will suffer a second heart attack. It was followed by a trial in 2002 which concluded that HRT puts postmenopausal women at a greater risk for heart disease, stroke, blood clots, breast cancer and even dementia. Suddenly, It became painfully clear that HRT may offer a benefit to women who begin to use it early in life, but for those who start the treatment in their later years, it can be very dangerous.[1]

Gary Taubes writes in The New York Times Magazine, “The question of how many women may have died prematurely or suffered strokes or breast cancer because they were taking a pill that their physicians had prescribed to protect them against heart disease lingers unanswered. A reasonable estimate would be tens of thousands.”[1]

This HRT story, which Harvard epidemiologist Jeffrey Avorn calls the “estrogen debacle” and a “case study waiting to be written” is a glaring example of how even the most widely held medical beliefs can turn out to be wrong. The story is fraught with biased studies, overconfident clinicians, and researchers who failed to think critically.

Most alarming, however, is the fact that the medical community is currently oblivious to yet another public health disaster of epic proportions - one that is affecting the entire population. In an effort to curb chronic disease, well-intentioned researchers are promoting vitamin D, a substance that, according to recent molecular modeling research, can act as an immunosuppressive steroid. Studies which incorrectly interpret the reason for low vitamin D in patients with chronic disease have been seized upon by the media, and form the basis of massive advertising campaigns – which, along with ill-informed recommendations by doctors and researchers, have created a perfect storm of misunderstanding and bad advice.

What follows are fourteen pieces of a puzzle that, when complete, reveal a massive misunderstanding of the actions of vitamin D.

1.Vitamin D is not a vitamin; it is an immunosuppressive steroid. 2.The vast majority of studies fail to account for the long-term effects of vitamin D.
3. Chronically ill people are not deficient in vitamin D. 4. Healthy people are not deficient in vitamin D and do not need to consume extra amounts of this steroid.
5.The public does not require extra sun exposure in order to prevent vitamin D “deficiency.” 6.Vitamin D does not reverse osteoporosis.
7.Extra vitamin D does not reduce the risk of cancer. 8.Vitamin D deficiency does not cause rickets.
9.Most researchers fail to consider the alternate hypothesis about vitamin D. 10.When it comes to vitamin D, the current medical climate of consensus is hostile to new ideas.
11.Research touting vitamin D’s benefits is often biased, methodologically weak, and ultimately misleading. 12.The dairy and supplement industries are intent on heavily promoting vitamin D.
13.The media is neither well-informed nor objective about vitamin D. 14.We must take immediate action to remedy the health crisis that has resulted from faulty conclusions about vitamin D in chronic disease.