Quote · The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Vitamin D Expert: The Supplement World Is Giving The WRONG Advice!
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How Can You Prove Vitamin D Deficiency Causes Disease?
At 32:03 · chapter starts 24:56
Between September and December 2009, Dr. Gominak tested vitamin D and B12 levels in around 500 patients — 'completely naive' to what she would find. Every single one was low. Two CPAP patients returned and independently reported the same thing: a year of CPAP hadn't cleared their headaches, but a month of vitamin D supplementation (from a note she had sent them) had resolved their sleep and headaches simultaneously. She turned to PubMed. In 2009, searching 'vitamin D and sleep' returned zero results. Searching 'vitamin D in the brain' led her to Walter Stumpf — a researcher who had published since 1982 showing vitamin D receptors inside the exact brainstem nuclei that paralyse the body during REM sleep and set the circadian clock. Stumpf had also proposed vitamin D as the 'hibernation hormone,' orchestrating the body's seasonal adaptation. She called Stumpf directly, and he confirmed no one had connected his vitamin D receptor findings to sleep. From 2010 she began giving patients vitamin D. She describes the political obstacle: the Endocrine Society's 2004 report acknowledged that clinical vitamin D studies had been done wrong (fixed doses, no blood-level monitoring), and then — instead of calling for better studies — recommended that doctors neither test vitamin D levels nor make supplementation recommendations, effectively killing clinical inquiry.
Every neurological patient Dr. Gominak tested showed abnormal sleep — regardless of their diagnosis. If sleep is how the body repairs everything every night, then abnormal sleep isn't a symptom of disease — it's the cause.
Researcher Walter Stumpf published articles in 1982 showing vitamin D receptors exist in the brainstem nuclei that control paralysis during REM sleep and set the body's sleep-wake clock.
Vitamin D activates a gene that makes the enzyme that produces acetylcholine — the neurotransmitter the brainstem needs to enter REM sleep. When vitamin D levels drop, the brain loses the chemical instructions for sleep entirely.
