So I came across this site and this post by this MD: http://drcranton.com/nutrition/Vitamin_D_autism.htm. This story is interesting in and of itself, but I'll explain below why I've posted it.

I'm going to look more thoroughly into the links, but my concern is what he says about CLO. I had tried it a while back, having purchased the very high quality Blue Ice fermented one, but it didn't math with my stomach. I put it aside, introduced some other things and will eventually get back around to it, given all the wonderful things I hear about the benefits for reducing inflammation and healing the gut lining. At the same time, I'm D deficient and have seen immense improvements with just 1000 IU D3 supplementation per day - though I may have to soon go from lanolin to lichen for my D3 for potential allergies I've explained elsewhere. So I don't want to counteract the D working in my body and on my immune system in all the complex and important ways that it does, by taking COD and reducing my serum levels due to the high vitamin A in it. I do also eat organ meats and live, chicken and cow, given how nutrient dense and wonderful they are.

Anyway, I'm sharing this due to general interest, and for this specific issue, and wondering if anyone has any thoughts.

Edit/Addition: So, for example, one question to ask is whether anyone who has been both on D3 and CLO (esp the all natural Green Pasture Blue Ice one) has had improvement and increased D serum levels during that time.

Quick reply because I'm short on time.

There's a few things to look into ....

First, do some more reading on Fermented CLO. There has been some watchdogs who have tested FCLO brands and found some real problems. Someone wrote a pamphlet / book about it. If you look around on the internet you'll find it. Also look up "Hook Line and Stinker: The Truth about FCLO by Kaayla Daniel Phd. Chris Kresser used to suggest FCLO and is now holding back because of these findings (see his site and comments).

Also, be careful with your D and A balance. There have been some studies showing that all those little old ladies who have traumatic childhood stories about how they were forced to take CLO as children back in the 1930s, then ended up with disproportionately more hip fractures in their elderly years.

The relationship between A & D is complex. I am not an expert but I know you need some A for D absorption but too much also impacts D and calcium in bones. Norway has followed up recently with some studies, particularly the impact of CLO on women, because their population has been swallowing gallons of the stuff for ages but they have a disproportionate number of certain types of diseases, perhaps exasperated by their geo location. Again, I am not an expert. Someone can correct me on this but I think it's worth thinking about.

Also, it's interesting in nature, how many of the orange / yellow vegetables with A come out in late fall to help us with our D absorption / storage into winter. We co-evolved with plants and so it's good to see if you can get all this stuff naturally first.

My personal take is some CLO in the thick of winter might be of help but I would stick to other fish oils the rest of the year. I believe a year or so of good quality fish oil is good for PN. I would not take too much over years because I believe it thins your blood and throws your chemical balance off. (Lately neurosurgeons have reported more people checking into emergency wards needing emergency brain surgery due to bleeding on their brain because they have been taking too many fish oil capsules. Normally a small amount of bleeding would have been reabsorbed without the patient ever knowing).

I'd try as much as you possibly can to first to establish methods to get Omegas regularly in good amounts direct from natural food sources that have all the hidden co-factors that help with absorption and then layer artificial methods, such as supplementation on top of that.

I'm also working up to taking hemp oil (as it's called in Europe). The type of hemp oil I am thinking of has the perfect match of Omega 3s to 6s that matches the ratio needed by the human body. The issue isn't needing more Fish Oil to get more Omega 3s. The issue is getting the right balance of Omega 3s to 6s. The modern american diet and grain-fed meats give us way too many 6's to 3s. So just blasting yourself 3s in Fish oil doesn't really solve the problem. You need to increase 3s and aggressively decrease 6s. There's some big posts on all this in the archives. Also, there's thought to be a difference between bad 6's from junk food and good 6s from nuts, etc.

So in summary, learn how to drastically decrease your bad Omega 6s, increase your Omega 3s & co factors through foods, increase your Vita A through foods such as orange veggies, work carefully with oils which are very healing for nerves but don't overdo it.

Other things I didn't mention ....

A and D is fat soluble ... so it's harder for the body to get rid of excess amounts. Vitamin D levels has a wide safe range that is tolerable. If you are taking a multi-vitamin, make sure your total supplement and food intake is not too much.

Examples of foods that contain Vitamin A are Egg, Milk, Sweet Potato, Pumpkin, Carrot, Cantaloupe, Mango, Spinach, Broccoli, Kalke, Collards, Butternut Squash

I'd like to remind people, that veggies contain betacarotene, which is not an active form of vitamin A.

This is converted to A as the body requires. It can be inhibited or blocked by hypothyroidism as one function of the thyroid hormones we have is to aid in the conversion of betacarotene to active retinols (vitamin A).

Thank you for your "quick" reply.

I really appreciate this. It led me to do some more research - I had read about CLO and the fermented type before purchasing it a while ago, but didn't know about the controversy. For those out there interested in it, here's a link to a site that has all the relevant links: http://paleoleap.com/whats-happening-cod-liver-oil/.

I agree with Sarah Ballantyne stance of skepticism (linked to in the above article). We basically don't know either way about the controversy. But if I had known this ahead of time, I likely wouldn't have purchased the Green Pasture product, since I loathe this level of secrecy and lack of transparency. But I have this very expensive product now, so at some point I will likely try it out again - last time it left my stomach unsettled and gave me a bit of diarrhea, though I think I can control that by starting with a very low dose. But if it gives me too many problems, it'll be $50-60 (whatever I spent on it) wasted. Part of the cost of trying new things.

Perhaps I won't take it for longer than a few months and up my calcium and vitamin D at the time, avoiding vitamin rich foods, like organ meats. MrsD, I take it that animal sources, say liver, are bioavailable/active?

v5118lKftfk, do you have any links to the studies about the things you mention/the problem with CLO?

In the end, I'm not very happy with the lack of transparency at Green Pasture - I know, I'm repeating myself. I was much less experienced when I purchased. I should say that it doesn't taste or smell rancid to me, whatever that's worth.

Thanks again!

BTW, I used to put hemp seeds/hearts in my smoothie every morning, but stopped for a while.

I'd suggest you only take it if you truly think it will be good for you.

There is a funny logic in "well, I should do it now that I've spent the money" .... the fact is the money is already gone whether or not you do it.

Some friends and I were once at an event that we hated. At first we said "well we gotta stay because we spent the money". The another said "wait a minute, If we stay then we a) lost money b) lost time doing something we don't think is best for us c) potentially will burn even more energy getting more tangled up with all the people, etc going down a path we aren't convinced by. If we leave early then we only a) lost money. Plus, we freed up the time, space, energy to have a chance of doing something else that might be better for us and we have more chance of getting tangled up with people, etc that we would want to invest future energy in.

I'm not saying do or do not do the FCLO. I'm just saying the money is gone. It's your body. Take excellent care of it. You only have so much time and energy to invest in health and you shouldn't do too many different supplements / health actions at once. So, get rid of the clutter of things that you don't feel solid about. Clear out the space and energy and focus all your energy on pursuing what you really believe is the best for you and then keep going down the path you truly believe in.

Of course. That's what I do with anything: my body and its reaction is the final arbiter.

Well, sure, though the issue is not so much money spent as money wasted or used. I don't much care for the former, especially in our wasteful world. But yes, the health of the body is more important. The initial reason I purchased it was for healing the gut lining, since I have gut problems, and perhaps that's at the root of my illness, I don't know.

I'll see how it goes when I do use it. I definitely won't and don't keep things around that are not of use, as best as I can tell, of course.

Thanks again for your help, encouragement and advice. At the moment, I'm just hoping the lichen based D3 will go over well with me, given my problems with the lanolin based one.

I also developed gut problems all of a sudden out of nowhere when I never had this before.

I might inquire whether it's connected to the pn.

Sorry to hear that. Considering so much of our immune system is based in the gut and the microbiom there, I'm not surprised that when so much goes wrong with our bodies, our guts are also unwell.

My gut problems/IBS goes back many years before my SFN, which is all the more reason why I should have done something earlier and perhaps prevented this.

It's worth looking into. Much of my very effective self healing over the last several months is thanks to healing my gut.