Health for Life

Cold-and-flu season is on the way! I wrote this guide almost eight years ago and it remains a helpful resource. If I were to write it today, among other things I would want to emphasize the vital importance of sunshine and infrared light exposure and hyperthermia therapies (we've learned lots of important nuances since COVID) in addition to vitamin D optimization. But for the most part, the majority of these interventions and preventative measures have held up very well.

Influenza: The Complete Survivor’s Guide With flu season in full swing, it’s time to prepare if you haven’t started already. Influenza can be a hard-hitting virus, particularly for the very old, the very young, and for those w…

🌿 Important Clinic Update: Appointment Availability 🌿

Hello everyone,

As many of you have noticed, due to the high demand for appointments, I am currently booked until January 2025.

I understand that this extended wait can be frustrating, and I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience. To help accommodate your needs:

➡️ Please book the soonest available appointment that works for you. (Book here: https://bit.ly/DrDavidR)
➡️ If you’d like to be seen sooner, you can request to be added to our cancellation list in the notes section when you book your appointment. This way, if a spot opens up, we can reach out to offer you an earlier time.
➡️ We occasionally have last-minute cancellations. If you are on the cancellation list, please be prepared for the possibility of being contacted on short notice. Should this happen, we’ll reach out through the online messaging portal, and prompt replies are appreciated so we can offer the opening to the next person on the list if necessary.

With my schedule filling up quickly, I may need to temporarily pause accepting new appointments in the near future to prioritize existing clients. This is not certain, and we are exploring other solutions to meet demand. As the sole practitioner and administrator of my practice, I can only take on a limited number of cases each week while also managing administration, research, continuing education, client communication and management, and more. I appreciate your patience and understanding as I continue to provide personalized care to each of you.

Sincerely,
David Rostollan, ND
Health for Life

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Practice Update

Hello everyone! I have two announcements to make:

1) I am currently rolling out a new electronic health records (EHR) system in order to enhance my practice functionality and provide more special features for my clients. There is now a new scheduling system, which you can access on this post or on my website. Scheduling an appointment will create a client portal for you within my EHR system. You will also be able to add family members to your primary account. Within your client portal, you will be able to schedule appointments (in-person or via telehealth), share documents, message me, receive protocols and tasks, keep health and dietary journals, and more. It will be a one-stop portal that allows us to stay organized and connected.

2) I have recently increased my prices. While I know we are all tired of seeing everything increase in price, this is only the second price increase in my 13 years of practice, and it was a much-needed change. Even with the increase in price, my fees will remain below both the regional and national average for naturopathic and functional providers. I value your trust in me, I thank you for your understanding! Note: The new pricing schedule will not affect any appointments that are already currently scheduled.

Practice Better Practice management for wellness professionals

Adding a single 200,000 IU dose of vitamin A (retinol) to standard therapy in women with recurrent urinary tract infection (RUTI) resulted in an *80% reduction* in UTI occurrence over the next 6 months. Women treated with standard (antibiotic) therapy alone without vitamin A did not experience any reductions in the number of infections.

Interestingly, most of these women were not actually overtly deficient in vitamin A prior to the study, and there were no significant differences in vitamin A levels between treatment and control groups at baseline.

This would suggest that extra vitamin A has a therapeutic effect at higher levels -- either by affecting mucosal immunity (which is one of its vital functions), or as a direct antimicrobial agent (which it is), or via some other function(s). Another explanation may be that "normal" laboratory vitamin A blood ranges are too broad, and that truly optimal levels might be higher than what is currently accepted as normal. There may be some truth to all of these possibilities. I personally prefer to see vitamin A levels in the upper third of the reference range whenever I test it.

Study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17532826/

This is possibly the most important study I have seen on COVID-19 all year. Please read this article by Chris Masterjohn, PhD, who expertly navigates all of the fascinating details.

Up until now, we have gathered a lot of observational data on vitamin D and COVID. I have written multiple posts on vitamin D and it has been a central feature in my protocols for clients who are wanting to prevent COVID and also for those diagnosed with COVID. But the data, as compelling as it has been, has still been observational in nature or based on other viral illnesses. That has now changed. We now have a randomized controlled trial (RCT) for vitamin D in COVID, specifically, and the results blew me away.

To make a long story short, it appears as though high-dose vitamin D *nearly eliminated* ICU and mortality risk in those with COVID. In this study, a full 50% of the control group required ICU admission while only 2% of the vitamin D group needed to go to the ICU.

This means that vitamin D reduced the risk of being admitted to the ICU by 25-fold!

ALL vitamin D patients were discharged without complications, and not a single person in the vitamin D group died (in the control group, half needed the ICU and two died).

This news should be everywhere, but it's not. Pharmaceutical interventions and hope for a miracle va¢¢ine reign supreme. Imagine if a drug or a va¢¢ine could eliminate this much risk! It would be the top story all over the world. Risk would plummet, fear would evaporate, the pandemic would be over, and people could get on with their lives.

We need to see more of an emphasis on these kinds of natural interventions. As this RCT shows, natural solutions can be incredibly powerful. Other nutritional interventions, such as vitamin C, zinc, glutathione, NAC, quercetin, etc., also display compelling promise. A vaccine can't reverse a vitamin D deficiency, and it can't make up for the zinc deficiency that plagues at least 30% of the world's population. We need to put more effort into these areas that clearly affect risk. Right now they are being sorely neglected despite good evidence calling for attention.

What if there was a concerted effort to rectify these nutritional inadequacies and to utilize these simple anti-viral strategies at every level of the healthcare system? Would this virus even be a blip on the radar? I would guess not.

Finally Confirmed! Vitamin D Nearly Abolishes ICU Risk in COVID-19 | Chris Masterjohn, PhD September 3, 2020 The first randomized controlled trial (RCT) of vitamin D in COVID-19 has just been published. The results are astounding: vitamin D nearly abolished the odds of requiring treatment in ICU. Although the number of deaths was too small to say for sure, vitamin D may actually abolish t...