Anna Dorothea Hoeck

Dr. med. Anna Dorothea Hoeck (also spelled Anna Dorothea Höck or Anna Dorothea Hock), is a physician in Cologne, Germany. She believes that prolonged vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency coupled with calcium depletion may trigger chronic fatigue syndrome and has found that many mild or moderately fatigued patients improve with supplements of vitamin D3 and other micronutrients. However, she concedes, patients who have had to reduce their activity level greater than 50% due to fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome have poor treatment outcomes with vitamin D and micronutrient supplemention.

Notable studies

 * 2014, Review: Vitamin D3 deficiency results in dysfunctions of immunity with severe fatigue and depression in a variety of diseases. (FULL TEXT)"Abstract: Recent immune data on vitamin D3 deficiency help to more clearly understand chronic fatiguing illnesses, such as autoimmune disorders, cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The vitamin D3 pathway is activated by stress and requires sufficient stores of precursor 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 for proper cell and immune functions. In vitamin D3 deficiency, secretion of the antimicrobial peptide cathelicidin is reduced, leading to impaired auto/xenophagy. As a result, phagocytosis, cytotoxicity, antigen processing and antigen presentation become dysregulated. In addition, vitamin D3 deficiency affects T- and B-lymphocyte activation, as well as quantity, maturation and function of regulatory natural killer T-cells and their counterparts in the gut, i.e. T-cell receptor-αβ, cluster of differentiation-8αα-positive intraepithelial lymphocytes. Consequently, innate and adaptive immunity become de-regulated, with microbial effects contributing further to this. Persistent infections, chronic inflammation and fatigue follow. Vitamin D3 substitution in such conditions may help to prevent or to ameliorate such chronic conditions, even in patients with cancer."
 * 2011, Will vitamin D supplementation ameliorate diseases characterized by chronic inflammation and fatigue?"Summary: Chronic NF-κB activation has been supposed as a key event in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and many other better-defined pro-inflammatory diseases. Knowledge about the impact of deficiency vitamin D on chronic NF-κB activation could open a new disease approach. Whereas NF-κB activation leads at first to a pro-inflammatory immune response, later on a vitamin D-dependent anti-inflammatory response ensues. Binding of the active vitamin D metabolite 1,25(OH)2D3 to vitamin D receptor (VDR) yields a transcription factor which represses NF-κB activation, and additionally modulates and down-regulates adaptive, but enhances innate immune responses, and improves redox balance, thus counterbalancing inflammation on multiple levels. However, this built-in late counterbalance against inflammation works only when stores of calcium and 25(OH)D3 are abundant. Therefore a connection between lowered vitamin D-metabolism and persistent NF-κB activation, augmented nitrosative-oxidative stress, redox imbalance, chronic inflammation, and concomitant fatigue can be postulated. In order to confirm this hypothesis, randomized controlled clinical studies about the clinical effects of supplementation of calcium and vitamin D3 would be necessary in diseases characterized by persistent NF-κB activation and chronic inflammation and fatigue."
 * 2009, Vitamin D deficiency results in chronic fatigue and multi-system symptoms "Summary: Physicians should realize that chronic fatigue is not a primary mental disease. Vitamin D de[ficiency] or insufficiency seems to be the most frequent cause. If untreated, calcium depletion and vitamin D resistance, presumably further deficiencies, and for instance, chronic fatigue syndrome will develop, later on followed by other more obvious diseases. Vitamin D resistance of chronic fatigue syndrome should be treated with much higher doses of vitamin D and calcium, than applied in osteoporosis prophylaxis. Clinical high quality studies would be helpful to get an overview which doses of calcium and vitamin D will be optimal and appropriate in CFS/ME, and reveal the rate of treatment responses. Possibly, further micronutrient co-medications will be necessary in severe cases of CFS/ME."
 * 1997, Fatigue and 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Levels

Online presence

 * ResearchGate

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 * 2013, Stressed? Fatigued? Check your vitamin D levels: Research by PF Louis in Natural News