Vitamin D and the Flu

Most people do not realize that vitamin D, unlike flu shots, is a proven method to keep yourself from catching an infectious disease.

According to the Irish Independent, R Edgar Hope Simpson was one of the first to discover the link between a deficiency in solar radiation and seasonal influenza. Then, in 2006, the journal Epidemiology and Infection published Dr. John Cannell’s paper Epidemic Influenza and Vitamin D, which presents the hypothesis that influenza is merely a symptom of vitamin D deficiency.

He followed this up with another study published in the Virology Journal last year.

His findings were again confirmed by another recent study — the largest and most nationally representative of its kind to date — that involved about 19,000 Americans.

It found that people with the lowest blood vitamin D levels reported having significantly more recent colds or cases of the flu. In conclusion, lead author Dr. Adit Ginde stated:

“The findings of our study support an important role for vitamin D in prevention of common respiratory infections, such as colds and the flu. Individuals with common lung diseases, such as asthma or emphysema, may be particularly susceptible to respiratory infections from vitamin D deficiency.”

And as we already know, the vast majority of deaths from the swine flu have occurred in children and adults with pre-existing medical conditions, including obesity, AND, most complications and deaths have been caused by secondary bacterial infections, such as staph – not the virus itself.

Add to this the fact that vitamin D has been shown to have a dramatic impact on nearly all chronic diseases, and you begin to see why optimizing your vitamin D levels may indeed be crucial for avoiding the flu in the first place, and/or avoiding serious and potentially deadly complications from the flu.

There is so much compelling evidence that I believe optimizing your vitamin D levels is one of the absolute best strategies for avoiding infections of ALL kinds, and vitamin D deficiency is likely the TRUE culprit behind the seasonality of the flu — not the flu virus itself.

I find it hard to believe that the H1N1 virus would respond much differently, especially since it has been found to be a much weaker virus than previous seasonal flu strains.

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The rest of this awesome article and its correlated topics can be found here.

As before,  comments are always welcome.

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