vitamin D and the flu

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vitamin D and the flu -

In the paper, we propose that vitamin D explains the following 14

observations:

1. Why the flu predictably occurs in the months following the winter

solstice, when vitamin D levels are at their lowest,

2. Why it disappears in the months following the summer solstice,

3. Why influenza is more common in the tropics during the rainy

season,

4. Why the cold and rainy weather associated with El Nino Southern

Oscillation (ENSO), which drives people indoors and lowers vitamin D

blood levels, is associated with influenza,

5. Why the incidence of influenza is inversely correlated with

outdoor temperatures,

6. Why children exposed to sunlight are less likely to get colds,

7. Why cod liver oil (which contains vitamin D) reduces the incidence

of viral respiratory infections,

8. Why Russian scientists found that vitamin D-producing UVB lamps

reduced colds and flu in schoolchildren and factory workers,

9. Why Russian scientists found that volunteers, deliberately

infected with a weakened flu virus - first in the summer and then

again in the winter - show significantly different clinical courses

in the different seasons,

10. Why the elderly who live in countries with high vitamin D

consumption, like Norway, are less likely to die in the winter,

11. Why children with vitamin D deficiency and rickets suffer from

frequent respiratory infections,

12. Why an observant physician (Rehman), who gave high doses of

vitamin D to children who were constantly sick from colds and the

flu, found the treated children were suddenly free from infection,

13. Why the elderly are so much more likely to die from heart attacks

in the winter rather than in the summer,

14. Why African Americans, with their low vitamin D blood levels, are

more likely to die from influenza and pneumonia than Whites are.

Although our paper discusses the possibility that physiological doses

of vitamin D (5,000 units a day) may prevent colds and the flu, and

that physicians might find pharmacological doses of vitamin D (2,000

units per kilogram of body weight per day for three days) useful in

treating some of the one million people who die in the world every

year from influenza, we remind readers that it is only a theory.

Like all theories, our theory must withstand attempts to be disproved

with dispassionately conducted and well-controlled scientific

experiments.

However, as vitamin D deficiency has repeatedly been associated with

many of the diseases of civilization, we point out that it is not too

early for physicians to aggressively diagnose and adequately treat

vitamin D deficiency.

We recommend that enough vitamin D be taken daily to maintain 25-

hydroxy vitamin D levels at levels normally achieved through

summertime sun exposure (50 ng/ml).

For many persons, such as African Americans and the elderly, this

will require up to 5,000 units daily in the winter and less, or none,

in the summer, depending on summertime sun exposure.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/51913.php

Alana