Epidemic Flu and Vitamin D

Medical News Today

Instead of talking about how this is spreading ... I figured I'd post a thread talking about what you can do to arm yourself. It appears ... Vitamin D. Of course this is just one article and there is more info out there, but I thought it was important.

It's long reading ... but go to the link and read the whole thing.

A short while later, a group of scientists from UCLA published a remarkable paper in the prestigious journal, Nature. The UCLA group confirmed two other recent studies, showing that a naturally occurring steroid hormone - a hormone most of us take for granted - was, in effect, a potent antibiotic. Instead of directly killing bacteria and viruses, the steroid hormone under question increases the body's production of a remarkable class of proteins, called antimicrobial peptides. The 200 known antimicrobial peptides directly and rapidly destroy the cell walls of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, including the influenza virus, and play a key role in keeping the lungs free of infection. The steroid hormone that showed these remarkable antibiotic properties was plain old vitamin D.

All of the patients on my ward had been taking 2,000 units of vitamin D every day for several months or longer. Could that be the reason none of my patients caught the flu? ....

interesting find Flyers

but I'm not sure any one singular thing is the fix it right now. I've heard that Vitamin C in high doses work, as well as colloidal silver, a mixture of essential herb oils, etc..etc

I'm sticking to eating healthy "HOMECOOKED" meals (sorry economy but I'm not eating out), and my regular dose of a multivitamin and calcium chew. Oh and I'm getting to the point of OCD with the cleaning of bathrooms and door knobs and using hand sanitizer religiously while outdoors.

I'm going to wait to see what works before changing any doses of vitamins.

Originally posted by worldwatcher
I'm sticking to eating healthy "HOMECOOKED" meals

I've cut out my usual WaWa or Dunk'n Donuts coffee that I have during the day. I'm just not sure of who could be infected and working on my coffee.

I'm going to check with the pediatrician about how much Vitamin D children can have. We already take multiple vitamins.

I have osteoperosis so I take 1,000 Vit D a day anyways.
I may up it to 2,000 for the next week or so and take a chance
on kidney stones ....

edited to add -

Originally posted by worldwatcher
I'm getting to the point of OCD with the cleaning of bathrooms and door knobs and using hand sanitizer religiously while outdoors.

I'm the same way.
I have become 'germ aware'. My husband says 'germ phobic'.
But I always correct him and say 'germ aware'.
(that's from the movie 'bedtime stories')



[edit on 4/29/2009 by FlyersFan]

Vitamin D in general from THE best alternative health site on the web, IMHO.



[edit on 29/4/2009 by kosmicjack]

Aside from the excellent properties of Vitamin D, the only question I have is shouldn't Latinos at that latitude be getting lots of sunshine, a natural source of D? Maybe they don't get enough of the other compounds needed for uptake.

reply to post by kosmicjack


My daughter is latino. She's from Bolivia. We were talking about why this is killing Mexicans at a higher rate then non-hispanic Americans. Besides better health care here .... she was wondering about genetics and the flu mortality.

Long response - There is more sunshine down there ... but there is also more spending time in the shade and more people wear hats and long sleeves in order to get out of the sun. They siesta in the afternoons when the sun is brightest as well. Plus in the city people are just like up here .. stuck in buildings and high rises.

Short response - Dunno. It's a mystery.

www.virologyj.com...

The epidemiology of influenza swarms with incongruities, incongruities exhaustively detailed by the late British epidemiologist, Edgar Hope-Simpson. He was the first to propose a parsimonious theory explaining why influenza is, as Gregg said, "seemingly unmindful of traditional infectious disease behavioral patterns." Recent discoveries indicate vitamin D upregulates the endogenous antibiotics of innate immunity and suggest that the incongruities explored by Hope-Simpson may be secondary to the epidemiology of vitamin D deficiency. We identify – and attempt to explain – nine influenza conundrums: (1) Why is influenza both seasonal and ubiquitous and where is the virus between epidemics? (2) Why are the epidemics so explosive? (3) Why do they end so abruptly? (4) What explains the frequent coincidental timing of epidemics in countries of similar latitude? (5) Why is the serial interval obscure? (6) Why is the secondary attack rate so low? (7) Why did epidemics in previous ages spread so rapidly, despite the lack of modern transport? (8) Why does experimental inoculation of seronegative humans fail to cause illness in all the volunteers? (9) Why has influenza mortality of the aged not declined as their vaccination rates increased? We review recent discoveries about vitamin D's effects on innate immunity, human studies attempting sick-to-well transmission, naturalistic reports of human transmission, studies of serial interval, secondary attack rates, and relevant animal studies. We hypothesize that two factors explain the nine conundrums: vitamin D's seasonal and population effects on innate immunity, and the presence of a subpopulation of "good infectors." If true, our revision of Edgar Hope-Simpson's theory has profound implications for the prevention of influenza...

Much more at link

Originally posted by kosmicjack
Aside from the excellent properties of Vitamin D, the only question I have is shouldn't Latinos at that latitude be getting lots of sunshine, a natural source of D?

Maybe they don't get enough of the other compounds needed for uptake.

I thought this very thing... But for Vitamin D to be useful, it requires the presence of calcium as well as magnesium. There could be other deficiencies at play as well.

NOTE - I read that Star Anise is what TamiFlu is made from.
I went and got some yesterday. It's rather expensive.

Just FYI

Originally posted by FlyersFan
NOTE - I read that Star Anise is what TamiFlu is made from.
I went and got some yesterday. It's rather expensive.

Just FYI

Shikimic acid, a star anise derivative is a part of Tamiflu - but to make what you bought useful, I guess you have to take a very high concentration of the Star Anise to make it work?

How much did it cost?