Vitamin D may be the single most important factor in preventing cold's and flu's: Reprinted from the Vitamin D Council - Dr. John Cannell M.D.
When you think about it, the flu and cold season is indistinguishable from the vitamin D deficiency season. Every autumn, as vitamin D levels plummet, the incidence of colds and flu skyrocket. After vitamin D levels bottom out during the darkest days of the cold and flu season, vitamin D levels rise again in the spring and the incidence of colds and flu steadily decrease until they virtually disappear during the vitamin D rich summer. It may be that simple. Your body's innate immunity, especially the production of innate natural antibiotics called antimicrobial peptides, goes up and down every year with your vitamin D levels. (Acquired immunity is quite different, those are the antibodies you slowly develop after an infection or a flu shot.) Maintaining summer-time vitamin D levels in the winter - by taking adequate amounts of vitamin D (5,000 IU) in the winter - may help prevent colds or the flu by stimulating innate immunity. Preventing some of the one million deaths in the world every year from flu related illnesses is exciting enough; an equally exciting possibility is that large doses of vitamin D may be useful in treating the flu - as well as other infections.
Vitamin D, Sunshine, and Your Health — Fast Facts
If you totally avoid the sun, recent research indicates you need about 4,000 units of vitamin D a day! Which means you can't get enough vitamin D from milk (unless you drink 40 glasses a day) or from a multivitamin (unless you take about 10 tablets a day), neither of which is recommended.
Most of us make about 20,000 units of vitamin D after about 20 minutes of summer sun. This is about 100 times more vitamin D than the government says you need every day.
The only way to be sure you have adequate levels of vitamin D in your blood is to regularly go into the sun, use a sun bed (avoiding sunburn), or, have your physician administer a 25-hydroxy-vitamin D blood test. Optimal levels are around 50 ng/ml (125 nm/L).
If you don't get vitamin D the way Mother Nature intended, from sunshine, you need to take supplemental vitamin D3 Cholecalciferol. Since most of us get a lot more vitamin D from sunshine than we realize, most of us need about 2,000 units a day extra.
Selenium boost could slash rates of bladder cancer by 70 percent:
Originally published September 29 2006
(NewsTarget) The mineral selenium, when taken from daily dietary sources such as nuts, whole wheat and wheat pasta, can cut the risk of bladder cancer by up to 70 percent according to new research from Belgium.
The researchers and authors of the study, led by Eliane Kellen from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, used post-study blood samples to assess selenium concentrations in the blood of study subjects. The study contained 178 selenium case-controlled subjects along with 362 control subjects.
The researchers accounted for variables such as sex, age, smoking and occupational exposure in regards to possible bladder cancer onset. At the conclusion of the selenium study, the researchers calculated that the risk of bladder cancer had been reduced by 70 percent in the case-controlled subjects. The actual bladder cancer reduction occurred in subjects that had 96 micrograms per liter or more of selenium in their systems, while those with serum levels of less than 82.4 micrograms per liter did not show the reduction.
"Virtually everyone living in modern society is chronically deficient in minerals like selenium, zinc and magnesium," said Mike Adams, a health journalist and author of "The Seven Laws of Nutrition." "Boosting intake of these important minerals can have a significant effect on preventing diseases like bladder cancer, breast cancer, depression and diabetes," he added.
The best sources for such minerals, Adams said, are from plants grown in mineral-rich soils. "That means buying organic, because conventionally grown crops are almost always grown in mineral-depleted soils."
Selenium supplement products are generally available as an isolated mineral as well as being combined with other nutrients in combination supplements.
Christopher Wiechert, C.N.C.
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
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