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Body > Nutrition

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Vitamin D better than vaccines and medications at preventing flu

Doctors is Japan have found that you can cut in half your risk of catching the flu by taking vitamin D. The finding has implications for flu epidemics since vitamin D, which is naturally produced by the human body when exposed to direct sunlight, has no significant side effects, costs little and can be several times more effective than anti-viral drugs or vaccine.

Only one in ten children, aged six to 15 years, taking the sunshine vitamin in a clinical trial came down with flu compared with one in five given a dummy tablet. Mitsuyoshi Urashima, the Japanese doctor who led the trial said that vitamin D was more effective than vaccines in preventing flu.

Altogether 354 children took part in the trial, which took place during the winter of 2008-09, before the swine flu epidemic. Vitamin D was found to protect against influenza A, which caused last year’s epidemic, but not against the less common influenza B.

The children were given a daily dose of 1200 IUs (international units) of vitamin D over a period of three months. In the first month children in the group taking the vitamin became ill just as often as those taking the dummy tablet. But by the second month, when the vitamin level in the children’s blood was higher, the advantage of the vitamin was clear.

The Japanese scientists, writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, say that the anti-viral drugs zanamivir and oseltamivir reduce risk of flu infection by 8 per cent in children who have been exposed to infection, compared with a 50 per cent or greater reduction with vitamin D.

Anti-virals are also too expensive, and possibly too toxic, to be given to the population as a whole whereas vitamin D has additional benefits. The sunshine vitamin not only prevents bone fractures but is also believed to reduce risks of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other illness, including various bacterial as well as viral infections.

The Japanese finding supports a theory that low blood levels of the sunshine vitamin occurring in winter explain why flu epidemics generally peak between December and March.

Vitamin D activates the innate immune system, enabling the body to produce several proteins such as defensin and cathelicidin which trigger cell activity and disable viruses. Dr Urashima said: “Vitamin D and vaccine work by quite different mechanisms. Vitamin D enhances innate immunity while vaccine enhances acquired immunity. So we do not have to select only one way of prevention, rather we should do both ways, I think.”

Dr John Oxford, professor of virology at Queen Mary School of Medicine, London, said: “This is a timely study. It will be noticed by scientists. It fits in with the seasonal pattern of flu. There is an increasing background of solid science that makes the vitamin D story credible. But this study needs to be replicated. If it is confirmed we might think of giving vitamin D at the same time as we vaccinate.”

Your body is a weight gaining machine. For most of human history there has not been enough food and in order to survive the body developed sophisticated methods to conserve energy and lower metabolism. Our taste buds compel us to eat sweet tasting foods which increase insulin in the blood and we gain weight by storing fat, which will be energy for the future.

For 95% of human life on earth mankind has lived as a hunter/gatherer, We ate nuts, berries, fruits, roots, tubers and vegetables, all rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Wild game and fish provided lean protein and high quality fats. Exercise was a natural and required part of daily life. Food supplies varied with the seasons and the rhythms of nature and the body adapted and survived. Most often stress was due to a real danger and the “fight or flight” stress response served us well. This is the foundation experience for the complex wisdom of your body.

Basically, you are not designed for the 21st century. Hunting and gathering has become pushing a shopping cart around the supermarket for a few minutes once or twice a week. Processed, refined, preservative filled, mineral depleted foods have replaced what Mother Nature provided to our ancestors. Our taste buds still love sweets and as our blood insulin raises so does our weight and overtime our cholesterol and blood pressure rise as well.

We are hunter/gatherers in SUVs so busy “making a living” we have no time to exercise, but always find time to worry. In ancient and contemporary hunter/gatherer societies it takes about 20 hours a week to “make a living”. A few hours daily are needed to find food, provide shelter for the family and insure basic needs for the community. The rest of the time is devoted to family life, personal projects, play, communication, spiritual practices, contemplation and communing with nature.

The wisdom and design of your body is no different from that of your ancestors who lived on earth 40,000 years ago, but the environment you live in has changed dramatically. In order to stay healthy today it requires knowledge and effort. Health is no longer a natural outcome of daily life as it was for our ancestors.

The mismatch between the 40,000 year old genetic design of your body and modern diet and lifestyle has contributed to the following health issues:

Widespread deficiencies in vitamins C, A, B6, calcium and iron
Magnesium deficiency in 68% of people
Majority of Americans deficient in trace minerals such as zinc and selenium
Insulin resistance
Weight gain
Leptin resistance
Food allergy, mostly delayed onset IgG antibody mediated
Intestinal yeast overgrowth
Lowered metabolism
High cholesterol and triglycerides
And more

Medical and nutritional laboratory testing can help you understand the wisdom of your body and the best diet for you.

Healing is found naturally within the wisdom of your body and the power of your mind.