Vitamin D For Preventing Colds & Flu.

Vitamin D has been shown to be vital for the efficient working of the immune system, and for preventing colds and flu. Yet vitamin D levels fall in the winter. Is this the cause of the winter epidemics of colds and flu, and can this be reversed by taking vitamin D supplements?

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Your Vitamin D Level Predicts Your Vulnerability To Colds & Flu

Vitamin D has been widely researched in the last few years, and it has been found to be very important for the correct functioning of many biochemical processes in the body, including bone health, prevention of cancer and it is critical for the correct functioning of the immune system.

Vitamin D is essential for the recognition and destruction of invading bacteria and viruses in the body. The body first defence against a cold or flu viruses is to detect it with immune system cells, such as a type of white blood cell called a T-cell. Vitamin D is essential to activate the immune response in T-cells to recognise the virus as being foreign and to destroy it. Without Vitamin D the T-cell is not activated by the virus and makes no attempt to destroy it.

Your vitamin D level can predict your susceptibility to colds and flu. Current studies show that people with a low vitamin D level are more susceptible to colds and flu. Now, vitamin D is not widely available in food, almost all of it is made by the body from the action of sunlight on the skin, converting vitamin A into vitamin D. The lower levels of sunlight in the winter and the fact that we don't expose our skin to sunlight so much, explain why we all have lower levels of vitamin D in the winter. This may also be the main reason why more people get colds and flu in the winter.

Vitamin D Supplements Reduce The Risk Of Flu

Published studies show that vitamin D supplements reduce the incidence of flu. This effect can be quite dramatic, and one study in children showed a 67 percent reduction in the incidence of flu using a vitamin D supplement. However, the study also showed that the vitamin D supplements took over a month of regular use to begin to show a benefit, and that not all strains of flu were equally affected.

Is The Recommended Daily Allowance Of Vitamin D Too Low?

The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for vitamin D is 5 micrograms or 200 units. The RDA is defined as "the average daily dietary intake level that is sufficient to meet the nutrient requirements of nearly all (approximately 98 percent) healthy individuals". There is now a groundswell of opinion and evidence saying that this level is grossly inadequate for health, and that a level of ten times this amount, i.e. 50 micrograms or 2,000 units, is much more realistic.

The toxicity of higher doses of vitamin D. Many traditional medical sources say that 2,000 units of vitamin D a day will put you in danger of vitamin D toxicity, which can be serious, resulting in increased calcium absorption leading to damage to the kidneys and liver, and deposits of calcium in blood vessel walls. However, conventional ideas about the dose needed to produce toxicity has been shown to be far too cautious by recent studies of high doses of vitamin D.

Testing the vitamin D level in your blood is recommended by some experts, though this is expensive, difficult to find, and some tests have been shown to be unreliable.

How Much Vitamin D Should I Take?

Supplementing with 25 to 50 micrograms or 1,000 to 2,000 units a day during the winter months of November to April in the UK is the typical minimum recommendation of the nutritionists and researchers who support the new higher dose of vitamin D, and the consensus is that this dose should pose no health risks due to toxicity, and significantly boost your immune response, which should reduce the number of times you catch colds and flu. See Patrick Holford's article .

Supplementing with very high doses of 5,000 to 10,000 units a day also has significant support from some reliable medical authorities, such as Doctor Mercola, though blood level monitoring is recommended.

Be Careful Which Vitamin D You Take

There are two common forms of vitamin D, vitamin D2 and vitamin D3. Vitamin D2 or ergocalciferol, is produced in plants, fungi and some lower animals. Vitamin D3 or cholecalciferol, is produced in higher animals and man, and is by far the best form to use, as it results in higher and longer lasting blood levels of vitamin d in the body. Collectively they are known as calciferol.

It is important to make sure that you take vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), and that this form is specified on the label of your supplement.

Vitamin D3 10mg, 400iu (120 Tabs) SuperLiving

Vitamin D Tablets 400iu by SuperLiving provide a convenient way to supplement your vitamin D levels with a small and easy to swallow, yet high dose tablet