News on preventing flu and colds & more....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 12-4-2012

Since the post on ways to beat flu, fevers, colds, and infections on 8-30-2012 in late August there are some new developments you should definitely should know about.

The new developments are here and are listed first.

 AND that post from August with more information follows here inside this post as well.

1.  This flu season is already started in several states in the South and Southeastern United States.  This may make it a bad and long flu season according to the recent news. 

The flu may arrive where you are soon in any case because it is already here and spreading out.

2.  But there are several pieces of good news too!

a)  This year’s flu shot matches the kinds of flu seen so far and expected later better than in past years.

b)  It’s not too late to get the flu shot this year if you haven’t already. 

If you get your flu shot today, tomorrow, or by the end of this week, you have an excellent chance of having protection when the flu first shows up. 

And you will have protection for later in the flu season when that flu comes back or another kind shows up.

c)  Taking 3,000 to 5,000 iu a day of vitamin D3, which research is showing is the real optimal and safe intake, ensures that your chances of the flu shot protecting you go from good to excellent.

Doing this also likely speeds how soon the protection from your flu shot takes effect to help you prevent or have a milder case of flu that shows up right away where you live.

And, taking this much vitamin D3 boosts your immune system so much, it also gives you some  added protection from kinds of flu the shot doesn’t cover and the colds you are exposed to.

d)  Most people don’t die from the flu.  But a huge number die each year from heart disease.

Recently Medical News Today listed the news that getting the flu shot may be extremely important in preventing deaths from heart disease too!

“Flu Shot May Reduce Risk Of A Major Cardiac Event By 50 Percent And Cardiac Deaths By 40 Percent

Article Date: 29 Oct 2012 - 1:00 PDT

Getting a flu shot may not only protect you from getting sick, it might also prevent heart disease.

Two Toronto-based researchers presented studies at the 2012 Canadian Cardiovascular Congress which found that the influenza vaccine could be an important treatment for maintaining heart health and warding off cardiovascular events like strokes and heart attacks.”

Wow!

That is front page news in my book!

So between the parts, if you haven’t gotten your flu shot this year, this information suggests it will benefit you to do it soon!

And, I believe that getting your flu shot each year while taking the vitamin D3 will give you some residual immunity for kinds of flu that show up in future years or when similar but new strains show up.

That getting a flu shot each year is as protective for your heart as totally staying away from tobacco smoke and other things that bad is very important news!

Of course there are other ways to prevent the flu, prevent bad colds, prevent dangerous complications, and recover faster if you do get colds or flu.

Here’s our post from August with many of these techniques:

Beat flu, fevers, colds, and infections....Thursday, 8-30-2012

This one is more doable than most people yet know!

As you likely know, this IS the best time of year to find out how because:

 This time of year is when children start school and begin to give each other colds and flu.

Plus in the soon to come cold weather, the weather outside and over-dry air inside make flu viruses more easy to catch.

Here’s some information on how to beat this and either stay completely well or get over it fast and without complications.

Some of this stuff has long been known to work but not one average person in ten knows about it yet!

And, some of the information in this post is from new research not even most doctors have heard about yet.

A.  The first thing to do is to avoid getting sick in the first place.

1.  Of course do the obvious things. 

a)  Try not to sit just in front of someone who is sneezing like crazy.  (I caught a bad cold that way once.  But as I was unable to escape then, you may not be able to avoid this one.  That makes the other strategies in the post so valuable. That’s because they can prevent you from being sick even with that exposure or help you get well so much faster.)

b) Wash your hands before you eat and first thing when you come home from work or errands. 

(Besides the airborne route, most colds and flu are from getting the virus on your hand or fingers and then getting into you from there.)

c) You WILL want to touch the corner of your eye or your nose.  (Everyone does that many times each day without even knowing it. But when a cold or flu virus is on your fingers, this touching delivers it into you!)

Have clean toilet paper or Kleenex within reach at home and at work and if you can do it safely, when you are in the car.  Then try to catch it if you are about to touch your eye, face, or nose and put the clean tissue between your finger and what you touch!

2.  Get flu shots each year and pneumonia vaccine at least once each 10 years.

Why get sick with either one when you can prevent it!?

Flu shots are often available to people free through their medical plan.  Many grocery stores and drug stores make them available at low cost too.  I’ve seen prices of $20 and $25.

Pneumonia vaccinations also cost about $25 but you need them only tenth as often.  Your medical plan or doctor or local health department can help you get one.

Both flu and pneumonia can kill you not just make you sick.  And even if you only get sick it can prevent you from doing what you want or need to do, cost you extra money, and it WILL make you feel lousy.

But some alternative health writers point out that these shots don’t always work.

The bad news is that’s true.

But they almost always work for some people!  Here’s how to be one of those people:

Take at least 5,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 from August first to at least 8 weeks after the shot.  Do this even if you normally take 2,000 or 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 or less--though hopefully not less!  (2,000 to 3,000 iu a day is your body's real minimum daily requirement!)

If you haven’t got that early start this year, do what you can.  Even starting the same day as the shot and continuing for at least 8 weeks will help.

Adding the vitamin D3 makes the flu shot something like three to five times more likely to work!

(If you take that much D3 all year long, you’ll also get far less flu, colds, and infections and get over any you do get faster and more reliably.  Similarly, if you’ve not been taking the vitamin D3 and get sick, you’ll still get well faster and develop more immunity if you start taking the vitamin D3 even that late.)

Here’s why this is.  Recent research has found two things about vitamin D3 and your immune system. 

Vitamin D3 is to your immune system’s killing cells what bullets are to rifle and machine gun armed soldiers.  If your vitamin D3 is low which it is still in most people, your immune system runs out of bullets when with enough vitamin D3 it would be many times more effective.

Vitamin D3 also dramatically increases the accuracy of the detection parts of your immune system.  With lots of vitamin D3, your immune system sees and goes after harmful viruses and bacteria and even some early cancer cells much more reliably and quickly.  (And, just as important, your immune system becomes much LESS likely to attack parts of YOU.  This helps prevent and even cure autoimmune diseases such as MS, lupus, and Rheumatoid arthritis.)

So with the vitamin D3, when you get a vaccine, your immune system learns faster, better, and more reliably what to attack if it shows up.  Then if that virus does show up, your immune system’s attack will be quick and powerful.

Does that mean that taking at least 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 all year round is important to do to stay well?

 You bet it does! 

Most people today hardly ever go outside much where most people did until 50 to 100 years ago.  So most people got that much vitamin D3 from sun exposure most of the year.

So this information is relatively new and research just discovered it in the last 10 to 15 years.

Vitamin D3 is very protective and costs little. Knowing to take that much is one of the most important parts of this post. 

The key thing here is that taking it and even a bit extra just before and just after a flu shot or other vaccination is extremely protective when just getting the shot by itself might not be.

B.  What if you do get sick and get a fever?

I was lucky and recently got an email from healthfreedomalliance.org reminding me that fevers are actually a tool that your immune system uses to make you well.

The higher temperature of a fever directly harms some bacteria and viruses. But of most importance, parts of your immune system only show up in force when the other parts bring on fever.  The extra heat triggers their release!

Guess what that means?

For most fevers, taking something to turn it down will make it take longer to get well or even prevent you getting well at all in some cases.

Yet most people take some over the counter drug to do just that when they have fever. 

Worse, they may take extra.  This not only reliably keeps them sick longer, these drugs, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and aspirin, are often harmful in larger doses and even have some risk in smaller doses sometimes.

1.  So, to get well quickly and safely, avoid treating most fevers at all other than with tons of water etc.  

Doctors say to take plenty of water if you are sick or have a fever but all too often do NOT make the HUGE big deal and BIG case to do it that this advice deserves.  

Did you know this?  With extra water, you still feel sick. BUT you AVOID dehydration, weakness, clumsiness, extra complications, and possible death.

You may be too sick to feel thirsty or your kids may be.  But you are sweating more or mouth breathing or both and your body needs extra water to fight off being sick in addition!

2.  Only treat fevers of 104 or 105 or more or that ALSO have scary symptoms like delirium or seizures and only after drinking LOTS of water if at all possible.  Taking the medicine itself  with extra water is also a good idea.

3.  Treat fevers as little and for as short a time as possible.  

(Fevers both help your immune system kill bacteria and viruses, they call up your immune systems killer cells and other reinforcements as we just noted.)

4.  Be SURE to add or slightly increase vitamin D3 and vitamin C.  Adding extra vitamin A, and zinc, and probiotics for a short time can also help.  

Taking extra zinc works best if the total is less than 100 mg a day and it may work best on the first one or two days after you find you are sick and not be that effective at all after that. I fact, taking a lot of zinc, over 100 mg and or doing it for more than two days, begins to lower your resistance instead of boost it!

(Taking a good amount of these BEFOREHAND can prevent fevers by preventing the illness in the first place.)

5.  Cut WAY, WAY back on sugar.  Even if it's just for the duration of the flu season or when you are actually sick, it will help.

(Doing this close to that much sugar-cut-backs all year round slows aging, prevents disease, notably heart disease and type 2 diabetes, and helps prevent and can help reverse obesity.

But doing it extra while you are sick and have a fever helps you get well faster and lowers your calories to make up for being less active so you don't gain extra fat while you are sick.)

The article I got in my email reminded me of this and notes that:  “In a study reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition as far back as 1977 reported the adverse (effect) that sugar has on the immune system.”

& “Each subsequently higher dose of sugar created a corresponding decrease in the activities of the subject’s white blood cells. The group that had consumed the largest amount of sugar had essentially no functioning white blood cells within an hour after consuming the sugar.

The immunosuppression occurred for up to two hours after consuming that sugar, but the adverse effects of no blood cell activity persisted in some instances for up to five hours.”

Don’t know about you.  But that sounds to me like a HUGE negative effect! 

Does that mean that drinking soft drinks instead of water as part of the extra water is a bad idea.  Yes it does!

Even if you don’t skip sodas for health or fat loss reasons the rest of the year, when you are sick ONLY drink water!

(By the way the people who sent me the email got the article they ran from.

“The Importance of Fever   Submitted by Intelligentactile on August 23, 2012 – 12:30 pm”

“Childhood fevers can be frightening, mostly because they are misunderstood.”)

Their advice for parents on managing fevers without OTC drugs for these reasons is in the article.  But their advice is every bit as sound for adults!)

6.  Program in extra rest.  

Drinking extra water can enable you to do some of what you need to do most because you won’t suddenly become weak and the like if you drink the extra water.

But do what you can to get extra rest. 

Go home early.  Take a morning off so you can sleep in.

Simply don’t watch TV for less than world shaking events and go to bed early.

Anything that takes extra time or effort to do that you can drop or postpone for now, DO IT!

7. And keep up the extra water. Being sick you may miss being thirsty and with a fever and mouth breathing you’ll lose water quickly too.

This is a BAD and dangerous combination! 

So simply override all that.  Set a few times often during the day to drink extra water. 

Then when the inevitable happens and you need to visit the bathroom, as soon as you are done, drink a glass of water! 

That works even if you are too sick or busy to remember to drink water at a particular time. It’s a reliable and hard to miss signal!