Today is vitamin D day....

Today's Post:  Friday, 11-2-2012

Today is vitamin D day. 

It IS a good time of year for it!

Just in the last 5 to 12 years we’ve discovered for best health and to avoid many diseases people need to get the amount of vitamin D3 each day that people did in the sunnier half of each year when virtually everyone spent hours outside in the sun.

Today, most people tend to live and work and do recreation inside with no sun exposure. 

AND, in the Northern hemisphere from early November to late February, tends to be the time when even people who spend some time outside during the day get the least sun.

The Vitamin D Council is helping to publicize today as Vitamin D Day because of the negative health effects this can have for people who don’t take supplements of vitamin D3.

I’ll have more to say later in this post.  But here is what they sent out with their take on it:

“November 2nd is Vitamin D Day, as declared by organizations throughout the world, assembling together to spread awareness on vitamin D and the vitamin D deficiency pandemic.

Vitamin D is a nutrient the…human body produces in response to sun exposure. When the sun shines overhead, it triggers the skin to start making vitamin D for the body. Given the ever increasing indoor lifestyles of humans in the 20th and 21st centuries, many people are deficient in vitamin D and many scientists believe there is a deficiency pandemic.

One organization taking action this Vitamin D Day is the Vitamin D Council, a nonprofit organization based out of California that solely educates the public on vitamin D and sun exposure. “I believe being aware of your vitamin D status is the most important and simple thing you can do for your health,” says John J Cannell, MD, Executive Director of the organization.

During the winter, vitamin D deficiency becomes even more prevalent, as the sun becomes less intense and shines less overhead. Vitamin D “blood levels” are usually lowest at the end of winter, after weeks and weeks of the body no longer getting vitamin D from its own skin.

Hence….organizers have set November 2nd as the Day, to help educate people before winter and make sure they are aware of how to get vitamin D depending on the season. Dr Cannell says, “Virtually everyone that works indoors is at risk for insufficiency and more than likely deficient. The problem is even worse in the fall and winter.”

Here’s my take on it.

The Vitamin D Council has a free email with stories and research about vitamin D3, the form your body makes from sun exposure and the form your body needs and uses.

News and some stories are free.  But the majority of the research stories after the summary and title are only available to members who support the nonprofit by paying for an annual membership.

From them, I read that, year round, virtually everyone who takes no vitamin D – even the tiny 400 iu a day once thought to be enough, is severely deficient with blood levels below 20 when below 50 is deficient and below 30 is severely deficient.  We now know that this makes them far more likely to get a huge list of diseases and even boosts their risk of death and multiplies the health care costs they generate!

Also, year round, we now know, or at least the better informed of us do, that the real minimum daily requirement of vitamin D3 is between 2,000 and 3,000 iu and that the optimum is between about 4,000 and 10,000 iu a day.  Actually this should not be at all surprising because that’s how much people get if they spend most of their days outside during the sunny half of the year!

Yesterday we posted on boron that helps keep your bones strong in a list of things that do that & prevent osteoporosis.  But besides regular exercise and weight bearing exercise the most important item on that list was taking at least 3,000 to 5,000 iu a day of vitamin D3.

That’s just one of the great health benefits of getting enough vitamin D3.

However, this IS a great time to have Vitamin D Day because everyone who takes less than the 2,000 to 3,000 iu a day our bodies need DOES become even more deficient in mid-winter.

And, of even more importance, even in the Southern Hemisphere, since most people live in the Northern one, world wide, there is a higher incidence of colds, flu, and pneumonia this time of year.

That’s because of the easier transmission of colds and flu and other viruses in cold air and when people are even more crowded together inside than they are the rest of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

One of the most important benefits of vitamin D3 is its role in keeping your immune system effective.

And, these two facts interact in a way you can benefit from IF you know to take vitamin D3 this time of year.

a) Research has found that the killer cells of our immune system need vitamin D3 almost in a comparable way that combat soldiers need bullets for their weapons.

Good soldiers can be somewhat effective at times with no bullets.  But to be most effective or effective enough in some situations, they must have enough ammunition.

This has three hugely important results that are even more important this time of year.

It means that people who take enough vitamin D3 are more likely to beat cold and flu viruses and avoid getting sick with them in the first place.

And, it means that the smaller number of people who get colds and flu get less sick and recover sooner and better.

But in addition to making your immune system much stronger, vitamin D3 makes it more accurate in assessing if an immune response is needed or not.

(That means that people who get enough vitamin D3 are far less likely to get autoimmune diseases such as MS, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis.)

AND, it means that for people who get vaccines for flu, pneumonia, and whooping cough, you are MUCH more likely to be protected by doing so!

(Of course, there is also evidence that this immune system effect helps prevent many cancers notably including breast and prostate cancers and helps prevent Alzheimer’s disease.)

But the timely part is this:

If you’ve not been taking at least 2,000 to 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 and want to stay well and safer this winter, begin to do so at once. (And, it’s clearly a good idea to continue all year!)

And, if you haven’t done this already, a week or so later, get the flu, pneumonia, and whooping cough vaccines.  We now know this literally multiplies the chances they will protect you! 

Would you rather get a 30 % or less chance of being protected or an over 80% chance?  If you’d rather have over an 80% chance, take enough vitamin D3 each day!

(Separate note for employers:

It can cost you if key employees are sick and not at work or too sick to work well or if you have too many people out at the same time.

That means it will literally put new dollars in your pocket to get this information to all your people both early in the fall before flu shots are available and at this time of year and do these things yourself!)

More on preventing and getting rid of colds and flu....

Today's Post: Monday, 11-14-2011

This has turned into a four part series to add some more helpful and effective information in today's post.

a) See the post last Tuesday, 11-8-2011 also. It was on ways to prevent colds and flu. By far the best solution is not have them & have them last zero time by simply NOT getting them at all!

b) The post on Thursday, 11-10, had the most important strategy to protect you from being limited and debilitated or harmed if you get a fever.

c) On Friday, 11-11, our post had some effective information on minimizing how bad chest colds get.

It had some information that added ways to kill off viruses in your nose and keep it from being stuffed up.

And, it added some supplements and foods that can also help.

This post has two ways that each help you prevent most colds and flu and make them milder and shorter if you get them anyway. Each of them cuts your chances of getting sick about in half. And when you do get sick, it’s less severe and leaves a day or two sooner.

a) People who take a probiotics supplement daily get fewer colds and may get fewer cases of the flu. In fact, it may prevent up to half of them.

I’ve not seen research showing why this effect exists; but there are 3 reasons I think this is so. Your immune system is tuned up from checking on the probiotic bacteria when -- without them to check each day, it might be half asleep when a cold or flu virus shows up. It also has the probiotic bacteria as a comparison that’s fresh, so when an upper respiratory bacteria or a cold virus or a flu virus shows up, your immune system will see it as different sooner. That likely enables it to attack sooner too.

But that’s not all. Your probiotic bacteria likely also attack them directly! And, that attack may be quite effective. The first strong antibiotic, penicillin, was a substance produced for just such an attack. This may even mean that your probiotic bacteria might have or develop a way to kill bacteria that are resistant to many antibiotic drugs!

b) Just since last year, I found out that people who take the supplement astragalus each day also get fewer colds and may get fewer cases of the flu. It too, may prevent up to half of them!

In fact, this has been known and well supported by research for years I found out on the website, www.wholehealthmd.com . But I only learned it and began taking astragalus myself a few months ago.

c) Does that mean that taking both probiotics and astragalus can help you avoid as much as 75% of colds and flu by cutting your chances in half twice? It’s possible though I do not know of any direct test. Since my wife and I now take both, I certainly hope so!

d) There are two times that you can get a scratchy throat that can cause you some discomfort, cause a dry cough, or make it hard to speak.

The first time is when you first get sick.

For that I like to empty out a 30 mg zinc capsule and put it into my mouth to try to get it to my throat AFTER getting a glass of water. There’s some chance that if a virus is a cause and it has only attacked your throat so far, that might kill it off. In fact, this has seemed to work for me a few times.

(However, it turns out spraying zinc into your nose is harmful to your mucous membranes. So do NOT do that! Use the steaming we describe in an earlier post in this series for that purpose. Unlike using zinc, the steam does NOT cause pain that sticks around and damage but it does kill viruses.)

But if you tried getting the zinc on the back of your throat and are definitely getting sicker anyway, what can be done to relieve that scratchy feeling or the dry cough or enable you to speak normally?

I once tried several kinds of cough lozenges. I found them all completely useless.

But there is now something called Thayer’s lozenges. Instead of being a hard candy with a flavor or having a numbing agent, Thayer’s lozenges use a soothing herbal called slippery elm that coats over the area that feels scratchy and directly stops the irritation.

I found the effect astounding in comparison to the normal cough drops. I chewed up two and swallowed them. (I’m a bit too impatient to suck on them for a long time.) The first few seconds I felt no effect. But within a few more seconds, there was no more feeling of irritation! It was all gone. It was as if I’d hit it with a 20 pound sledge hammer. No drama. The irritation just was no longer there!

That was nice!!

So, what I do now is always have some with me. If I get that kind of irritation, I give it a few minutes first because most of the time, it will go away by itself since I wasn’t coming down sick. But if after a few minutes, the irritation is still there or a bit worse, I chew up two of the Thayer’s. I talk on the phone in my job, so having something that effective in reserve when I need it is very nice indeed.

It helps mild sore throats a bit; but for bad ones, the pain is underneath the area the Thayer’s protects and too strong. So, if you have strep throat, you will still have the pain.

The second time you get a scratchy throat that causes you some discomfort, or a dry cough, or makes it hard to speak is when you have had a chest cold. You’ve coughed a lot and irritated your throat. BUT you no longer are coughing anything up. All you have is the left over irritation.

The Thayer’s lozenges work great for that!

The key is to wait until you no longer bring up anything when you cough. If you do, even just a bit, your body will cough until you get rid of it. For stopping that the Thayer’s won’t work. And you are better off getting rid of what you cough up anyway.

But if the irritation gets tiresome, you can use the Thayer’s for that. You will still cough. It will just be easier to take.

Prevent colds, flu, and pneumonia....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 11-8-2011

Why feel rotten or have your work or life temporarily put on hold or slow speed when you can avoid it?

Why risk damage to your lungs or death if you can avoid it??

To a surprising degree you can by preventing colds, flu, and pneumonia!

Each of these methods reduces your risk. If you use all or most of them, your chances of escaping this stuff go WAY up.

Unfortunately this is the season for catching these and bronchitis besides.

The good news is that you can make catching any of them MUCH less likely.

Today we list many ways to prevent these. Do as many as you can that you aren’t already doing.

Many of the ones that work best cost very little. Taking vitamin D3 has truly astounding other health benefits besides. We also list two methods that cost very little that also may help prevent you from getting colds if you overdo your exercise or do competitive athletics of some kind.

Let’s start with the most important ones.

1. You can’t avoid all the risk. But I’ve read over half the risk comes into your house and into YOU on your hands.

If you touch the corners of your eyes and inside of your nose ONLY when using a clean tissue or toilet paper or handkerchief and NOT your fingers directly, you cut your risk.

But even more important, touching things like ATM keys and debit card number entry keys and gas station self-serve pumps and grocery store cart handles or ever visiting a hospital for any reason exposes you to an astounding amount of bacteria and viruses from simple colds to almost incurable bacteria like MRSA.

So, every time you come home from work or have touched such things before you eat, ALWAYS wash your hands!

You can sing the Happy Birthday song if you like to wash long enough even if only silently.

But I think that inaccurate and silly myself.

This works better:

Use a liquid hand soap you can squirt onto your hands. Do the hand washing motion until all of each hand is covered. That action WITHOUT water puts the oils on your hands and the viruses and bacteria in them into suspension. Then turn on the warm or hot water and repeat until most of the soapy feeling is gone. Then turn on the cold water and repeat the hand washing motion about that long. These two parts ensure all the soap and the oils and viruses and bacteria in it have gone down the drain!

This is more accurate and easier to do than just singing. These are the 3 parts that do the job!

2. Take the optimum level of vitamin D3 each day; get flu shots each year, and the pneumonia vaccine once every 10 years.

That combination is extremely effective if you do each of them!

You’ll get far less cases of the flu, over 85% perhaps will miss you completely. Over 90% of the times you would have gotten pneumonia, you’ll escape it. And, you’ll often be the only one at your work who misses the cold that everyone else is getting.

Vitamin D3 is to your killer cells in your immune system is what ammunition is to guns. We now know that without optimum levels of vitamin D3, your immune system’s ability to help you prevent all viral and bacterial disease is much less. Not having enough vitamin D3 is like disarming a good bit of your immune system’s killer cells.

Most people today work inside and play inside so much, most of us get little vitamin D from sun exposure often even during the summer. So most people today are from severely deficient to low in their levels of vitamin D3.

(People used to get over 3,000 iu a day from sun exposure even in winter because they walked so much and over 10,000 iu a day from sun exposure during summers because they walked so much and did things outside on evenings and weekends. Very few people do this now!)

Similarly, it’s been found that your body will use about 3,000 iu of vitamin D3 a day if it’s available. And, recently there have been a lot of studies done on giving people 4,000 to about 10,000 iu of vitamin D3 a day. (Since people get little sun in the winter and most people who don’t work outside today get very little sun most of the time, these studies were important to do.)

(Getting close to the 3,000 your body actually uses looks to be quite safe. The studies I’ve read say the optimum level of intake is 4,000 to 8,000 iu a day. Also most researchers in the field tend to take 10,000 iu a day. Only take over 10,000 iu a day if a doctor has measured your blood levels and recommended it. Wikipedia says it takes 100,000 iu a day to begin to be harmful. But you get that much in 4 days at 25,000 a day. Since I’m a bit conservative, I think for some people 25,000 iu a day or more may be a bit too much.)

It seems that taking 4,000 to about 8,000 iu of vitamin D3 a day boosts your immune system well enough it looks to help prevent all cancers. (A recent study using the 400 iu of vitamin D3 daily that used to be the recommended amount, by contrast, did not show cancer protection. The amount was simply too small.)

This immune boosting has been found to help prevent tuberculosis. (The old idea of getting TB patients extra sun may have actually helped some people because of this effect.)

Even more important, I read last year that in people with low vitamin D levels, the pneumonia vaccine tended not to work. But in people with high levels of vitamin D, the pneumonia vaccine was quite effective.

Because of the many reports of this strong immune system building effect, I suspect that taking 4,000 to about 8,000 iu of vitamin D3 a day also very likely makes flu shots much more likely to be protective.

Without extra vitamin D3, flu shots may prevent only 57% of the cases of the flu recent research found. Still worth doing in my opinion. But with even taking 4,000 iu of vitamin D3 a day it may be 75 or 80% or more instead!

Similarly, getting flu shots every year likely gets you above 57% protection. For the strains that were the same in prior years your immune system just needs a reminder and likely works better for those than starting new. And, you still will have some immunity to strains from prior years that are NOT in this year’s shot.

Flu shots are free from many HMO’s or about $25; and pneumonia vaccine only needs to be gotten about every 10 years and is free from many HMO’s or about $25! And, taking 4,000 to 8,000 D3 now only costs about $20 a month. Getting both shots and taking the vitamin D3 costs at most $50 to start and $20 a month or so after that.

Not only will doing these three things slash your risk of getting flu and pneumonia (and TB), it will also very likely make you less likely to get colds.

And, over a 10 year period the cost of doing all three is about $20 a month. Plus you’ll save MORE than that in antibiotics, cold medicines, doctor visits, and time off work.

(And, there’s even more benefits to taking that much vitamin D3 each day. I discovered recently it protects your DNA enough that it will slow aging by 5 years if you do it long enough.

Taking 4,000 to about 8,000 iu of vitamin D3 a day also looks to prevent many autoimmune diseases. Not only does taking vitamin D3 each day help your immune system kill the invaders it should kill, it apparently also helps it avoid harming parts of YOU that it should leave alone.

Do you get SAD during the darker days of winter and get the “wintertime blues”? In many people, taking 4,000 to about 8,000 iu of vitamin D3 a plus mid-day outside exercise often turns that off.

Vitamin D3 also helps prevent heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease. So you get many extra benefits besides being a lot less likely to get sick if you take enough vitamin D3.)

3. Here are two more inexpensive ways to prevent colds and flu. (The second one also helps prevent allergies.)

These two may help prevent you from getting colds if you overdo your exercise or do competitive athletics of some kind.

People who exercise a bit too much or too vigorously tend to lower their immune response. If they do, they can come down sick. Two times I had this happen to me. First time was when I set a personal best for running a mile, for example.

But a study of runners found that this is much less likely to happen to people who take antioxidant supplements and eat foods high in antioxidants. Natural vitamin C, natural vitamin E only, alpha lipoic acid, and others do this. So does eating foods like raw broccoli florets and bananas and organic wild blueberries and many other foods high in vitamin C. So does eating raw, unsalted nuts; eating avocadoes; and using extra virgin olive oil since these are high in the whole natural vitamin E complex.

Last year in I read in an article in Early To Rise, an e-zine dedicated to making money, improving your health and quality of life. (For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.)

In it I found an article by a woman, Kelly Herring.

In her article she said that red onions, the red apple peels of whole apples, and broccoli and tea are each high in a nutrient called quercetin. (You can also buy quercetin as a supplement.)

She found that an article in the American Journal of Physiology quoted research showing that quercetin by itself negated the dip in immunity that comes with physical fatigue.

So that’s another way to get this protective effect. So if you work hard physically or exercise vigorously or dance or do even low level competitive athletics, use these two methods to stay well.

4. Taking the herbal supplement astragalus twice a day has also been found to boost your immune system. This is new to me since last year’s similar post. But I recently found that multiple research supports this and the website www.wholehealthmd.com lists it as long known and well supported.

So I’ve been taking that since.

5. Taking probiotics also has been shown to boost your immune system. So, since I learned that, I’ve taken that also.

I’ve read that people who take probiotics do get fewer colds and cases of the flu.

I like this one since I think it works two ways.

Your immune system “sees” these beneficial and harmless bacteria every day-- which I believe keeps it tuned to up to check often and gives it a model to compare newcomers to. That means it hits back at the bad guys faster when they show up.

But the other part is what I like best. In your body these good guy bacteria are in residence. So when invaders show up, your body is their turf. That means your immune system has help! Your beneficial bacteria fight back too!

To sum up, at the very least, always wash your hands; get your flu shot each year; and your pneumonia vaccine every 10 years—and begin taking 4,000 to 8,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 if you haven’t already been doing so.

(Get the flu shot and pneumonia vaccine within the next few days if you haven’t had your flu shot yet this year or ever had the pneumonia vaccine.)

I think the other supplements boost your protection enough that I take them myself. But the first group are the heavyweights.

The heavyweights cut your risk by about 60 to 90%. So always do those.

The other supplements cut about half the remaining risk. So the result is your risk is then cut by about 80 to 95%. I like those numbers better, so I add those too.

Vitamin D prevents cognitive decline too....….

Today's post: Thursday, 2-5-2009

There still is a book called SuperFoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life by Steven G. Pratt. MD et al.

Other than the soy foods section which is likely quite wrong according to many sources, this is otherwise a great book with superb advice. There are also other legitimate SuperFood candidates he leaves out.

But these foods either support your health so well OR in so many important ways all at once, it’s clear they deserve to be called SuperFoods.

It now looks as if vitamin D3 not only deserves the title of SuperNutrient, it may even qualify to be Number ONE in that category!

Yesterday, Weds, 2-4-2009, in the Early to Rise email, for its health article of the day, they had an article that listed just a few of the documented benefits we now know an intake of 2,000 iu a day or a bit more of vitamin D3 each day has and then added the incredibly good news that this intake of Vitamin D3 help prevent mental decline too!

Here’s the article.: (I’ll add my comments after it as I often do.)

“This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com .”

“Keep Your Brain Young with This Vitamin

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS

If you've been reading ETR for any length of time, you probably already know at least a half-dozen reasons why you should be taking a vitamin D supplement. Bone health. Mood improvement. Physical performance. Vitamin D's demonstrated anti-cancer effects. And if all that weren't enough, a new study adds another benefit: cognitive performance.

In the study, to be published in the Journal of Geriatric Psychology and Neurology, researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Michigan report an association between the risk of cognitive impairment in older folks and low levels of vitamin D.

More than 1,750 men and women 65 years or older were given neurocognitive tests. The testing revealed that 212 of the participants had cognitive impairment. The researchers then compared the vitamin D levels of those without cognitive impairment to those with cognitive impairment - and found that the risk of impairment significantly increased as vitamin D levels declined.

In fact, participants whose vitamin D levels were in the lowest 25 percent of the group had a whopping 2.28 times greater risk of cognitive impairment than those whose levels were in the top 25 percent. Since cognitive impairment is a major risk factor for developing dementia, anything you can do to lower your risk can help protect your brain for the long haul.

The best way to get adequate levels of vitamin D is through sun exposure. That means getting outside for about 10 to 20 minutes a day, three times a week - more often in the winter. I also personally recommend vitamin D supplements, about 1,000 to 2,000 IU daily. You can find vitamin D supplements at any health food store, even at Walmart.

[Ed. Note: For more information about natural methods that can improve your health - and help keep your weight down - check out nutrition expert Jonny Bowden's website, JonnyBowden.com.

Sunshine and vitamin D not only contribute to keeping your brain young, they can have a positive effect on everything from cancer and diabetes to athletic performance and neonatal health…..]”

X* X* X* X* X* X* X*

I found that www.JonnyBowden.com did get to his website OK.

I’ve only a few points to add.

1. In case you didn’t know it already, the mood improvement of taking vitamin D3 (or taking even 20 minute walks near Noon time if you have time and a safe place to walk) in the winter is to combat the lack of vitamin D from sun exposure during the rest of the day. Taking 2,000 iu or 3,000 iu or a bit more vitamin D3 daily seems to help prevent or nearly eliminate SAD, a kind of depression cause by this lack of sunlight. So taking vitamin D3 for mood improvement works best during the darker days in Winter.

2. Second, since the old RDA for vitamin D was 400 iu, if that’s all you knew, you’d think that 2,000 to 3,000 or even 5,000 iu of vitamin D3 is a lot. So it’s extremely important to know that it’s been found that your body will use 2,000 to 3,000 iu of vitamin D each day if it’s available and that your body will make something like 15,000 to 20,000 iu a day from sun exposure during the summer if you are outside much at all. That means that 2,000 to 5,000 iu of vitamin D3 daily as a supplement, particularly in the 2,000 to 3,600 iu range is actually quite reasonable. In addition, you might well wonder if your body prefers to use 2,000 to 3,000 iu vitamin D each day if it’s available if your body might not be a bit short on less. The research is in fact beginning to show that for best health, on multiple factors, your body very probably DOES need 2,000 to 3,000 iu of D3 a day. To put it bluntly, that means any RDA, for vitamin D of less than 2,000 iu a day is too low and based on outdated information.

3. Third, the same immune system boost from vitamin D that is thought to be responsible for it helping to prevent ALL cancers also will help you avoid getting colds and flu in the winter and from getting worse things such as pneumonia, secondary chest infections from colds or flu, and, even according to one study I saw, tuberculosis if you are exposed to it.

So to me that means that anyone who knows the current info on vitamin D and who wants to be and to stay in good health should be taking at least 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D3. When a bottle of 100 capsules of 1,000 iu of vitamin D3 only costs about $6, it is easily affordable.

4. Lastly, it IS possible that some of the good effects attributed to vitamin D are from the fact that being outside in pleasant natural surroundings or exercising regularly while outside.

So, don’t stop at just taking vitamin D. Regular exercise has an even longer and overlapping health benefits list than vitamin D. As we’ve posted on not that long ago, regular exercise prevents mental and cognitive decline too and in multiple ways. By all means do regular exercise too – even if it’s inside.

Lastly, there was a study that found that even in less affluent neighborhoods, people who live near parks live longer and have better health than people who don’t. So if you live near a park that is safe to visit, go walk around it occasionally. You’ll get some exercise, may relive some stress, and if you do it in daylight, you’ll get some extra vitamin D too.