I'm usually coming here with questions, but this time I wanted to pass on some helpful information that I've been sharing with my friends and family. I regularly receive Life Extension magazine, and find they're a source of great up to date, scientific information on health and supplements.

They had a cold and flu season special recently that highlighted the importance of vitamin D, specifically vitamin D3. I can't retype the entire article, but I'll just give you some key points. I've already started taking 10,000 IU a day:


"Children with the lowest vitamin D serum levels are 11 times more likely to develop respiratory infections. When 60,000 IU per week of vitamin D was administered(for six weeks) to children with frequent respiratory infections, the result was a COMPLETE DISAPPEARANCE of such infections for the following SIX MONTHS."

"Flu viruses(including swine flu, or H1N1) can induce a massive inflammatory response captable of killing the victim. In other words, it is not the virus that kills, but the body's hyper-reaction to the virus- in the form of uncontrolled over-production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Vitamin D down-regulates the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha."

"Antimicrobial peptides are the components of the immune system that protect against bacterial, FUNGAL, and viral infections, Secreted by immune cells throughout the body, antimicrobial peptides damage the outer lipid membrane of infectious agents(including influenza viruses), rendering them vulnerable to eradication. Vitamin D dramatically upregulates antimicrobial peptides in immune cells."


"How much Vitamin D do you need? John Cannell, MD, is the president of The Vitamin D Council, a non-profit group that advocates higher vitamin D intake. According to a letter written to us by Dr. Cannell, adults need to take 5,000 IU a day of vitamin D to put the vast majority of them(97.5%) above the 50 ng/mL level.

Dr. Cannell supplied us with published papers arguing that optimal doses for adults are between 4,600 and 10,000 IU, with persuasive evidence that 10,000 IU a day of supplemental vitamin D a day is NOT TOXIC."

So there you have it, curezoners. May you breathe easier this winter.