Avoid the Common Cold
Filed Under smoking
If you want to avoid the misery of a cold, read on.
On his web site, one of my favorite health writers (J F McCaffrey MD), reported on a study in The Archives of Internal Medicine that confirmed the importance of vitamin D for our well being.
The study he reports on reviewed data researchers collected as part of a health survey involving almost 20,000 people. Blood samples were collected during the survey so the researches were able to measure the vitamin D levels. The researchers then looked at who had reported respiratory infections and cold and flu symptoms during the study period.
It turns out that people with inadequate levels of vitamin D were much more likely to develop respiratory infections. The likelihood was even higher in those who had chronic problems such as asthma.
The authors of the study are quick to say that their report doesn’t test whether or not supplementing with vitamin D reduces your risk of coming down with a respiratory infection. They’re right, it doesn’t. Two things happening one after the other doesn’t prove the first caused the second. It could be that healthy people are outside more and therefore have higher vitamin D levels than sickly people who are in bed more.
It could be, but they didn’t identify any such differences in the survey. It’s also a fact that a lot of other studies show the importance of vitamin D in an increasing number of areas. Decreased levels of vitamin D are noted in people with higher rates of several different cancers as well as heart disease.
So while strictly speaking it’s true that “further study is needed” to show absolutely that takingvitamin D prevents respiratory infections, I’m not waiting. It will be a long time, maybe decades before those studies are done, if anyone ever does them at all (there’s not much money in selling vitamin D). Even high doses of vitamin D are free of side effects and everyone should make sure they’re getting adequate amounts.
If you live in a sunny area, you can get adequate vitamin D with only 15 minutes of so of sun exposure to most of your body a day. But not everyone can get out in the sun or enjoys it. Taking a supplement is a good idea. 2000 units a day is reasonable.
Vitamin D has a lot of benefits besides preventing you from getting a cold. Find out about Vitamin D and Heart Attacks at that link.
And again, to get the information you need to be your healthiest, I highly recommend visiting:
Be sure to get the free report on the Surprising Power of the Heart while you’re there. It has some pretty amazing information that you’ll definitely want to know about.
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