Saturday, September 29, 2007

A Way To Protect Yourself From The Flu

Dr. Julian Whitaker has written about an interesting approach to preventing the flu. The flu emerges every year in November and ends around March. In the Southern Hemisphere, however, the flu months are from June through September. Is this an interesting coincidence? Is there something more to it? Dr. Whitaker thinks there’s more to it; he thinks the key element is the lack of sunlight which results in the lack of production of Vitamin D in our skin.

There is some research to back up this claim. In recent years, Vitamin D has been found to release what are called antimicrobial peptides that are very potent. A study published in Science even found that these peptides from Vitamin D can actually kill the bacteria responsible for tuberculosis.

If you are in a Northern climate, you might want to take around 2,000 IU of Vitamin D3 per day. On a sunny summer day, your body produces 20,000 IUs of D in just 20 minutes! If you are in a Southern climate, get outside without sunscreen for at least 10 minutes per day.

So…give it a whirl since Vitamin D is very safe and 2,000 IU per day is not a very high dose.

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