Dr. Mercola November 13 2008 80,310 views
Influenza does not follow the predicted patterns for infectious diseases. In fact, there are several conundrums associated with influenza epidemics, such as:
1. Why is influenza both seasonal and ubiquitous -- and where is the virus between epidemics? 2. Why are influenza epidemics so explosive? 3. Why do epidemics end so abruptly? 4. What explains the frequent coincidental timing of epidemics in countries of similar latitudes? 5. Why did epidemics in previous ages spread so rapidly, despite the lack of modern transport?
1. Why is influenza both seasonal and ubiquitous -- and where is the virus between epidemics?
2. Why are influenza epidemics so explosive?
3. Why do epidemics end so abruptly?
4. What explains the frequent coincidental timing of epidemics in countries of similar latitudes?
5. Why did epidemics in previous ages spread so rapidly, despite the lack of modern transport?
A theory gaining weight in the scientific community explains influenza epidemics as a result of a dormant disease, which become active in response to vitamin D deficiency. This theory provides answers for many of the above questions. A disease that remains dormant until vitamin D-producing sunlight exposure is reduced by a winter or rainy season would explain a widespread seasonal disease with a rapid onset and decline.
There is compelling epidemiological evidence that indicates vitamin D deficiency is just such a "seasonal stimulus." Recent evidence confirms that lower respiratory tract infections are more frequent, sometimes dramatically so, in those with low levels of vitamin D. Researchers have also found that 2,000 IU of vitamin D per day abolished the seasonality of influenza, and dramatically reduced its self-reported incidence.
With flu season in full swing here in the United States, you need to be aware that your vitamin D levels play a direct role in your risk of getting the flu. The vitamin D levels in your blood fall to their lowest point during flu season, which generally coincide with low-sunlight seasons. Less than optimal vitamin D levels will significantly impair your immune response and make you far more susceptible to contracting colds, influenza, and other respiratory infections.
Dr. John Cannell and colleagues introduced the hypothesis that influenza is merely a symptom of vitamin D deficiency in their paper Epidemic Influenza and Vitamin D, published in the journal Epidemiology and Infection two years ago, which adds even more weight to this latest research in the Virology Journal.
Unfortunately, conventional medicine’s answer to preventing the flu is not to increase vitamin D levels, but rather to encourage, or even mandate, flu shots. What they don’t tell you is that flu shots, at best don’t work, and at worst, can make your health worse.
New Studies Show Flu Shots Don’t Even WorkA recent study published in the October issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine found that vaccinating young children against the flu had no impact on flu-related hospitalizations or doctor visits during two recent flu seasons.
Additionally, no studies have conclusively proven that flu shots prevent flu-related deaths among the elderly, even though this is one of the key groups to which they’re pushed. Yet despite these findings, physicians like Dr. Danuta Skowronski, epidemiologist at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, keep insisting that the benefits of the flu vaccine outweigh the risks for most people.
I wholeheartedly disagree.
If you actually weigh the benefits found by these studies (no apparent benefits) against the reported risks (fever, malaise, the flu, allergic reactions and Guillain-Barré syndrome, just to name a few), you’d have to employ some fairly odd math to come to that conclusion.
In the CBC News article above, a man who contracted Guillain-Barré syndrome and was paralyzed for almost five months after receiving his flu shot wants to warn others of the risks inherent in this widely pushed vaccine.
Guillain-Barré syndrome is an autoimmune disease that attacks your nervous system – similar to muscular sclerosis. The B.C. Centre for Disease Control estimate your chances of developing that particular disease from the flu shot as one in a million. However, if you get it, the consequences can be severe.
Research Shows Optimal Vitamin D Levels Protect You From the Flu, Naturally
In the United States, the late winter average vitamin D is only about 15-18 ng/ml, which is considered a very serious deficiency state. It’s estimated that over 95 percent of U.S. senior citizens may be deficient, along with 85 percent of the American public. No wonder the flu runs rampant each year.
Remarkably, researchers have found that 2,000 IU of vitamin D per day abolished the seasonality of influenza!
Please note that this is far higher than the recommended daily allowance (RDA) spouted by public health agencies like the American Academy of Pediatrics, which just announced that they’re doubling the RDA of vitamin D for children to 400 IU. This new guidance still falls absurdly short of what’s needed to keep kids healthy, especially during flu season.In order to prevent the flu, children need 2,000 IU a day of vitamin D, while adults need anywhere between 4,000 to 5,000 IU per day. The key is to make sure you monitor your vitamin D levels by blood testing, to make sure your levels are therapeutic and not toxic.
For more information about safe sun exposure and tanning, vitamin D testing, and the recommended forms of supplementation when sufficient sunlight is not available, please see my article Test Values and Treatment for Vitamin D Deficiency, which includes recent, and vital, updates.
Vitamin D Can Also TREAT the Flu!
If you are taking the above doses of vitamin D the odds of you getting the flu are very remote. However, if you do come down with the flu, keep in mind that you can also use vitamin D therapeutically to TREAT the flu.
The therapeutic dose of vitamin D is 2,000 units per kilogram of body weight (one pound is 0.45 kg). The dose would be taken once a day for three days. (This could be a very large dose if you are very heavy – as high as 2-300,000 units per day).
This is the dose that Dr. John Cannell, founder of the Vitamin D Council, has been using very successfully for a number of years.
If you start this program early on in the illness, it should be able to completely wipe out the flu in short order.
Another useful supplement you could try, should you come down with a case of the flu, is olive leaf extract, which you can find in most any health food store. Olive leaf extract has been found to be a potent broad-spectrum antiviral agent, active against all viruses tested, including numerous strains of influenza and para-influenza viruses.
I have real trouble with 'Virus' as a cause of ailments, because no one has ever isolated, categorized and/or photographed a virus. What is found, when people are ill are bits and pieces of protein material, which the body uses to repair itself. When one is feeling ill, one is actually already healing and the body requires rest, in order to get on with the task of repairing itself, Therefore, if one takes good care of this body by eating properly and supplying lots of nutrients and vitamins and minerals, the repair progresses really well! It does make sense to feed the body well at all times in order to enjoy good health - always!
It is good to think of alternative hypothesis on why the flu is worse in winter. And I do believe vitamin D deficiency could be a factor. (I take vitamin D supplements and use a vitamin D lamp.) But leaping to the conclusion that D deficiency it is THE MAIN causation of winter flu is faulty logic. Let's not toss out the obvious and likely explanations for the five questions posed.
PEOPLE ARE COOPED UP INSIDE IN DRY AIR ENVIRONMENTS. VIRUSES THRIVE IN DRY CONDITIONS AND OUR SINUSES BECOME MORE VULNERABLE TO INFECTION IN DRY AIR. THE VIRUS CAN REMAIN DORMANT FOR MONTHS OR EVEN YEARS. IT MIGHT ALSO INCUBATE IN ANIMAL POPULATIONS, OR IN OTHER HEMISPHERES IN THE HUMAN POPULATION.
RAPID TRANSMISSION. SNEEZING AND COUGHING, SPREADS THE VIRUS to SUSCEPTIBLE HOSTS IN A FAVORABLE ENVIRONMENT FOR DISEASE. SCHOOLS, NURSING HOMES, CRUISE SHIPS AND OFFICE CUBE FARMS ARE LIKE CHICKEN COOPS FOR PEOPLE!
BECAUSE EVERYONE WHO WAS SUSCEPTIBLE AND LIKELY TO BE EXPOSED CONTRACTS THE VIRUS AND DEVELOPS AN IMMUNITY TO IT. A RELATIVE FEW PEOPLE DIE TOO.
AGAIN. DRY AIR IN COOPED UP ENVIRONMENTS. WINTER IN EUROPE IS SIMILAR TO WINTER IN NORTH AMERICA.
PEOPLE LIVED CLOSER TOGETHER, IN SMALLER HOUSES, THAN THEY DO NOW. VILLAGES WERE WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE TO ONE ANOTHER. MOST OF THOSE QUAINT VILLAGES ARE GONE NOW.
DON'T DISCOUNT THE VALIDITY OF THE DISEASE TRIANGLE -- DISEASE-CAUSING AGENT, SUSCEPTIBLE HOST, FAVORABLE ENVIRONMENT -- ALL REQUIRED FOR A DISEASE TO TAKE HOLD.
GOOD LUCK STAYING HEALTHY!
A better and simpler answer could be that viruses occupy this living planet along with us humans and are probably more ubiquitous than we are but need us to thrive and survive otherwise why infect us? A guess indeed but just as good as any other submitted!
Emanuel Revici, M.D, (The Doctor Who Cures Cancer) demonstrated that fatty acids are a natural defense against viruses. Fatty acids are alkaline.
Fatty acids are evolution's method for taming viruses.
Vitamin D helps alkalize the body which creates an unfriendly environment for viruses, making Vitamin D an excellent antiviral.
Glad to see Dr. Mercola promoting olive leaf extract! The olive tree can live 1,000 years and does so with impunity against fungal growth! It is anti-viral, antibacterial, and anti-fungal.
I recommend it freely as part of my method for getting rid of yeast overgrowth. So you can kill two...or three...birds with one stone.
hubpages.com/.../How-to-Flatten-Your-Tummy-and-End-Food-Cravings-EFFORTLESSLY
The best to you.
Kelley Eidem
Together we can cure cancer - one person at a time!
DLARAH, when I had 'flu several years ago I couldn't eat at all! All I could cope with was water and an occasional cup of tea. I was in bed for about two weeks. I didn't seem to lose weight though, maybe because I wasn't using any energy. The old saying 'feed a cold and starve a fever' seems to fit, but it happened naturally. Maybe I should have taken supplements, but I wasn't so educated then.
The peak of the flu season in northern latitude countries is in February/March and in Australia it is around August. The absence of daily sunlight or vitamin d3 deficiency is seemingly the only rational common denominator. I have used about 4,000 iu per day over a year now, with one 2-day flu-episode replacing one or two week episodes down and out. Before I started VitD I also suffered from nocturnal angina, which then disappeared! When I reduce to just 2,000 iu per day the night episodes it comes back. Why?
Sten, if you take polyunsaturated fats (vegetable oils) in your diet then this is probably why you are suffering from angina. Polyunsaturated fats combined with carbohydrates (mainly grains) furr the arteries quicker than any other combination of foods and, additionally, it ramps-down one's immunity. You might also try having you last meal of the day at least three hours prior to retiring with no snacking afterwards; if you can retire to bed on an empty stomach you will probably sleep better. There appears to be a connection between digestion (rather than food per se) and health. Making this a regular practice by those who suffer from noctural cramp will relieve this problem too. Finally, in addition to vitamin D and olive leaf extract, if added to this cocktail, coconut (especially its virgin oil) and virgin oregano oil (not the culinary stuff) it will rid even the worst influenza symptoms in around 5 hours. Taking coconut (of any description) on coming into contact with anyone with influenza or viral-like symptoms, or whenever the snuffles appear, will kill the fever so no excuse now for angina, cramp, nor influenza - yes, this does work, so try it!
If fatty acids are alkaline, why are they called fatty acids?
What nobody knows about the "flu" is that medicines do not cure it.
We all know that medicines(modern) do not cure anything they only suppress symptoms.
I have only got the flu when I was a kid and then never again, i remember my mom took me to the doctor and he said it was just viral flu and told my mom to just keep checking my temperature regularly, give me lots of hot fluids, and to keep a cloth soaked with warm water and rock salt on my head.
Can you believe a doctor saying that!!!! (this was in 1980)
I never got the flu after that this was the case with all my friends and family from that era. We never to a paracetmol or an anti-allergic or any tablet when we got the flu or even light fever.
After a while you stop getting them.
i started getting them after I abused by body for almost 7 years. I used to smoke and an upper respiratory tract infection always ended up in a fever. I would take anti-biotics(self medication) cause I realised that doctors were prescribing really strong anti-biotics(broad spectrum) for no reason. So I always stuck to a Kid dosage dispersible tabs.
Then when I got into a higher level of consciousness(back to it) I realised all the things i used to do. i would never go to a doctor for a fever just drink lots of water and sweat it out. I rarely got flu.
here in my country you dont have 'a' CDC who keeps checking the new viruses and naming it. but I am pretty sure we get new strains every year so once in two or three years when the strains mutate and become powerful I get a flu, but when I sweat it out it goes off in 3 days. I used to live in a hostel and there if one person got sick everyone would. I still remember that I would always be allright by the second day and completely well on the third, but the ones who would take medicine and go to the doctor would take a whole week to get cured and they would get fevers and cold all throughout the year.
Drinking hot water and holding on the to the fever, "managing" it is the key
i believe it! i was very ill, weak and aching with a severe onset Rheumatiod arthritis. it took ages and caused me a lot of pain to get up even, but, i used to get outside and sit in a warm sunny spot. not cos i actively knew about vit D, simply an instinct for the warmth of the sun on sore joints, and fresh air too. especially after being stuck in a hospital ward with fake air shared by way many..and fluoro, lighting cold hard and blue.
termites build better abodes:-)
i kept asking my doc, if i am supposed to have a so weakened immune sytem, how come i have had only one small case of the sniffles in 10 years?
he had no idea...
but then -he spent all day in an office and the rest indoors or visiting the hospital, poor chap!
and he certainly had a share of the sniffles and worse too.
Being a Doc , could be injurious to your own health!
I feel so blessed that I live in Florida but our doctor still insists that we should get our flu shot this season. NOPE!!!!! NOPE. And NOPE.
You go girl! The obscenely greedy in this world are banking on less informed and vulneralbe citizens who don't take the time to educate thiemselves with the facts concerning the harmful affects of
these flu vaccines.