Vitamin D, the Real Thing?
What can we do, nutritionally to boost our defenses?
I spotted a tremendously useful post in quora I thought well worth sharing on our site. So many lockdowns , even though we have noted ion previous articles that they are ineffective and actually can be said to ‘kill”. So what do we recommend?
How does vitamin D help in treating COVID-19?
By blogger https://www.quora.com/profile/Ray-Schilling
- People who have vitamin D blood levels of 50–80 ng/mL have an effective immune system. It is something modern medicine tends to overlook except functional medicine and anti-aging medicine.
- When antibiotics were introduced after the 2nd World War we became too dependent on them. But they only work against bacterial infections, not against viruses.
- The immune system and your vitamin D blood level have a very close relationship. Those patients who died from Covid-19 coronavirus were the ones who had a vitamin D blood level of 15 ng/mL or less (left column in image above). Those who survive have vitamin D blood levels of more than 30 ng/mL (right column of image above). If you want an immune system that is tops, a vitamin D blood level of 50 to 80 ng/mL is recommended.
- In a publication of 2006 Dr. John Cannell and co-workers have reviewed why influenza has seasonal outbreaks. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc… They found that the innate immune system was very dependent on vitamin D3. Those who did not get enough sunlight in the northern hemisphere during January, February, March and April have an average 25-hydroxy vitamin D level of only 15 to 17 ng/mL.
- In contrast, from July to September the same volunteers had vitamin D levels of 24 to 29 ng/mL. The authors stressed that this was the reason why in the late winter/early spring flu seasons come and go every year while in summer they disappear. Vitamin D is essential for the functioning of the innate and adaptive immune system. This is true not only for the flu, but also for Covid-19 coronavirus.
- Now an American research group has confirmed everything that I described above: Evidence that Vitamin D Supplementation Could Reduce Risk of Influenza and COVID-19 Infections and Deaths Here is what these authors have noticed:
- Role of vitamin D3 supplementation in Covid-19 Coronavirus infection
Higher doses of vitamin D3 will mitigate the course of influenza and of Covid-19 coronavirus. The researchers outlined 3 mechanisms of how vitamin D works:
- Maintaining tight epithelial junctions making it more difficult for the Covid-19 coronavirus to penetrate.
- “Killing enveloped viruses through induction of cathelicidin and defensins.” These powerful antiviral polypeptides can kill viruses that have invaded the bloodstream within 1 to 2 days.
- “…And reducing production of proinflammatory cytokines by the innate immune system, thereby reducing the risk of a cytokine storm leading to pneumonia.” It is people who get the viral pneumonia that are at a high risk of death. By bringing the blood level up to the higher range of normal, between 50 and 80 ng/mL, patients that have encountered Covid-19 coronavirus are more likely to survive.
This was published before here: Ray Schilling’s answer to Can vitamin D lower your risk of CoVID-19?
After I published that excellent article, I learned about an article b y Dr Mercola on the subject at greater length and even a special website StopCovidCold.com