Vitamin D and The Flu- A Natural Remedy

The dreaded Flu Season.

Ah. The time of the year when everyone becomes paranoid about germs.  The days when people hole themselves up and greet visitors with a hefty spray of Lysol. They encourage others to stay home. And of course get vaccinated.

But! What if there is a better way??

What if I told you that there have been multiple studies proving that a simple vitamin can help prevent the flu as well as-nay!-better than the flu vaccine?

That’s right.

And I have a personal testimony to back such studies up.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Vaccines For Preventing The Flu

Currently the most targeted audience for the flu vaccines is the adults of North America.  According to Pubmed.gov and The Cochrane Database System, in a review of 50 studies they found that the flu vaccine had a modest effect on time off work and no effect on hospital visits or complications. They concluded that the vaccinations had no effect on complications such as pneumonia or transmission.

So what does this mean?

It means that the vaccine does not reduce the risk of pneumonia or the risk of spreading the illness from one person to the next.

Oh and they added this bit to the end of the review:

“WARNING: This review includes 15 out of 36 trials funded by industry (four had no funding declaration). An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favorable to the vaccines. The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in light of this finding.” –source

Yup. Almost half of the studies on the flu vaccine were conducted by biased parties. And they even admit that those studies were more widely spread in publications than those studies of independent parties.

But we aren’t here to bash on the slanted studies. I’m here to tell you there is a more effective way to prevent the flu!

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Vitamin D Prevention

This study showed that children supplemented with Vitamin D were 42% less likely to come down with flu like illness.  And according to this article:

“Another study¹¹ published that same year concluded that infection-fighting T-cells need help from vitamin D in order to activate. This is yet another mechanism that helps explain why vitamin D is so effective against infections.”

Another way to determine a prevention methods effectiveness is the Number Needed to Treat or NNT.  The NNT for Vitamin D supplementation is 33 whereas the NNT for the flu vaccine is 40.  Therefore Vitamin D is actually more effective than the vaccine.

Vitamin D is naturally lower in the winter months because of decreased sun exposure. And when does the flu typically strike? The winter.  Coincidence? I think not.

Our Family’s Experience

We have no reason to not believe the evidence from the studies cited above, especially because we have experienced it ourselves.

It started with my husband.  He came down with what appeared to be the flu on a Saturday evening.  He was hit hard and for a full three days.  Then on the last day of his flu we got our fermented cod liver oil/butter oil blend which has high levels of Vitamins A and D.  We all took a dose, then the next day we took it again.

Then I came down with the flu.  But I had two doses of cod liver oil in me at this point. I ended up with much milder symptoms than my husband and I was over it in about 12 hours.

We all continued taking the cod liver oil and our six month old was the next victim but she had very mild symptoms and lasted less than 12 hours.

Then we all held our breath as we waited for our 2 year old to get sick.

Only she didn’t.

She had a full weeks worth of cod liver oil (read Vitamins A and D) and she never ended up getting the flu.

For Your Consideration

So if you are interested in preventing the flu, I would encourage you to consider eating a nutrient dense diet and supplementing with Vitamin D. At this time the only Vitamin D that I can recommend (and I highly recommend it!) is this one because it is the only one I have experience with.  Be warned, the taste is not so great but I think the benefits are worth the taste.

What about you? Do you have a natural remedy that works for illness? I’d love to hear your tricks to beat sickness naturally!