The magic vitamin

I haven't been sick AT ALL this winter. Which is quite peculiar. I've spent the last month trying to figure out what lifestyle changes have saved me from the usual once-a-month colds, and I think I've finally cracked the code.

Vitamin D! I started taking it in the fall to see if it would ward off seasonal depression. Along with the St. John's Wort that I've been taking daily for the past year, I think it's done a pretty good job with keeping me out of the dumps while the sun is nonexistent. And now I'm starting to think that maybe it's convinced my skin that it's summer and so my skin has told the rest of my body that it's not the season for the cold and flu. Or something like that.

I was reading a column in People's Food Co-op's newsletter the other day about the role that nutrition, herbs, and homeopathics have played this year in preventing H1N1. Apparently clinics that promoted Vitamin D reported really low H1N1 rates. "Human skin cells produce Vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. Therefore, it would make sense that influenza (flu) takes hold in places when sunlight diminishes, and indeed, epidemiological review supports this correlation."

I was really excited to read this, so I did some more research, and it's true: there is indeed an inverse relationship between Vitamin D levels and not only H1N1, but all colds and flus.

It turns out half of people around this area are Vitamin D deficient. When you can't play in the sun, try Vitamin D supplements. Your body might just think that it is summer and start acting that way.