Vitamin D to help stop H1N1 swine flu

September 18, 9:43 PMSeattle Nutrition ExaminerHeidi Nebel

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Considering that flu season is arriving, and with many worrying about the H1N1 swine flu, it’s a good time to think about your vitamin D levels. In the fall and winter vitamin D levels begin to drop, as sun exposure decreases, while simultaneously influenza rates rise. This is a dangerous combination as optimal levels of vitamin D are important for a healthy immune system. Vitamin D is a steroid hormone that regulates and modifies different aspects of the immune system including those that fight infection as well as those that counter inflammation. Vitamin D affects the innate or immediate portion of your immune system. The innate immune system reacts rapidly to microorganisms that have never been encountered before compared to the adaptive immune system that responds using antibodies created from fighting off previous infections or through vaccines.

This is extremely important when considering the swine flu because H1N1 virus is a novel strain, meaning we do not yet have antibodies to H1N1. Therefore, we are counting on the innate or immediate portion of our immune system to keep us from ever getting the swine flu verses the acquired or adaptive immune system that makes antibodies. For example, vitamin D stimulates the innate part of our immune system to produce anti-microbial peptides which are part of immune cells such as neutrophils, monocyts and natural killer cells. These anti-microbial peptides are also found in the cells lining your respiratory tract and are an integral part of protecting your lungs from infection.

Though it is doubtful that vitamin D will totally protect you from the swine flu it is certainly a good idea to optimize your vitamin D levels in preparation for this flu season. Much research has shown a connection between low levels of vitamin D and increased rates of influenza. A recent example is the February 2009 article Association between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level and upper respiratory tract infection in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey  in the Archives of Internal Medicine.  The authors of this article concluded that low blood levels of vitamin D are related to increased respiratory tract infections. For more information on Vitamin D and influenza go to the Vitamin D council influenza research page.
 

For information on vitamin D supplementation and safety see my article:

Supplementing with vitamin D is safe and especially important in Seattle

For more information on vitamin D biochemistry:

Vitamin D Colorado State Univeristy
 Vitamin D physiology

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