Tis The Season~ To Get The Sniffles... or worse! PART ONE ~ Vitamin D!

                   

On my various interweb travels,

I often see posts like:

Oh no! I caught the worst cold, what can I do?!

 

This is part 1 of MY go-to 'get well fast-er' plan.
This always seems to work for me when I am hit with a bug or feel like my immunity is low.

Many of these are everyday things that can also be used in some capacity to prevent general colds and the flu.

My first answer is ALWAYS Vitamin D!
There is some great evidence out there to show that Vitamin D3 can help prevent a host of illnesses including diabetes and cancer, as well as viruses like colds and the flu.

Depending where you live, how much sun you get and sun protection you wear, it's fairly common to be deficient in Vitamin D. You can get your levels checked if you are curious. Your levels are measured as a compound called 25-hydroxy-vitamin D. Ideally, we should have levels of 40-60 ng/ml.

Commonly Vitamin D is available in a liquid drop form making it much easier to take happily then capsules or pills, especially for children. It doesn't really taste like anything, basically a subtle oil type flavour and is usually in doses of 1000 ui/ drop.

Vitamin D has been tested as having a very high toxicity threshold, so it is safe to take at least a few thousand ui and there are no reported cases of vitamin D poisoning at daily oral doses below 30,000 ui.

I personally take 5000 ui/ day as a prevention and when I feel a bug approaching bump it to 10,000 ui. I generally wear sunscreen and am not really a fan of being in the sun, so I feel that this is appropriate for me.

The following organization has pretty much made themselves experts on Vitamin D and have a wealth of info on their site.

So consider this my citation:
http://www.grassrootshealth.net/index.php/documentation
 
Look out for Part 2, to get well quick, when the season hits!

Please note: web advice is never meant to take the place of a doctor or natural practitioner.
When in doubt, consult a professional!