Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
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Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Jerry Hickey. Ph
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Today we are going to discuss the topic of Vitamin D and your immune system. Vitamin D literally unites your immune system and mounts a better defense against infections. It also helps your immune system work in a more balanced way, making it very important during cough and cold season and in the protection of your lungs.
The Vitamin D & Immune System Connection
At one time, health professionals thought that Vitamin D could only be activated by our kidneys. But when Vitamin D is looked at after a blood test, they are looking at the form that is stored in your liver. It is released and lasts about two weeks in the blood stream. It has to go to your kidneys to be fully activated. This active form only lasts for about an hour or so. So, when your doctor is looking at your Vitamin D levels they are actually looking at an inaccurate form that still has to go through the process of becoming the active form. The interesting thing is, everyone one of our white blood cells can actually activate Vitamin D. This shows you how important this vitamin is for our immune system function.
If the immune system is overactive, it creates inflammation. This is serious and dangerous. For instance, during the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic, people are winding up in the intensive care unit when it attacks their lungs, as it is causing a build up of fluid in the lungs and increasing blood pressure in the lungs and is causing pneumonia. It could cause such a tremendous backlash by the immune system that the immune system itself can start destroying lung tissue.
If the immune system is too weak, you will be more at risk of having infections. You simply will not be able to fight off infections. Vitamin D impacts both of these – a weak immune system and an overactive immune system. It helps the immune system work appropriately so it is a strong enough fight against the infection, allowing just enough defense to protect you, while preventing immune system from becoming out of control.
The Immune Network is a journal that publishes peer-reviewed studies that report novel findings in regards to your immune system. If you search Vitamin D on their website, you will find 260 unique studies. One of them is extremely important, that was released very recently and right at the start of COVID-19 in February – Vitamin D-Cathelicidin Axis: at the Crossroads between Protective Immunity and Pathological Inflammation during Infection. You can find it by clicking here. The report explains how Vitamin D activates Cathelicidin in order for the immune system to function correctly, driving each other to kill infections, yeast, fungus or bacteria better. It connects the innate and adaptive immune systems.
Read more about the function of your innate and adaptive immune systems by clicking here >>
Clinical Studies on Vitamin D for Immunity
An announcement from the National Institute of Health reports, in 2009 there was a report that a low level of Vitamin D in your blood is connected to frequent infections, including cold, flu and viral infections. Separately, there was a big analysis of human clinical trials in 2017; these were prospective clinical trials that included thousands of participants. Published in the British Medical Journal by research from Queen Mary University in London, The University of Colorado and Winthrop University of Mineola, NY in a number of well-reported and designed studies, found that taking a Vitamin D supplement reduces your odds of developing a respiratory tract infection by approximately 42%, in participants who originally had low Vitamin D levels. Researchers found that if Vitamin D was low and they brought it back up to normal levels, this helped to reduce your risk of a respiratory tract infection pretty strongly.
There is a sweet spot for Vitamin D in your blood. It seems the best level to help support healthy lungs and overall respiratory health in general, is a level of about 50-53. So, you want to aim for the range of 35-75.
The University of Colorado did their own study on about 19,000 adults and kids. They found that Vitamin D levels dropped greatly during the winter months, which is not unusual. These researchers found that having a low level of Vitamin D in your blood increases your risk of developing the flu by 43%. In the same study, people with respiratory tract disease like asthma has a 5x greater risk of a flu infection if they were low in Vitamin D. This study also found that taking this vitamin daily or weekly was more effective than taking it one or two large doses.
Why Vitamin D is Essential For Lung Health. Click here to listen now >>
My Recommendation
The issue is that right now, you cannot depend on the sun to bring your Vitamin D levels up to normal. You need to take a supplement and that is extremely important. Make sure it’s Vitamin D3, which has been shown to work better than Vitamin D2 according to several studies. And do not get it in one or two huge doses. You have to take it either weekly or every day to get that support for your lungs and your immune system.
If you have not been taking Vitamin D all winter, you need to raise your levels right now. Chances are they are very low; too low to protect you from infection or to protect your lungs. You want to get your Vitamin D levels above 35. I would recommend taking about 6,000 units every day with food for seven days. After that, you can go down to 3,000 units a day. This should get you up to a nice sweet level pretty quickly. For more information, speak with your doctor or one of our healthcare professionals today. You can email us at [email protected] to connect with us today or visit www.invitehealth.com to live chat with us without leaving your home!
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Right now during this pandemic, we all want to make sure we are taking the appropriate steps and measures to enhance our immune defenses. Nucleotides are a really beneficial way to do that.
Amanda Williams, MPH discusses the important role of micronutrients and the immune system, and understanding how the immune system itself is working based on levels of key vitamins and minerals.
Photo by The Creative Exchange on Unsplash
A new report published in the Irish Medical Journal reports that Vitamin D supplements may aid in the resistance of respiratory infections, such as the coronavirus or limit the severity of the illness in those infected, according to researchers.
Study researchers note that Vitamin D is essential for bone and muscle health, immune support and more. Those are risk include individuals who do not get enough sun, have a vitamin D deficiency, are housebound, people with chronic disease and lung conditions and those who are smokers, obese or inactive. Vitamin D can be found in rich food sources, including oily fish, eggs, and fortified foods.
The research team recommends adults take 20-50 micrograms of Vitamin D per day, in order to receive its benefit. Dr. Declan Byrne, clinical senior lecturer, St. Jame’s Hospital and School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin explains, “These recommendations are important while we await development of a vaccine and trial evidence of effective drug treatment for COVID-19. Our findings call for the immediate supplementation of all hospital inpatients, nursing home residents and older Irish adults with Vitamin D.” Dr. Byrne goes on, “Our findings also suggest that Vitamin D supplementation in the broader adult population, and particularly in frontline healthcare workers, may further help to limit infection and flatten the COVID-19 curve.”
Why Vitamin D is So Essential For Lung Health. Click here >>>
A secondary report also by Trinity College Dublin highlights the importance of increasing intake of Vitamin D, as “the vitamin plays a role in preventing respiratory infections, reducing antibiotic use, and boosting the immune system response to infections.”
A Message from Scientific Director and Pharmacist, Jerry Hickey, Ph.
Your immune system is very powerful and complex. When there is an infection, it has to do two things appropriately. It has to point itself at the infecting organism, identifying it and killing it. Then it has to mount a strong enough attack on the virus or bacteria to kill it, but not strong enough to hurt you. The communicators in your immune system are called Cytokines; chemicals that the immune cells release to communicate with other parts of the immune system. Some cytokines raise the level of attack – pro-inflammatory cytokines – and others calm your immune system down, called anti-inflammatory cytokines.
What is happening when dealing with this Coronavirus, is similar to what you see in sepsis and ebola. If your immune system is strong, the more delicate parts of the immune system can go in and wipe out the virus and you will be okay. But for people with health conditions – older people with conditions especially – their immune system is not working well. If they are lacking vitamin D, they are in trouble. Because the immune system is not working well. This is stuck in the upper respiratory tract and becoming viral pneumonia. This is getting into the lungs and it starts to damage, inflame and kill lung cells. This triggers a violent counter-reaction from your immune system; there is a massive release of these very powerful communicators that trigger inflammation.
Vitamin D is needed by your immune cells to release their powerful weapons. But you also need this vitamin to defend your immune system.