Vaccine or Vitamin D for Flu?

Flu Vaccine
Flu vaccine supplies started shipping for the U.S. market, one of the earliest starts ever to distributing seasonal influenza vaccine. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone be vaccinated against seasonal flu this year, the most universal recommendation yet for flu vaccines. 170 million doses of flu vaccine for the 2010-2011 U.S. flu season will be available. Last year the U.S. government shipped 162 million doses of H1N1 vaccine but only 90 million were used. The 2010-2011 seasonal flu vaccine will include the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, plus the most common strains of H3N2 and influenza B.

According to the CDC, the labeling for one vaccine, CSL Limited's Afluria, has undergone changes this season to inform health care providers about an increased incidence of fever and febrile seizure, which was seen in young children, mainly those younger than 5 years, following administration of the 2010 Southern Hemisphere formulation of CSL's influenza vaccine.

There is no solid data on the efficacy of either of last year's flu vaccines.

Vitamin D
According to a Japanese study that appeared in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the risk of children suffering from flu can be halved if they take vitamin D. The finding has implications for flu epidemics since vitamin D, which is naturally produced by the human body when exposed to direct sunlight, has no significant side effects, costs little and can be several times more effective than anti-viral drugs or vaccine. Only one in ten children, aged six to 15 years, taking 1200IU of vitamin D3 in the clinical trial came down with flu compared with one in five given a placebo.

Mitsuyoshi Urashima, the Japanese doctor who led the double blind, randomized trial, told The Times that vitamin D was more effective than vaccines in preventing flu. Vitamin D was found to be even more effective when the comparison left out children who were already given extra vitamin D by their parents, outside the trial. 354 children took part in the trial, which took place during the winter of 2008-09. Vitamin D was found to protect against influenza A, which caused last year’s epidemic, but not against the less common influenza B.

The scientists also reported that the anti-viral drugs zanamivir and oseltamivir reduce risk of flu infection by 8 per cent in children who have been exposed to infection, compared with a 50 per cent or greater reduction with vitamin D found in the study.

According to the researchers, “Vitamin D and vaccine work by quite different mechanisms. Vitamin D enhances innate immunity while vaccine enhances acquired immunity. So we do not have to select only one way of prevention, rather we could do both ways, I think.” Dr John Oxford, professor of virology at Queen Mary School of Medicine, London, said: “This is a timely study. It will be noticed by scientists. It fits in with the seasonal pattern of flu. There is an increasing background of solid science that makes the vitamin D story credible. But this study needs to be replicated. If it is confirmed we might think of giving vitamin D at the same time as we vaccinate.”

Vitamin D Deficiency Widespread in Every Age Demographic, Especially in Infants
Two studies published in the journal Pediatrics highlight that although vitamin D deficiency is widespread among infants in the United States, most pediatricians remain unaware of the problem.

The first study, conducted by researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that only 5 to 13 percent of breast-fed infants were receiving at least 400 IU of vitamin D per day, the amount currently recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Human breast milk is actually relatively low in vitamin D, probably because during our evolutionary history most babies got plenty of exposure to sunlight.

Although formula-fed infants were not included in the study, researchers noted that an infant would need to drink 32 ounces of fortified formula per day to get 400 IU of vitamin D, an amount that is probably unrealistic for young children.

Making matters worse, according to the CDC study, only 1 to 13 percent of children under the age of one take a vitamin D supplement.

A second study in the same issue found a lower (but still high) rate of vitamin D deficiency, with 58 percent of newborns and 36 percent of mothers testing deficient. A full 30 percent of mothers who took prenatal vitamins were still deficient in vitamin D.

Although increased sun exposure improved mothers' vitamin D levels, it did not raise those of their infants. This further suggests that breast milk is a poor source of vitamin D and that infants need to be exposed to sunlight directly in order to synthesize the vitamin for themselves.

Preventing Respiratory Infection
A daily vitamin D supplement may help young men enjoy more sick-free days during cold and flu season, a July Journal of Infectious Disease study suggests. Researchers randomly assigned 164 male military recruits to take either 400 IU of vitamin D or placebo every day from October to March. On average, men who took vitamin D missed about two days from duty because of a respiratory infection, compared with three days in the placebo group. Recruits in the vitamin group were also more likely to have no days missed from duty.

Bonnie and Steve - the longer our public health experts do not make vitamin D deficiency awareness a public health emergency, the more skeptical we will become (than we already are) that they have our best interests at heart. The health cost savings alone, which is what our officials respond to the most, should be enough of an impetus.

But you don't have to take our word for it. New guidelines from Osteoporosis Canada recommend up to 1000 IU/day for adults under age of 50 and up to 2000 IU/day for adults over 50.

Reporting in a review paper in the July 28, 2010, issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, researchers warn that if the current US nutritional guidelines for vitamin D remain unchanged, numerous preventable diseases will continue to occur. They add that if the vitamin D dietary intake were increased to 2000 IU per day total and even more for subgroups of the world population with the poorest vitamin D status, it could favorably impact infectious disease, autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis, type-1 diabetes, tuberculosis, metabolic syndrome, bone disorders, cardiovascular risk factors and most cancers.

Besides sun exposure, which most of us have difficulty getting all year round, the best sources of unfortified foods naturally containing vitamin D are animal products and fatty fish and liver extracts like salmon or sardines and cod liver oil. There are vitamin D-fortified food sources, but many of the foods are malabsorbed or not ideally healthful, such as include milk and milk products, orange juice, breakfast cereals and bars, grain products, pastas, and margarines. Thus, most experts' preferred method to acquire a substantial does is a pure, excipient-free, vitamin D3 supplement.