Vitamin D and Epidemic Influenza

[Guest guest]

Michael Stroh, the science writer for the Baltimore Sun, wrote a very good article this morning about the Vitamin D and Epidemic Influenza paper. Dr. Scott Dowell, an infectious disease expert at the CDC, is quoted by Mr. Stroh as saying, if the theory is true, "the potential impact (of vitamin D) would be far greater than the current influenza vaccine."http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-te.flu26nov26,0,3590649.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines On a sour note, a Professor James Cherry of UCLA said we "manipulated the literature" and used "bad" literature to prove our points. I don't know Professor Cherry, but he has insulted me, the co-authors, and the editor of Epidemiology and Infection. A quick internet search shows that there is a Professor James Cherry at UCLA who has had substantial financial ties to the vaccine industry for the last 20 years. If Professor Cherry read the conclusion of the recent Science News article, he may be aware that his financial well-being is at risk here. In the conclusion of the Science News article, Professor Michael Zasloff was quoted as saying the payoff of vitamin D, might "be amazing. Imagine being able to block the spread of epidemic flu with appropriate doses of this vitamin." Perhaps Professor Cherry is imagining exactly that, and what it might mean to his net worth?http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061111/bob9.asp News > health & science Less sun, more sneezingTheory suggests that a shortage of vitamin D triggers outbreaks of flu By Michael StrohSun ReporterOriginally published November 26, 2006As the annual flu season looms, some scientists have this question on their minds: Why now?For more than a century, physicians have recognized that influenza sweeps the Northern Hemisphere during the winter months, typically peaking here between late December and March. Over the years they've floated numerous theories to explain the seasonal flu spike - blaming everything from the flood of frigid air to the wintertime tendency of people to huddle indoors.Yet these explanations "remain astonishingly superficial and full of inconsistencies," says Dr. Scott Dowell, director of the Global Disease Protection Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.Now Dowell and other researchers are focusing on a provocative new hypothesis that blames annual flu epidemics on something most people don't get enough of this time of year: sunshine.In a paper scheduled for publication next month in the journal Epidemiology and Infection, a Harvard University-led team proposes that a vitamin D deficiency caused by inadequate winter sun exposure may predispose people to infection.If this theory proves correct, it would not only solve a long-standing mystery, but could also have major public health consequences.Influenza kills an average 36,000 people in the U.S. each winter, mostly the very old and very young. If scientists could pinpoint the secret behind its seasonal recurrence and somehow alter it, "the potential impact would be far greater than the current influenza vaccine," says Dowell.Hippocrates, the Greek physician widely regarded as the father of medicine, was the first to recognize that certain diseases ebb and flow with the calendar. "Whoever wishes to investigate medicine properly," he wrote around 400 B.C., "should ... consider the seasons of the year."Epidemiologists, however, have found that this is easier said than done."You look at the environment around you and say, 'What's the difference between winter and summer?'" says Dr. David Fisman of the Ontario Provincial Public Health Laboratory in Canada. "There are so many things that are seasonal, it's really hard to tease them apart."One obvious answer is that it's colder in winter. And for as long as parents have bundled up their babies, there's been an unshakable belief that catching a chill makes a person more susceptible to cold or flu.Cold flunks tests Since World War II, scientists have devised numerous teeth-chattering tests of this stubborn wives' tale, dunking volunteers in cold baths or confining them to refrigerated meat lockers while squirting virus-spiked mucus up their noses."All attempts at demonstrating some relationship between cold exposure and susceptibility to infection have proved negative," Ron Eccles, director of the Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University in Wales, concluded in a recent published review of such studies.Experiments on the influenza virus have hinted that the flu bug is more stable in the cool, dry air of winter. But that doesn't solve the mystery, says Fisman, whose summary of efforts to understand seasonal influenza is scheduled for publication next year in the Annual Review of Public Health.One reason: Influenza surveillance efforts in Southeast Asia and other steamy tropical locales reveal that flu is not only common there but also exhibits seasonal patterns akin to those in colder climates."If you go back to the hypothesis about cold temperature and flu, it doesn't hold for the tropics," says epidemiologist Cecile Viboud of the National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center in Bethesda.Then there's the crowding theory.Because scientists think that the flu spreads only from person to person, most have assumed that the disease ravages in winter because people are cooped up in close quarters. Next >> Jump to page: 1 2 3 2006, The Baltimore Sun | Get Sun home delivery Talk about it E-mail it Print it Contact us Flu season In Depth 1918 influenza pandemic If I dieSpecial series from The Sun. Health & Science coverageWeekly section from The Sun. Stem cell research Flu season Also see Health & Science> Weekly section> Archive

[Guest guest]

This is interesting. I have an outdoor lifestyle year round. My face is always exposed to the sun. I am not like the old Doonesbury cartoon guy and purposely lay out in the sun, but work in the woods or the garden, etc. Other work I do is also outside. I basically do not get the flu.

Everybody has always told me that I am not around enough people to contact it. But, I have neighbors who have already had flu and I had dinner with them at their end stages of having had it. I might have had a touch cause I did get diarrhea but I wasn't knocked down. And that's the way it goes. This article would explain what I have been explaining to people around me for some time. Get out and get some sunshine year round. Everyday spend some time outside. I remember reading that 20 minutes of sunshine even just on your face gives you the minimum of vitamin d. I could be wrong on that exact figure (don't get the flu but that doesn't mean that I remember everything).

Good article. My experience kind of validates it. I am not a guinea pig though.

 

Ed

 

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Wednesday, November 29, 2006 12:15 AM

Vitamin D and Epidemic Influenza

 

 

 

 

Michael Stroh, the science writer for the Baltimore Sun, wrote a very good article this morning about the Vitamin D and Epidemic Influenza paper. Dr. Scott Dowell, an infectious disease expert at the CDC, is quoted by Mr. Stroh as saying, if the theory is true, "the potential impact (of vitamin D) would be far greater than the current influenza vaccine."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-te.flu26nov26,0,3590649.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines

 

 

On a sour note, a Professor James Cherry of UCLA said we "manipulated the literature" and used "bad" literature to prove our points. I don't know Professor Cherry, but he has insulted me, the co-authors, and the editor of Epidemiology and Infection.

 

A quick internet search shows that there is a Professor James Cherry at UCLA who has had substantial financial ties to the vaccine industry for the last 20 years. If Professor Cherry read the conclusion of the recent Science News article, he may be aware that his financial well-being is at risk here. In the conclusion of the Science News article, Professor Michael Zasloff was quoted as saying the payoff of vitamin D, might "be amazing. Imagine being able to block the spread of epidemic flu with appropriate doses of this vitamin." Perhaps Professor Cherry is imagining exactly that, and what it might mean to his net worth?

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061111/bob9.asp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

News > health & science

Less sun, more sneezing

Theory suggests that a shortage of vitamin D triggers outbreaks of flu

By Michael Stroh

Sun Reporter

Originally published November 26, 2006

As the annual flu season looms, some scientists have this question on their minds: Why now?For more than a century, physicians have recognized that influenza sweeps the Northern Hemisphere during the winter months, typically peaking here between late December and March.

 

 

 

 

 

Over the years they've floated numerous theories to explain the seasonal flu spike - blaming everything from the flood of frigid air to the wintertime tendency of people to huddle indoors.Yet these explanations "remain astonishingly superficial and full of inconsistencies," says Dr. Scott Dowell, director of the Global Disease Protection Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.Now Dowell and other researchers are focusing on a provocative new hypothesis that blames annual flu epidemics on something most people don't get enough of this time of year: sunshine.In a paper scheduled for publication next month in the journal Epidemiology and Infection, a Harvard University-led team proposes that a vitamin D deficiency caused by inadequate winter sun exposure may predispose people to infection.If this theory proves correct, it would not only solve a long-standing mystery, but could also have major public health consequences.Influenza kills an average 36,000 people in the U.S. each winter, mostly the very old and very young. If scientists could pinpoint the secret behind its seasonal recurrence and somehow alter it, "the potential impact would be far greater than the current influenza vaccine," says Dowell.Hippocrates, the Greek physician widely regarded as the father of medicine, was the first to recognize that certain diseases ebb and flow with the calendar. "Whoever wishes to investigate medicine properly," he wrote around 400 B.C., "should ... consider the seasons of the year."Epidemiologists, however, have found that this is easier said than done."You look at the environment around you and say, 'What's the difference between winter and summer?'" says Dr. David Fisman of the Ontario Provincial Public Health Laboratory in Canada. "There are so many things that are seasonal, it's really hard to tease them apart."One obvious answer is that it's colder in winter. And for as long as parents have bundled up their babies, there's been an unshakable belief that catching a chill makes a person more susceptible to cold or flu.

Cold flunks tests Since World War II, scientists have devised numerous teeth-chattering tests of this stubborn wives' tale, dunking volunteers in cold baths or confining them to refrigerated meat lockers while squirting virus-spiked mucus up their noses."All attempts at demonstrating some relationship between cold exposure and susceptibility to infection have proved negative," Ron Eccles, director of the Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University in Wales, concluded in a recent published review of such studies.Experiments on the influenza virus have hinted that the flu bug is more stable in the cool, dry air of winter. But that doesn't solve the mystery, says Fisman, whose summary of efforts to understand seasonal influenza is scheduled for publication next year in the Annual Review of Public Health.One reason: Influenza surveillance efforts in Southeast Asia and other steamy tropical locales reveal that flu is not only common there but also exhibits seasonal patterns akin to those in colder climates."If you go back to the hypothesis about cold temperature and flu, it doesn't hold for the tropics," says epidemiologist Cecile Viboud of the National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center in Bethesda.Then there's the crowding theory.Because scientists think that the flu spreads only from person to person, most have assumed that the disease ravages in winter because people are cooped up in close quarters.

 

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2006, The Baltimore Sun | Get Sun home delivery

Talk about it E-mail it Print it Contact us

 

 

 

 

 

Flu season

In Depth

1918 influenza pandemic

If I dieSpecial series from The Sun.

Health & Science coverageWeekly section from The Sun.

Stem cell research

Flu season

Also see

Health & Science> Weekly section> Archive