Looking for D best bet against flu

It’s become a household name perhaps like Tide and Colgate, this H1N1 virus. And the word is enough to send shivers down our spine. Flu medicines are flying off the shelves, people are lining up for flu shots.

Last week, we talked about vaccination. And now, here’s the other side of the story, according to health activist Dr. Joseph Mercola, whose article (that came out shortly after the info on swine flu was released) helped squelch all the rumor and fear mongering re H1N1. It was viewed over a million times on his site alone, the sixth most-viewed page on the entire Internet on the day it came out.

And now, according to Mercola, “the primary battle will be to win over the consciousness of the public and convince them that natural options are nearly always superior to expensive and potentially toxic drugs that are depleting their income.” 

With the influenza season just around the proverbial corner, the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has strongly urged Americans to get a flu shot. “In fact, the CDC mounts a well-orchestrated campaign each season to generate interest and demand for flu shots,” asserts Dr. Mercola.

But read this: A recent study published in the October issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine “found that vaccinating young children against the flu appeared to have no impact on flu-related hospitalizations or doctor visits during two recent flu seasons.”

The data did suggest that children between the ages of six months and five years did get some protection from vaccination in these years. But read again: After adjusting for potentially relevant variables, the researchers concluded that “significant influenza vaccine effectiveness could not be demonstrated for any season, age, or setting” examined.

 “Unfortunately, now, for the first time, flu vaccination is also being pushed for virtually all children — not just those under five,” Mercola laments.

This is a great departure from previous US government campaign, when flu vaccine was recommended only for youngsters under five, whose lives may be threatened by influenza. “This year, the government is recommending that children from age six months to 18 years be vaccinated, expanding inoculations to 30 million more school-age children (in the US),” says Mercola.

Read on: “The government argues that while older children seldom get as sick as the younger ones, it’s a bigger population that catches flu at higher rates, so the change should cut missed school, and parents’ missed work when they catch the illness from their children.

“Of course, this policy ignores the fact that a systematic review of 51 studies involving 260,000 children age six to 23 months found no evidence that the flu vaccine is any more effective than a placebo.”

Here’s more: According to a Group Health study, flu shots do not protect the elderly against developing pneumonia, the primary cause of death arising as a complication of the flu. People are asking whether the influenza vaccination has been able to curb deaths. Fact is, while the vaccination coverage among the elderly soared from 15 percent in 1980 to 65 percent today, deaths from influenza or pneumonia have not gone down.

More than that, Dr. Mercola reports that there’s evidence that flu shots cause Alzheimer’s disease, “most likely as a result of combining mercury with aluminum and formaldehyde.”

Mercury in vaccines has been traced as a culprit in autism.

Let’s not forget, too, the three other serious adverse reactions to the flu vaccine — joint inflammation and arthritis, anaphylactic shock (and other life-threatening allergic reactions), and Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralytic autoimmune disease.

So, what is Dr. Mercola’s prescription for flu? “One credible hypothesis that explains the seasonal nature of flu is that influenza is a vitamin D deficiency disease,” he notes. “Vitamin D levels in your blood fall to their lowest point during flu seasons. Unable to be protected by the body’s own antibiotics (antimicrobial peptides) that are released by vitamin D, a person with a low vitamin D blood level is more vulnerable to contracting colds, influenza, and other respiratory infections.”

D truth is, studies show that children who suffer from rickets, a vitamin D-deficient skeletal disorder, have frequent respiratory infections. On the other hand, children exposed to sunlight are less likely to catch a cold. The lack of vitamin D (or the sunshine vitamin) is most likely behind the number of deaths that occur in winter, mainly from pneumonia and cardiovascular diseases.

Aside from being vulnerable to flu in the sunless, vitamin D-starved winter months, some people also succumb to SAD (seasonal affective disorder) or become manic depressive. Now, that’s doubly sad!

Now you know what may yet be D best defense against flu.

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Fighting dengue at home

We’re so occupied with H1N1 we seem to have forgotten what experts say is a more deadly disease: dengue. To prevent dengue at home, a reader has come up with this homemade recipe for a mosquito trap: It’s just a mix of water, brown sugar, and yeast. 

Here’s the procedure:

Cut a plastic bottle (can be a soft drink bottle) in half, keep both parts. Take the lower portion of the bottle. Dissolve the brown sugar in hot water. Let it cool down to ~70°F. Add the yeast. Carbon dioxide will form (this will attract the mosquitoes). Cover the bottle with a dark wrap and insert in the top portion upside down like a funnel. Place it in a corner in your house. In two weeks, you will be surprised by the number of mosquitoes killed. 

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