You are off to the hospital to have a disease healed only to discover you may be exposed to a more deadly disease.  Hospitals are dangerous places because of the ease of acquiring an infection.  Hospital acquired infections, HAI, are one of the leading causes of death in the US.  There are typically one million seven hundred thousand cases of HAI per year and one hundred thousand deaths.  We have known for a long time that vitamin D, our connection to the sun, is a potent pathogen fighter.  Now it is starting to be promoted as armor against all of the bugs that can easily be transmitted in the hospital.  Dima A. Youssef , Department of Internal Medicine; Division of Infectious Diseases; East Tennessee State University; Johnson City, TN USA, and others have recently published a paper in Dermato Endocrinology: “Vitamin D’s potential to reduce the risk of hospital-acquired infections”   Here is a summary from Medical News Today that may be easier to digest.

Have you ever wonder why you seem to not have colds or the flu during the summer and the infection that you had in your foot healed as the weather warmed.  This is the effect of vitamin D as it works along several pathways in your body to stop infections.  This includes all pathogens whether bacterial, fungal, or viral.  This is a huge advantage over antibiotics as it is not targeted toward a particular pathogen, it raises you innate immune response to all pathogens.

William Grant, coauthor of the paper from Sunlight, Nutrition and Research Center, says that taking fifty thousand IU of vitamin D3 several days before entering the hospital is the best way to fortify.  Be sure it is vitamin D3 and not vitamin D2 and that it is a reliable brand like Bio Tech Pharmacal.  I have also found Solgar Brand to be very effective and is easy to obtain at Vitamin Shoppe or Earth Fare.  During the hospital stay and afterwards, keep supplementing with five to ten thousand IU per day of D3 to maintain a high level of immunity.

It would seem that all hospitals would want to start the practice of giving vitamin D as a way to reduce infection.  But don’t depend on someone else looking out for you. – Pandemic Survivor