Does Vitamin D prevent H1N1

Living in sunny Thailand, I noticed that there is no "winter flu season" like we have in northern countries. How could that be? Are the people of tropical countries getting something that those of us in living in the north lack?

In a paper,  J. J. Cannell explains how vitamin D intake -- obtainable either by way of sunshine or dietary supplement -- explains 14 observations about influenza:

1. Why the flu predictably occurs in the months following the winter solstice, when vitamin D levels are at their lowest,

2. Why it disappears in the months following the summer solstice,

3. Why influenza is more common in the tropics during the rainy season,

4. Why the cold and rainy weather associated with El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which drives people indoors and lowers vitamin D blood levels, is associated with influenza,

5. Why the incidence of influenza is inversely correlated with outdoor temperatures,

6. Why children exposed to sunlight are less likely to get colds,

7. Why cod liver oil (which contains vitamin D) reduces the incidence of viral respiratory infections,

8. Why Russian scientists found that vitamin D-producing UVB lamps reduced colds and flu in schoolchildren and factory workers,

9. Why Russian scientists found that volunteers, deliberately infected with a weakened flu virus - first in the summer and then again in the winter - show significantly different clinical courses in the different seasons,

10. Why the elderly who live in countries with high vitamin D consumption, like Norway, are less likely to die in the winter,

11. Why children with vitamin D deficiency and rickets suffer from frequent respiratory infections,

12. Why an observant physician (Rehman), who gave high doses of vitamin D to children who were constantly sick from colds and the flu, found the treated children were suddenly free from infection,

13. Why the elderly are so much more likely to die from heart attacks in the winter rather than in the summer,

14. Why African Americans, with their low vitamin D blood levels, are more likely to die from influenza and pneumonia than Whites are.

The whole article is worth reading.   A relatively safe and possibly effective alternative getting a flu shot this winter is to take 4,000 MG of Vitamin D daily.   That's what I'm doing.

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How to prevent prostate cancer

Gina Kola in the NY Times explains that drugs found to be very effective in preventing prostate cancer do exist, but have been ignored:

And, it turns out, there is a way to prevent many cases of prostate cancer. A large and rigorous study found that a generic drug, finasteride, costing about $2 a day, could prevent as many as 50,000 cases each year. Another study found that finasteride’s close cousin, dutasteride, about $3.50 a day, has the same effect.

Nevertheless, researchers say, the drugs that work are largely ignored. And supplements that have been shown to be not just ineffective but possibly harmful are taken by men hoping to protect themselves from prostate cancer.

As the nation’s war on cancer continues, with little change in the overall cancer mortality rate, many experts on cancer and public health say more attention should be paid to prevention.

Promising, but non-pharmaceutical means of preventing prostate cancer might include the anti-inflammatory herb curcumin/tumeric -- see this article.   A new study suggests exercise may play a role in the prevention of prostate cancer.

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How to prevent breast cancer

Gina Kola in the NY Times explains that effective preventive drugs for breast cancer exist, but have been ignored:

“If I had told you in 1990 that in 10 years I would have a pill that would cut the risk of breast cancer in half, you wouldn’t have believed me,” he said.

But, he said, to his shock, “The world said, So what?”

“We were met with shoulder shrugs and harrumphs,” Dr. Vogel said. Sales of tamoxifen, worldwide, “didn’t budge.”

Maybe, Dr. Vogel thought, the problem was that internists and gynecologists were not comfortable prescribing a drug used to treat cancer patients. Then, in 1999, he had a chance to do another breast cancer prevention trial, this time of an osteoporosis drug, raloxifene, or Evista, which did not have the cancer drug taint. It was to be compared with tamoxifen.

The $110 million study, involving 19,000 women, ended in 2006. The two drugs were found to be equally effective in preventing breast cancer, but with raloxifene there was no excess uterine cancer and the clotting risk was 30 percent less.

“It was a spectacular clinical trial,” Dr. Vogel said. But, he added, “Once again, the world met the result with a shrug and a harrumph.”

“Those were your tax dollars and mine,” he added. “You can’t do too many $110 million studies.”

He cannot understand why no one cares, but some doctors say they see a number of problems. It is usually not the cost; tamoxifen is about 30 cents a day and raloxifene $3.30 a day. It is doctors’ practices and women’s concerns.

Most doctors, said Dr. Therese B. Bevers, medical director of the Cancer Prevention Center at M. D. Anderson, do not take the first step — calculating a woman’s lifetime risk of getting breast cancer — in part because that can lead to the next step, spending an hour or so discussing cancer risk and drug risks and benefits.

Dr. Bevers suggests the drugs for women whose lifetime odds exceeds 20 percent. That could include, for example, a 55-year-old woman who began menstruating early (increasing the risk), had her first child late (again increasing the risk), and whose mother and sister got breast cancer. About half the time, though, women with that kind of risk turn down the drugs, Dr. Bevers said. “The No. 1 reason I hear is, ‘Oh, I just don’t like to take medications,’ ” she added.

Others, like Cecilia Anderson, who is 57 and lives in Houston, worry about side effects. “I felt like my quality of life was in question,” she said. “I am busy, I am out there. I totally love my life and don’t want it to be compromised.” Her lifetime risk of breast cancer is 20.5 percent, compared with an average risk of 9.8 percent for a woman her age. Ms. Anderson declined the drugs. “I live a different lifestyle,” she said. “I eat organic foods, I exercise. Through all of that comes a spiritual element as well. Mind, body, and spirit are all connected.”

Unfortunately, as is typical of the NY Times, the article fails to explore promising non-pharmaceutical measures that could reduce a woman's chance of getting breast cancer.

Other (non-patentable) substances that may help to prevent breast cancer include include melatonin, Vitamin D, molybdenum, and iodine. Exercise also seems to help.

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