Eat good quality

Thank you in your information about

How Vitamin D Protects Your Immune System

Sa lahat ng hindi pa nakakaalam tungkol sa mga pagkain na dapat kainin,

Eat good quality "fatty" fish (tuna, salmon, mackerel) three or more times each week

kong ito ay susundin hahaba ang yong buhay.

A powerful winning team

In your body, the "robots" are known as T cells — the killer cells of your immune system. When a foreign pathogen enters, T cells activate a vitamin D receptor. All that's needed now is a sufficient level of vitamin D in the blood stream.

When T cells find their D, they power up, go to work, and the good guys win.

For years, scientists have known that vitamin D plays an indispensable role in controlling disease. And for years they've been asking: How does D do it?

Researchers from Copenhagen University, in Denmark, believe they've found the answer, as described above.

I honestly don't know if the Copenhagen researchers are actually the first to discover this brilliant collaboration of vitamin D and T cells. But if they really are, my hat is off to them. Thanks, guys, for helping us better understand the nature of this vitamin that's one of the primary lynchpins of good health.

Another recent D study found that a low blood level of the vitamin appears to be linked to lower muscle strength. The problem: When D is insufficient, fat accumulates in muscle tissue.

That's good to know, and we'll add it to the rapidly growing list of vitamin D benefits. But one interesting — and disturbing — detail stood out in this study.

Researchers recruited 90 subjects. In each subject, blood levels of vitamin D were measured, along with muscle mass, muscle fat percentage, and body fat. And here's the kicker: All the subjects were US females, from sunny California, between the ages of 16 and 22. But 60 per cent of them had low D levels, and one-in-four had levels that qualified as deficient.

Yikes! If young women in California aren't getting enough sun exposure to maintain a sufficient D level, what chance do the rest of us have?

This detail underlines one of the most important results we've seen in other studies: In general, the US tends to be a D-insufficient nation in a D-insufficient world. So let's review the best ways to keep D levels high:

* Whenever possible, get just a few minutes of direct sunlight exposure every day

* Eat good quality "fatty" fish (tuna, salmon, mackerel) three or more times each week.