14 Ways to Help Prevent Swine Flu

This is reprinted from Cause2 written by Dr. Frank Lipman.

Don’t know whether or not to get the H1N1 vaccination? You might want to read some of these precautions before you sign up for the shot. If you’re opting for other ways to dodge the flu, here are 14 tips to boost your immunity and stay healthy this flu season.

1. Optimize your vitamin D level. Adequate levels of vitamin D are essential for our immune systems to function optimally. Unfortunately there are no significant dietary sources of vitamin D, most of our intake comes from exposure to sunlight. If you live far from the equator, you simply don’t get enough sun through Fall and Winter to make all the vitamin D you need. So unless you supplement during this period, your innate immunity will be compromised. vitamin D plays such a crucial role in so many aspects of your body’s functioning, that supplementing with it makes sense whether you decide to get the flu shot or not.

We know that influenza always gets worse during the winter months. Now there is good evidence to suggest that this is because as sunlight hours lessen during the winter, the people living in the northern hemisphere become vitamin D deficient and are susceptible to influenza infections of all kinds.

The current recommendations from the Food and Nutrition Board of the U.S. Institute of Medicine: from 200 to 600 IU/day depending on one’s age, are way too low.

These values were originally chosen because they were found to prevent osteomalacia (bone softening) and rickets. It is now recognized that vitamin D has many additional physiological functions, for which these levels are totally inadequate. A number of scientists are therefore calling for the Food and Nutrition Board in the U.S. and its counterparts abroad to reassess their current recommendations. Get your 25 hydroxy vitamin D level checked by your Doctor (if that is not an option, you can self test your level with ZRT labs)

Although the current normal range is between 20 and 50ng/ml, this is much too low for optimal health. You want your level to be between 50 and 70ng/ml.

This is the most important step you can take to prevent the flu! It may require a number of months taking 5,000 to 10,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily (especially during winter) under a doctor’s supervision, to optimize your blood level. Monitor your 25 hydroxy vitamin D status every three months until you are in the optimal range, then cut back to a maintenance dose of at least 2,000 IU a day.

2. Get adequate sleep. This is an indispensable requirement for a strong immune system.

3. Get adequate exercise. This keeps you robust.

4. Take actions to lower your stress levels.

Do breathing exercises, meditate, practice yoga, spend time doing something that makes you happy. Feeling spent, overwhelmed and or mentally run down has a causal relationship to your physical health.

5. Wash your hands frequently but not excessively. It decreases your likelihood of spreading a virus to your nose, mouth or other people. Be sure you don’t use antibacterial soap because of the risk of creating resistant bacteria. Rather use a simple chemical-free soap.

6. Avoid sugar and processed foods as they decrease your immune function dramatically.

7. Eat phytonutrient rich meals (lots of colorful salads and dark greens).

8. Eat lots of garlic, it works as a broad spectrum antibiotic.

9. Take a probiotic daily (look for one with 10-20 billion organisms). A strong immune system relies heavily on having a strong foundation in the gut.

10. Keep a supply of antiviral herbal supplements on hand. As opposed to antiviral drugs, antiviral herbs do not cause resistant strains because they are multifaceted and contain literally thousands of different medicinal compounds. Thus they are able to attack viruses with a full spectrum of synergistic substances. Andrographis, Olive leaf extract, Grapefruit seed extract and Elderberry extract all have antiviral properties. Use one or a combination of some of them as a prophylactic measure, for example, whenever you travel (airports) or enter a potentially compromised environment such as a large office, auditorium, stadium, theater etc.

And if you really want to go all out, here are 4 more tips:

11. Take 1-2 grams of fish oils daily– it’s beneficial for immune function.

12. Take 2 grams of vitamin C daily, yes it does help.

13. Stock your home pharmacy with an immune building formula. Look for one that contains Cordyceps and Astragulus — take it throughout the flu season.

14. Keep homeopathic Oscillococcinum on hand. Take it at the earliest sign of a cold or flu as early intervention is essential.

If you are exposed to someone with the flu directly, you can take one dose twice a day for two days. You can also take one vial once a week throughout the winter, and two or three times a week during flu season, as a preventative measure.

Beware People of Massechusetts

A bill recently passed the Massachusetts senate giving the government a little too much power. The bill is being hurried along due to fears of a Swine Flu pandemic this flu season. While I agree that the intentions may be well-intentioned; the method of delivery leaves much to be desired.

According to the bill, if there is a Swine Flu pandemic and you don't get the Swine Flu vaccine, you can be ordered into quarantine. If you refuse the quarantine, you can face a fine of $1,000 per day that you resist. Pretty draconian considering it's someone else's body they want to vaccinate.

Trusting in the doctors, many people are blindly lining up to receive their jab; however, there are many alarming facts about the Swine Flu vaccine.

Doctors have begun to give their patients the Swine Flu vaccine without studying how this vaccine works in humans. If there is something wrong with the vaccine, it could be too late for those who have received the injection. The production of this vaccine was so rushed that there was not time for human testing; and, the vaccine went straight to the market.

Human testing will not begin until after the Swine Flu vaccine has already been administered to many unsuspecting patients. Too little, too late in my mind.

This is the same Swine Flu vaccine that the government itself is unsure of the vaccine's safety, yet they are issuing penalties if it is not taken.

Government officials would also have the right to enter private property to assess the status of the pandemic. I see plenty of opportunity for misuse of authority under these circumstances.

Check out the video:

Do Only Swine Catch Swine Flu?

Pigs confined in gestation cages. (Photo: Farm Sanctuary on Flickr)

The bad news is that swine flu does not attack only the human porcine; but, will infect anyone – the good news is that the outbreak is not as severe as the media would have us believe. (Follow the spread of swine flu here.)

However, this does not mean that we should take this pandemic seriously. Swine flu can be more severe than your garden-variety flu. Apparently, it can manifest itself with a range of symptoms from mild to very severe.

The root of swine flu has yet to be confirmed, but theories abound. The Wall Street Journal has this to say: the swine flu that has:

sickened hundreds more is still a mystery contagion. But this much is known: The virus is unusually made up of genetic material from avian, pig and human viruses; it can transmit from person to person; and in many people, it only triggers mild symptoms seen in garden-variety influenza.

The finger is being pointed at several questionable agribusiness practices – namely “confined animal feeding operations” and the overuse of antibiotics in the pork industry.

The overuse of antibiotics has long been blamed for creating “superbugs” that not only are of superior virulence; they are now antibiotic-resistant. These bacterial "superbugs" include:

...methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA, pronounced “mersa”), campylobacter, drug-resistant E. coli and salmonella. Though MRSA has cropped up in hospitals since the 1990s, there have been more recent strains cropping up in on hog-farming operations.

Nicholas Kristof’s insightful New York Times column cites these alarming statistics:

- A small Dutch study found Dutch pig farmers to be 760 times more likely to carry MRSA, without necessarily showing symptoms. Scientific American reports that this MRSA strain was also found in 12 percent of Dutch retail pork samples.
- This same strain of MRSA has also been found in the United States: according to a new study by University of Iowa epidemiologist Tara Smith, 45 percent of pig farmers and 49 percent of the hogs tested carried MRSA.
- other research by Peter Davies of the University of Minnesota found that 25 percent to 39 percent of American hogs carry MRSA.

Many scientists have long suspected that the link between the antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the meat industry are the antibiotics that are being pumped into these animals to allow chronic overcrowding and poor care to continue. They have even gone so far as to speculate that these massive pig farming businesses could become incubators for super-pathogens that are able to quickly spread becoming a dreaded pandemic.

According to a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, 70% of all antibiotics used in the US are going to healthy livestock; while, a 2008 peer-reviewed study by the Medical Clinics of North America concluded that antibiotics in livestock feed were “a major component” in the rise in antibiotic resistance.

“We don’t give antibiotics to healthy humans,” says Robert Martin, who led a Pew Commission investigating antibiotic use on industrial farms. “So why give them to healthy animals just so we can keep them in crowded and unsanitary conditions?”

Governments everywhere need to make stricter, more stringent guidelines coupled with adequate penalties for not maintaining the minimum standards necessary for the humane care, housing, treatment and health of our livestock. Maybe this outbreak of the swine flu will open eyes everywhere to the changes that must be made to agribusiness to keep us all safe.

After all, if we can’t trust one of our food sources, we have a bigger problem that the swine flu.