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CategoriesExperts believe the summer months are ideal for filling up on green vegetables and absorbing vitamin D from the sun. This build up of vitamin D has numerous health benefits but the main one is a robust immune system. Unfortunately, British winter time doesn’t provide the necessary sunshine for adequate vitamin D absorption so supplementation is the answer for many people. Those that are particularly susceptible to infection should seriously consider it. Like everything, prevention is better than cure and it takes the body at least six weeks to build up good levels of vitamin D for a healthy immune system.
So how does it work?
Your body has what are called T-cells that basically work together to seek and destroy anything ‘foreign’ that enters the body (such as bad bacteria or a virus.) Now recently, scientists at the University of Copenhagen, discovered that Vitamin D plays a crucial role in activating these T-cells and almost ‘triggers’ them to detect and kill foreign pathogens such as clumps of bacteria or viruses. Without sufficient Vitamin D it’s believed the T-cells remain dormant, ‘naïve’ to the possibility of threat.
Professor Carsten Geisler from the Department of International Health, Immunology and Microbiology, further explains "when a T cell is exposed to a foreign pathogen, it extends a signalling device or ‘antenna’ known as a vitamin D receptor, with which it searches for vitamin D. This means that the T cell must have vitamin D or activation of the cell will cease. If the T cells cannot find enough vitamin D in the blood, they won’t even begin to mobilise. ”
Myprotein’s Vitamin D3 is a highly available liquid form of vitamin D carried in olive oil to ensure absorption isn’t inhibited. At £7.99 for 180 daily 2500 iu servings, you can ensure your immune system is backed up for the entire winter.
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