If you have asthma attacks, allergies or a tendency toward respiratory infections, you can breathe a sigh of relief. There’s a vitamin that can improve your respiratory health tremendously. It’s the same vitamin that helps prevent osteoporosis, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and multiple sclerosis — vitamin D.
One recent study published in the Cochrane Library (a UK medical research database) found that asthma sufferers who took vitamin D reduced their severe asthma attacks — the kind that require immediate medical attention — by 50 percent. That means they spent a lot less time in the emergency room or a hospital bed. They also had less mild or moderate asthma attacks, reducing their need for steroid pills.
But this isn’t the first time researchers have linked vitamin D to better respiratory health. In previous studies, vitamin D also:
- Decreased the risk of upper and lower respiratory infections
- Decreased the risk of tuberculosis and improved recovery time from tuberculosis.
- Increased lung capacity for people with asthma and wheezing diseases
- Reduced bacteria in the airways of people with cystic fibrosis
The secret may lie in vitamin D’S anti viral superpowers. It keeps your immune system strong, which means fewer bacteria can enter your airways and infect your lungs. It also decreases your risk of getting a cold or flu. As the icing on the cake, vitamin D reduces respiratory inflammation, which keeps you breathing free and easy. Vitamin D’s ability to ease inflammation also explains why it can help people with asthma — a disease caused by inflammation in the airways.
So if you’re sick of coughing, wheezing and struggling for breath, you’ll want to add vitamin D to your respiratory health regimen ASAP. Here’s how you can get started:
- Get your vitamin D levels tested. If your levels are below 75 nmol/L (nanomoles per liter of blood), you could stand to get more vitamin D… but you’re not quite deficient. Anything below 50 nmol/L is officially considered vitamin D deficient. And if you’re levels are below 25 nmol/L, you’re severely deficient. So start supplementing stat.
- Most doctors will recommend you take 500 to 1000 IU of vitamin D a day if you have asthma or other respiratory problems.
- The Vitamin D Council, a nonprofit vitamin D advocacy organization, recommends taking 5,000 IU of vitamin D per day if you’re an adult with asthma. It sounds like a lot. But as long as you take less than 10,000 IU per day, it won’t cause you any harm.
- Consult your doctor for your appropriate dose.
