vitamin D isn't a vitamin per se, it's a pro-hormone that our body will make in the spring and summer months when we get our sunshine and in the fall in the winter this is where I got controversial as well I said look there's really no such thing as flu and cold season there's just low vitamin D season and it's a little hyperbolic but even a study by Dr. Martino that came out a couple years ago said look if your vitamin D levels are normal your propensity to get the flu or cold is cut by half and then if you do get one your
symptoms and severity are cut by half as well so it's out there in the medical literature and normal vitamin D levels decrease cancer risks in about 17 different cancers decrease death from coronary disease decrease problems with osteoporosis decrease viral infections decrease clotting disorders so many things that vitamin D does because it's an essential part of our pathophysiology
so I spoke out about this and I said look if we can get our vitamin D levels up our chances of being severe with COVID are far less well Mayo Clinic did a study and said if your vitamin D is above 30 your chance of being in the ICU was cut by a huge percentage and then if it was below 30 and below 20 then that was your high percentage chance of getting intubated so we we had signals early on it's vitamin D is like the conductor of a fine symphony and it tells your body
this section come in that section tune out this section come in and come in at mezzo forte and at forte and go down to piano so vitamin D is that conductor of our immune system now you've heard about the cytokine storm from which people have passed if your vitamin D is insufficient your immune system is more like the mosh pit at a punk rock concert ping ping ping crashing together and not having that signal to turn on or turn off so vitamin D is this fantastic conductor
of orderliness in our immune responses and every nucleus on every cell in your body has a receptor for vitamin D so as a pathologist and that's one who studies patterns I tried to share this message of how important this is for our overall immune health