At the start of the winter I wrote about the benefits of Vitamin D that were being proclaimed across the blogosphere. To put it to the test I have been taking 2,000iu of Vitamin D each morning since October last year.
The observations below are based on what I have seen of my own health, my own experiences during what could be considered a very typical year. They are not a controlled scientific experiment and as such you must make up your own mind about whether you think the changes I noticed were due to the Vitamin D.
Vitamin D
Setting the scene – the ailments at work
In order to make a more realistic comparison to a typical winter, since every winter is different and the coughs and colds thrown at us will change each year, I’ve found it useful to compare my health to everyone else at work.
I spend an enormous amount of my waking hours in the office and the air conditioning system there is superb for spreading the germs between us. In a typical winter we seem to have one or two bouts of cold go through the office and by the end of the winter about half of my team have usually had one or two days off from one or the other cold (or, for the unlucky few, both colds).
This year seemed particularly bad. About half the office went down with swine flu and I think everybody in my team ended up taking a couple of days off in December or January. In late February most were either ill in work or took at least a day off again when something else spread between us. Finally, last week over half the team took one or two days off with variants on a theme of high temperatures, vomiting and diarrhea.
Winter colds
Typically I have had two or three colds each winter. Usually they don’t get me hard enough to take time off work, but I spend a miserable week snivelling and sniffing and generally feeling horrible.
This year with everyone having ended up bed-bound for several days I couldn’t expect to get away completely free. I was enough of a sceptic to have not expected a dose of Vitamin D each morning to completely rid me of the risk of catching something when I get stressed and tired in such an unhealthy air-conditioned atmosphere.
I did get a cold in early January but it was a novelty. Rather than my usual miserable self, I was cheerful and happy. Yes, my nose ran for a couple of days and I got through a few handkerchiefs, but at no point did I actually feel under the weather. I was able to function and work as well as usual.
An unusual bout of flu
Last week I went down with the high temperature (though thankfully I seemed to avoid the vomiting and diarrhea).
I had a particularly stressful day at work on the Friday, ended up working late, the next morning I woke early, did a strenuous long walk in snow and a bench press max effort and then to top off the weekend I spent Sunday sat at the computer working on the website all day, except for the bit when I did a deadlift workout.
On Monday I developed a sore throat in the late morning. By late afternoon I was aching all over, not the usual DOMS I would expect from a satisfying deadlift session, but an ache that left me flinching when touched and feeling like my head was going to implode.
That evening I passed through some feverish stages but I woke the next morning feeling mostly ache free and almost fine. I took the day off work, since I still didn’t feel up to the drive to work and standing up for an hour getting dressed, preparing the breakfast and clearing up afterwards left me feeling sore and tired again. The day after that I also took it easy but I did do 5 hours of work from home, so I was pretty much back up to full working order.
Overall I noticed that there was none of the exhausted weakness that I usually find follows for a couple of days after I’ve been ill with a temperature and I certainly didn’t get hit as hard as most other people.
My conclusion
Given the poor health of everyone around me this year I seem to have had a winter of particularly good health. I feel that I’ve been better than I usually am in the winter, and that in a year when everyone else appears to have been worse than usual.
Should I be taking a higher dose to ensure that I don’t get ill? When questioned, nobody seems able to conclude how much is the right dose. Suggestions range from 1,000iu – 5,000iu. Considering the stress I habitually put my body through during the winter months when I also have busy season at work maybe 2,000iu is too low.
I’ll keep taking the Vitamin D pills until they run out, which will be in April time. By then the weather will have improved enough that I will be outdoors in the sunshine almost every day for a decent amount of time. I’ll definitely be taking Vitamin D again next winter too. I’m certainly convinced that it did something for me this year.
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