For more than 60 million years, Vitamin D’s gift to destroy microorganisms and boost your immune system has been conserved in the genome in many different animals from baboons to squirrel monkeys to humans. Now, when were surrounded by winter’s darkness and we could sure use an extra hit of the sunshine vitamin, it could be even more important than we thought warding off the seasonal flu including this year’s rather overblown H1N1.

A study published recently from Oregon State University identifies to some of the more obscure benefits of Vitamin D. It’s the presence of Vitamin D that allows the immune system to “turn on” in response to microbial attacks. Actually, vitamin D is a type of hormone circulating in your blood and it’s abundantly produced as a result of exposure to the sun.

Vitamin D also aids in the prevention of an over reaction by the adaptive immune response and therefore reduces the potential for inflammation. For someone suffering from the flu, this inflammation could show up as something as dangerous as bacterial pneumonia, an infection of the lungs.

Research has shown that Vitamin D can benefit your immune system and help prevent influenza, but no one is getting that news out to people. Instead the health system is pushing flu shots, mass produced by the pharmaceutical industry. Sadly, it’s no surprise that they would much rather buy chemical injections, than educate people about what our bodies are perfectly created to do, naturally!

In addition to powering up our immune system’s ability to respond to pathogens, Vitamin D is already recognized for its ability to address types of seasonal depression, strengthen kidney function and support people with diabetes. I personally find its ability to counter-balance our immune response that creates inflammation to be particularly interesting – much like the role that anti-oxidants like glutathione play in combating inflammation and contributing to pain relief.

The human body is a fabulous, if somewhat abused machine. We have more brilliant little bells and whistles built into us than an iPhone. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of work to cut through the popular propaganda that shows that our only road to good health is drugs, drugs and more drugs (followed by surgery if that doesn’t work)

Consider the benefits of a few minutes of real sunshine to boost your own vitamin D levels and kick your immune responses up a notch or two before you slather on the SPF skincare products every time you decide to step outside. If you’re not comfortable with that idea any more (which is really a shame) then look to other sources of Vitamin D like marine omega-3 oils and high quality Vitamin D supplements.

Like glutathione, our body can produce its own Vitamin D, but when we don’t have the sunshine that acts as a Vitamin D precursor we can take supplements like Vitamin D from R-Garden.