Oh, the Powers of Vitamin D

I refuse to feel like this.

          I'm still at home for the holidays, and this winter season, some disgusting sinus infection decided to visit my family.  Well... except for one of us.  With my entire family sick, I started feeling the first hints of the sniffles.  No!!!  I'm going on vacation down South with my girlfriend on Friday, and I refuse to get a sinus infection now.  I bumped my daily 5k iu of vitamin D up to 10k for two days.  Sinus infection?  Gone.  Before it even began.

          Please keep in mind, 10k iu of vitamin D is not something you take for the long term.  You need to run blood tests to determine how much vitamin D you need to take daily, although the Vitamin D Council recommends about 5k iu per day for an adult.  Vitamin D is an incredibly powerful immune system boosting tool, and there is anecdotal evidence that taking a megadose for a day or two when symptoms of infection start to pop up can reduce the duration of your illness.

Vitamin D - Gotta Have It

I am planning to write a post on a supplement every week or two.  I'm actually not a huge fan of large scale supplementation, but I do think there are a few things that are helpful and should be taken, particularly in certain situations.  I also think there are a few that should definitely not be taken, and I'm equally excited to write about those.

The first on the list is vitamin D, which might be my favorite supplement.  It's a close fight between Vitamin D and fish oil, but I think I have to give vitamin D the edge.  The funny thing about Vitamin D is that it technically isn't - or shouldn't be - a supplement.  We actually produce vitamin D - vitamin D3, cholecalciferol - in our skin.  The precursor 7-dehydrocholesterol reacts with ultraviolet light - specifically UVB light - to form vitamin D (for the biochemists among us, there is a step in between, as precholecalciferol is formed first) (1).  Basically, we produce vitamin D from sunlight.

Cornell's Exam Week

It is the tail end of the semester at Cornell right now, and that means exam week.  Obviously this doesn't affect me much, because I am no longer a student.  I do still live in Ithaca for work, so I can see the effects exams are having on students.  As I write this, I am thinking of my girlfriend in particular.  At the moment she is working on a 10+ page research paper and studying for a biochemistry exam.  Unfortunately for her, they are both due tomorrow.  I can't prove it, but I bet frequently co-morbid classes are built to have their exams or final papers/projects close to each other at the end of the year to raise the bar just a little higher.

You hear people talk a lot about Cornell, saying it is an extremely competitive school, that there's no grade inflation, that everything is graded on a curve.  Basically, that it is incredibly tough.  Well, that's partially true.  Partially.  Here's the truth.