Hello and a very warm welcome to the Friday 5 with me, Liz Earl, beaming across the globe

today from my family home in Lycopia. High up in the foothills of Mount Kenya, very relevant,

actually, to today's main topic as you will discover in just a moment.

But first let's take a look at a bit of news that hit the headlines this week.

So as so many of the more enlightened medics and nutritionists have been saying these past two

years, taking vitamin D supplements improves the outcome if you get COVID seems so obvious. It's

almost not worth repeating having been banging on about it here for so long, but at least it's

good to see some of the solid clinical data finally making it onto the front pages of the mainstream

media, including the times and the daily mail and others besides. Well a new study out of Israel

shows that 26% of coronavirus patients died if they were vitamin D deficient compared to just

3% who had normal levels. Well that is just a staggeringly significant statistic. What are the

drug or treatment gives this kind of simple, safe, cheap and beneficial outcome? As I say, staggering.

Now ethnic minorities and those who are overweight are more at risk showing yet again

that the disease is far worse for some sections of society as we know these include the very elderly,

those already clinically sick and the obese. And the reason why vitamin D levels are lower in those

who are overweight is that being fat blocks the absorption of this vitamin, well it's technically a

hormone, but it's called a vitamin. And that's because it's fat soluble. So the more fat we have

inside us, the more it is locked away in excess fat cells are not able to be utilized by our vital organs.

So those who are overweight should look into this and consider upping their supplementation as

vitamin D plays an absolutely crucial role in the immune system and protecting us against

respiratory infection especially. Now of course we also make vitamin D via sunlight on our skin,

one reason why coronal levels and levels of awfully viruses are lower in the summer and higher

...