A Canadian physician told The Vancouver Sun Thursday that she beat her own personal bout with swine flu by increasing her vitamin D levels.

Dr. Gillian Arsenault “got H1N1 before she could get vaccinated against it. Though she had a prescription for an antiviral medication on standby, she never had to resort to it because although the flu hit her ‘like a truck,’ she was all but better by the fourth day, except for a lingering cough,” the Sun reported.

Ansenault told The Sun she is not attempting to advocate alternative therapies, but wanted to share her personal experience.

“The so-called sunshine vitamin has been promoted for everything from reducing the risk of cancer to immune system boosting. In 2007, Arsenault was taking 1,000 IU (the dose recommended by the Canadian Cancer Society) but over the past year, she has taken daily doses ranging from 3,000 IU to 5,000 IU. When she got the pandemic flu, she adjusted her daily dose because she was interested in combining the vitamin supplementation with elderberry extract, which has been shown to reduce the duration and severity of flu. Arsenault paid to have her vitamin D levels tested at a lab to ensure she was within a recommended range,” the Sun reported.

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