With winter well underway, here’s a timely reminder to ensure you have good levels of the sunshine vitamin D, especially if you are an asthma sufferer. A new paper, published in the journal Allergy, has reported a significant link between low vitamin D levels and an increased risk of asthmatics suffering an acute attack. The research team studied the medical records of over 21 000 asthma patients, and found those deficient in vitamin D were 25 per cent more likely to have at least one severe attack in the recent past. Importantly, factors such as obesity, smoking and other chronic diseases were taken into account during the analysis. The lead researcher concluded vitamin D has significant immune modulating effects, and ensuring good levels is a relatively easy approach for improving quality of life for asthma patients.