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Getting vaccinated is by far the most effective thing you can do to protect yourself and your family from swine flu.

Keeping healthy may make a mild case of flu even milder. And stopping smoking, losing excess weight and avoiding binge drinking will reduce your chances of getting the severe form of pandemic flu. But beyond this, little of the advice proliferating on the internet is backed by any evidence.

Being but there is no evidence that eating organic food, or any other kind, helps at all. Vitamin D has been touted as a preventive, but found no such effect. People with flu are told to drink plenty of fluids, but a recent review , and some signs that too much fluid can be harmful in pneumonia.

Many people believe a mask will protect them, but Canadian nurses wearing an N95 mask, which keeps out most viral particles, as they did wearing a cloth mask, which doesn’t – suggesting neither works very well. Surprisingly, there is either, except among young children.

It may not be too late to hit the gym, though. A in mice found just a single session of exercise before catching flu reduced disease severity, although regular exercise beforehand worked even better.

There is one method that is highly effective: getting vaccinated.

Read more: Swine flu: Eight myths that could endanger your life