How to strengthen
your immune system
Healthy functioning of the immune system is of paramount importance to everyone since it controls our ability to fend
off illness and disease. As you are aware this world is filled with pathogens, microbes, toxic pollutants and
stress.
Therefore what we need is a vigorous and vigilant immune system.
As we know, our immune system is a complex organization. No one type of cells or organ works individually to protect you.
Biochemical researchers who study the inner workings and complexities of each cell in our body have found that it is filled with sophisticated structures and genetic codes that support life by their elaborate biochemical reactions.
So what does it mean to strengthen your immune system? How do we strengthen it?
To restore, strengthen or maintain your immune health is to focus on the nutritional support your body requires by Optimizing Nutritional Biochemistry.
Let's start by
first understanding the repair system within our bodies.
Our body has an amazing built-in ability to heal itself. It can recognize damaged cell parts and then repair them. It actually breaks the cells down completely and then rebuilds from scratch. Incredible isn’t it? Damaged proteins, altered fats and DNA, become brand new again made with recycled amino acids.
In spite of this tremendous defense and repair system inherent in our bodies, damage can still occur, due to oxidative stress. When our immune system is overwhelmed by the numerous damaged proteins, fats, cell membranes and DNA structures, they are not able to repair the cells properly. These partially repaired structures can create further problems in cell function.
For example, damaged lipid leads to rigid cell membranes; oxidized cholesterol often causes the hardening of the arteries. And poorly repaired DNA chains lead to cell mutation causing cancer and aging. In order to avoid improperly repaired cells, it is essential that we provide enough nutrients to our natural defense and immune systems.
Supplementing our diet with vital antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, is the only means we have to supercharge our body’s natural defense and immune system.
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How to strengthen your immune system?
The age old adage of combining a healthy diet, a modest exercise program and cellular nutrition has not changed. This is the best chance
of protecting your health or to redeem it after it has been lost.
Some of you may not realize
that drugs override or inhibit the normal immune system cell processes. It is
nutrients that support normal immune system cell processes and address’s the
immune system dysfunctions. Specific nutrients are needed to support your body
so your body can maximize its immune system functions
Cellular nutrition is simply providing all nutrients to the cell at optimal levels. This allows the cell to decide what it really does and does not need. You can definitely enhance your immune system and antioxidant defense system this way.
Exercise
Exercise improves lymphatic flow. The lymphatic system (part of your immune system) is extremely important in eliminating toxins and lipoproteins from the body and also in maintaining the body’s immune defenses.
When the lymphatic system is sluggish or blocked, white blood cells are slowed down or prevented from killing viruses, bacteria and other microbes. As a result, disease can more readily take root in the body.
How does exercise improve lymphatic flow?
The lymphatic system flows upward against gravity in all areas of the body except the head and neck. It’s the muscle contractions that push the fluid through the lymphatic channels.
Exercise increases lymphatic flow 3fold. That means 3 times the amount of cellular waste, foreign microbes, arterial plaque and LDL cholesterol is removed with adequate exercise.
Exercise also helps in the production of immune cells and will promote weight loss. It is one good way to encourage the immune system to work well, by promoting better digestive function which will help get rid of toxins and keep the immune system healthy.
The type of exercise you do is important. Sports that require the use of the entire body's muscles such as jogging, walking, swimming, cycling and rowing is the best. These types of aerobic sports revitalize the entire body. It strengthens the body’s natural immune defenses and conveys a sense of general well-being.
Intensity sports and those requiring brief, intense peak loads such as bungee jumping and weight lifting are certainly rather harmful; they place a burden on the immune system, as it generates free radicals.
More on exercise……click here
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Healthy Diet
We can support our immune system by eating a balanced diet that is low in fat and rich in nutrients. The nutrients should come from a variety of grains, fruits and vegetables (they contain phytonutrients and enzymes), and less of meat.
Generations ago, people ate more whole, fresh foods that contain significantly more antioxidants than today’s diet does.
However, today’s environment has become more toxic than that of our forefathers because of environmental pollution. Also our lifestyle and diet has changed and the foods we eat are not as nutrient rich because of the highly processed foods we consume.
As a result, many nutrients are not available in adequate quantities in our daily diet.
Do you know the processing of our meats removes 50-70% of vitamin B6; upto 50% of vitamin C in tangerines/oranges are lost when put in cold storage?
Overcooking, preparing food long before cooking and freezing of foods are other reasons our foods has less nutritional value. For example: fresh salads and cut vegetables and fruits lose more than 40-50% of their value if they are not eaten by 3 hours. Some go to the extent of saying take your fruits or drink your juice within half hour of preparation.
We have trillions of cells and approximately 97 % are replaced every year.
• red blood cells are replaced every 120 days.
• the lining of our gastrointestinal tract is replaced every 5 to 10 days
• and every 30 days our skin is replaced as well.
• A corneal abrasion only takes 2 days to heal.
So it’s important to feed our body foods that contain the vitamins, minerals, nutrients- food and enzymes that we need. As your cells die and are replaced we must feed them properly otherwise our cells may become weaker and weaker as they reproduce and we won’t have the strong, healthy immune systems that our bodies need to thrive.
Remember to drink lots of water too. It is the river which carries all the nutrients around the body to the brain, and to every single cell in the body. The brain is the first place to suffer dehydration.
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Vitamins and Supplements
Vitamins have special significance for our nutrition because they can protect us directly from bacterial and viral infections or indirectly through their influence on the immune cells.
Vitamins play an important role in the repair of damaged cells, in some circumstances healing them before something more serious happens, before they perhaps develop into a tumor.
For optimal health, you need more than just the RDA of the various nutrients.
And for supplements to be effective, it has to be taken over a lifetime.
If you don’t eat enough or can’t eat enough of a variety of healthy foods, you don't receive all of the nutrients you need from your diet. Dietary supplements can provide the vitamins and minerals that you lack.
Remember supplements are exactly what they are…supplements. They don’t replace a healthy balanced diet.
How vitamins affect our immune system
Vitamin A and immune cells
Remember your skin is the first line of defense. Vitamin A protects the skin and mucous membranes. Healthy skin and mucous membranes do not permit passage of bacteria and viruses. Lack of vitamin A causes the membranes of the lysosomes (tiny organelles in the cells) to burst. When the cells die, they leave holes in the mucous membranes and skin and thus make it easy for germs and the likes to enter.
Vitamin A and its precursor beta carotene are also necessary for the coordination of the immune cells with each other. Without this vitamin, the immune cells weaken and remain inert amongst the half-dead bacteria and viruses, instead of disposing them.
Vitamin E and immune cells
Have you noticed the brown spots of pigments on the skin of older people? These are signs of vitamin E deficiency. Vitamin E deficiency causes the cellular residues and fragments to gradually accumulate forming those brown spots.
Exposure to free radicals, both from external and internal sources, is especially dangerous to very delicate membranes, such as the cell membranes of red blood cells. To prevent our cells from damage from these free radicals, antioxidants are required. Vitamin A, C and E are the widely known antioxidants. There are more powerful antioxidants found in grape seed extract and pine bark.
Without vitamin E the blood cells engaged in oxygen transport clump together and colonization by infectious organisms occurs easily.
Relying on RDA’s or trying to attack the free radicals with one vitamin at a time, is not the best approach to dealing with oxidative stress. Understanding cellular nutrition is the better way to go.
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Vitamin C and immune cells
Vitamin C is necessary for the orderly functioning of granulocytes in their attacks upon bacteria. When there is an infection, the immune cells deplete the vitamin C quickly.
For this reason, how fast the immune system can react to invading viruses, etc. is directly dependent upon the immediately available supply of vitamin C.
The cortex of the adrenal gland stores a buffer of vitamin C. When cortisol is released during stress, it will at once be countered by the release of stored vitamin C. However chronic stress can completely drain even the stored vitamin C.
Vitamin C, selenium and Vitamin E
Vitamin C and trace element selenium work together with vitamin E to protect cell membranes. Vitamin C is water soluble while vitamin E is oil so that neither can substitute for the other.
Selenium binds the toxic substances into harmless complexes by reacting with them.
Vitamin B6 and immune cells
Vitamin B6 is known as the protector of the building blocks of proteins
The building blocks of proteins, vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) is essential almost everywhere – for the immune system as well. B6 cannot be stored and is lost in the urine within a few hours of consumption.
Trace Elements and minerals
Minerals and trace elements are vital nutrients that our body needs. Without them our immune system starts to fail, and we may develop disease as we slowly begin to degenerate.
A deficiency of iron, copper, zinc, or selenium can cause immunological disturbances.
More than 70 enzymes of the body require zinc for their functioning. Zinc deficiency causes number of immune cells and antibodies in the body to decline. As a consequence, the healing of injuries eg broken bones is slowed.
Other infor on vitamins and supplements:
- The case for vitamin & supplements
- RDA of vitamin and antioxidant
- Free radicals and the oxygen paradox
Immune Stimulants
People have known about many herbal preparations (and folk medicine) and their effects on the immune system for centuries.
Also known as immune modulators, they help improve the performance of the immune system. They are mostly plant or herbal extracts.
For example, Echinacea (Coneflower), Arnica and Baptisia (wild indigo) are known to multiply phage cells; Aloe, Thuja (yew) for better coordination of cells; Garlic for improved assembly of enzymes used by the immune system; mint oil for improved antibody production in the mucous membranes after inhalation.
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Be a smart consumer when shopping for food
Do you realize that all animals raised for meat in mass-production receive antibiotics? However unlike humans, they are given antibiotics to protect them from infections (before they fall ill), to increase their rate of weight gain and to save money on feed.
Not all of the antibiotics taken are excreted; the rest remains in the meat, eggs or milk.
There is supposed to be a waiting time before slaughter or before sale of milk and eggs, but in the interest of maximizing profits, I doubt if this is
practiced. Such animal feed antibiotics are apparently responsible for the increased resistance of many kinds of bacteria.
Unfortunately it is fundamentally impossible to avoid antibiotic residues. So what can or should you do? Limit your consumption of meat especially the neck and hindquarters, where sedatives, hormones, beta blockers and the like are injected into the animal. You should buy leaner cut of meat or eat “free-range” meat as the pesticides and antibodies accumulate in the fatty tissues.
I know some people love to eat kidney and liver, a good source of iron. But do you realize you are eating highly concentrated toxins as the liver is a detoxing organ that acts like a trap or filter? There are other good sources of iron.
Irradiated food
Irradiation is used to kill harmful bacteria in some produce such as tomatoes and meat.
Radioactive isotopes such as cobalt-60 or cesium-137 are used and in the process produces the cell poison hydrogen peroxide, splits off highly reactive free radicals, whose effects in foods or in the human body are completely unknown.
Consumer groups want irradiated produce and meats to be labeled as such, so people can avoid them if they want to.
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Preserved meats
Preservatives are another danger that is very bad for the immune system. Nitrates added to meat can be converted into carcinogenic nitrosamines easily through heat, so be sure you don’t B-B-Q any meats that contain nitrites! The tasty dark crust can contain carcinogenic chemicals especially if the meat has been preserved.
Sugar
Sugar as most of us know affects our insulin secretion and is the culprit for diabetes and putting on weight.
But do you know that it also :
- weakens our immune system by affecting the T cells, which protect us against viruses.
- temporarily impairs the B cells, which produce antibodies.
- impairs white blood cells called phagocytes, which protect us from bacteria.
- can lead to vitamin and mineral deficiencies and osteoporosis because it creates an acidic environment. The pH in our tissues decrease and if we do not have adequate calcium in our diets, our body takes it from the bone to balance our pH, and we may develop osteoporosis.
In short....
It thus makes common sense that it is much easier to maintain our health than to try to regain it after it has been lost. We should practice preventive medicine but in reality the majority of our preventive medicine programs simply attempt to detect disease earlier.
Taking nutritional supplements is not about eradicating disease; it is about promoting vibrant health.
These will strengthen not only your immune system but the trillions of cells that make you who you are.
Lastly, enjoy yourself and laugh for laughter is the best medicine. It
was found that laughter increases cytokine gamma interferon, a booster for
immune system, significantly
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