05 Apr Supporting Immune System Naturally {Episode 225}
**We’ve rebranded to Nuvitru Wellness** Let’s talk about supporting immune system naturally. In a time like this, taking care of your health is the utmost important thing. Providing your body with what it needs to function optimally, especially under potential stress by an illness. Or let’s be honest, many people are really stressed out right now with the economy, COVID and their family and friends, life in general.
It might be piling up more than you’d like. Well, let’s stick to the basics. Let’s start with the nutrients. Ready for supporting your immune system naturally?
Nutrients For Immune System
Zinc For Immune System
Our innate immune system is composed of the immediate response to a pathogen. The adaptive immune system is a little slower, but makes the body create a specific response to the pathogen. Our adaptive immune system is what has that “memory” of being previously exposed to viruses. Zinc plays a big role in regulating and secreting white blood cells. Without zinc, we aren’t able to produce cells and radicals to kill pathogens. Deficiency in zinc suppresses the immune system. Zinc also inhibits viral penetration into the host cell.
Seafood and grass-fed beef are the best sources because a lot of zinc is bound up in plant sources.
Vitamin C For Immune System
Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant that helps protect our body from free radical damage that can come from illness. Creating free radicals, like superoxide radicals, is a very normal part of when we’re killing pathogens, but vitamin C helps protect our personal cells from this damage, so only pathogens are affected. Vitamin C also helps stimulate white blood cells to fight infection. Vitamin C can modulate pro-inflammatory cytokine production.
Liposomal vitamin C supplementation is ideal for better absorption and sticking with peppers, oranges, berries, broccoli, kiwi, and tomatoes are some great food options!
Vitamin D For Immune System
Vitamin D helps the innate and the adaptive immune system respond to infection. Immune cells have vitamin D receptors on them to help modulate the immune response. Having a deficiency in vitamin D increases risk of autoimmune conditions because we don’t have this vital part of modulating our immune response.
Getting sunlight can help increase vitamin D levels, but most people tend to need a supplement and dosing is always individualized. Sublingual vitamin D paired with K2 is my favorite!
Vitamin A For Immune System
Vitamin A plays a role in keeping a healthy epithelial (skin, mucous membrane) linings, which is usually the first defense against pathogens. Vitamin A also regulates T cells. T cells are what goes around in the body and finds the pathogens and destroys them.
Meats and eggs are the best sources for vitamin A! While certain vegetables, like carrots and sweet potatoes, are talked about their beta-carotene levels being a source of vitamin A, but the percentage is really small for what is actually converted.
Healthy Fatty Acids For Immune System
In phase 2 of cleaning up pathogens that have been attacked by neutrophils (an immune cell), having good amounts of fatty acids is important. Fatty acids help monocytes (another immune cell) that is the janitor that will help resolve the inflammatory process.
Omega-3 fatty acids are great, as a typical American doesn’t get enough of these compared to other omegas, like omega-6. Wild caught seafood and algae are some of the best sources and there are other healthy fats that can be found in flaxseed, avocado, olive oil, nuts, etc.
Probiotics For Immune System
80% of our immune system is in our gut. Having a healthy microbiome (which consists of bacteria, yeast, and other microscopic organisms) is important for the proper immune response.
Overall, almost every nutrient plays a role in the immune system and making it work correctly. These are just some of the most common ones that you’d want to make sure your levels are at a good place and if not repletion is important! This is why focusing on a whole foods diet – “Can you kill it or grow it?” is important to get that array of nutrients. Reducing the amount of foods that make your immune system sluggish, like processed foods, sugars, refined carbohydrates, etc.
When you eat sugar, it can compete with vitamin C as it uses the same cellular receptor, so STOP making competition and allow your body to be flooded with the goods!
Herbs For Immune System
There are certain herbs that can help support the immune system, like elderberry, echinacea, medicinal mushrooms, like reishi! Some of these herbs are not recommended if you struggle with autoimmune conditions and it’s ideal to work with a practitioner to figure out which ones work for you!
Supplementing with nutrients and focusing on nutrient-dense foods is where everyone can start though!
Herbs are a little more complex, so I want to go through them one by one in depth, but you get the idea of the ones I listed. Those are probably the most common ones to be recommended when you have an onset of something. Elderberry and echinacea should not be taken all the time – just for onset of illness.
Don’t forget that you can find allll the supplements I recommend over on our virtual dispensary Fullscript, which you can get better pricing than Amazon (yaaaass Queen!) and get access to practitioner-grade supplements you can’t find anywhere else. 😉
Other notes that should be addressed with trying to support your immune system is to get enough sun and fresh air and reducing your stress. The more you stress, the more your body will use up that vitamin C because your adrenals (which makes your stress hormones) use a ton of vitamin C! The higher the demand, the quicker you are to become deficient.
Supporting the immune system naturally is one of the best things you could be doing right now! Giving your body what it needs is VITAL and important!
If you want to take a more personalized approach to your health, BOOK YO FREE CALL! We aren’t about pressuring you into something you aren’t ready for, but we do want you to understand that no matter where you’re stuck with hormones, weight loss, gut health. If you haven’t worked with us, you haven’t tried “everything”! We would love to help you with supporting immune system naturally!
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