After having shared about the importance of maintaining a strong immune system for over a decade, it’s interesting to see the mainstream medical field giving some attention to the importance of this finally. Many of us already know that it’s not the germ, virus, or bacteria that determines what happens to us but the status of our immune system.
The immune system this is our absolute best line of defense against anything that could pose a threat to our health and longevity. Supporting a strong, healthy immune system is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and your family.
Have you ever wondered why two people can catch the same thing but yet handle it completely differently?
This goes back to the immune system.
Do you remember learning about Louis Pasteur in science class? He started the pasteurization process (see his name in that word?) because his initial scientific findings determined the microbes in unpasteurized foods/milk to be problematic. Later on in life, he learned that microbes aren’t necessarily the problem. The problem is the terrain. If the terrain is friendly to invasion of pathogenic (problematic) bacteria, fungi, etc., then the microbes can be a problem. But in the presence of a healthy terrain, most harmful microbes will be inhibited and/or overruled by the beneficial microbes in the terrain.
So when we strengthen our immune system, we promote body systems that can easily handle incoming threats.
The human body contains more microbes than cells. Without these various microbes, we would die. The problem with the terrain starts when the balance of microbes is more bad than good. We will talk about that a little more in a bit.
At least 70% of our immune system is in our gut and how things like diet and stress affect our immune health.
The holistic approach addresses the body as a whole, supporting the body’s natural processes. Many conventional approaches, such as lowering a fever with fever reducers, turn off the body’s processes which gets visible results temporarily but can worsen the problem in the long run.
Look at fevers for instance. A fever of 102*F or higher stimulates a healing white blood cell cascade. When the fever is lowered, the healing white blood cell cascade is inhibited, thereby extending the illness. (Click here to read more about Fevers; What Parents Need to Know About God’s Natural Design)
There has been a wealth of research, even in some mainstream outlets, on very specific nutrients and other natural things that are proven through research to be very crucial in protecting our health and strengthening our immune system. So after having gone through all of that research, I wanted to simplify it all into an easy daily health protocol that my family is doing. There are some restrictions that confine me to limiting what I can say and not listing in-depth the specific supplements in each of these categories that my family is utilizing, so please feel free to contact me for more information.
Here it is:
Optimizing & Supporting Vitamin D levels
There is a lot of research showing that optimizing vitamin D levels is essential for a strong immune system and for preventing respiratory infections.
One of the main functions of vitamin D is to help activate T cells, aka the "killer cells" in the body. T cells actually detect and destroy foreign pathogens -- like viruses. That makes vitamin D especially crucial for maintaining a functioning immune system that's capable of fighting back foreign pathogens.
Experts predict that about 1 billion people worldwide have low levels of vitamin D or a deficiency making it one of the most common vitamin deficiencies. Even those who think they get enough from the sun are almost always low because this process requires conversion on behalf of the liver, and most people’s livers are so overwhelmed that it is unable to successfully make this conversion.
A large-scale meta-analysis using more than 10,000 participants concludes that vitamin D supplementation may help to prevent a major cause of global death – acute respiratory tract infections.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/315886
Optimize Vitamin D levels by testing and adjusting dosage accordingly. While this is the best time of year to test Vitamin D level, especially for those in northern climates, it's obviously not the best time to go into a clinical or hospital for non-essential lab testing. You can test your Vitamin D from home using this test kit: https://www.healthyfamiliesforgod.com/home-lab-tests/vitamin-d-25-oh-total-blood
Ideal Vitamin D levels should be around 60 ng/ml. Most people are around 20-30 without supplementation. While dosage needs to be individualized for each person, most adults generally should take 5,000 iu's daily at this time and most children around 2,000 iu's.
Orthomolecular Dosing of Vitamin C
Research demonstrates that doses of at least 2,000 mg of Ascorbic acid daily for maintenance is key (I personally take 6-8,000 mg a day), and then having more Vitamin C on hand that can be high-dosed in the event of an illness is essential.
Click here to read more on how ascorbic acid is being used to lower mortality and expedite healing.
Zinc
There is a wealth of research on the link between zinc and immune health. Zinc is a powerhouse mineral for the immune system! Many research studies demonstrate that short periods of zinc supplementation substantially improve immune defense. Immune integrity is tightly linked to zinc status.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10801951
Probiotics
Gut support is essential for a healthy immune system! Humans have more bacterial cells—a lot more—than human cells. Bacteria live on the skin, in the nose and ears, and, most of all, in the gut.
Until recently, if most people thought about those bacteria at all, we tended to think of them as fairly separate from us. They help with digestion, but otherwise they stay on their side of the intestinal lining, and we stay on our side. But, in fact, there is a lot of interaction between the body’s immune system and bacteria in the gut.
“A huge proportion of your immune system is actually in your GI tract,” says Dan Peterson, assistant professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
As one example of this connection: certain cells in the lining of the gut spend their lives excreting massive quantities of antibodies into the gut.
A healthy gut that will in turn promote a strong immune system should be made up of around 85% beneficial bacteria and 15% pathogenic bacteria. Pathogenic (bad) bacteria is necessary to continuously prime our immune system. There has to be enough beneficial bacteria to overcome the pathogenic bacteria though. When this ratio is flipped, for instance from antibiotics or other things that damage beneficial flora, the pathogenic bacteria is left unchecked and can take over, thereby weakening the immune system drastically.
Taking probiotics every day is a fabulous way to promote a healthy amount of beneficial flora. Unfortunately, Consumer Reports found that most probiotics purchased in stores and online contain little to none of the viable bacteria strains stated on the label, so it’s important that we spend our money on probiotics that we know are tested and stored for viability. It is crucial that you spend your money on a good, viable probiotic.
Melatonin
Keep in mind that studies have demonstrated that melatonin can help heal the gut, and since most of our immune system is in our gut, there are likely multiple ways melatonin helps in this regard as well. (REF: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198018/?fbclid=IwAR0D3fQ26G4kN31lKu5mh7Tvmub65_0h1aMkPggNlNaqCbT3BEr8b2G4DXw )
Antioxidants
The problems from viruses come as a result of the oxidative stress induced by the viral attack. Oxidative stress induced by viruses not only interferes with the body's important metabolic processes, but also regulates replication of the virus. Antioxidants combat the oxidative stress, thereby minimizing the effects and symptoms of the virus.
Clinical trials have found that antioxidant supplementation can significantly improve certain immune responses. Supplementation with the antioxidant vitamins also protected immune responses in individuals exposed to certain environmental sources of free radicals.
My family consumes a powerful liquid antioxidant supplement which has a wealth of research for immune support and health support in many other areas as well.
Plant Extracts
There are many other powerful plant products my family uses daily and have seen amazing results with in times of both preventative and acute health situations. We have stocked up majorly on these things and are utilizing them daily. I’m limited to what I can say about them here but please feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel for some videos coming out about them!
Keep in mind that our emotions and diet play a HUGE role in our immune health! Click here to watch the recording of my class on Stress—how it affects our health and how to protect against those effects.
Click here for a list of many of my preferred supplements.
Feel free to contact me for more information on which specific supplements/nutritionals I use.
Stay healthy,
Sara Jo Poff
Natural Health Practitioner