Top Immune System Boosters for Winter and Flu Season

As the winter flu and cold season begins, it's a great time to think about boosting your immune system.

The human immune system serves as an army of personal body guards for the body's health. The immune system protects the body against foreign invaders 24/7. Whenever your body senses the first presence of a cold or other illness, the immune system steps up its game.

Not all organisms that enter your body are "bad". A fully functioning immune system has a natural ability to tell the "good guys" from the "bad guys". Problems for individuals occur when their immune system fails to detect the "bad guys" or in the case of auto-immune problems sees "good guys" as "bad guys."

To keep your immune system in tip-top shape,you should look to natural boosters to keep this vital line of defense against illness functioning properly. .A well-functioning immune system easily identifies millions of "enemy" invaders and calls-up an effective plan to neutralize each invader.

Your skin and the cells that line the internal passages into your body are the first lines of your immune system defense.

This first line of defense is an outer shield that protects your body. If your immune system can stop the "bad invaders" at the outer line, it can stop illness before it starts. If an organism gets past the outer defense, the inner immune system, specialized cells, tissues, and organs, take over the fight

Some of the strongest elements of your inner immune system are white blood cells. Your bone marrow produces these white blood cells. Some of the earliest markers of immune system illness is an elevated white blood cell count, which signals that the immune system is working hard to combat an invader.

White blood cells move through your body to combat any invading viruses, bacteria, and other organism that get through the first lines of your immune systems defenses. When these white blood cells are not on duty, they assemble in several lymphatic-system organs (such as the lymph nodes, thymus, spleen,tonsils, etc,).

You have two different types of fighters in your white blood cells. Each group fights invaders in different ways. The first type are lymphocytes (T-cells and B-cells).T cells search for antigens and B cells make antibodies, a blood protein that either kills invading microbes or makes the invader harmless. The second type, phagocytes, do essentially the clean-up work, by surrounding the invading organisms and removing them.

You can think of your immune system as your internal emergency medical technicians (EMTs). If you were injured in a major car accident, you would dial 911 and the nearest EMT would come to your aid. While that is very comforting, how much better would it be to avoid the car accident all together. This saves you the hassle of needing EMTs and enables the EMTs to remain in place for another (more serious) problem. You preserve your personal EMTs, your immune system's fighting capability, by limiting the number of times you need to call them. Here are some of the best ways to boost your immune system:

• get all the recommended vaccinations (especially flu shots if you are over 50 or have an immune system deficiency)

• get the proper rest

• maintain a healthy lifestyle, with the right diet and physical activity

• maintain a healthy weight

• minimize extreme stress

• avoid refined sugar and overly processed foods (refined sugars contribute to an increase in ‘bad’ bacteria, which can weaken your immune system)
• watch out for sugar hidden in high-glycemic food
  

Eat foods that help boost your immune system (especially foods that help the intestine, one of the largest organs in your immune system). Good foods for top intestinal health include:

• Non-fat or low-fat yogurt, which contains probiotics, a bacteria that supports a healthy digestive tract

• Mushrooms, a rich source of pre-biotic fibers (essentially carbohydrates that will help your intestinal health since your body cannot digest the fibers completely.

• Bananas, garlic and onion, show some signs of improving intestinal health

• High-fiber fruits and vegetables (check out the Mayo Clinic's list of good high-fiber foods)

Vitamins and Minerals that Boost Your Immune System

Some of the best vitamins and food sources that help build up your immune system include:

• Vitamin A, promotes the production of white blood cells. Good food sources for vitamin A include. Pre-formed, animal-based, Vitamin A (also called retinol) is found in liver, whole milk and some fortified foods. Plant-based Vitamin is called provitamin A carotenoid.

• Carotenoids, especially beta-carotene, increases the number of infection-fighting cells, natural killer cells, and helper T-cells. Carrots contain a large amount of beta-carotene. Other sources include cantaloupes, sweet potatoes, and spinach.

• Vitamin B, especially Vitamin B6, helps your immune system function properly by promoting protein metabolism and cellular growth and maintains the health of lymphoid organs (thymus, spleen, and lymph nodes) that make your white blood cells. Good sources of Vitamin B include: Potatoes, Bananas, Garbanzo beans, chicken breast meat,

• Vitamin C, tops the list of immune boosters because it increases your body's production of infection-fighting white blood cells and antibodies and increases levels of interferon, the antibody that coats cell surfaces, preventing the entry of viruses. Food sources of Vitamin C include: oranges, strawberries, cantaloupes, guava, papaya.

• Vitamin E, enhances the production of B-cells. Food sources of Vitamin E include seeds, vegetable oils, and grains)

• Carotenoids, especially beta-carotene, increases the number of infection-fighting cells, natural killer cells, and helper T-cells. Carrots contain a large amount of beta-carotene.

• Zinc, increases the number of infection-fighting T-cells, especially in elderly people. Our immune systems often weakens with age. Good food sources of Zinc include: Zinc-fortified cereals, beef, turkey dark meat and beans.

• Selenium Best food sources of selenium are tuna, red snapper, lobster, shrimp, whole grains, vegetables

• Omega-3 fatty acids, boosters your immune system by increasing the activity of phagocytes, the white blood cells that eat up bacteria.

Best advice: follow the standard guidelines of eating 6 to 8 fruits and vegetables from the above lists to support a healthy immune system. By getting the adequate nutrients to your immune system, you boost the immune system's ability to fight illness.

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