7 more ways to boost immune systems in older people....
Today's Post: Monday, 9-14-2009
Last Friday, 9-11-2009 we posted on the fact that as we get older, our immune systems tend to become less effective.
We listed two strategies to prevent that. We listed ways to slow aging; & we listed ways to boost your immune system.
Then I realized I forgot some things that would also be helpful to many people. I considered simply adding a comment to that article; but decided to do a new post, this one, and announce this post in the comment.
So, here’s this post with the additional 7 ways to boost your immune system.
Some of them boost your immune system; some help it have less to do by preventing the disease organisms from getting into your body; & one may both boost your immune system and, by itself, actually kill off disease organisms or prevent them from entry into your cells or prevent them from multiplying.
1. Probiotics. Probiotics are bacteria that normally live in your intestinal tract and which are not only not harmful but somewhat beneficial to your health. It’s been shown that people who take probiotics get an immune system boost. I’m not sure if they give your immune system regular exercise by keeping them from over-expanding or simply compete with or attack disease organisms directly. My personal guess is that they do both. Jarrow and other mainstream supplement companies sell probiotics supplements with the best known probiotic bacterial strains. (I’ve read of smaller effects from the bacteria you can get from eating yogurt with live cultures. But you get more probiotics and more kinds in the supplements. And, you can always do both. Just stay away from kinds of yogurt that have sugar or artificial sweeteners.)
2. If you aren’t allergic to it, use garlic. Both the deodorized garlic supplements from Kyolic and eating crushed or minced raw garlic in salads or savory foods works well. So does doing some of each. Garlic has many health benefits. It can help salad and entrée vegetables taste good, so you can get more of their health benefits and still enjoy your food. It tends to increase your HDL cholesterol, make your blood vessels more flexible and responsive, and may help prevent or reverse plaque build up on the inside of your blood vessels. And, it is both antibacterial and antiviral & may boost your immune system besides.
3. Vitamin A. Vitamin A helps keep your skin and mucous membranes healthy. That greatly assists your immune system at the point of entry for viruses and some bacteria in your mucous membranes in your nose, throat, and lungs.
The best and safest way to get vitamin A is to eat many kinds of vegetables that have carotenoids of many kinds. Orange and yellow vegetables and many dark green ones contain carotenoids. Carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and broccoli are such vegetables. In addition, you get more bioavailability of carotenoids in your food if you eat them with extra virgin olive oil, avocado, or unsalted nuts. Similarly you get more bioavailability of carotenoids in your food if you eat the vegetables containing them after they’ve been cooked. Fresh tomatoes have vitamin C and some other heart protecting nutrients. By contrast, tomato sauce made from cooked and pureed tomatoes eaten with extra virgin olive oil delivers far more of their main carotenoid, lycopene, than eating them fresh.
You can also take 30 mg a day of lycopene supplements and today most multivitamins contain 5,000 iu of beta carotene.
Lastly, you can take retinol, the oil soluble kind of vitamin A. It was discovered that taking over 10,000 iu a day of the retinol form, and for sure taking more than 25,000 iu a day for a long time can cause toxic build up of too much retinol. But in the flu season, or if you get a cold or flu, also taking 1,000 to 5,000 iu a day of the retinol form of vitamin A may make sense.
4. Mushrooms. There are many mushroom supplements that very likely do boost your immune system and some that help you regain your normal energy and vitality after you’ve been sick. The bad news is that they are all expensive. So, I was considerably interested to read that regular button mushrooms found in the produce department of most grocery stores may be 70 to 85 % as effective. You can simply wash and dice up some and add them to your salad a few times a week. They also are almost calorie free and have some valuable amino acids.
5. Handwashing is a great idea before you eat or prepare food. And, it’s a particularly good idea when you first get home after work or being out. Your immune system can be weak and it will do fine when no bacteria or viruses get to it in the first place.
It’s likely NOT a good idea to use anti-bacterial soaps. They often have chemicals as harmful to you and tend to produce bacteria resistant to them.
Meanwhile, plain soap and warm or hot water and simply washing your hands removes almost all the bacteria.
The best way to wash your hands, I found out from a chemist, is to use a liquid hand soap and put it on your hands dry and then thoroughly rub it all over them. Doing that picks up much more of the oils on your hands that the bacteria are in than it would if you had added water. Then wash with water until all the soap is washed off. No need to time or sing to be sure you wash long enough, because when the germ loaded soap is all gone and rinsed off, so are the germs.
6. Similarly, one of the highest probability ways bacteria and viruses have of getting inside you is to be on your fingers when you touch the mucous membranes at the corners of your eyes or in your nose. So, try to always have clean toilet paper or tissues or clean handkerchief with you. Then when you feel the urge to touch those places, be sure the clean tissue paper or handkerchief is between your finger and your mucous membranes.
7. Go very easy on sugar when you eat it; don’t eat it often; don’t use other kinds of sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners or refined grains or foods that contain them and get regular exercise, including some vigorous exercise without overdoing it when you are well.
Eating sugar and blood sugar surges tend to directly turn down your immune system.
That’s one the main reasons why diabetics have trouble throwing off infections.
Sugar and related foods such as refined grains cause blood sugar surges. Artificial sweeteners are likely bad for you directly AND they cause sugar cravings that cause most people to wind up eating more sugar and related foods. Exercise, particularly regular and vigorous exercise helps burn blood sugar directly & helps your insulin control it normally instead of ineffectively.
In fact, there are enough ways to prevent or reduce blood sugar surges, our post tomorrow will be about them.
Today's Post: Monday, 9-14-2009
Last Friday, 9-11-2009 we posted on the fact that as we get older, our immune systems tend to become less effective.
We listed two strategies to prevent that. We listed ways to slow aging; & we listed ways to boost your immune system.
Then I realized I forgot some things that would also be helpful to many people. I considered simply adding a comment to that article; but decided to do a new post, this one, and announce this post in the comment.
So, here’s this post with the additional 7 ways to boost your immune system.
Some of them boost your immune system; some help it have less to do by preventing the disease organisms from getting into your body; & one may both boost your immune system and, by itself, actually kill off disease organisms or prevent them from entry into your cells or prevent them from multiplying.
1. Probiotics. Probiotics are bacteria that normally live in your intestinal tract and which are not only not harmful but somewhat beneficial to your health. It’s been shown that people who take probiotics get an immune system boost. I’m not sure if they give your immune system regular exercise by keeping them from over-expanding or simply compete with or attack disease organisms directly. My personal guess is that they do both. Jarrow and other mainstream supplement companies sell probiotics supplements with the best known probiotic bacterial strains. (I’ve read of smaller effects from the bacteria you can get from eating yogurt with live cultures. But you get more probiotics and more kinds in the supplements. And, you can always do both. Just stay away from kinds of yogurt that have sugar or artificial sweeteners.)
2. If you aren’t allergic to it, use garlic. Both the deodorized garlic supplements from Kyolic and eating crushed or minced raw garlic in salads or savory foods works well. So does doing some of each. Garlic has many health benefits. It can help salad and entrée vegetables taste good, so you can get more of their health benefits and still enjoy your food. It tends to increase your HDL cholesterol, make your blood vessels more flexible and responsive, and may help prevent or reverse plaque build up on the inside of your blood vessels. And, it is both antibacterial and antiviral & may boost your immune system besides.
3. Vitamin A. Vitamin A helps keep your skin and mucous membranes healthy. That greatly assists your immune system at the point of entry for viruses and some bacteria in your mucous membranes in your nose, throat, and lungs.
The best and safest way to get vitamin A is to eat many kinds of vegetables that have carotenoids of many kinds. Orange and yellow vegetables and many dark green ones contain carotenoids. Carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and broccoli are such vegetables. In addition, you get more bioavailability of carotenoids in your food if you eat them with extra virgin olive oil, avocado, or unsalted nuts. Similarly you get more bioavailability of carotenoids in your food if you eat the vegetables containing them after they’ve been cooked. Fresh tomatoes have vitamin C and some other heart protecting nutrients. By contrast, tomato sauce made from cooked and pureed tomatoes eaten with extra virgin olive oil delivers far more of their main carotenoid, lycopene, than eating them fresh.
You can also take 30 mg a day of lycopene supplements and today most multivitamins contain 5,000 iu of beta carotene.
Lastly, you can take retinol, the oil soluble kind of vitamin A. It was discovered that taking over 10,000 iu a day of the retinol form, and for sure taking more than 25,000 iu a day for a long time can cause toxic build up of too much retinol. But in the flu season, or if you get a cold or flu, also taking 1,000 to 5,000 iu a day of the retinol form of vitamin A may make sense.
4. Mushrooms. There are many mushroom supplements that very likely do boost your immune system and some that help you regain your normal energy and vitality after you’ve been sick. The bad news is that they are all expensive. So, I was considerably interested to read that regular button mushrooms found in the produce department of most grocery stores may be 70 to 85 % as effective. You can simply wash and dice up some and add them to your salad a few times a week. They also are almost calorie free and have some valuable amino acids.
5. Handwashing is a great idea before you eat or prepare food. And, it’s a particularly good idea when you first get home after work or being out. Your immune system can be weak and it will do fine when no bacteria or viruses get to it in the first place.
It’s likely NOT a good idea to use anti-bacterial soaps. They often have chemicals as harmful to you and tend to produce bacteria resistant to them.
Meanwhile, plain soap and warm or hot water and simply washing your hands removes almost all the bacteria.
The best way to wash your hands, I found out from a chemist, is to use a liquid hand soap and put it on your hands dry and then thoroughly rub it all over them. Doing that picks up much more of the oils on your hands that the bacteria are in than it would if you had added water. Then wash with water until all the soap is washed off. No need to time or sing to be sure you wash long enough, because when the germ loaded soap is all gone and rinsed off, so are the germs.
6. Similarly, one of the highest probability ways bacteria and viruses have of getting inside you is to be on your fingers when you touch the mucous membranes at the corners of your eyes or in your nose. So, try to always have clean toilet paper or tissues or clean handkerchief with you. Then when you feel the urge to touch those places, be sure the clean tissue paper or handkerchief is between your finger and your mucous membranes.
7. Go very easy on sugar when you eat it; don’t eat it often; don’t use other kinds of sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners or refined grains or foods that contain them and get regular exercise, including some vigorous exercise without overdoing it when you are well.
Eating sugar and blood sugar surges tend to directly turn down your immune system.
That’s one the main reasons why diabetics have trouble throwing off infections.
Sugar and related foods such as refined grains cause blood sugar surges. Artificial sweeteners are likely bad for you directly AND they cause sugar cravings that cause most people to wind up eating more sugar and related foods. Exercise, particularly regular and vigorous exercise helps burn blood sugar directly & helps your insulin control it normally instead of ineffectively.
In fact, there are enough ways to prevent or reduce blood sugar surges, our post tomorrow will be about them.
Labels: avoid getting the flu, boost your immune system, more ways to boost immune systems in older people, stay well
posted by David at 2:11 PM
1 Comments:
Two more ways to boost your immune system!
1. Laughter even if from watching comedies that make you laugh on DVD's boosts your immune system. It even works if you try to laugh and hash it up since you likely will laugh for real at how awful you intially sound.
And, it's a strong effect. Writer Norman Cousins cured himself of a disease his doctors could not by watching several hours of his favorite Groucho Marx comedies for several days in a row.
2. Having sex boosts your immune system too. Really. Although the health benefit is quite a bit more if your partner is free of STD's.
One of the reasons married couples have better health is that they get this effect more often by having sex more often than even most sexually active single people.
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