3 more ways to fight colds & flu....

Today's Post: Thursday, 12-3-2009

Last Monday, 11-30, we posted on getting enough vitamin D3 & eating far less sugar and taking 200 mcg a day of selenium as each having preventive & protective effects that will help you avoid colds and flu or get milder & shorter versions. Taking 2,000 iu a day or more of vitamin D3 & eating far less sugar greatly strengthen your immune system; & the selenium either does that or has direct antiviral effects or both.

Here are 3 more ways to fight colds and flu.:

One of the health emails I get is from HSI in Baltimore. A week ago on Monday, 11-23-2009 they had

The more dangerous and slow to recover from colds and flu tend to impair your lung function.

This can lead to pneumonia or lung failure and death in addition to being slow to recover from if you survive.

We already posted that getting your pneumonia vaccine prevents the vast majority of bacterial pneumonia to prevent bacterial pneumonia from making this kind of cold or flu have lung complications from that source. You only need to get pneumonia vaccine every 10 years or a bit more & we strongly recommended it then & do now.

But there are also 3 ways to prevent the worst impact of colds and flu on your lungs and causing this kind of fluid build up -- two of which were in the HSI email.

1. HSI reported research from the University of Alabama shows that the H1N1 flu attacks the inner lining of your lungs with a protein called M2 which tends to prevent fluid removal from cells that line your lungs – AND that antioxidants from plant foods tend to prevent this and the damage it causes your lungs and your ability to breathe.

HSI had previously reported research showing that it was largely the carotenes and natural vitamin C that are the plant based antioxidants that largely do this job & protect lung function.

Carrots, yams, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, orange squash, many dark green greens, and broccoli have carotenes; and other research has found they have far more effective health benefits when eaten as food. There are multiple kinds of carotenes and by getting them together and with the vitamin C in those vegetables they seem to be MUCH more effective in boosting your immune system and other protective effects.

You also now get 5,000 iu a day of beta carotene in most multivitamins.

(Lastly, the animal form of vitamin A, retinol, also seems to work and keep your cells lining your lungs and other mucous membranes healthy. More than about 20,000 iu on a sustained basis is toxic if you keep taking it. But during cold & flu season, 5,000 or 10,000 iu a day may be beneficial.)

It also may help to take 2,000 mg a day or more of vitamin C as this has been found to have antibiotic effects.

2. HSI also reported that the research showing that vitamin C had this effect found that it was more effective even in people with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease when people also got enough magnesium.

(200 mg to 600 mg a day of magnesium also helps prevent or reverse high blood pressure, prevent migraines, and prevent constipation & has multiple other health benefits.)

3. This next way to prevent fluid build up from colds or flu is one that was not in the HSI email; but is one we posted on before. The other way to fight this kind of fluid build up is to thin it out which allows it to be coughed up or reabsorbed by your body.

Eating hot peppers or foods spiced with them or with red pepper does the job.
It does work -- since people who eat this way rarely get bronchitis from colds or flu.

Even better, you can feel it working. When you eat that kind of hot food, whether Mexican or Chinese, you break into a mild sweat, your eyes water, your nose tends to run, AND any build up of think mucous in your nose – or lungs – tends to thin out and have more water content so your body can get rid of it!

Two important notes:

1. In some Chinese cooking they include the hot peppers themselves in the dish.
But do NOT eat them! The effect is like eating fire. It hurts like hell and can even damage your esophagus.

The oils in the food and the tiny pieces that drop off the peppers make the dish plenty hot.

2. If you overdo it, eating a bit of bread or drinking something with alcohol such as wine will remove the heat. The oils that carry the heat dissolve in the alcohol and/or are absorbed by the bread.

Drinking water has almost no effect on reducing the heat if you overdo eating hot peppers or food spiced with them. It neither dissolves the oils or absorbs them.