Maintaining a Robust Immune System
These key strategies can empower you to build a healthier immunity, ensuring your body is well-equipped to combat infections and maintain overall well-being. In the face of an ever-evolving world teeming with viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens, maintaining a robust immune system is crucial for safeguarding our health.
Understanding the Immune System: A Complex Network of Defense
Our immune system, a complex network of cells, tissues, and organs, serves as our body’s defense against invading pathogens and infections. Maintaining a healthy immune system is crucial for overall well-being and resilience. While there is no magic bullet or single supplement that can guarantee an impenetrable immune system, adopting a holistic approach that encompasses lifestyle choices, dietary habits, and stress management techniques can significantly enhance its effectiveness.
In this article, we’ll explore effective strategies for maintaining a healthy immune system, empowering you to take charge of your well-being and protect yourself from the onslaught of illnesses. We’ll delve into the science behind these strategies and provide practical tips for incorporating them into your daily routine.
By adopting these strategies, you can fortify your body’s natural defenses, reduce your susceptibility to illnesses, and promote overall health and vitality. Remember, a healthy immune system is the foundation of a resilient and thriving body.
Natural Methods To Enhance Immune Function
IMMUNE SENESCENCE
Immune senescence underlies common diseases of aging.
Most people view weakened immunity as a risk factor for cancer and infectious disease.
A lesser-known impact of an aged immune system is inflammation caused by over-active cytokines that damage the brain, lungs, arteries, and bone.
This dual impairment whereby protective immune components like naïve T-cells diminish while pro-inflammatory cytokines increase, is a hallmark of immune senescence.
Not only do we lose the ability to defend against cancers and infections, but underlying inflammation destroys our neurons, kidneys, and joint cartilage.
To reverse this decline, scientists for decades seeking to restore youthful immune function.
A landmark study in which the thymus gland of older people was regenerated after a one-year protocol using growth hormone, metformin, and DHEA. The participants were also given zinc and vitamin D3 supplements.
In this study, immune markers improved, and the biological age of the elderly subjects was reversed by 2.5 years. These kinds of medical advances made headline news worldwide. This immune-regenerative protocol using growth hormone, metformin, and DHEA is now moving into expanded clinical trials.
As we await the widespread availability of better immune-boosting therapies, people are seeking natural compounds that have been shown to enhance immune functions in peer-reviewed scientific studies. This article will educate readers about some of the approaches currently available that have been shown to help restore immune functionality.
PARTIAL REVERSAL OF IMMUNE SENESCENCE
*A study conducted by Dr. Greg Fahy in collaboration with researchers from Stanford University and UCLA consisted of individualized doses of:
1. Human growth hormone (hGH)
2. DHEA
3. Metformin
Study subjects were also provided with daily vitamin D3 and zinc.
Source: Reversal of epigenetic aging and immunosenescent trends in humans. Aging Cell. 2019 Dec;18(6):e13028
*As seen in Forbes, September 9, 2019.
Cocktail of Drugs Gives First Hope That ‘Biological Age’ Can Be Reversed
Scientists at Intervene Immune and Stanford Medical Center say they have proven that ‘epigenetic aging can be reversed in humans.’
They are optimistic that a person’s biological age can be reversed.”
Age markers reversed by 2.5 years!
Source: www.forbes.com/sites/robinseatonjefferson/2019/09/09/cocktail-of-drugs-gives-first-hope-that-biological-age-can-be-reversed
*As seen in Daily Mail, October 22, 2019.
“TURNING BACK TIME!
Aging is REVERSED in men using a cocktail of growth hormones and diabetes drugs in a study that saw test group shed 2.5 biological years.”
Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7435427/Aging-REVERSED-small-group-men-study-reveals.html
References
1. Bueno V, Sant’Anna OA, Lord JM. Aging and myeloid-derived suppressor cells: possible involvement in immunosenescence and age-related disease. Age (Dordr). 2014;36(6):9729.
2. Pera A, Campos C, Lopez N, et al. Immunosenescence: Implications for response to infection and vaccination in older people. Maturitas. 2015 Sep;82(1):50-5.
A Comprehensive Approach To Healthy Immunity
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article titled, “Who Are You Calling Elderly?”
The article described people over age 60 who are appalled at being branded “elderly” as it relates to their immunity.
These individuals go to great lengths to prevent degenerative disease by making the right dietary choices, exercising, and even competing in triathlons. They also do not outwardly appear “elderly.”
What they don’t realize is that despite healthy lifestyles, aging is often accompanied by marked declines in immune function.
An example of these immune deficits is the reactivation of the chickenpox virus that causes painful shingles outbreaks as people age past 45 years.
A more insidious impact of age-related immune impairment is a higher rate of cancer, severe influenza, and pneumonia.
In the elderly, vaccinations can fail because of the inability to generate a robust antibody response.
The realization of immune senescence has been brought to the forefront by the viral pandemic.
More serious complications and deaths occur in older persons compared to younger people with healthier immune function.
While antiviral treatments are being investigated, immune senescence remains a major impediment.
Most of you probably already take steps to help protect your immune function by supplementing with vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, melatonin, and DHEA.
Key Strategies to Maintain Healthier Immunity
Don’t Wait for Full-Blown Illness to Manifest
People often wait until they are very sick before seeking treatment for the flu or common cold virus. In some cases, treatment delay can be lethal.
You will find enormous benefits by taking aggressive action at the onset of the very first cold flu symptom.
Take strong proactive measures when you have mild symptoms the way some people do after they have suffered days of agonizing flu virus miseries.
The strategy is to not let the virus gain a foothold inside your cells.
While some people wait until full-blown viral symptoms manifest, the key point is that you should immediately address the very first symptom of a cold-flu viral infection like it is the most lethal agent you have ever encountered.
This article describes antiviral drugs that are effective when administered soon after the onset of cold/flu symptoms. This same strategy may hold for certain nutrients that must be initiated upon the very first symptom of a common flu or cold virus. The immediate-attack strategy may also be important before any virus infects too many cells.
While it would be convenient to credit the many supplements you may take, it seems more likely that any success in avoiding acute illness is a result of the aggressive protocol initiated as soon as you feel that a viral infection may be taking hold.
Published scientific studies substantiate the benefit of the components of the immune-boosting regimen but there have been no clinical trials to support the efficacy of the entire protocol.
One-Pill Protection Against Common Flu Viruses
If you contract the flu, you might want to initiate a drug called XOFLUZA®.
This new antiviral drug is approved to treat Influenza A and Influenza B with just a single pill that costs around $150.
Some preclinical studies show XOFLUZA® is effective against certain avian viral strains like H7N9 and H5N1.
XOFLUZA® functions via a different mechanism than Tamiflu®, which is important because some flu viruses have developed resistance to Tamiflu®.
XOFLUZA® is not effective against coronavirus.
Antiviral drugs like XOFLUZA® are effective against common flu virus strains, but only when they are initiated within 24-48 hours of the manifestation of symptoms.
Drugs, Nutrients and Hormones List
Here are the drugs, nutrients, and hormones you can take as soon as the first symptom of common cold or flu manifests:
• Cimetidine (Tagamet®) – 800 mg-1,200 mg each day. This drug is sold over the counter in pharmacies to combat heartburn. It has a beneficial side effect of boosting immune function by activating natural killer cells and reducing T-suppressor cells. This helps the immune system function more efficiently.
Cimetidine is sold over the counter, but it is wise to read the package insert in case this drug is contraindicated for you – for instance, if you have kidney problems.
For most people, cimetidine provides a powerful immune stimulation that is particularly effective against certain viruses. The brand name of cimetidine is Tagamet®, but the generic (cimetidine) costs less.
• High-allicin garlic extract – 6,000 mg-9,000 mg once or twice a day. This potent form of garlic will cause painful stomach-esophageal burning if you don’t eat food right afterward. The high intake of this kind of garlic will cause you to reek of a strong sulfur odor but saturating the body with this pungent garlic is the objective. Garlic has shown direct viral-killing effects in several published studies.
• DHEA – 50 mg-200 mg early in the day. Doses over 25 mg a day are much higher than normal, but DHEA has shown some benefits in boosting one’s ability to mount a stronger immune response and also protecting against over-active inflammatory cytokine responses that can occur when your immune system hyper-reacts to viral infections.
• Lactoferrin – 300 mg-1,200 mg a day. This natural constituent of mother’s milk ‘Lactoferrin‘ boosts natural killer cell activity and can prevent certain viruses from binding to cell membranes and entering the cell, where they replicate.
• Zinc acetate lozenges – one to two 18.5 mg lozenges every two waking hours. Please be aware that this is a very high dose of zinc and is considered toxic if taken over the long term. You should only do this for a few days. Zinc lozenges have shown a direct effect of inhibiting the ability of certain cold viruses to latch onto the cells in the back of your throat where they multiply and can descend into your lungs to potentially cause pneumonia.
• Melatonin – high dose of 10 mg-50 mg at bedtime. Melatonin induces a potent immune response and this high dose can facilitate the deep sleep one often needs to fend off an infection. This dose of melatonin may make you extremely tired, so please only take this before bedtime and do not operate any machinery or vehicles after ingestion.
• Aged garlic extract – 3,600 mg a day. There are unique immune-boosting compounds in aged garlic that work differently than those found in high-allicin garlic. So take both aged garlic extract and high-allicin garlic extract when you are concerned about viral infections.
• Whey protein concentrate – 2-4 scoops a day to provide a glutathione boost and can ramp up vital antibody responses.
Take the above doses when you develop any symptom that may signal the beginning of a flu or cold in addition to the supplements you use every day.
This daily program probably closely resembles what most of you do, such as taking over 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 to maintain optimal blood levels.
As you might expect, you should also take high-potency multivitamins, CoQ10, curcumin, and other plant extracts, along with several grams of vitamin C, and more.
Garlic’s Unsung Benefits With all the high-tech medical advances occurring, garlic would appear to be a relic of the past. Yet the scientific literature documents that garlic has powerful effects against certain viruses.
For instance, a study tested one capsule daily, for 4 months, of an allicin-containing garlic supplement on a group of 146 people. Half the group received the garlic while the other half got a placebo. The placebo group suffered 63% more common cold infections compared to the garlic group.
Even more significant, those in the garlic group who did catch a cold only suffered symptoms for an average of 1.5 days compared to 5 days for the placebo group. This placebo-controlled study corroborates the benefits mentioned by taking much higher doses of high-allicin garlic as soon as cold or flu symptoms present.
The conclusion of the doctors who conducted this garlic study was, “An allicin-containing supplement can prevent attack by the common cold virus.”
Considering the number of people afflicted with a common cold each year, you would think this would have been the lead news story of the day. Instead, this study has remained buried in a scientific journal while the medical establishment still says, “There is no cure for the common cold.”
Ribavirin is a prescription drug that has broad-spectrum antiviral effects. Yet a Chinese study showed that at least in the test tube, garlic is more effective than ribavirin in inhibiting viruses that attack the intestinal tract. In this study, garlic was shown to be superior.
Aged Garlic Extract
Garlic contains compounds that enhance the beneficial proliferation of immune T-cells and the function of natural killer (NK) cells.
Aged garlic extract contains little allicin, which is one of the reasons it is sold as “odorless”. An impressive volume of data supports the antiviral and immune-enhancing properties of aged garlic extract.
A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled intervention study recruited 120 healthy subjects (60 per group) to determine the effect of 2,560 mg a day of aged garlic extract supplementation on immune cell proliferation and cold and flu symptoms.
In individuals who consumed an encapsulated aged garlic extract, T-cells and NK-cells showed more robust proliferation, compared to individuals who received a placebo.
After 90 days of supplementation, illness diary entries showed that the incidence of colds and flu, a secondary outcome, was not statistically different. However, the group consuming the aged garlic extract was reported to have:
• Reduced severity as noted by a reduction in the number of symptoms reported (21% fewer).
• A reduction in the number of days (by 61%) and incidences (by 58%) on which the subjects functioned sub-optimally.
• A reduction in the number of work/school days missed due to illness (by 58%).
The researchers who conducted this study concluded that the results “suggest that supplementation of the diet with aged garlic extract may enhance immune cell function and that this may be responsible, in part, for reduced severity of colds and flu”.
For several years, manufacturers of garlic supplements debated as to which form (high-allicin or aged garlic) was most effective.
I have concluded, after reviewing the studies on the immune properties of garlic, that each form has unique antiviral and/or immune-enhancing properties, which is why you should supplement with both forms when cold or flu symptoms manifest. Low-cost garlic may be an effective weapon against certain viruses.
Cimetidine Boosts Immune Function
Tagamet® is the brand name of what used to be the most popular drug to treat heartburn. You’ve likely seen hundreds of commercials on TV for Tagamet®.
Now that it is off-patent, we refer to Tagamet® by its generic name “cimetidine.”
A little-known side effect of cimetidine is that it inhibits the over-production of T-suppressor cells. In doing so, it boosts immune function by preventing the immune system from prematurely turning itself down.
Cimetidine has shown other immune-modulating effects such as increasing natural killer cell activity and boosting levels of natural immune stimulants interleukin-2 and gamma interferon. Human studies demonstrate cimetidine’s efficacy against herpes and viral warts.
Cimetidine is safe for most people to take on a limited basis. Typical antiviral doses of 800-1,000 mg at night (or 200 mg three times a day and then 400 mg at night) appear to be an effective way to temporarily turn up the immune system.
Cimetidine in 200 mg tablets can be purchased over the counter at pharmacies. The directions in the over-the-counter package insert say that up to 400 mg a day is safe, but some published studies where cimetidine is used as an antiviral agent have used over 1,000 mg a day.
Mother’s Milk
It is well known that infants obtain protection against certain infections from components contained in the mother’s milk. One such component is lactoferrin, which has documented immune-potentiating effects.
Lactoferrin may stimulate macrophages, which in turn may help to induce cell-mediated immunity. Although many of the studies are on animals, lactoferrin is naturally present in many mucous membrane secretions in humans, suggesting an inborn human anti-microbial function.
One study showed that lactoferrin inhibits viral infection by interfering with the ability of certain viruses to bind to cell receptor sites.
This is of unique importance because many viral infections are contracted in the mucous membranes of our nasal passages and then move into our throats and lungs where they infect cells and initiate rapid proliferation.
Immune-Boosting Hormones
Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and its metabolites have demonstrated immune-enhancing and anti-viral effects.
The administration of 50 mg a day of DHEA to nine elderly men who had baseline DHEA levels well below those of young adults resulted in the following immune enhancements compared to placebo:
• Increase of 29% in the number of B immune cells
• Increase of 62% in B-cell activity
• Increase of 40% in T-cell activity
• Increase of 50% in interleukin 2
• Increase of 22% to 37% in natural killer cell number
• Increase of 45% in natural killer cell activity
One reason that influenza can be lethal to aging people is that their immune systems are weakened. A deficiency in DHEA may be partially responsible for the age-related decline in immune function.
One study showed that a metabolite of DHEA augmented the activation of T-helper cells and protected mice from a lethal influenza viral infection.
Immune Support Products
Garlique Garlic Extract Supplement, Healthy Cholesterol Formula, Odorless & Vegan-Friendly, 60 Caplets
Garlique Garlic Extract Supplement, Healthy Blood Pressure Formula, Odorless & Vegan, 60 Caplets
Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey Protein Powder, Vanilla Ice Cream, 2 Pound (Packaging May Vary)
Qunol CoQ10 100mg Softgels, Qunol Ultra CoQ10 100mg, 3x Better Absorption, Antioxidant for Heart Health & Energy Production, Coenzyme Q10 Vitamins and Supplements, 4 Month Supply, 120 Count
Natrol Mood & Stress DHEA 50mg with Calcium, Dietary Supplement for Balance of Certain Hormone Levels and Mood Support, 60 Tablets, 60 Day Supply
Nature Made Extra Strength Vitamin D3 5000 IU (125 mcg), Vitamin D Supplement for Bone, Teeth, Muscle, Immune Health Support, 70 Sugar-Free Fast Dissolve Tablets, 70 Day Supply
Emergen-C Immune+ Triple Action Immune Support Powder, BetaVia (R), 1000mg Vitamin C, B Vitamins, Vitamin D and Antioxidants, Super Orange – 30 Count
Emergen-C 1000mg Vitamin C Powder for Daily Immune Support Caffeine Free Vitamin C Supplements with Zinc and Manganese, B Vitamins and Electrolytes, Super Orange Flavor – 60 Count/2 Month Supply
Nature’s Bounty Zinc 50mg, Immune Support & Antioxidant Supplement, Promotes Skin Health 250 Caplets
NOW Supplements, Quercetin with Bromelain, Balanced Immune System*, 120 Veg Capsules
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