HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

We have al­ways heard the phrase from our el­ders that “Our health is in our hands” and it holds true, now more than ever. But does it come down to “How strong is our im­mu­ni­ty?” When we talk of im­mu­ni­ty, we gen­er­al­ly talk of cer­tain foods or drinks that can “boost” our im­mu­ni­ty, reg­u­lar ex­er­cis­es or eat­ing a healthy di­et that in­cludes foods high in an­tiox­i­dants, vi­t­a­mins and min­er­als. HEALTH PLUS de­cid­ed to take a deep dive in­to this dis­cus­sion, ex­plor­ing the truths and myths about OUR IM­MU­NI­TY.

Our im­mune sys­tem does a re­mark­able job at fight­ing off mi­croor­gan­isms to pro­tect us against dis­ease. Vary­ing fac­tors are at play, such as co-mor­bidi­ties, age, healthy be­hav­iours et cetera de­ter­mine how re­silient this de­fense sys­tem will be. Nat­u­ral­ly, when a glob­al health pan­dem­ic strikes, we are bound to feel more con­cerned than usu­al about stay­ing strong and healthy. Un­til a vac­cine is avail­able, “our im­mune sys­tems will need to adapt to COVID-19”, says a Har­vard Health Ex­pert.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caus­es COVID-19 is a nov­el pathogen, mean­ing those who con­tract it have no ex­ist­ing an­ti­bod­ies to mount a de­fence. For that rea­son, it re­mains im­per­a­tive to con­tin­ue prac­tic­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing, good hand and mask hy­giene and cough eti­quette.

To func­tion well, it re­quires bal­ance and sus­tain­ing, not boost­ing.

Dr Suzanne Cas­sel, an im­mu­nol­o­gist at Cedars-Sinai, a lead­ing health­care or­gan­i­sa­tion, known for pi­o­neer­ing re­search achieve­ments, says “The con­cept of boost­ing your im­mune sys­tem is in­ac­cu­rate. There is still much that re­searchers do not un­der­stand about the in­tri­ca­cies and in­ter­con­nect­ed­ness of the im­mune re­sponse to SARS-CoV-2 virus.” “You ac­tu­al­ly don't want your im­mune sys­tem to be boost­ed, you want it to be bal­anced," Dr Cas­sel says. "Too much of an im­mune re­sponse is just as bad as too lit­tle re­sponse."

Har­vard Health Ex­pert shared, “the con­cept of boost­ing im­mu­ni­ty ac­tu­al­ly makes lit­tle sense sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly. In fact, boost­ing the num­ber of cells in your body, im­mune cells or oth­ers, is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a good thing.”

Har­vard Health con­tin­ues, “The on­go­ing re­search ex­plor­ing the ef­fects of SARS-CoV-2 virus on the im­mune re­sponse is ex­ten­sive. But for now, we rec­om­mend, gen­er­al healthy-liv­ing strate­gies as a good way to start giv­ing your im­mune sys­tem the up­per hand with BAL­ANCE be­ing key and ‘sus­tain­ing’ or ‘sup­port­ing’ be­ing a more ac­cu­rate way of putting it.”

What can you do to SUS­TAIN your im­mune sys­tem?

Healthy liv­ing strate­gies are al­ways rec­om­mend­ed as your first line of de­fence in giv­ing your im­mune sys­tem the up­per hand in the fight against in­vad­ing germs. Every part of your body, not just your im­mune sys­tem, func­tions bet­ter when it is bol­stered by healthy liv­ing strate­gies such as these tried and true ba­sics:

1. Take steps to re­duce your risk of ex­po­sure and spread of COVID-19

- phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing, hand and mask hy­giene, re­duce so­cial­iza­tion

2. Eat Healthy.

Give your­self re­al food.

The idea of “eat­ing the rain­bow” that many chil­dren learn about in school is a good rule at any age. Con­sum­ing a wide va­ri­ety of fruits and veg­eta­bles should pro­vide enough zinc, vi­t­a­min D and oth­er im­por­tant min­er­als and vi­t­a­mins to sup­port a healthy im­mune sys­tem. Sup­ple­ments may be help­ful if your doc­tor tells you your lev­els are low. Min­imise con­sump­tion of red and processed meats. Re­strict sat­u­rat­ed fats and sug­ars to 10% of to­tal calo­ries.

One habit to curb is eat­ing or drink­ing more than 100 grams (8 tb­sp) of sug­ar a day. That much sug­ar re­duces your white blood cells’ abil­i­ty to kill germs by 40%!

3. Keep phys­i­cal­ly ac­tive.

Reg­u­lar ex­er­cise pro­motes car­dio­vas­cu­lar health, low­ers blood pres­sure, helps con­trol body weight, and of­fers pro­tec­tion against dis­eases. Ex­er­cise al­so im­proves blood cir­cu­la­tion, al­low­ing im­mune sys­tem cells to move through the body more freely and do their job more ef­fec­tive­ly. Ex­er­cise dis­si­pates stress, keep­ing anx­i­eties in check. Try to get a min­i­mum of 15-30 min­utes of mod­er­ate ac­tiv­i­ty for five days/week. So, take a walk, run, or even tune in to one of the thou­sands of free on­line yo­ga, med­i­ta­tion or work­out videos. Dust off your weight bench and take the laun­dry off the tread­mill. You don't have to go to the gym every day; you just need to move your body dai­ly. If you can take the stairs up to work, do so, and do it again when you come back from lunch. Those small ac­tiv­i­ties add up.

4. Get ad­e­quate qual­i­ty sleep.

Stud­ies show that peo­ple who don’t get qual­i­ty sleep or enough sleep are more like­ly to get sick af­ter be­ing ex­posed to a virus. When we sleep, the body re­leas­es pro­teins called cy­tokines while sleep de­pri­va­tion de­creas­es their pro­duc­tion. What’s more, the pro­duc­tion of an­ti­bod­ies and im­mune cells is re­duced when you don’t get enough sleep. The op­ti­mal amount of sleep for most adults is be­tween sev­en and eight hours. How­ev­er, school-aged chil­dren and teenagers might need up to 10 hours of sleep. Let’s not un­der­es­ti­mate the ill-ef­fects of in­suf­fi­cient qual­i­ty shut­eye!

5. Min­imise Stress; Man­age the Fears

Train your mind to re­main calm de­spite the chaos. The un­known can be scary and can over­whelm us. Fear can in­flate neg­a­tive thoughts, which leads to un­healthy stress. On­go­ing stress re­leas­es hor­mones that get us ready for emer­gen­cies, but al­so se­vere­ly de­press­es our im­mune sys­tem. Com­bat this fear by act­ing on facts, not mis­in­for­ma­tion.

Prac­tice med­i­ta­tion or in­cul­cate a mind­ful­ness rit­u­al. Prac­tice dif­fer­ent breath­ing ex­er­cis­es, in­clud­ing di­aphrag­mat­ic breath­ing to in­crease lung ca­pac­i­ty.

En­gage in a fun filled ac­tiv­i­ty. Laugh­ter isn’t just a quick pick me up. Laugh­ter has the abil­i­ty to re­duce your stress lev­els and as a re­sult can po­ten­tial­ly help you fight off ill­ness.

Im­mune sys­tem, Nu­tri­tion and the El­der­ly

As we age, our im­mune re­sponse ca­pa­bil­i­ty be­comes re­duced. There ap­pears to be a con­nec­tion be­tween nu­tri­tion and im­mu­ni­ty in the el­der­ly. A form of mal­nu­tri­tion that is sur­pris­ing­ly com­mon is known as "mi­cronu­tri­ent mal­nu­tri­tion" for ex­am­ple, de­fi­cien­cies of zinc, se­le­ni­um, iron, cop­per, folic acid, and vi­t­a­mins A, B6, C, D and E — al­ter im­mune re­spons­es in an­i­mals. Mi­cronu­tri­ent mal­nu­tri­tion, in which a per­son is de­fi­cient in some es­sen­tial vi­t­a­mins and trace min­er­als that are ob­tained from or sup­ple­ment­ed by di­et, can hap­pen in the el­der­ly. Old­er peo­ple tend to eat less and of­ten have less va­ri­ety in their di­ets. One im­por­tant ques­tion is whether di­etary sup­ple­ments may help old­er peo­ple main­tain a health­i­er im­mune sys­tem. Old­er peo­ple should dis­cuss this ques­tion with their doc­tor.

So, what can you do? If you sus­pect your di­et is not pro­vid­ing you with all your mi­cronu­tri­ent needs, maybe, for in­stance, you don't like veg­eta­bles, have a dis­cus­sion with your health­care pro­fes­sion­al on the need for adding a dai­ly mul­ti­vi­t­a­min and min­er­al sup­ple­ment that may bring oth­er health ben­e­fits. How­ev­er, keep in mind, tak­ing mega dos­es of a sin­gle vi­t­a­min may not bring added ben­e­fits – more is not nec­es­sar­i­ly bet­ter!

Health is one of those things we tend to take for grant­ed un­til some­thing threat­ens it. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, there is no mag­ic pill or one food that’s guar­an­teed to boost your im­mune sys­tem and pro­tect you from get­ting sick. The best any of us can do to sur­vive this pan­dem­ic is to be mind­ful of dai­ly ac­tions, our hands and points of con­tact, take care of our­selves, our well-be­ing and give our im­mune sys­tem its best fight­ing chance of do­ing its op­ti­mized job. Our Health is in our Hands!