Immunity – What’s in your medicine cabinet?

What’s in your medicine cabinet?

Whether it be the flu virus, the common cold or a bacterial infection, our bodies have an amazing ability to fight off infection. However, there are also tools we can utilize to promote our immune system’s ability to heal. Today, we are going to walk through some go-to supplements that can promote our body’s natural healing capacity.

Vitamin D

We’ve talked about it before, Vitamin D. Vitamin D is one of the most important elements utilized by our immune systems. However, in the winter, particularly anywhere where the winters are cold, we tend to not spend much time outside, and therefore tend to have significant Vitamin D deficiencies. This can then leave our bodies at a disadvantage for fighting off infection. Therefore, one of the best things we can do for our immune systems in the winter is consistently take a Vitamin D supplement. Our immune system is like a balancing beam – it has the constant task of balancing between too much activity – something that would be characterized as an autoimmune condition, and not enough activity – where it would be consistently susceptible to infection. Vitamin D plays a key role in enabling our bodies to maintain a balance within our immune system.

When necessary, a great way to consume increased amounts of raw garlic when experiencing symptoms of a bacterial infection is to simply increase the quantity in food products that would already contain garlic. For example, foods like guacamole and spaghetti are great examples that can just have more garlic added in order to ramp up raw garlic consumption and utilize its antibacterial capacity.

Additionally, other supplements that are always helpful to have on hand, especially this time of year include zinc and NAC. Zinc promotes the capacity of nasal epithelial cells and can therefore decrease the length of a cold. NAC or N-Acetylcysteine is a mucolytic, meaning it helps the body to drain and clear out mucus within the body. This can also then decrease sinus pressure and enable the body to clear our infection more quickly.

All of these vitamins, minerals and supplements can be helpful tools to promote healing. These can be helpful to have on hand in order to ramp up our bodies’ to be able to fight off infection, whether it be the flu or a common cold.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is another classic example of a tool we can utilize to promote immune system function. Especially in situations where we may feel that we are coming down with something, increasing our vitamin C intake can be a game-changer for promoting our body’s ability to fight off infection.

Supplements Continued

Furthermore, when it comes to infection, it is important to distinguish whether the infection is derived from bacterial or viral origin. Vitamin D and Vitamin C can be helpful for our bodies to be able to fight off either type of infection. However, if we are dealing with a viral infection – this could be a flu virus or even the common cold – Elderberry or Quercetin has a great antiviral effect. Elderberry can inhibit a virus’ ability to actually ‘grab hold’ in our bodies and further prevent or minimize the onset of symptoms.

On the other hand, when it comes to bacterial infections, garlic, specifically raw garlic, has a component known as Allicin that is one of the most powerful, natural antibacterial substances known to man.