What Vitamins Boost Immune System

The Five Top Vitamins To Boost Your Immune System

Here you can find the 4 vitamins that boost your immune system. Not only should you take them when youre sick, but also before getting ill. This way, your body will be strong and your defenses will avoid possible contagious diseases.

Also read: Vitamin Deficiencies and the Foods That Contain those Vitamins

How To Integrate Vitamins Into Your Daily Diet

While vitamin supplements may sound like an easy fix, the best way to ensure a sufficient intake of essential nutrients is to maintain a healthy and balanced diet. Your body tends to absorb and utilise vitamins better from food, while supplements can be of differing quality.

However, eating a balanced diet may not always be feasible, and its possible to still be deficient in a nutrient even if you eat a healthy diet. In this case, vitamin supplements can come in handy.

And while nutrition will definitely play an important role in building a strong immune system, if you want to maximise your chances of avoiding an infection, you may need to address other aspects of your lifestyle too.

Rather than thinking about boosting the immune system, it is better to think about keeping it healthy and balanced, says Jenny Tschiesche, nutritionist and consultant for Nutriburst . Ideally, this balance will be created through both nutrition and lifestyle interventions. Not only do you need to eat and drink well, but there are other important aspects of your health and wellbeing that need addressing for balance. Sleep well, digest well, reduce long term stress, stay connected to friends and eat mindfully.”

Nutrients For Stress Relief

Now lets talk about nutrients and other supplements for stress.As I always say, stress is a leading cause for like 99.9999% of illnesses and so it’s really important we manage our stress levels. There are many ways we can do this through various stress relief techniques. But what I really want to focus on is how to balance cortisol, the main hormone we produce when were stressed. Cortisol, when chronically over-produced during extended periods of stress, is a known factor for depleting the immune system.

So, I first want to talk about Adaptisol. Its formula has all these wonderful adaptogenic herbs and other compounds like cordyceps, astragalus and eleuthero. These help stress levels balance out and cortisol production regain homeostasis. When you’re going along and then boom you have a big stress event and lots of cortisol is produced, you need that ability to come back down to homeostasis, or that even keel, and adaptogens will help you do that.

This adaptogenic formula also helps to balance your T-cells and reduce inflammation so your immune system is not triggered unnecessarily. There are lots of other really nice immune-modulating herbs in there to help you handle your stress.

How have you been sleeping lately? I love sleep and I believe it is so crucial for stress recovery. Try grabbing an extra hour if you can or really try to get that minimum of 8 hours.

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How Can I Best Strengthen My Immune System

You can support your immune system by ensuring that you are getting the right nutrients, through both your diet and by taking supplements.

You can take a vitamin-specific supplement if there is one you feel that you are deficient in, or else, an all-round immune support supplement.

Starpowa Triple Immune Support Vitamin Summer Fruits Flavoured Gummies contains a special formula featuring vitamin C, vitamin D3 and zinc which all help to support the normal functioning of the immune system.

Improve Immunity With Herbs And Supplements

Walk into a store, and you will find bottles of pills and herbal preparations that claim to “support immunity” or otherwise boost the health of your immune system. Although some preparations have been found to alter some components of immune function, thus far there is no evidence that they actually bolster immunity to the point where you are better protected against infection and disease. Demonstrating whether an herb or any substance, for that matter can enhance immunity is, as yet, a highly complicated matter. Scientists don’t know, for example, whether an herb that seems to raise the levels of antibodies in the blood is actually doing anything beneficial for overall immunity.

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The 4 Best Vitamins To Boost Your Immune System

Written by

27 May, 2022

If you have been having the flu and other virus-related health problems, its possible your body needs vitamins to boost the immune system. Although the best way to up your vitamin intake is by having a healthy and balanced diet, sometimes our bodies need an extra boost.

On the other hand, the daily recommended values arent always possible every day or for every budget. To solve this, vitamins come in a variety of presentations that make it easier to reach those daily milestones.

In order to strengthen your defenses, you should be vigilant of reaching your daily intake for these five vitamins. If your diet isnt cutting it, then it might be time to search for vitamin supplements. Theyre relatively inexpensive and in the long term can save you a ton on medical bills! Keep reading to know what vitamins you should be taking to boost your immune system.

Here Are Some Myths And Facts About Immune

Myth: Vitamin C prevents illness.

Turning to large doses of vitamin C in the winter to avoid getting sick doesn’t work. However, vitamin C may shorten the duration of a cold once you’re already under the weather. Vitamin C is also an antioxidant, and those anti-inflammatory properties may reduce swollen sinuses.

Myth: Zinc boosts your immune system.

Much like vitamin C, there’s not enough evidence to support taking extra zinc to keep sickness at bay. Meeting daily zinc requirements is important for a healthy immune system, but exceeding these requirements can be toxic. In 2009, the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers to stay away from zinc nasal sprays after studies found they could damage the sense of smell.

Fact: Chicken soup is a cure-all.

The healing benefits of chicken soup are numerous, according to the National Institutes of Health. Not only is grandma’s home remedy heartwarming, but it also has properties that fight inflammation, promote hydration and get mucus flowing.

Myth: Dairy increases mucus production.

Some swear that milk and other dairy products make a phlegmy illness worse, but there’s no science behind it. Most studies have found no relationship between eating dairy and increased mucus production.

Choose immune-boosting nutrients

These nutrients play a role in boosting the immune system:

Keep the immune system strong all year long

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Effects Of Antioxidant Vitamins On Immunity

It has been known for more than 30 years that some vitamins with antioxidant properties, including vitamin A, vitamin B6 , vitamin C and particularly vitamin E, have protective effects on animal models of atherosclerosis and ischaemia-reperfusion injury 24. Vitamin E collectively refers to eight related compounds , of which -tocopherol has the greatest bioavailability and is the best characterized105. Vitamin E decreases the release of reactive oxygen species by monocytes106 and the expression of CD11b and very late antigen 4 , thereby decreasing monocyte adhesion to the endothelium106. Vitamin E also blocks the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, including IL-1, IL-6, TNF and the chemokine IL-8, by monocytes and macrophages107,108. Moreover, vitamin E prevents the upregulation of the adhesion molecules vascular cell-adhesion molecule 1 and intercellular adhesion molecule 1 on the endothelium induced by oxidized low-density lipo protein 109 and IL-1110, as well as the upregulation of E-selectin and some chemokines108. Reactive oxygen species activate the nuclear factor-B pathway106, which initiates many pro-inflammatory events. Therefore, the therapeutic antioxidant effect of these vitamins could be explained, at least in part, by their capacity to decrease NF-B activation.

Who Should Take Zinc Supplements

Those at risk of a zinc deficiency should consider taking a supplement, including vegetarians, lactating people and those living with digestive conditions. It’s recommended that adult men consume 11 mg of zinc per day, while women should intake 8 mg. The average person gets enough zinc from their diet.

If you are looking for an alternative way to boost zinc levels without taking a supplement, you can opt for more zinc-rich foods. Oysters are one of the best sources of zinc. You can also find zinc in beans, nuts, whole grains, red meat and poultry.

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Increase Immunity The Healthy Way

Many products on store shelves claim to boost or support immunity. But 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. For example, athletes who engage in “blood doping” pumping blood into their systems to boost their number of blood cells and enhance their performance run the risk of strokes.

Attempting to boost the cells of your immune system is especially complicated because there are so many different kinds of cells in the immune system that respond to so many different microbes in so many ways. Which cells should you boost, and to what number? So far, scientists do not know the answer. What is known is that the body is continually generating immune cells. Certainly, it produces many more lymphocytes than it can possibly use. The extra cells remove themselves through a natural process of cell death called apoptosis some before they see any action, some after the battle is won. No one knows how many cells or what the best mix of cells the immune system needs to function at its optimum level.

Does Being Cold Give You A Weak Immune System

Almost every mother has said it: “Wear a jacket or you’ll catch a cold!” Is she right? Probably not, exposure to moderate cold temperatures doesn’t increase your susceptibility to infection. There are two reasons why winter is “cold and flu season.” In the winter, people spend more time indoors, in closer contact with other people who can pass on their germs. Also the influenza virus stays airborne longer when air is cold and less humid.

But researchers remain interested in this question in different populations. Some experiments with mice suggest that cold exposure might reduce the ability to cope with infection. But what about humans? Scientists have performed experiments in which volunteers were briefly dunked in cold water or spent short periods of time naked in subfreezing temperatures. They’ve studied people who lived in Antarctica and those on expeditions in the Canadian Rockies. The results have been mixed. For example, researchers documented an increase in upper respiratory infections in competitive cross-country skiers who exercise vigorously in the cold, but whether these infections are due to the cold or other factors such as the intense exercise or the dryness of the air is not known.

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What Can You Do To Boost Your Immune System

The idea of boosting your immunity is enticing, but the ability to do so has proved elusive for several reasons. The immune system is precisely that a system, not a single entity. To function well, it requires balance and harmony. There is still much that researchers don’t know about the intricacies and interconnectedness of the immune response. For now, there are no scientifically proven direct links between lifestyle and enhanced immune function.

But that doesn’t mean the effects of lifestyle on the immune system aren’t intriguing and shouldn’t be studied. Researchers are exploring the effects of diet, exercise, age, psychological stress, and other factors on the immune response, both in animals and in humans. In the meantime, general healthy-living strategies make sense since they likely help immune function and they come with other proven health benefits.

Immunomodulatory Role Of Vitamin D

The influence of VD3 metabolites in the immune system, particularly of 1,252 VD3, has been known for more than 20 years20,21. In vitro, 1,252VD3 exerts a marked inhibitory effect on adaptive immune cells . It inhibits T-cell proliferation20,21, the expression of interleukin-2 2123 and interferon- mrNA and protein in T cells24,25, and CD8 T-cell-mediated cytotoxicity26. The decrease in the production of IL-2 and IFN by 1,252VD3 is partially mediated by binding of the VDRRXR complex to the VDRE in the promoters of genes encoding IL-2 and IFN . The anti-proliferative effect could be explained, at least in part, by the decrease in IL-2 production, as proliferation is partially rescued by adding exogenous IL-2 . These inhibitory effects of 1,252VD3 are most pronounced in the memory T-cell compartment30, which is concomitant with the higher expression of VDR in effector and memory T cells compared with naive T cells31. Moreover, 1,252VD3 enhances nonspecific T-cell suppressor activity, as measured by the ability of 1,252VD3-treated T cells to suppress primary mixed-lymphocyte reactions and cytotoxic T-cell responses26.

Mechanisms of vitamin D immunomodulation

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Important Vitamins And Minerals For Proper Immune Functioning

Adequate intake of vitamins and minerals through a well-planned diet is extremely important to promote immune functions and reduce the risk of cancer, AIDS and autoimmune diseases.

Vitamin A

This fat-soluble vitamin functions as one of the most efficient immune system boosters. It prevents infections by promoting the functions of T cells, B cells and cytokines.

It helps in protecting against viral infections, measles, common cold, flu, etc. and enhances the functions of white blood cells. It also maintains proper functioning of skin cells and cells lining the airways, digestive tract and urinary tract that work as a barrier against bacteria and viruses.

Deficiency of vitamin A lowers immunity and increases the risk of infectious diseases.

Vitamin C

The benefits of vitamin C for health need no new emphasis. It functions as a powerful antioxidant that helps to increase vitamins and the immune system by stimulating the production and functions of white blood cells the vital component of the immune system.

White blood cells locate, engulf and destroy the foreign bacteria and viruses that enter the body. It helps in regenerating vitamin E yet another effective antioxidant.

The severity of cold, flu, fever and respiratory tract infections can be reduced with the help of vitamin C. It also helps in relieving allergies.

Vitamin D

Vitamin E

The immunosuppressive property of vitamin E helps in treating auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

Vitamin B6

Zinc

Strategies To Stay Healthy

So, if you can’t help your immune system by taking an over-the-counter potion or pill, what can you do to cut down on illness this winter? Differences between people who rarely get sick and those who are sick all the time may have more to do with habits than immune function, says Starnbach. Here are some tips that might help.

Clean your hands. While some germs are airborne, more often than not, illness occurs after you touch a contaminated surface, says Starnbach. Most often germs move from your hands into your eyes, nose, or mouth, so also make an effort not to touch your face.

Keep your body in top shape. Maintaining a healthy and balanced diet, exercising regularly, and getting enough sleep can help keep your body and your immune system working well.

Manage stress. Research has shown that high stress levels may impair the immune system. So whenever possible, try to be aware of your stress levels and work to lower them when they get too high.

Get vaccinated. Getting vaccinated against the flu and other diseases stimulates the immune system to protect against illness. Vaccines teach the immune system to recognize specific pathogens and prepare them to mount a defense if they are encountered.

The bottom line is that aside from vaccines, there’s really nothing you can take to improve your immune system, so it’s probably best to avoid pills and potions that make those types of claims.

Image: Courtney Hale/Getty Images

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S To Help Support A Healthy Immune System

Food Fix: Immune System Boost

Most people turn straight to vitamin C after theyve caught a cold. Thats because it helps build up your immune system.

Vitamin C is thought to increase the production of white blood cells, which are key to fighting infections.

Almost all citrus fruits are high in vitamin C. With such a variety to choose from, its easy to add a squeeze of this vitamin to any meal.

Popular citrus fruits include:

Garlic is found in almost every cuisine in the world. It adds a little zing to food and its a must-have for your health.

Early civilizations recognized its value in fighting infections. Garlic may also slow down hardening of the arteries, and theres that it helps lower blood pressure.

Garlics immune-boosting properties seem to come from a heavy concentration of sulfur-containing compounds, such as allicin.

Ginger is another ingredient many turn to after getting sick. Ginger may help decrease inflammation, which can help reduce a sore throat and inflammatory illnesses. Ginger may help with nausea as well.

While its used in many sweet desserts, ginger packs some heat in the form of gingerol, a relative of capsaicin.

Ginger may also

Spinach made our list not just because its rich in vitamin C its also packed with numerous antioxidants and beta carotene, which may both increase the infection-fighting ability of our immune systems.

Papayas have decent amounts of potassium, magnesium, and folate, all of which are beneficial to your overall health.

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