Follow these 8 tips and healthy habits to support your immune system this winter.
Most Importantly, get adjusted. Regular chiropractic care increases your immune system. Dr. Pero measured the immune systems of people under chiropractic care as compared to those in the general population and those with cancer and other serious diseases. His initial three-year study was of 107 individuals who had been under chiropractic care for five years or more. The chiropractic patients were found to have a 200% greater immune competence than those people who had not received chiropractic care, and they had 400% greater immune competence than those people with cancer and other serious diseases. The immune system superiority of those under chiropractic care did not appear to diminish with age. See below for more clinical trials.
Step 1: Eat Real Food
Here’s what I mean by “real” food. Real food is the food that is most natural, found in nature with the least amount of processing involved before it reaches your table.
This food helps to keep us healthy. Foods like apples, carrots, raw nuts and seeds. Foods that haven’t been loaded with hormones, pesticides and other unnatural chemicals. These are the foods you can grow (or raise) in your own backyard in an organic garden or by raising your own chickens, for example.
The other foods that many Americans consume on a daily basis are what I like to call “fake” foods. These are the foods you’ll find on shelf after shelf, aisle after aisle at the grocery store. Foods that have been highly processed, modified and so transformed from their original state that they hardly resemble the original food at all.
Think cheese curls, soda, fruit snacks, microwave meals, etc.
Eating a variety of real, health-promoting foods should ideally provide your body with the nutrients it needs to function and stay healthy. This should be your first food choice on a daily basis.
Step 2: Exercise
Although when you think of staying healthy, you don’t necessarily think, “I’d better exercise to stay healthy,” this is one of the best ways to improve your overall health and stay healthy during the winter season, when most people aren’t as active due to colder temps.
According to research, 30 minutes of exercise, three or four times a week, is the best way to boost your immune system, which can help support your overall health. Any more exercise than that could actually begin to have the reverse effect.
One study found running 10 miles a week boosted the immune system. Increased to 20 miles a week, there were diminishing returns.
This is why I recommend burst training (interval type training or high-intensity interval training) as opposed to long distance cardiovascular exercise. For example, rather than jog for 20 minutes on the treadmill, run semi-sprints or walk inclines for 1 minute “bouts” followed by 30 seconds of rest. Repeat until you reach 20 minutes.
Step 3: Get Plenty of Sleep
Now this old wives’ tale still holds true today. To maintain your health, you need to get plenty of rest, but you can’t really “catch up” on sleep or make up for weeks or months of too little sleep.
Getting enough sleep on a regular basis is key to maintaining good health. Studies show that lack of sleep can negatively impact health and weight. It can also impact immune system function.
Step 4: Enjoy Life!
Managing stress is also important for staying healthy.
One of the best ways to beat stress is to balance your life with fun. Remember the saying “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?” Well, no play will make Jack a miserable and dull boy.
Take time to enjoy life and build joy every day. Whether it’s taking time to listen to your favorite music or watching a film, or playing sports with your family or friends, it’s vital to include fun in your day — especially when it’s the last thing you feel like doing.
Step 5: Get Plenty of Vitamin D
More and more is being revealed lately about the vast health benefits of vitamin D. Previously known to impact bone health, vitamin D deficiency is now implicated in many health issues.
The best way to obtain vitamin D is through safe sun exposure. A lack of vitamin D (that many Westerners unknowingly have) can directly impact overall bodily health, including the immune system.
To remain healthy, make sure you get plenty of safe sun exposure on a regular basis. If you live somewhere that only gets sun seasonally, especially during the cold months, it’s a good idea to take a vitamin D supplement until your levels are adequate enough to take you through these sunless seasons. Be sure to consult your healthcare professional to check your vitamin D levels.
Step 6: Take a Whole Food Multivitamin
Taking a multivitamin is a great step towards supporting your overall health. But not all multivitamins are created equal. It’s vital that you choose a whole food multivitamin, not a synthetic one. Whole food multivitamins are as close to the real source of the vitamins and minerals that you can get.
In fact, with a whole food multivitamin, your body will be better able to recognize it, digest it and absorb the nutrients in it. Some high-quality multivitamins come with fermented nutrients (for optimal digestion), which may make the nutrients easier to absorb.
Look for a combination of organic vitamins (whenever possible), fermented vitamins and minerals, enzyme-activated minerals and coenzymated vitamins. Some multivitamins also include specially selected ingredients to support overall health and to help provide the most bio-accessible nutrients possible to meet your needs.
Step 7: Avoid Sugar
Sugar is one of the worst things to consume, especially if you’re trying to stay healthy — and who isn’t? Sugars negatively impact the immune system and more. Avoiding sugars is key to staying healthy, particularly when you’re under stress.
There are great, all-natural sweeteners on the market so you don’t have to go without. Try stevia or raw honey in moderation. (And avoid artificial sweeteners — they’re fake foods!) Be sure to check labels of the foods you’re eating and avoid sugars here, too.
I think that everyone wants to stay healthy during the winter months and, actually, year-round. When you follow the above seven steps to stay healthy, I believe you’ll be supporting your body not only during this season but for a lifetime of wellness.
Another study from Patricia Brennan, PH.D., leading a team of researchers, conducted a study that found improved immune response in her test subjects following chiropractic treatment. The study specifically demonstrated the “phagocytic respiratory burst of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) and monocytes were enhanced in adults that had been adjusted by chiropractors.”
Life Chiropractic University, produced an incredible study from the Sid Williams Research Center in 1994. The researchers took a group of HIV positive patients and adjusted them over a six-month period. What they found was that the “patients that were adjusted had a forty-eight percent (46%) increase in the number CD4 cells (an important immune system component).” These measurements were taken at the patients’ independent medical center, where they were under medical supervision for the condition. The control group (the patients that were not adjusted) did not demonstrate this dramatic increase in immune function, but actually experienced a 7.69% decrease in CD4 cell counts over the same period.
The immune system is affected by the nerve system through the connections with the endocrine and the autonomic nervous system. And chiropractic care improves the function of the nerve system through improving the movement of the spinal bones that encase and protect the spinal cord.
Stressful conditions lead to altered measures of immune function, and altered susceptibility to a variety of diseases. Many stimuli, which primarily act on the central nervous system, can profoundly alter immune responses. The two routes available to the central nervous system are neuro-endocrine channels and autonomic nerve channels.
the results of chiropractic during the flu pandemic of 1918:
“In Davenport, Iowa, 50 medical doctors treated 4,953 cases, with 274 deaths. In the same city, 150 chiropractors including students and faculty of the Palmer School of Chiropractic treated 1,635 cases with only one death.
In the state of Iowa, medical doctors treated 93,590 patients, with 6,116 deaths – a loss of one patient out of 15. In the same state, excluding Davenport, 4,735 patients were treated by chiropractors with a loss of only 6 cases – a loss of one patient out of every 789.
National figures show that 1, 142 chiropractors treated 46,394 patients for influenza during 1918, with a loss of 54 patients – one out of every 886.
In the same epidemic, New York health authorities (who kept records of flu as a reportable disease) showed that under chiropractic care, only 25 patients died of influenza out of every 10,000 cases; and only 100 patients died of pneumonia out of every 10,000 cases. This comparison is made more striking when viewed in the following table:
Influenza
Under Medical Care -> 10,000 cases + 950 deaths
Under Chiropractic Care -> 10,000 cases + 25 deaths
Pneumonia
Under Medical Care -> 10,000 cases + 6,400 deaths
Under Chiropractic Care -> 10,000 cases + 100 deaths
The same epidemic reports show that chiropractors in Oklahoma treated 3,490 cases of influenza with only 7 deaths. But the best part of this is, in Oklahoma there is a clear record showing that chiropractors were called in 233 cases where medical doctors had cared for the patients, and finally gave them up as lost. The chiropractors saved all these lost cases but 25.
Some information taken from: Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DNM, CNS, is a doctor of chiropractic, doctor of natural medicine, clinical nutritionist and author with a passion to help people get well using food and nutrition. and Pierce chiropractic .
