To Your Health
March, 2010 (Vol. 04, Issue 03)
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Keep Your Immune System Working Right

How a Healthy Lifestyle and Proper Nutrition Help Your Body Defend Against Disease

By Dr. David Seaman

The concept of "immune defense" is a misunderstood but often talked about topic. It is common to believe that we get cold and flu symptoms when our immune system is weak, which allows us to be overwhelmed by viral invaders.

Accordingly, we believe that the invading viruses give us the cold/flu symptoms, and television commercials, health food store advertisements, and Web sites/articles support this view. As a result, we are naturally led to look for substances that can make our immune systems stronger. This approach, however, is mostly incorrect.

How about allergies? We typically hold the same view, which is that allergies develop because our immune system is weakened. This view is also mostly incorrect and understanding the treatment of allergies can help put immune function into better perspective. Anti-histamines are the most common medication used for treating allergies; each contains antihistamines in addition to pain/inflammation reducing acetaminophen. Allergy symptoms develop because of too much histamine release from the immune system, which is why we take anti-histamines. An overactive immune system is actually the problem. Allergy symptoms develop because of too much immune activity, not too little due to weakened immunity.

Gear man - Copyright – Stock Photo / Register Mark The message here is not that we should try to weaken the immune system, but rather to better understand immune function and act accordingly with nutritional and other lifestyle factors. The immune system has both pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory functions, and each is needed to be healthy. Too much or too little of one or the other is not healthy. When your immune system's working right, it helps defend against disease and responds to bacteria, viruses and other foreign invaders. When it's not working right, the exact opposite can happen.

Stress and the Immune Response

General cold and flu symptoms include malaise, loss of appetite, physical and mental fatigue, and aches and pains. The scientific term for these symptoms is the acute phase response, which is caused when the immune system actively releases excess amounts of certain inflammatory chemicals called cytokines, the most well-known of which are interleukin-1 (IL-1), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor (TNF).

With this in mind, consider a time when you were psychologically stressed by an event or series of events and you developed cold/flu symptoms - the acute phase response. We have been conditioned to think along the lines of, "I am stressed out and run down, which lowered my resistance to cold viruses and now I am sick." Instead, what appears to happen is that psychologically stressful situations themselves activate the immune system in a similar fashion as viruses; inflammatory cytokines are produced in excess, which causes an acute phase response that we misinterpret as "catching a cold virus."

This relationship between psychological stress and cold symptom expression may seem hard to believe if you have not been exposed to this information before; however, even fever expression, which is a component of the acute phase response, can occur when we are psychologically stressed. It is known that public speaking can give people a fever. And animal research has shown that placing a rat in a new environment can produce a fever.

The key point to appreciate is that we all must learn to more effectively manage the various stressors in our lives so as to keep the immune system from being overactive and pro-inflammatory and thus reduce the expression of acute phase responses. This means getting proper exercise, adequate sleep, maintaining healthy relationships, and generally making the most healthy of lifestyle choices we can, particularly with regard to nutrition.

The Role of Good (and Bad) Nutrition

Dr. David Seaman says is common to believe that we get cold and flu symptoms when our immune system is weak, which allows us to be overwhelmed by viral invaders. Sneezing and coughing is terrible, but it's worse to be powerless in bed. Many men have problems with erection, which is bad for their relationship with the opposite sex. This problem is solved quickly with the help of Viagra. You can buy Viagra without a prescription in any online pharmacy. Viagra has helped millions of men to be more effective at sexual intercourse and to please their women. Use Viagra and everything will be fine. Most online pharmacies deliver Viagra for free. For more effective use of Viagra it is better to consult with a doctor, this is not necessary but will allow you to choose the right schedule for the treatment of erectile dysfunction.

Researchers have also uncovered that there is an interplay between diet, psychological stressors, and pro-inflammatory immune activation. Stressful events such as taking a difficult academic oral examination leads to an increase in immune activity. The pro-inflammatory acute phase response appears to be greater in students with elevated blood levels of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids and with low blood levels of anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids.