HEALTHY LIVE, WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY?

I used to catch a cold or flu about trice a year, like clockwork. I would usually get sick once during the winter. Then I would get sick again at some point during the year when I was tired and stressed out and my defenses were down.

It was never anything serious. I might feel miserable and miss a day or two of work, but with rest and fluids, I would feel fine again within a week. It was mainly an annoyance. Something I thought we all had to live with.

Then, with just a few changes to my diet and lifestyle, I stopped getting sick…
In the last eight years, I have had only one cold. That was the week after my wedding. The week before, I was up late every night getting ahead on work. And I was stressed out, making plans for our out-of-town wedding. Avoiding stress and getting a good night’s rest are vital to your immunity. In fact, one study showed that getting less than six hours of sleep per night can increase your risk of contracting a cold by 300 percent.

But apart from that single, self-inflicted bout with a cold, I haven’t been sick in years. So what measures do I credit with my enhanced immunity?

It certainly has nothing to do with the flu vaccine. If you ask me, most vaccinations are a lot of risk for no benefit. It would take a team of horses to drag me in for a jab. Besides, every person I know who gets the flu shot also seems to catch several colds each year.
The changes I made were natural, cheap and proven effective. Here they are:

I optimized my vitamin D levels
I cut out most of the sugar and refined carbohydrates from my diet
I started taking a selenium supplement

The Miracle of Vitamin D
I used to think that the seasonality of cold and flu had something to do with “cold weather.” After all, that is when most of us catch a cold. What I have learned since then, is that the rate and severity of cold and flu infections is closely correlated with our vitamin D status.

Vitamin D is actually a hormone, and it is essential for your immune system to function properly. In fact, the “activated” form of vitamin D is required to turn on the genes that produce the antimicrobial peptides of your innate immune system. Without vitamin D, there is no innate immunity.

Sugar Can Depress Your Immune System by 90 Percent.
The next thing I did was to cut out the sugar and refined carbohydrates from my diet. I did not do this to boost my immunity. I did it to shed fat and improve my general health. Those are exactly the results that I achieved. As a bonus, my immunity became strong and responsive.
It is proven that sugar and high-glycemic carbohydrates depress your immune system. There are many mechanisms for why it happens. But one of the best measures is the leukocytic index (LI).

The Remarkable Benefits of Selenium
The third thing that I did was to start taking a supplement containing selenium. I know that selenium has been depleted from our soils and it is deficient in most foods. I began to take it for its proven protection against cancer.

But selenium is also a potent immune stimulator and provides a powerful boost to our viral immunity. The National Library of Medicine lists 22 studies showing that selenium has preventive and protective properties against numerous viral agents. One of the most recent studies was reported in the FASEB Journal, published by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

Why is it that two people can be exposed to the same virus, and one of them is laid up in bed for a week, while the other doesn’t feel even the slightest effect?
And why is it that while nearly 50 million people died from the Spanish flu in 1918, the case fatality rate was less than five percent? That means 95 percent of those who contracted the flu recovered.

The difference is our individual immune systems. The bottom line is that you have a great deal of control over your immunity. And there are many things you can do to strengthen and protect it.

Reducing stress and getting enough rest are very important. You should also observe basic hygiene, like washing your hands. A high protein diet works wonders (proteins are the building blocks of many of your immune cells). And there are many herbs that have proven beneficial to the immune system. We’ll discuss all of these in future issues.

For now, my strongest recommendations are that you optimize your vitamin D status, reduce the sugar and high-glycemic carbohydrates in your diet and be sure that you are getting enough selenium in your diet.

With all this we can conclude that healthy live is our responsibility.

I wish you a healthy live all your days.

All Yours,

Bayode O.