Flu Blues? Natural Solutions to Send The Flu Packing
Posted by The Skyliner on September 23rd, 2009Laurel Vaughn
Staff Writer
Chances are if you are a student or faculty member here at North Greenville, or any school for that matter, you have either been sick with the cold or flu, know someone who has gotten sick, or are hoping that you don’t get sick.
I’d like to pass on a little advice for some natural solutions anyone can do to help boost your immune system to help keep the flu at bay or to fight off the flu faster and build immunities for the future. I am by no means a doctor, but the following suggestions have helped many others as well as myself.
First and foremost is sleep. I’ll be the first to say that it’s hard as a college student to get all the sleep our bodies require. There will always be those late nights of studying and fun times with friends to let go of some stress. However, try to eliminate senseless late nights of not-much-importance if you can and give your body the rest it needs. Sleep is essential for fighting off sicknesses and keeping your immune system strong. Many of us have experienced the affect of a few nights of not much sleep and the unwelcome, under-the-weather symptoms that shortly follow.
Second most important is nutrition. What you put into your body plays a major part in the health of your body. “You are what you eat,” if you will. Try to eliminate sugar if you can. Sodas and high sugar fruit juices that aren’t 100 percent juice are basically like drinking liquid candy. Sugar suppresses your immune system, which in turn, increases your susceptibility to getting sick.
The average person nowadays eats about three pounds of sugar per week through actual table sugar as well as all of our processed foods. To put this into perspective, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Americans consumed only five pounds of sugar per year. Processed foods were not even dreamed of and cancer was hardly even a term back then. Refined sugar causes many long-term health ailments with the number one illness being diabetes.
That being said, choose water over high caloric sugar drinks. This doesn’t mean that diet drinks are necessarily better either, as they have been proven through research to actually cause an increase in weight gain over a period of time. Also, chemicals like aspartame in diet drinks have been shown to cause all sorts of other health problems. Sodas as well as not drinking enough water can lead to dehydration, which leads to low energy.
So when deciding on a beverage with your meal, please consider water. Choose a drink that will be beneficial to your body rather than counterproductive. Water helps to cleanse the body and flush out toxins from vital organs as well as carrying nutrients to your cells. The Institute of Medicine advises that men consume roughly three liters (about 13 cups) of water a day and women consume 2.2 liters (about nine cups) of water a day.
Aside from modifying what you eat and drink, there are nutritional vitamins and supplements that can easily be added to your diet to help boost your immune system. Many of these can be found at your local drug store, Wal-Mart and GNC.
Vitamin C is the most important required food supplement our bodies need to help in the production and health of our white blood cells. White blood cells are our body’s main disease fighters. White blood cells absorb vitamin C to successfully combat viruses and infections.
Aside from absorbing vitamin C, white blood cells also absorb sugar (in the form of glucose) in the exact same way. With the average person consuming three pounds of sugar per week, this means that are white blood cells are absorbing more sugar than they are vitamin C. This leaves the white blood cells weak and almost defenseless against their prepared competitors. Vitamin C is fairly cheep and can easily be added as a supplement to get the amount we need along with what we take in through our food.
Other vitamins essential to fighting and aiding the body in the war against illnesses are vitamin A, vitamin B and zinc.
Vitamin A is what our body uses to promote healthy linings of our respiratory, urinary and intestinal tracts. When these linings are weak, outside offenders can invade effectively. Vitamin A also helps white blood cells fight off infection more effectively.
Vitamin B helps energize the body, protect and promote healthy skin (which is our body’s largest organ and first line of defense), enhances immune and nervous system function and promotes cell growth and division.
Zinc is necessary for the functioning of around 300 enzymes our body uses to help with a number of biological processes. Zinc’s immune-enhancing activities include regulation of T lymphocytes, CD4, natural killer cells, and interleukin II. In addition, zinc has been claimed to possess antiviral activity. It has been shown to play a role in wound healing, especially following burns or surgical incisions, in the common cold, infertility, Wilson’s disease, eating disorders, herpes simplex and acne. Its part in the endocrine system is to regulate insulin and promote the conversion of thyroid hormones thyroxine to triiodothyronine.
Antioxidants found in supplements, foods, fruits and vegetables help fight against free radicals in our bodies. Free radicals are responsible for cancers and other diseases as well as the degeneration of cells in our bodies.
Other herbs and supplements that greatly help your immune system include Elder Berry, Echinacea, garlic, and colloidal silver. The brand Oscillococcinum is a homeopathic cold/flu medicine that has been proven to combat the cold and flu. It can be found at Wal-Mart or any drug store.
One major yet simple thing we can do to prevent getting sick is washing our hands. Try to wash after you come in contact with objects that have a lot of traffic and after the bathroom. Throughout the day, try to avoid hand contact with your eyes, mouth and nose. Also, we don’t think it, but our ears are very susceptible to infection. Simply clean your outer ear canals with either alcohol or peroxide every couple of days.
I encourage you to do some research of your own and begin to take preventative measures in the way you take care of your body. Your body is the most precious possession you have. We are called to be stewards of our body (God’s temple). Take care of your immune system with more importance and in the way that you would take care of a car. In a similar manner, if part of the car is not working properly or is in need of repair, it affects the rest of the cars ability to drive correctly.
Tags: Fall 2009, Vol. 109 - Issue 3