Total Health Breakthroughs: Free Natural Health Newsletter and Alternative Health Articles

I used to catch a cold or flu about twice 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.

About six years ago, I moved to Florida from Tennessee, where it was often cold, grey and rainy during the winter. Even if I did spend time outside, the sun was too low in the sky to produce vitamin D in my skin. In Florida, I was running on the beach during my lunch breaks and swimming in the ocean… in January. My vitamin D status has been optimal ever since. And it makes a big difference.

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.

This is just a very small part of the vitamin D story. It is one of the most vital substances in the human body. Yet, most of us are deficient for at least part of the year. There are no significant dietary sources of vitamin D. So unless you live in a sunny locale, you need to supplement during the winter… and be sure that you enjoy time in the sun when it is warm.

The government’s RDA is woefully inadequate. It will prevent only the most serious deficiency. Most adults should be taking a minimum of 2,000 IU of vitamin D every day. You should also be tested at least once a year, to ensure that your levels are optimal. If you want to learn more about the miracle of vitamin D, Dr. Al Sears and I wrote a book about it. You can learn more here.

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).

This is a measure of how many invading organisms one white blood cell can engulf in one hour. A leukocytic index of 10 means that one white blood cell consumed 10 microbes within that hour. The average person in the U.S. has an LI of 14. That is not necessarily optimal. It is the average. But get this…

Within 15 minutes of consuming the amount of refined carbohydrates that the average American ingests with his evening meal – about 100 grams – the LI drops to about 1.4. That means the average person loses more than 90 percent of their immune function within 15 minutes of consuming a meal containing sugar and high-glycemic carbohydrates!

And this deficiency in the ability of white blood cells to engulf invading organisms can last for anywhere from two to five hours. Of course, if you consistently eat these foods, your immune system will remain perpetually depressed.

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.

In this study, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill looked at two groups of mice. The scientists fed one group of mice a selenium-rich diet. They fed the second group a selenium-deficient diet. Then both groups of mice were exposed to a mild strain of the human influenza virus.

While both groups were infected, the selenium-deficient animals experienced far more serious symptoms, including lung damage. Their symptoms also lasted much longer. The difference in how the illness expressed itself would be the difference between a benign case of pneumonia and severe pneumonia. In an immune-compromised person, this could be the difference between life and death.

What was even more remarkable though is that the researchers discovered that the virus mutated significantly within the animals that were selenium-deficient. This caused what was originally a harmless strain of the flu to transform into a far more serious and virulent pathogen – one that was able to infect and cause threatening symptoms in healthy subjects.

Rich sources of selenium include seafood, wild salmon, grass-fed butter and organ meats and especially Brazil nuts. In fact, these particular nuts are the richest food source of this mineral on the planet. You should seek to consume selenium in your diet by eating these foods. However, most of us would benefit from taking selenium as a supplement. The most bioavailable form of it is known as selenomethionine.

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.

To Your Immunity and Longevity,

To Your Health

Jon Herring
Editorial Director
Total Health Breakthroughs