How To Fight Viruses This Winter

Someone needs to develop a cure for the common cold already. I mean honestly. The only thing we can rely on these days when viruses plague our household is our immune system, and good old fashioned drugs, or herbs or whatever you’re into these days. So how can you boost your immune system and stop living from one cold to the next? Read on for some evidenced-based approaches:

1)Vitamin D: More and more studies are showing that optimal vitamin D levels help improve your immune system and can prevent respiratory infections. (1, 2,3,4,5,6,7) These exact blood levels are controversial, but I’ve found optimal to be between 50-70 ug/L. Keep in mind the recommended daily dose of vitamin D3 daily is only around 400 IU’s, but most people across the US are deficient even when taking 400 IU’s daily. And yes, that even includes those in sunny California. We don’t work outside 24/7 like we used to which likely contributes, and sunscreen has also become a thing (a good thing!) Be aware you CAN take too much vitamin D because it’s a fat soluble vitamin, which gets stored in your fat cells and becomes toxic at levels greater than 100-120. The general rule of thumb is your levels need to be monitored if you’re taking more than 2,000 IU’s of vitamin D3 daily. These levels also change in the winter versus summer. (More dramatically in the northern and colder states). Summary: Get your vitamin D levels checked by your local healthcare provider and seek to get your levels between 50-70 ug/L. Your provider will give you a specific dose to make this happen). At the very least, take vitamin D3 2,000 IU’s daily. I use Nature’s Bounty Vitamin D3 because it is USP verified (third party tested, you can see a “USP” seal on the bottle). Otherwise you can order pharmaceutical grade vitamins through my website here.

2) “C” cleanse: This is a method of figuring out just how much vitamin C your body needs in order to function properly. Phagocytes (cells that eats the invader) and T-cells (a type of lymphocyte that actively participates in immune response) are part of the immune system that require vitamin C to function. When you’re fighting infection, your body naturally produces more phagocytes and T-cells to rise up and kill the infection, which in turn requires a lot more vitamin C than normal. Other things like stress, over-exercise, chronic infections, smoking, air pollution etc can increase your body’s need for vitamin C as well because of a term called oxidative stress. (If you’re interested in why, click here). Summary: Plan to increase your total vitamin C consumption dramatically during sickness. You may need anywhere from 4 grams daily, even up to 50 grams daily. Follow the C-Cleanse protocol listed here to find out just how much you need on a daily basis. It is recommended to use Vitamin C as a buffered powder so it’s easier on your system. I use Ultra-Potent C from metagenics which you can order here. Otherwise be sure that whatever you are using has a third party seal of testing on the label such as USP, NSF or Consumer Lab, to guarantee the product is quality.

3) Probiotics: Many studies show taking probiotics can reduce the number of days you are ill from upper respiratory infections and even prevent upper respiratory infections entirely (8,9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14). They also help with preventing GI infections by stimulating the immune system to help fight stomach bugs and also decrease inflammation of the stomach lining which helps improve the integrity of the GI lining (15, 16, 17). One study in particular showed that consuming 150 billion units of Bifidobacterium lactis twice daily for 6 weeks “can enhance natural immunity in healthy elderly subjects” (18). As always, there is conflicting data on this, but there’s enough research and confirmatory studies showing beneficial effects that, in my opinion, it’s something you definitely want to be taking regularly. Summary: On a daily basis take 20 billion units daily with at least 10 different strains to help with general immunity (19), children should take between 5-10 billion units daily. When actively fighting infections, especially gastrointestinal infections like the stomach flu, increase this dose to 50-100 billion units daily (20). (I haven’t seen research studies for kids regarding GI infections, so just stick to 5-10 billion). Nutri-Dyn makes a great product called Ultra Flora Spectrum with 30 billion units per capsule, and Ultraflora Children's with 5 billion units per chew. Click here to order through my site. Otherwise Nature's Bounty Advanced 10 Probiotic is great too at 10 billion units per capsule.

4) Sleep: Sadly, most Americans don’t get nearly enough the recommended sleep each night. They used to say 6-8 hours of sleep was sufficient, but new research is saying 7 hours is minimum. Sleep affects so many parts of our health, but most importantly for this article’s sake, we’ll focus on the effects of the immune system. The New England Journal of Medicine published an article stating, “The likelihood of developing symptomatic disease after experimental rhinovirus infection was more than four times higher for participants who slept ≤6 hours than for those who slept ≥7 hours (21).” Another article points out, “Significant detrimental effects on immune functioning can be seen after a few days of total sleep deprivation or even several days of partial sleep deprivation (22).” This last study’s results “indicate that across 26 mammalian species those with more total sleep have higher numbers of white blood cells.”. I’ll try to spare you from too much detail, but the author concluded that species “that have evolved longer sleep times have been able to effectively increase their investment in host defense and reduce the impact of parasites.” Summary: Get minimum 7 hours of sleep per night (optimal 8 hours) to keep your immune system up.

5) Essential oils: I know a lot of you are skeptical of essential oils, as am I. It took me a long while to even do some research on this, let alone try it, so hear me out. I use a resource called Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database, which is an independent evidenced based resource to help guide my research along with Pub Med, and what I’ve found is decent evidence towards some specific oils on antibiotic properties and some antiviral properties. Two of the most popular companies that are highly reputable and make great products (albeit pricey) are Doterra and Young Living. The top two blends used for promoting the immune system are Young Living’s, Thieves and Doterra’s, On Guard. People swear by these oils, especially with how it seems to prevent/treat coughs and colds. What I was surprised to find was the lack of research on their effects on overall immunity, so it’s unknown how efficacious they are specifically for boosting the immune system. What seems to be more obvious in the research is the antibiotic properties, specifically of eucalyptus(24, 25) , clove, cinnamon (26,27,28), and rosemary (29, 30) all of which are apart of the above blends. There was one independent research study done on Doterra’s On Guard blend regarding protection against the influenza virus which was very interesting and can be found here. All of this to say, many more studies are underway to help us better understand the specific properties of these oils, but it’s worth a shot if you’re interested. Summary: Use either Doterra’s On Guard or Young Living’s Thieves as directed on the website daily to help improve your chances of fighting off infection. To order these you must sign up through their website and become a member which you can dohere (Doterra) or here (Young Living). If you want to benefit from essential oils but are not interested in becoming a member of either company, I would highly recommend ordering direct through Eden’s Garden, as they are still pure, high grade oils and don’t require a membership to get a discount. You’ll just need to order each oil individually and mix them.