Simply put, the immune system is a network of cells and proteins that defend the body against infection.
Now, one of the coolest things that it does is that it keeps a record of every single germ it has ever come in contact with, so it can recognize and destroy it quickly if it ever enters the body again. Meaning, your immune system actually has a memory, pretty incredible right!?
There are a few different branches of the IS but for the sake of this article I’m just going to talk more generally because you don’t need to know all the details and intricacies of each branch in order to understand how the system works as a whole.
One interesting aside to note on viruses, pathogens, germs etc. is that for the most part they don’t want to kill you, that may sound odd but I’ll explain…
Viruses like us, want to reproduce and get as far into the future as possible and so if they kill us, especially if they kill us quickly they’re a lot less likely to do that because if we’re dead, we can’t spread the virus to other hosts who spread it to other folks.
Let’s take the coronavirus for example…as I’m writing this on Thursday May 14th, 98% of the current cases worldwide have mild to no symptoms at all and 2% are serious or critical. The milder the symptoms are of a given virus, typically the more effectively it spreads because the host (us as people) are still able to walk around and spread the virus to more folks, especially if we don’t even know we have it.
On the contrary if you’re bed bound with zero energy and not able to move a muscle because of a the harsh symptoms of a virus, it’s much less likely to spread because you’re physically not coming in contact with nearly as many folks if you’re immobile.
I wanted to mention that just because I think it’s fascinating from an evolutionary biology perspective because everything that’s essentially alive on earth (viruses included) are adapting on the fly!
Now, understanding how the immune system works as a whole is actually quite simple because it’s just like budgeting your finances. So let’s say you have $4000 to spend per month so $1000 per week.
-If you’re carrying excess weight, that’s going to be more expensive than being of a healthful body weight.
-If you’re eating poorly, that’s going to cost you more than eating well because your body needs to allocate resources to deal with funky foods
-If you’re not moving enough, that’s a cost, if you’re not sleeping enough, that’s another cost.
-Light exposure, sun exposure, mental stressors, emotional stressors, social connection, all of these things add up.
-Alcohol and drug intake, these are two factors that suppress the immune system that everyone is aware of.
So essentially if you don’t provide your body with something it needs to function optimally, it’s going to eat into your budget a lot more than if you had provided yourself with it.
You have $1000 per week to spend, but as soon as that money is gone and you dip into the red, it’s extremely likely that you’re going to get some sort of ailment.
This is exactly why healthier people get sick far less often than not so healthy people.
You can think about it like this, healthy people have health savings accounts essentially and unhealthy people are living paycheck to paycheck…
As soon as one unexpected expense comes up, less healthy folks get sick whereas healthy people have backup funds in their savings accounts to allocate toward fighting off a cold for example.
So taking really good care of yourself doesn’t actually provide you with a bigger budget, it just means that you’re spending your money far more effectively, so for example eating healthfully is far less expensive than eating poorly when you look at it from the perspective of the immune system.
Same goes for movement, not moving enough is far more expensive than moving your body adequately. Getting proper sleep is more affordable than missing out on sleep.
Now a quick little myth to bust here…
Approaching things from this angle completely squashes the ‘eating healthy is expensive’ fallacy because when folks say this, they’re solely looking at how much money something costs upfront, but they’re completely neglecting the downstream effects. For example in the US in 2017 they spent 327 billion dollars on diabetes and related treatments…that’s in a year.
Now in the case of type 2 diabetes specifically, it doesn’t develop overnight, it takes time to fully manifest but in the big scheme of things it’s far more expensive than purchasing healthful food…not to mention the quality of life cost, that’s another massive factor.
The take home here is it’s a pay now or pay later with interest situation because type 2 diabetes is 100% avoidable because you’re not born with it, it’s a lifestyle disease…I just wanted to touch on that quickly.
I’m sure you’ve had the experience of feeling like you’re on the verge of getting sick, but you decide to go to that social gathering or party anyway, you have a couple drinks and the next day you wake up and you’re full on couch bound.
This is an example of being right on the edge of your budget and then going out that night pushing you over the edge. If you had stayed home, ate well, slept well and just rested it’s highly likely that you would have been able to recover, but because you were toting that line so closely, even a ‘tame’ night could have put into a hole in terms of immune function.
We all like the feeling of having some cushion in our banks accounts and a healthy lifestyle provides you with the biggest cushion possible from an immune health standpoint.
Now what about autoimmune conditions? This is something that’s super close to my heart because just about every woman in my family on both sides has had or has an autoimmune condition, so this is something I care about a lot…
Generally speaking, an autoimmune condition is when your immune system can’t determine good cells from bad cells and so it attacks them both. It’s just like friendly fire in war, it’s almost like someone isn’t able to see the difference between the uniforms of either side and so they just shoot everyone.
Examples of AI conditions include type-1 diabetes, MS, Crohn’s, Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Hashimotos just to name a few…
Now there are really varying degrees of autoimmune conditions meaning, one person could have MS and live a full life, while for other folks it could be fatal so there’s massive variance, however in general folks with autoimmune conditions are starting with a smaller budget.
So they may be working with $3000 per month and $750 per week, so folks with AI conditions have to be more diligent with their lifestyle habits because they’re working with a smaller budget from the get go.
The take home on AI conditions is, you’ve got less wiggle room than other folks do when it comes to staying healthy…it sucks, but it is what is.
Now let’s look at this immune system budget concept in correlation with the flu…
There are a lot of deaths attributed to the flu or complications from the flu each year. It’s anywhere from 290k to 650k yearly, that’s a wide range but those are the numbers.
However, that’s sort of misleading because we know that underlying conditions like heart disease, autoimmune conditions, obesity etc. have worse outcomes when it comes contracting the flu and this is because like we talked about before, these folks are working with smaller immune budgets…
Like that one party example that pushed you over the edge and got you sick when you felt like you were teetering toeing the line, the same thing is happening in a lot cases with the flu…the immune system is essentially maxed out, there are no more funds or resources available to deal with anything else, so the flu is pushing a lot of these people over the edge and unfortunately they’re dying.
Now was it solely the party that got you sick…no, you felt it coming on beforehand, but that one night out was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In the same vain, it looks like the flu is responsible for 290-650k deaths yearly, but health doesn’t occur in a vacuum, you’ve gotta look at the complete picture because 3-5 million people get the flu yearly meaning, the vast majority of them shrug it off and recover.
Now I’m not downplaying the seasonal flu and saying that it’s completely harmless or anything like that, what I’m pointing out is we can’t look at things like this in isolation and that’s why I wanted to put this article together on the immune system as a big picture concept.
So now we’re at the practical takeaways part…how do you set yourself up to have the healthiest immune system possible.
Nutrition
Focus on single and minimal ingredient whole foods that you cook yourself. When you’re eating great, your immune system doesn’t have to allocate resources to buffer funky foods your body doesn’t deal with well. It’s sort of like putting gasoline in a diesel car, sure it’ll work but it’s not the appropriate fuel and it’s gonna break down a lot sooner vs. had you put the appropriate fuel source in the tank.
Movement
8-10k steps per day is a baseline movement must in my opinion. If you want to workout on top of that awesome, it’s a bonus, but workouts don’t replace steps. Steps are like showing up to work and doing your job and workouts are like putting in overtime hours.
Sleep
7-9 hours nightly and that doesn’t mean if you need 7 hours you spend 7 hours in bed, you want to give yourself a bit of a buffer because nobody falls asleep the second their head hits the pillow. If you need 7, give yourself at least 7.5 hours of time in bed with the lights out.
Stress Management
I’ve said this before but when you’ve got your nutrition, movement and sleep dialled in, the need for stress management reduces drastically…but things like meditation can be great, reading, running a bath, cooking, just sitting and doing nothing, thinking, chatting with friends, writing and the list goes on, there are a million and one things…
Supplements
You can take supplements if you’d like, personally I don’t take any I just focus on the big rocks i.e. nutrition, movement, sleep and stress management. I’m not crazy about supplementing year round with vitamin C or anything like that, I’d prefer folks get a full array of vitamins and minerals from whole foods, but to each their own.
Light Exposure & Sun Exposure
These two should go hand in hand with the movement piece because if you get your steps in outdoors, you’re pretty much good to go here. Specifically on the sun exposure front, vitamin D synthesis is far more effective on the torso, so pop that top every chance ya get and don’t fear the sun.
Not getting enough sun exposure is just as harmful as getting too much, they’re both stressors so make sure you do get some time in the sun. The actually amount of time is going to vary based on your complexion, but every human needs sun exposure.
Alcohol and Drugs
Use at your own risk. As we all know these compromise the immune system and they often have downstream effects that make things worse i.e. alcohol impacts sleep quality in a big way, so there is a compounding effect here unfortunately. Again if you button up your nutrition, movement and sleep you’re going to be able to buffer the negative effects of moderate alcohol intake a lot easier because you’re not spending a bunch of your budget on cleaning up poor nutrition, movement and sleep behaviours.
Also, keep in mind that over the counter drugs like Advil, ibuprofen, Tylenol and allergy drugs like Claritin and Benadryl have a cost…
I think that in general we’re way too fast and loose with over the counter drugs this. They’re not quote on quote ‘free’ because everything in biology is a trade-off. You have a headache and you’re going to use a drug to get rid of it, there’s a price your body has to pay for that…your liver has break those chemicals down, so just keep that in mind.
Socialize
Staying connected with folks is massively important to overall health and I honestly don’t think I need to go into details here or examples because this Covid-19 situation has brought the importance of this to the surface like never before, so in short…hang out with people you love.
The real take home around optimizing your immune health is to give your body what it’s evolved to expect and focus on the basics as opposed to supplementing a shitty lifestyle with a random green juice here and there or some over the counter supps.
Questions? I love em’, hit me up!
