Strengthening Your Immune System for Coronavirus

Although there is no vaccine or known way to guarantee that someone does not contract coronavirus there are practices which do improve immunity and help your body to deal with the virus if you do contract it.

First – follow all recommendations of the CDC relative to social distancing and hygiene:

Wash your hands

If sick stay at home

Cough and sneeze into your elbow

Keep your distance from other people whenever possible

Nutrition

Proper nutrition is essential to keep your immune system in tip top shape.    This means adequate intake of high-quality protein (minimum of 50 grams per day for a female and 60 grams for a male.

At least five servings of fruits and vegetables

Minimize sugar intake which diminishes immune response

Stay hydrated with water – still the best!

Ensure adequate intake of omega 3 fatty acids from cold water fish or supplements – see below.

Minimize intake of omega 6 fatty acids like soybean oil (mayonnaise and many other vegetable oils with the exception of Olive Oil and Avocado oil)

Stick with naturally occurring healthy fats like Olive Oil, Avocado, nuts, seeds, whole eggs, cold water fatty fish like Salmon, etc.

Nutrition Supplements

Although it is ideal to get all your micronutrients from food – it is almost impossible to get optimal levels of these important nutrition factors from food alone.

Key supplements to consider:

High-quality multiple vitamin and mineral – will cover MANY bases and help ensure that your cells have key micronutrients like all B-Vitamins, Selenium, etc.

Zinc – is VERY important for immunity and supplementation is particularly important for vegetarians and vegans because there are few good sources of zinc in these diets other than things like Pumpkin Seeds.   If you eat animal foods regularly this is less important.      The RDA for zinc is 11mg for adults and most high-quality multiples have 15mg.      30mg per day is even more effective but higher doses can actually cause problems if prolonged.     Look for Zinc Acetate, Zinc Glycinate, Zinc Picolinate or Zinc Gluconate.     If you want to focus on optimizing zinc intake through food (ideal!) great food choices include:

Oysters

Other Shellfish

Pumpkin Seeds

Meat

Dark Meat Chicken

Eggs

Vitamin D – is HUGELY important from overall health in general and proper immune function in particular.    If you do nothing else with supplement get your D levels tested and optimize them through supplementation!     High normal Vitamin D levels are directly linked to lower viral infection rates and less severe symptoms and shorter duration of illness if you do contract a virus.    See this previous blog post to learn how to optimize your Vitamin D levels:  http://workoutanytime.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-to-optimize-vitamin-d-levels-in.html

Vitamin C – adequate vitamin C intake is crucial for immune cell function.       If you eat high levels of fruits and vegetables it is easy to get plenty of C.    But if you contract any type of respiratory illness it is wise to dramatically increase your Vitamin C intake to what is known as bowel tolerance (see this link for more information on what this means and how to do it: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/12/16/vitamin-c-health-effects.aspx The best form or oral C is Liposomal Vitamin C.

Exercise to Optimize Immune Function

Exercise is crucial for your health for many reasons, but one of the most important reasons is its ability to help with mental stress which can become debilitating.     We all know that excessive worry and stress are bad for us, prevent adequate high-quality sleep, and ruin our quality of life overall.   Exercise is amazingly effective for reducing mental stress and worry and it produces these benefits almost immediately!    Most people immediately feel better after any type of exercise.

   

Science shows a clear inverse relationship between moderate exercise and illness risk.

Exercise has an anti-inflammatory effect through multiple pathways.

Exercise is a proven anti-depressant.

Like all good things too much exercise can be counter-productive, and there is an inverse relationship between exercise intensity and duration.    So if doing Higher Intensity Exercise keep the exercise sessions short (under a half hour and twenty minutes is plenty!).     Extremely long duration exercise can also blunt immune response so keep low intensity exercise under an hour to insure you do not reduce immune function.

Also ideal to eat a meal of carbs and protein immediately after exercise which has proven to dramatically boost recovery and accelerate the benefits of exercise.