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A Strong Immune System Naturally

A strong immune system is responsible for killing lethal invaders such as cancer, yeast, bacteria and virus. Breakdowns in the immune system is at least partly responsible for illness taking over a human body.

There are many ways to get your immune system working: protein, calories, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, food extracts and other nutrition components. Toxins and stress shut down the immune system. Certain nutrition factors, such as enzymes, colostrum, cartilage, and medicinal mushrooms can help your immune system better recognize cancer.

Strengthening your immune system does not have to be difficult. Here are 10 simple ways to add healthy habits to your everyday lifestyle. Follow these on a regular basis to build a strong and healthy immune system.

The KISS Method (keep it simple, student)

1. Eat foods close to the ground

Eat foods in as close to their natural state as possible.  Refined food often adds questionable agents (like food additives, salt, sugar and fat), removes valuable nutrients (like vitamins, minerals, and fiber) and always raises the cost of the food.

2. Eat variety of natural foods

Add a variety of foods to your daily diet. By not focusing on any particular food, you can obtain nutrients that may be essential but are poorly understood while also avoiding a buildup of any substance that could create food allergies or toxicities.

10 Steps for a Stronger Immune System

3. Fasting is essential for good health

Humans adapted to regular periods of inadvertent fasting.  For millions of years, our ancestors were exposed to sessions of no food.  Our bodies adapted to need that method of eating and fasting.  Americans eat too much, too often, and the wrong food.  The “too often” is what really gets us into trouble.  By chronically exposing the cells to insulin and blood glucose, our cells become insulin resistant, which means they become “deaf” to insulin “knocking on the door” of the cell membrane.  The result of eating too often is elevated insulin and blood glucose, which is the beginning domino that leads to many diseases and accelerated aging.

Lean, mean and smart!

Our ancestors might be without food for a few days when Nature says “you better get lean, mean, smart, and fast enough to find something to eat; or you are going to die.”  Fasting induces a remarkable regeneration, rejuvenation, detoxification, anti-inflammatory stage that restores our health.  Take one day a week and consume nothing but water.  If you need to lose weight, take 2 or 3 consecutive days at week and consume nothing but water.  Have greater gaps between your last evening meal and your first morning meal, or “break fast”. Data on fasting strongly supports that it can help build a stronger immune system.

You will be dazzled at what intermittent fasting can do for your health.  I was one of the 60 million prediabetic people in America, despite following a healthy lifestyle.  A few weeks of fasting one day a week and my fasting blood glucose dropped from the dangerous range of 100 to the ideal range of 67.  Try it.  If you have a medical condition, then always work with your doctor. Eat small frequent meals.

4. Eat nutrient-dense foods for a strong immune system

Maximize your intake of life-giving foods, including fresh vegetables, whole grains, legumes, fruit, low fat meat (turkey, fish, chicken) and clean water.  Hormone free dairy products, especially yogurt, can be valuable if you do not have milk allergies or lactose intolerance.

strong immune system with good food choices

5. Choose quality over quantity

Monitor your quality of weight rather than quantity.  Balance your calorie intake with expenditure so that your percentage of body fat is reasonable.  Pinch the skin fold just above the hipbone.  If this skin is more than an inch in thickness, then you may need to begin rational efforts to lose weight. How much you weigh is not nearly as crucial as the percent of fat in the body. Most nutritionists agree that too much fat stored in the body (obesity) is a real killer.  Buy a Tanita (Tanita.com) scale for measuring percent body fat.

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6. Eat a plant based diet rich in color

Overwhelming evidence points out the benefits of a plant based diet.  Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, seaweeds, mushrooms, and herbal spices should make up 60-100% of your diet.  Going for the color in these foods will help to strengthen the immune system.  Pigmented potatoes are far healthier than white potatoes.  Deep coloring in the fruits and vegetables demonstrates powerful phytochemicals for strengthening your immune system.

7. Use well-tested super supplements

Use supplements in addition to, rather than instead of, good food.  Get your nutrients primarily with a fork and spoon.  Do not place undo reliance on pills and powders to provide optimal nourishment while eating a poor diet.  Supplements (such as ImmunoPower™ which contain double-tested ingredients) can provide minerals that are missing in our diet, vitamins that are removed in processing, bolster our nutrient intake beyond “surviving” (RDA) into “thriving” levels, and help us to better tolerate the myriad of toxins found in our 21st century planet.

Foods to boost your immune system.

8. Shop grocery store perimeter

On the outside of your grocery store you will find fresh fruits, vegetables, bread, fish, chicken and dairy.  Once you venture into the deep dark interior of the grocery store, nutritional quality of the foods goes way down and prices go way up.  Organic produce is raised without pesticides and may be valuable in helping certain sensitive individuals.  However, organic produce is unavailable or unaffordable for many people.  Don’t get terribly concerned about having to consume organic produce.  Any produce that cannot be peeled (like watermelon or bananas) should be soaked for 5 minutes in a solution of one gallon lukewarm clean water with 2 tablespoons of vinegar, which will remove pesticide residue.

9. If food will not rot or sprout throw it out

Your body cells have similar biochemical needs to a bacteria or yeast cell.  Foods that have a shelf life of a millennium are not going to nourish the body or help towards strengthening the immune system.  Think about it: if bacteria is not interested in your food, then what makes you think that your body cells are interested?  Foods that cannot begin (sprouting) or sustain (bacterial growth) life elsewhere, will have a similar effect in your body.

10. Healing spices in abundance

There are herbs that grandmother used in the kitchen to make the food taste better.  These same herbs have now been scientifically endorsed to be powerful and safe natural medicines: turmeric, curry, mustard, black pepper, hot pepper, cinnamon, all spice, cardamom, garlic, ginger, sage, parsley, rosemary, thyme.­­­­­  Use these herbs with reckless abandon in place of the standard American salt, fat, and sugar to make your food taste better and dramatically boost your body’s health.

Strengthen Your Immune System

Essential nutrients to stimulate your immune system

We need to recognize the priority placed on essential nutrients.  We can live weeks without food, a few days without water and only a few minutes without oxygen.  Keep in mind the relative importance of these essential nutrients.

Oxygen and water form the basis of human life.  Make sure that your quality and quantity of intake pay homage to this fact.  Protein, carbohydrate, fiber and fat form the next level of importance.  Vitamins and minerals are the essential micronutrients required for health.

Above these essential substances are two levels of quasi (meaning “as if it were”) nutrients.  Conditionally essential nutrients include Coenzyme-Q10, carnitine, EPA and GLA (fatty acids) and much more.

Some people may require these nutrients in the diet during certain stressful phases of their lives.  Minor dietary constituents (MDCs) include a wide variety of plant compounds that have shown remarkable anti-cancer and health-promoting abilities.  Indoles in the cabbage family, lycopenes in tomatoes, allicin in garlic, immune stimulants in sea vegetables and others make up this new and exciting category.  Eating a wide variety of unprocessed plant foods will help to insure adequate intake of these quasi-nutrients.

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The immune system is under serious attack by the forces of malnutrition, toxins and stress. Cancer, drug-resistant infections and auto-immune disease (like arthritis and lupus) all conspire to make us sicker. We have an extensive network of protective factors that circulate throughout our bodies to kill any bacteria, virus, yeast or cancer cells.

With a little effort a strong immune system is possible.  Make these 10 simple steps part of a daily routine for healthy living.

Dr. Patrick Quillin

Dr. Patrick Quillin, PhD,RD,CNS is an internationally recognized expert in the area of nutrition and health. He has 30 years experience as a clinical nutritionist, of which 10 years were spent as the Vice President for a leading cancer hospital system where he worked with thousands of cancer patients in a hospital setting. He is a Best Selling Author with 18 books which have sold over 2,000,000 copies and also a Keynote Speaker.

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