Better Nutrition Article:
Helping Your Immune System Win The War Against Disease
Just as our country is currently engaged in a war against covert terrorism, your immune system is similarly waging a constant war against the hidden enemies within your body.
This war started before you were born and it will continue until you die. Although it's a war that always ends in defeat, there's a lot you can do to markedly postpone that ultimate defeat and to maintain a state of vibrant health into advanced old age.
These enemies of your immune system include well over 400 toxins ingested from the food you eat, the water you drink, and the air you breathe, along with a multitude of bacteria, viruses, and mutated cancer cells. Increasingly, it has to deal with particularly aggressive bacteria that have developed resistance to most, if not all, antibiotics.
It is also being challenged by a host of new viruses, including HIV, SARS, West Nile, ever-changing strains of influenza that now bear the threat of a world-wide pandemic. Never in the history of our species has it been more important to have a very strong, well-functioning immune system.
A recent longitudinal study, however, has shown that an average person's immune system declines at a rate of approximately 3% per year! The subjects in this 12-year study were all young adults and were apparently healthy when the study began.
When your immune system is functioning fully, it's very much like a very powerful army. It is composed of several highly specialized types of cells, much as an army is made up of many different specialty groups.
Just as supply lines are of crucial importance for an army to wage an effective and successful campaign, the cells of your immune system must similarly receive a constant infusion of all the crucially-important nutrients that they need. As is well known in the art of war, when these supply lines break down, the war is lost.
Another element that is of equally crucial importance--both to an effective fighting army and to your immune system--is constant and effective communication. If this breaks down, the war also cannot be won. One of the most common objectives in warfare is to destroy the "command and control" of the enemy.
When communication breaks down in the immune system, the individual cells in this system do not work together effectively; moreover, they lose their effectiveness both in being able to detect various kinds of enemies and in disabling them. And worst of all, they often mistakenly perceive that other cells are the enemy and aggressively attack them. This results in the many forms of auto-immune diseases that are becoming increasingly prevalent.
So promoting healthy communication within the immune system is clearly of the utmost importance. Until very recently, however, very little has been known about how to do this. Even now, most people know absolutely nothing about this crucially important form of health care. My main purpose here is to guide you in gaining the knowledge you need to provide your immune system what it needs in order to maintain optimal cell-to-cell communication.
Thanks to the electron microscope and the new science of Glycobiology (or Glycomics), it is now known that eight basic sugar molecules are of crucial importance in cellular communication. Collectively, these sugars (or monosaccharides) are called glyconutrients (the prefix, "glyco," from the Greek word for sweet).
Sadly, six of these eight sugars are markedly deficient in the modern diet. On the bright side, however, it is now possible to correct this deficiency through supplementation. This new kind of supplement is called glyconutrition and is often referred to as "the missing link" in nutrition. Along with essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, and essential vitamins and minerals, it comprises a fourth category of nutrition that is absolutely necessary for optimal health.
It's very important to have an immune system that is both strong and well-modulated. The word "strong" here refers to its potency in attacking and destroying pathogens of all kinds. There's a wide array of nutrients that can contribute to keeping the immune system strong or in giving it a temporary boost. Colostrum, Echinacea, Beta Glucan, and other mushroom extracts are important examples.
But if your immune system is strong in this sense without also being well-modulated--that is, if it's unable to discriminate accurately between friend and foe--its strength may actually be used AGAINST you. The end result of this may be the development of some kind of auto-immune disorder, such as MS, Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Fibromyalgia, and many, many others. This is very likely a major contributing factor to how auto-immune disorders of all types are currently proliferating at an accelerating rate.
Fortunately, there are now excellent supplements that support the immune system in BOTH of these crucially important ways. To learn much more about them and how to get them, please click on the URL below.
George Shears
Retired Psychologist & Wellness Consultant
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