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Immune System Basics

Find out how to maintain your immune system through training, nutrition & supplementation, and more!

📖 4 minute Read

Every fall, dealing with diseases has become kind of a regular practice. Hence the motivation to explore the immune system a bit more in-depth and firstly, lay out how it works and secondly, talk about some concrete practices or things you may do to maintain immune system function. With that being said, here are the Immune System Basics.

Let’s get started with what it is and how it works. Essentially the immune system is our protective layer against foreign bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc (I guess you knew that already…). Now, that layer isn’t actually one, but three. Let’s take a look at each:

The first line of defense is the skin. It simply keeps things from the outside from entering the body, making us a kind of isolated entity (besides the natural openings like eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth..).
If bacteria slip through this first layer, we have our second layer, the so-called “innate immune system”. It acts instantly against such foreign bacteria by releasing already waiting cells (most widely known as white blood cells) to try and kill the invader. Prior to that, the bacteria to be killed is marked by proteins in our blood.
Thirdly, if the first and second fail, we have the adaptive immune system as our last defense. It creates antibodies against infections, parasites, etc. right after arriving at the infection site. Furthermore, it creates a memory of any prior infection and can thereby counter an infection much more efficiently and faster on the second entry.

So hopefully, now you understand the whole functioning of the immune system better! That brings us to some concrete practices to maintain its operation. To do that we want to explore the most basic one in each nutrition, supplementation, and exercise (as well as a bonus below!).

In nutrition, it’s best to look for essential nutrients like Vitamin D and C, zinc, and selenium to keep your system running at maximum pace. Now, obviously eating a lot of processed foods as well as sugar and alcohol have a weakening effect, just to mention this quickly as it’s something to look out for. An interesting fact may be that obesity alters cell-mediated immune responses (i.e. it takes longer to recognize and react). Also, a bad immune system can contribute to becoming obese in the first place!
Moving on with supplementation, which in that regard essentially offers a great alternative for covering those essential nutrients to food. It also has a really good supportive function when equaling out deficits and gives you a very customizable and targeted ability to cater to specific needs. E.g. if you have an iron deficiency and you know you can’t get all your iron in from just food can easily help with some iron supplements that have nothing else in them.
Let’s close this off with exercise. I guess anybody reading this probably gets in enough moving time to have a functioning immune system, but generally speaking aerobic activity (e.g. swimming, cycling, or running) can lead to improvement and establish a foundation to build up from.

Bonus:
A little hack in keeping up with your immune system is doing cold plunges. But how? In essence, they have been shown to reduce inflammation and sort of train the body in such cold environments as it gets activated when submerging and metabolic rate increases.
_{Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8925815}

Alright, that wraps it up! I hope you could find some value in this! If you did, let me know and until next Monday!

References:

1. Immune system structure and function: https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/using-your-nervous-system-to-enhance-your-immune-system (11:00-28:10); antibodies (22:20-22:46)

2. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/ImmuneFunction-HealthProfessional/

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