Immune Systems
Your Immune System – your ticket to wellness.
Your Immune System depends mainly on your having healthy white blood cells. These are the blood cells that keep you healthy by “scavenging” foreign particles in your bloodstream and keeping it free of germs and outside particles like dust, pollen etc.
These scavenging or killer cells can develop reduced activity due to depleted nutrient reserve.
In fact, some partially digested foods can also become foreign proteins if you have leaky gut. Leaky gut is also associated with inflammation in the gut muscle layer. This can trigger massive antibody production and exhaust protective white blood cells, further compromising your immune system and leading to general tendency to allergy (atopic response).
The presence of these can trigger off allergy reactions in various parts of your body and depending just where this occurs, can make:
- your nose run
- you sneeze
- your skin go red and itchy
- Skin develops pimples – especially in teen years and even adults
- you become swollen
Some white blood cells just eat up these objects while others make defence proteins (antibodies) against them while others produce histamine (that makes you go red) and other chemicals (that make your membrane swollen). Some swim around and others stay put. They are a large and diverse colony within your body all of their own but when thay are all healthy, then they can keep you well.
One suggestions tt help power up white blood cells are our own lab-made Winter Mix, Zinac capsules and – to reduce sneezing from hay fever, sinus or colds and flu – is our own Ryvital drops.
You would be surprised just how much the activity white of blood cells (WBC) can vary – along with your body’s rate that your body can produce them. You will read below that – for long term health – your white blood cells need a regular supply of a diverse range of micronutrients. This is so poorly recognised that I now make up my own multi-mineral containing traces of all 70-odd of elements that occur in nature. We call it Wade’s multivitamin/mineral powder and you can enquire about it from us or buy it from our on-line shop.
White Cell Activity
WBCs can be adversely affected by the following:
· Rich food
· Alcohol
· Excessive sunshine
· Sugar
· Prolonged stress
In fact, Emanuel Cheraskin, famous US research medico, performed early tests showing a very interesting aspect of WBC activity. He found that a “sick” white blood cell could only kill 1/3 of a germ – very slowly. Yet a “healthy” WBC can kill 13 germs quite quickly. So, if you dine out on a rich meal in a French restaurant – with lashings of great sauces, plenty of fatty foods, sumptuous dessert and generous serves of wines, cognac, brandy and finally port with your cigar – then you have probably succeeded in reducing WBC activity significantly. (The difference in activity between a “sick” WBC and a healthy can be large, up to 39 times. Not 39% – which would be amazing – or 390% – which would be super-amazing – but 3,900% – which is stunning)
Similarly, spending too much time sun-baking will do the same. Sunshine can be quite health giving but if it is taken to excess then it can be toxic.
Normal values of WBCs can vary by 10 times. With adequate reserves of needed nutrient, the rate of production of WBCs can therefore be increased by 5 to 10 times.
That gives a total potential for increasing overall WBC activity by up to 400 times!
If you have a disease which features dominance of a white blood cell type, there is no conflict with the above theory. That is because the various types of WBCs will keep each other in check if they are ALL healthy. If one particular type is sluggish, then others will dominate. (Keep on reading below for a details on this)
So, what do you do about keeping up WBC activity and production?
You must basically obtain a good balance in your life.
· Eat a wholesome variety of fresh food
· Take adequate sun
· Exercise regularly
Supplement with the nutrients missing from your daily food. The Australian dietary surveys all show the same thing, time after time. According to Australian researcher, Mark Walker, the original ADS, when analysed, showed clearly that 70% of Australian women were deficient in zinc, 70% in calcium and iron, 60% in magnesium and some B vitamins. The other critically important trace elements, such as chromium, molybdenum, selenium vanadium etc aren’t surveyed.
Twenty years on, the latest official survey showed that zinc deficiency had crept up to 80%. (This mirrors findings which reveal that incidences of illnesses such as childhood eczema have increased a staggering 500% in the last twenty years.
The standard reply from dietitians and “official medicine” of the time was that such shortages only occurred in “isolated pockets of the community” and that “people who ate proper meals wouldn’t be affected”.
The particular nutrients generally needed by the immune system are zinc, Vit A, Vit C, omega 3 and 6 fatty acids and bioflavonoids.
MINERALS AND THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
Minerals drive all the little protein catalysts which cut and stitch all sorts of food nutrients to form effective “drivers” which control inflammation and infection in your body.
Such drivers are WBCs, prostaglandins and specific proteins called antibodies.
But zinc is the main mineral which occurs most commonly in the immune system. It catalyses many enzyme cascades which form critical components of the immune system – especially prostaglandins.
Yes, that’s right, zinc! It’s the one that’s deficient in isolated community pockets – like 80% of them! Other minerals play key roles – such as iron, selenium, molybdenum, in fact most of the minerals commonly associated with human nutrition requirements . According to Murray and Pizzorno’s “Encyclopaedia of Nutritional Supplements” there are 14 of these minerals – and they all activate specifically-tasked enzymes somewhere to do something.
Naturally, you need vitamins to walk hand in hand with the minerals. In fact, you usually find that a typical enzyme is activated by two vitamins and a mineral. In this case, they are known as “co-factors”. Dr. Cheraskin once likened an enzyme to a pair of scissors. If you consider the blades as the protein part of the enzyme then the mineral co-factor could be thought of as the lynch-pin and the vitamin part as the handles.
Making White Blood Cells
Apart from minerals, other essentially-needed nutrients go to make up WBC material. They are particular fatty acids, amino acids, special carbohydrates and certain other plant products called bioflavonoids, which are made only sparingly or not at all by the body. Bioflavonoids take numerous forms but are lumped into one category for our purposes here.
You see, Bioflavonoids are no accident in nature, They are produced by young plants to protect themselves from natural predators and allow for quick tissue repair. They perform the same tasks in humans. Green tea and green Rye cereal grass extracts are two notable sources but there are many others.
See our discussion cholesterol and fats.
Remember the Australian dietary survey – that means that we have to take some form of daily “vitamin” supplement to bolster the dietary deficiencies. (Sorry, that’s only the 80% minority living in isolated pockets).
So, now we have supplemented all the missing or deficient nutrients and have replaced all of the 50 essential nutrients required.
Don’t forget. Disease such as Multiple Sclerosis which feature dominance of a particular WBC will still need wholistic immune-restoring health care because you want to activate the sluggish WBCs which normally keep the dominant ones in balance.
Don’t Forget Food.
Next, you need a well-balanced diet (can I hear you yawn?).
Let’s cut to the chase. You hear so many banalities about “balance” in food, just what IS a well-balanced diet?
Suffice to say that you food must be varied and fresh to be of maximum nutritional benefit. When your immune system has benefited from this wonderful diet which has then given you all the protein, fats and special carbohydrates etc that your body needs, it is because the enzymes have now got something to actually cut and stitch and therefore can now complete their manufacture.
That means – active WBCs, balanced prostaglandins produced in abundance and galloping gamma globulins (germ-killer proteins) can now do their job effectively.
IMMUNE BALANCE
“Balance” means that apart from anything else, all WBCs have to be healthy to prevent a dominance of a sister type leading to a disease.
The “balance” aspect is critical in the case of prostaglandins, as there are two main types of these and they are made from two different types essential fatty acids. That means that if the essential fatty acid intake becomes imbalanced, your body will produce a resultant imbalance of prostaglandins. This usually results in sensitive skin, asthma and rhinitis – as well as arthritis, iritis and many other inflammatory conditions.
The terminators are called PG1s and the whole culture they propagate is called TH1 (short for T Helper type 1 Cells).
Similarly, initiators are called PG2s and their culture is TH2.
Balance the THs – they need your help.
A third set of T Helper cells exist whose job it is to act as a contretemp between TH1 and TH2. They are called – you guessed it – TH3.
In the event that a balance is not struck, it means that either TH3s are a bit sick or else too much of the wrong fats have been ingested, forcing an overproduction of one or the other.
If this situation is allowed to proceed unchanged, your body will eventually become dominant in either a TH1 or TH2 state. Either way, it’s bad news.
TH1 Dominance
If Th1s are allowed to proliferate unchecked, then eventually they begin to invade your own tissue, producing inflammation and even digestion of the cell tissue. This causes a crisis in disease called “Tissue-Specific” disease.
Examples of TH1 states are: Multiple Sclerosis, Type 1 chronically high blood sugar levels with thirst and frequent urination mellitus, Acute allograft rejection, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Vitiligo, certain forms of Alopœcia, Crohn’s disease, Sarcoidosis, Psoriasis, Unexplained recurrent abortions. This TH1-dominant state can be caused by an imbalance in fatty acids combined with undernutrition , then your tissue is all set up to take the sucker punch.
TH2 Dominance
TH2s can get a gallop on for reasons of TH1 inactivity, imbalance of fatty acids, leaky gut, liver inactivity, undernutrition or a combination of the above. Most especially, children are predictably born in this state and can remain in it if conditions go against them. Again, if it is allowed to proceed unchallenged, then a person may appear to be in a permanent state of TH2 dominance. This can be avoided and reversed, using the right natural, wholistic approach.
The types of illnesses which can proliferate in a TH2 state are: Allergies, Hayfever, Rhinitis, Urticaria, (SLE) Systemic Lupus Erythæmatosis Haemolytic Anaemia, Thrombocytopœnia, Scleroderma, Cryptogenic fibrosing Alveolitis, Graves Disease, Asthma, Eczema, Infections, Tumours, Successful Pregnancy. In addition, there is some evidence to suggest that a TH2 dominant state will make ADD and ADHD, far less manageable.
Immune Deficiency – underactiveor overactive?
The overall immune deficiency status is misunderstood and wrongly feared by many practitioners. It is my belief that the reason is that a deficiency status can lead directly to a TH2 dominant state, as we have seen. This paradoxical reaction is a puzzle to many. It means continuous inflammatory events and therefore the “immune system” appears to be overactive. In fact, a deficiency of vital nutrients can lead to inactive Th1 which in turn leads to excessive PG2 formation which can then drive this whole process. So INACTIVITY of TH1 is the prime cause of TH2 dominance and it is this state which affects 80% of sufferers of auto-immune diseases such as those mentioned above.
Similarly, inactivity of TH2 and TH3 is responsible for dominance of TH1, leading to auto-immune disease such a s Multiple Sclerosis and Rheumatoid Arthritis.
The bottom line is that you need to take a wholistic, balanced approach to rectify these issues.
For more specific information on your nutritional needs for your immune system, please Contact us by email and we will get back to you.