With cold and flu season here, MD Diet’s weight loss specialists have some tips to help you boost your immune system. A healthy immune system means a healthy life and more energy, and we all want that. But when we’ve been neglecting our immune system, it’s easier to get sick. If only there was a simple way to boost that immune system of yours and make sure it’s running at full speed. Well, good news! Here are some simple yet great hacks on how to improve your immune system.
Maintain a healthy weight and control inflammation
Well, well, well… how the turn tables! It’s the thing MD Diet specializes in. That’s right, if you maintain a healthy weight and keep control of your inflammation, you will improve your immune system. A consequence of being overweight is having inflammation throughout your body, which has been linked to an increased risk of getting seriously ill. Some of the causes that lead to inflammation include having an inflammatory diet (which MD Diet can help you fix), chronic stress, poor sleep habits, and chronic infections. Inflammation and being overweight are a yin and yang to each other where having one will oftentimes lead to the other. When dealing with inflammation and being overweight, your heart doesn’t work as efficiently as it would if you were the correct weight, you’ll have high blood pressure problems, high blood glucose levels, sleep apnea (which can lead to poor sleep habits, restarting the cycle all over again), low levels of the good kind of cholesterol in your blood (HDL cholesterol), etc. It is important to lose that extra weight that is causing your body to be inflamed so that you can stop this vicious cycle and improve your immune system.
Wash your hands frequently
You’ve been hearing it since elementary school, “wash your hands.” Well, your first-grade teacher was right, washing your hands is important! People who frequently wash their hands tend to get sick less, which is especially important during a pandemic like we are in now. So with that in mind, how many times a day should you wash those hands? The answer; before and after meals, after playing with pets, after going to the bathroom, after coughing or sneezing into your hands, before and after taking care of wounds or someone who is sick, and pretty much any time you are touching something you would deem as unclean, like your brother-in-law’s sweaty socks that he left in the middle of the living room floor. A study done by the Medical Research Council in the UK concluded that washing hands 6 times a day will reduce your risk of contracting viruses such as Covid-19. So how should you go about washing your hands to achieve the best results? Make sure to use soap and warm water and wash them for at least 20 seconds making sure to clean between the fingers and under the fingernails. Say no to the flu, covid, food poisoning, and other nasty bugs by washing those hands!
Cook meats thoroughly
Has this ever happened to you? You are going to a restaurant and sit down to eat that yummy burrito or sushi that you ordered, after a few bites, you start to have a stomach ache and soon find yourself sprinting to the nearest bathroom. Unfortunately what probably happened is that you got food poisoning. Food poisoning or other food-borne illnesses that get into your body will harm your immune system and make you sick for several days. Luckily for you, Utah has restaurant grades judged by professional food inspectors, so make sure to check them out online before you go to your favorite place to eat. When eating at home, make sure to cook meat properly to avoid getting sick. To cook your food to the correct internal temperature, make sure it reaches, 145 degrees Fahrenheit for whole cuts of beef, pork, veal, lamb, finfish, or for fresh raw ham, 160 degrees Fahrenheit for ground meats such as beef and pork, and 165 degrees Fahrenheit for all poultry including ground chicken and turkey, or for casseroles and leftovers. And most importantly, Make sure to refrigerate all leftovers promptly.
Don’t smoke
You’ve probably heard about this one before. Smoking comes with a plethora of health risks including weak bone health, tooth loss, increased risk of cancer, increased risk of cataracts, and you guessed it, a poor immune system. The nicotine found in tobacco is known to be a pro-inflammatory immunosuppressant which as the word implies, suppresses the immune system, leading to the cigarette’s radioactive components and metals making it through into the body, which when inhaled with smoke, can increase the risk of infections. And this is just the stuff that affects the immune system, not to mention all the harm smoking does to other organ systems. So how can you boost your body’s immune system in one simple step? Stop smoking! No matter what the movies or your peers tell you trying to be edgy with their cigarettes, doing anything to sacrifice your health is not cool.
Drink in moderation
“A glass of wine a day keeps the doctor away,” wait a second? I think I am getting that mixed up with apples. Either way, there have been several studies that have delved into the effects of heavy drinking on the immune system. A study done by the National Library of Medicine concluded that moderate drinking (typically a glass of 500 ml of 12% ethanol red wine a day) for men had no effect or even a beneficial effect on the immune system, meanwhile, excessive alcohol consumption, (consuming more than 4 drinks a day for men and more than 3 drinks a day for women) had an association with immune-related health effects such as susceptibility to pneumonia, a greater likelihood of acute respiratory stress syndromes, alcoholic liver disease, sepsis, and certain cancers. It can also slow down and reduce the recovery from infection and physical trauma. If you are into drinking, remember to drink responsibly.
We at MD Diet can help you out with one of the most important of these simple immune boosters, losing that unwanted weight. Come into our clinic today where our weight loss specialists are ready to help.
Did you like the info in this blog? Click here to read more immune booster hacks: 3 Simple Hacks to Boost Your Immune System.