Activities that Cripple Our Immune System:
The human immune system is under constant attack by the forces of nature. To compound this, there are many common things people do in our society that cripple the immune system and make us more susceptible to illness.
People often act as though they are victims of a vicious assault by a pathogen when they get sick. What they don’t often realize is that their lifestyle provided the proper environment for the pathogen to do what it was created to do.
The job of any pathogen is to “break down decaying matter.” Our job must be to “not be decaying matter,” by keeping our bodies functioning and adapting at their peak potential. Our responsibility to ourselves is to use our lifestyle to strengthen our immune system so we can overcome the stressors of life. Here are five major things most individuals in our society do to promote illness.
1. Sugar and Your Immune System
Consuming sugar feeds parasites within our body and depletes our system of critical immune-boosting nutrients such as vitamin C, glutathione, zinc, etc (1). Sugar also feeds the development of abnormal tissue and cancerous growth (2). When sugar and starch are metabolized in our body it breaks down into a simple molecule called glucose that is used for energy production.
In the 1970’s, Dr. John Ely discovered the Glucose-Ascorbate-Antagonism (GAA) theory (3). Glucose and vitamin C (ascorbate) have a very similar chemical makeup. This theory proposes that elevated glucose levels compete and effectively restrict vitamin C from entering cells. Both glucose and vitamin C depend upon the pancreatic hormone insulin and its signaling effects in order to get into cells.
Sugar and Vitamin C
There is an important receptor called the Glut-1 receptor that activates in response to insulin to allow both glucose and vitamin C to enter the cell (4). However, glucose has a greater affinity for the insulin receptor. This means that the greater the content of circulating blood sugar, the less vitamin C will enter the cell.
White blood cells have more insulin pumps than any other type of cell and may contain 20 times the amount of vitamin C as other cells (5). They also need 50 times more vitamin C inside the cell than in the blood plasma to handle the oxidative stress that occurs when they encounter a pathogenic substance.
When white blood cells encounter pathogenic bacteria and viruses, they must ingest or phagocytize these organisms to neutralize them. The phagocytic index measures how effective a particular white blood cell is at destroying viruses, bacteria & cancer cells (6). Elevated blood sugar impairs this phagocytic index. In fact, a blood sugar of 120 reduces the phagocytic index by 75% (7).
2. Sleep Deprivation:
Quality sleep is one of the most fundamental nutrients that every person needs to perform at their optimal. Sleep deprivation creates a heightened stress response within the body that disrupts normal healing and tissue rejuvenation processes (8). When the body has a heightened stress response, it lowers immune coordination and increases inflammatory processes.
We need at least 7 and up to 9 hours of sleep each night. Our ancestors were regularly getting 8-9 hours of sleep, if not more every night. We typically try to get by on less than 7, and it leads to chronic stress, inflammation, and immune dysregulation (9).
If you are struggling with your sleep, read this article about the most common causes and solutions to poor sleep. Don’t put this off, be sure to address it and get it corrected, as it will play a huge role in your quality of life!
3. Drinking Tap Water:
Municipal water is extraordinarily toxic to the body and destroys the immune system. This water is loaded with environmental toxins such as chlorine, DBPs, arsenic, heavy metals, and fluoride (10, 11). Proper water filtration is essential to remove these chemical agents.
High-quality reverse osmosis systems are one of the very few water systems that are able to effectively remove fluoride (12). Add back a pinch of pink salt (1/4 teaspoon per gallon) to replace any lost minerals from the reverse osmosis process.
You can also get RO systems like the iSpring here that take out all the bad stuff and automatically remineralize and bring up the pH of the water. Another great portable water system that will get the bad stuff out and keep the good stuff in is the Berkey system. The best water is the UltraLux Triple Action Hydrogen Water Machine which is what I use at home as it is powered by molecular hydrogen which reduces oxidative stress in the body and improves immune function.
I recommend parents teach their children not to use municipal water fountains but instead to carry filtered bottled water. Ideally, this is from your home water system, but you can also get bottled water from time to time.
Do your best to avoid plastic bottles as much as possible and instead use glass or stainless steel bottles to reduce the consumption of toxic chemical residue that leaches out of plastic and into the water you are drinking. Your body can handle and detoxify a little of this, but if you are always drinking from plastic bottles, you are going to build a high toxic load in your body.
4. Staying Indoors:
We spend as much as 90% of our lives indoors nowadays, and researchers are investigating our exposure to indoor pollutants as contributing causes to the rising incidence of chronic illness in our society. According to the EPA, our indoor environment is two to five times more toxic than our outdoor environment, and in some cases, the air measurements indoors have been found to be 100 times more polluted (13).
By spending so much time indoors, we are also missing out on the protective factors inherent in nature. When outside, we are exposed to low levels of natural pathogens, and our immune system is able to gently adapt to these. Being outside also offers the benefit of fresh air, sunlight, vitamin D3, and if you take off your shoes the electrons from the ground.
Get Outside and Get Grounded
Our bodies are a living matrix of energetically charged biochemical circuits that are charged and coordinated through the activity of the central nervous system. The Earth itself is regulated by subtle but dynamic electrical circuits. The electrical crosstalk between the Earth and our central nervous system helps to program trillions of biochemical reactions.
Getting our body exposed to these biochemical circuits is very calming and healing for our body. This is why I am such a huge fan of grounding, where you get your direct skin exposed to grass, dirt, sand, or even concrete to get these healthy electromagnetic frequencies.
This is much harder to do in the winter time, but take advantage of any chance you get to even get 1 minute of direct contact with the Earth and, ideally, some sun. If you live in a northern snowy climate, consider a beach vacation in the wintertime to get grounded and good sun exposure.
5. Chronic Dehydration:
All life begins in water; even the developing fetus is surrounded by water. A water rationing system takes effect immediately in response to any form of dehydration. A neurotransmitter named Histamine becomes active and redistributes water throughout the body. Some areas of the body are obviously more important than others.
The order of circulatory priority (an inborn triage system) is the brain, lungs, liver, kidneys, and glands. Of least importance are the muscles, bones & skin. Histamine’s responsibility is to ensure that these vital organs have enough water to function properly during times of dehydration. If the dehydration issues become chronic, then water must be taken from major regions within the body.
Additionally, chronic dehydration can cause histamine to become excessively active, leading to symptoms that are often mistaken for other disorders (14). The most common symptoms associated with dehydration and elevated histamine include allergies, asthma, dyspepsia, colitis, constipation, rheumatoid arthritis, headaches, and chronic pain.
Be sure to drink at least half your body weight (lbs) in ounces of clean, filtered water each day. If you weigh 150 lbs then you should drink a minimum of 75 ounces of water daily. In the colder months, people are not typically doing this. One way to help is to drink warm water with lemon or herbal tea.
If you want to work with a functional health coach, I recommend this article with tips on how to find a great coach. On our website, we offer long-distance functional health coaching programs. For further support with your health goals, just reach out—our fantastic coaches are here to support your journey.
Sources For This Article Include:
1.’Spoonful of Sugar’ Makes the Worms’ Life Span Go Down Link Here
2. University of Utah Health Sciences. (2009, August 18). Does Sugar Feed Cancer? ScienceDaily
3. Ascorbic Acid: Its Fundamental Importance Link Here
4. Wikipedia GLUT1 Link Here
5. Internetwks: Reversing Diabetes Type II, Glucose-Ascorbate Antagonism, and their Impact on Reversing Heart Disease Link Here
6. FreeDictionary: Phagocyte Link Here
7. Breast Cancer: Cause, Prevention, Cure Link Here
8. WebMD How Sleep Affects Your Health Link Here
9. Mullington JM, Simpson NS, Meier-Ewert HK, Haack M. Sleep Loss and Inflammation. Best practice & research Clinical endocrinology & metabolism. 2010;24(5):775-784
10. EPA: Lead in Drinking Water Link Here
11. NRDC: Safe Drinking Water Link Here
12. Fluoride Alert: Top 10 Ways To Reduce Fluoride Exposure Link Here
13. EPA: Info Link Here
14. Kjaer A, Knigge U, Rouleau A, Garbarg M, Warberg J.Dehydration-induced release of vasopressin involves activation of hypothalamic histaminergic neurons. Endocrinology. 1994 Aug;135(2):675-81. PMID: 8033816
This would be a great article other than not mentioning the importance of a balanced gut ecosystem.
Thanks Dana, this is the first part of a 2 part article and I do talk about that in the 2nd part. Plus, if you are a regular reader you will see that I have some of the most progressive information on healthy gut flora on this site and in my regular distribution.
What are your thoughts on grounding mats? Looking forward to this summit.
Yes they are excellent Robin!!
I walk on the beach for grounding every day. But I find that the mat for sleep at night makes me hot, even sweating, and produces heart palpitations. Does this happen with others? I am usually very sensitive to medications, etc.
I haven’t heard that Barb.