In America, the joke about health goes: If you’re not dying, you’re fine.
Many people wait to think about their immune systems until it’s too late.
Here is an immune building regimen in the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
Here are a few of the supplements for your natural "medicine" cabinet.
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Gabe Snow left the heartland and football to start LionHEARTED Health in New York City.
He told Fox News: "When attempting to boost our immunity we find ourselves drowning ourselves in supplements, pills and powders to do so. I am absolutely guilty of doing this, having a cabinet filled with remedies, I have pill or a powder / supplement for just about anything I could ever be potentially deficient in. Now that immune system boosting is all the rave, for right reason, people are buying all the vitamin C and D they can get their hands on."
Snow recommended foods and vitamins to boost the immune system as well as proper nutrition and hydration:
Vitamin C
"Vitamin C is widely known as an immune system booster for various reasons. Vitamin C helps promote white blood cells, white blood cells otherwise known as lymphocytes or phagocytes, help protect the body against infection. I use vitamin C daily for a completely other beneficial reason, vitamin C helps regulate the amount of uric acid in our blood, uric acid can crystalize and cause gout, a rare form of arthritis, like it did for me about a year ago, so I get to kill two birds with one stone with this supplement. Vitamin C also aids in our skin’s defense system. It is carried to the skin, as an antioxidant to strengthen our skins defense barriers which is vital right now with a deadly virus being passed around."
Vitamin D
"Vitamin D is something I have always kept in my regimen, I am an asthmatic and prone to respiratory infections. Vitamin D has been found to decrease the risk of respiratory infections. As of recent, I have also been a vegetarian so have been having to add vitamin D daily to my diet is even more crucial. In order to get this crucial vitamin we need to be outside, sunbathing, sufficient sunlight is the best way to take in vitamin D, second to sunlight there are many food sources that will supply; fatty fish, such as salmon, mackerel, tuna, if fish is not for you: egg yolks, cheese, mushrooms, fortified milk."
Other vitamins
"Echinacea, astragalus, oregano oil, garlic are usually found in your full spectrum immune boost supplement found at your local supp shop. I can say I NEVER, knock on wood, get sick and have been taking this adaptogen / herbal compound for a while now. There is not much medical research on these herbs but they are known to reduce inflammation, assist in digestion and help fight bacteria / virus, when combined, we could say this is nature’s own antibiotic cocktail. The effectiveness of these herbs when fighting a cold or flu is truly unknown, but it is obvious, to me, that if we can aid our body in all of its functions -- digestion, waste removal -- that our bodies can focus more of its ability to other functions like fighting off illness."
CORONAVIRUS: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Snow said there is more than supplements and regimens.
"The three most important things we need to focus on to keep our immune defense at optimum are: sleep, hydration and stress management. Stress maintenance and sleep hygiene are not supplements, they are requirements for our bodies to maintain and function properly. Depriving yourself from these three vital components will leave you ill -- no matter how much vitamin C you pump into that body."
He added: "Stress is truly something we must manage in order to keep our immune systems at its best. Two supplements I advise all of my clients to use to aid in their stress management are: mucuna and holy basil. These two combined have been used for people looking to replace their current anti-anxiety diazepam prescriptions. So if looking for a non-pharma substitution for any anxiety meds you may be taking, or if you are struggling managing the added stress COVID-19 has been riddling our nations with, give these two a try."