Food Flu Fighters

A recent article sheds some light on the need to make sure you have a balanced diet with the right nutrients to fight infectious diseases like influenza.  Some key information in the article:

“To create immune cells to fight off a specific infection, the body has to rapidly draw nutrients from the bloodstream, says Anuraj Shankar, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health. “If you don’t have an adequate intake of vitamins and minerals, you won’t be able to produce the number of immune cells you need, and the immune cells you do produce may be compromised,” Dr. Shankar says. That makes it impossible to mount an effective response to infection, he says.”

Obesity and diet play a key roll in not getting sick.

“Dr. Beck says studies of mice show that only 4% of lean animals infected with the flu virus die. That compares with a death rate of between 40% and 60% in obese mice infected with the virus. And after a small study showed that obese people vaccinated for the flu didn’t mount a strong immune response, the University of North Carolina is expanding its trials to compare vaccination response rates in lean and obese people.”

Popping a pill does not work as well as eating right.

“While a multivitamin is a good addition to any balanced diet, individual supplements and vitamin pills may not be as well absorbed by the body as nutrients in foods. Some supplements also can have toxic effects in too-high quantities.”

We are now looking at expanding our diet to incorporate some of the foods high in vitamins and minerals that we previously ignored.

Related posts:

1. Food Nutritional Scoring System – ONQI – NuVal
2. Food Inc. – Food Industry Commercialization
3. BBQ Grill Food Safely
4. Natural Dog Food – Natural Cat Food

Posted on December 5th, 2009
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