Food and supplements

Foods

Many common foods have potent immunity-boosting properties when consumed regularly in sufficient quantities, including the following:

Cruciferous vegetables

The members of this family of vegetable, including broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and turnips, are rich in betacarotene and protect mucous membranes, especially in the lungs and intestinal tract, from cancer and free-radical damage.

Garlic

Garlic is probably the foremost immune-enchanting food on Mother Nature's menu. It has a wider spectrum of antibiotic activity than penicillin, inhibits many viruses and helps prevent cancer.

It is also one of the richest natural sources of selenium, which is required to produce the potent antioxidant enzyme gluthione peroxidase.

It is most effective when consumed raw.

Raw fish

Deep-water fish such as salmon and tuna are rice sources of omega-3 fish oils, which contain the essential fatty acids required to produce immune factors such as white blood cells in the body.

They also prevent heart attacks by keeping the arteries clear of cholesterol deposits.

These elements are most abundant and easy to assimilate when the fish is consumed raw, but if you prefer it cooked, then lightly steam or poach it.

Seaweed's

Seaweed's are known to lower blood cholesterol, neutralize radiation toxicity and enhance overall immunity.

Raw almonds

Raw almonds are one of the best natural sources of essential amino acids and essential fatty acids, both of which are required for optimum immunity.

For vegetarians, who often become deficient in these vital nutrients, raw almonds are an excellent substitute for meat and other animal products.

Bee pollen

Another good source of essential fatty acids, be pollen is also loaded with enzymes and other potent nutritional elements which boost immunity. Pollen also helps eliminate many food allergies.

Supplements

Because of environmental pollution and denatured diets, food alone is no longer sufficient to sustain optimum immunity today.

Without supplements, the body simply does not get the full range and quantity of vital nutrients and other elements it requires to maintain health and vitality, regardless how much food you eat.

Judicious use of the following supplements will supply the elements the body needs most to fight disease, neutralize toxins and free radicals and guard against premature degeneration of bodily tissues.

Vitamins

Many vitamins function not only as nutrients, but also as potent antioxidants.

When the body is dis-eased or di-stressed, it utilizes vitamins at a far greater rate than under normal conditions, a fact that shows how important these nutrients are to immune functions.

Most important is vitamin C, which helps prevent cancer, counteracts the immunosuppresive effects of cortisone, protects the heart and boosts overall immunity. The optimum maintenance dose is 2-6 grams per day and double that amount when ill.

Other immunity-boosting vitamins include, in order of potency, vitamins A (preferably as betacarotene), vitamin E and vitamin B1, B5, B6, and B12.

Minerals

The minerals selenium and zinc are indispensable to the human immune system, because they are required to manufacture antioxidant enzymes, which protect the body from free-radical damage.

Zinc, for example, is used to synthesize eighty different enzymes, including the body's most potent anti-aging enzyme, superoxide dismutase.

Other minerals essential for immune function include magnesium, potassium, maganese, sodium, copper and chromium.

Amino acids

Argine, when taken with synergistic cofactors such as vitamin B, stimulates the pituitary to secrete growth hormone, a vital immune regulator. Argine also enlarges the thymus gland (which produced T-cells), greatly enhances the body's healing powers and helps prevent cancer.

Other immune-boosting amino acids include ornithine, cysteine, taurine, methionine and glutathione.

Essential fatty acids

These nutrients, including omega-3 fish oils, oleic acid and caprylic acid, provide the best protection against arteriosclerosis and other forms of heart disease.

Since few Americans get adequate levels of these essential nutrients from their food (as clearly evidenced by the fact that heart disease now accounts for 53 per cent of all deaths in the USA), supplemental sources are required.

Fatty acids are also essential elements in white blood cells, antibodies and brain cells.

Enzymes

Since modern diets consist primarily of cooked and processed foods, the body must divert much of its enzyme power to the stomach and duodenum for digestive duty, thereby sharply reducing the availability of enzymes for antioxidant activity and other immune functions.

When taken on an empty stomach, enzyme supplements go to work digesting microbes, pre-cancerous cells, toxins, pus, mucus and other disease causing agents.

Lactobacteria

Supplemental sources of lactobacteria such as acidolpholis, bifidus and fermented cabbage juice replenish the colonies of "friendly" bacteria in the intestinal tract. Lactobacteria are the body's only natural defense against candida and other yeast infections, which have powerful immunosuppresive properties.

They also facilitate rapid elimination of toxic digestive wastes and improve assimilation of essential nutrients from food.

Herbs

Many herbs have potent immune-boosting properties.

In Chinese medicine the most widely used herbs for enhancing immunity are ginseng, ginkgo, astralaglus, gotu kola, ligustrum and codonopsis.

The North American herb Echinacea (purple Kansas cornflower) is also a highly effective immune-system tonic and was widely used by the Plains Indians to cure and prevent many ailments. Other North American herbs that boost immunity are chaparral (Larrea divaricata), yerba mansa (Anemopsis californica) and osha (Ligusticum porteri).

The South American herb pau d'arco (Tabebuia pentaphylla) enhances the body's ability to resist pathogens and also directly attacks outside invaders. Shiitake mushrooms and a rare Chinese mushroom call ling-jir also have strong immunity-enhancing properties and are frequently included in herbal formula's that boost immunity. Many of these herbs are currently being used to treat AIDS patients.

Growth hormone

As the human body ages, secretions of growth hormone naturally decline. A synthetic growth hormone that costs about US$20,000 per year has recently been shown dramatically to reverse the symptoms of aging in several studies in America.

At less cost, you can take other supplements, such as argnine, which stimulate the pituitary gland to secrete elevated levels of natural growth hormone.

Another effective growth-hormone-releasing supplement is the drug bromocryptine (sold as Parlodel), which is conventionally used to treat senility, infertility, and other symptoms of growth-hormone deficiency. By taking this supplement, which has no adverse side effects, for a month or two once or twice a year, you can help prevent growth-hormone deficiency and its related symptoms.

Women who have gone through menopause should note that bromocryptine can reverse menopause and restore menstrual cycles and fertility, even in 60-70 year-old women, so if you use it in this stage of life, you should take appropriate precautions against unwanted pregnancy.

Fasting

One of the most effective of all immune-system boosters turns out to be fasting, which all animals do naturally whenever they are ill.

When properly conducted, fasting can cure virtually all diseases, including cancer and completely rebuild the immune system.

Fasting is the most effective of all methods for stimulating elevated secretions of growth hormone, detoxifying the blood and all other bodily fluids and tissues, excreting accumulated wastes from the colon and other organs, dissolving tumors and cysts, repairing tissues and healing internal and external injuries.

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Source: Daniel Reid, The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity.

Immunity and energy.