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They say that, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Good nutrition plays a key role, not only in keeping you from rushing to the medicine cabinet during the season of cold and flu virus, but also in maintaining a healthy immune system. Lacking in one or more of essential nutrients may prevent the immune system from functioning at its peak.
Functioning as a complex web of mechanisms inside the human body, the immune system is designed to protect and defend against millions of invaders such as allergens, bacteria, viruses, and other potentially harmful organisms, collectively known as antigens.
Serving as the first line of defense against these invaders are the skin and the membranes that line the entrances to the body. These entrances are the nasal passages, the eyes, and the respiratory and digestive tracts. If these antigens make it past the skin, they have to face the specialized white blood cells called T-lymphocytes, which continuously patrol the body in search of these body invaders. Other cells that keep the body protected from these harmful germs are B-lymphocytes, neutrophils, and macrophages. B-lymphocytes are special blood proteins that neutralize or destroy germs. Neutrophils and macrophages, on the other hand, scavenge antigens from the blood for delivery to the lymphatic system, which disposes them. It is our obligation to help these cells to function efficiently in keeping our body protected from bacterial infections.
While essential nutrients are critical for the production and maintenance of key germ-fighting cells in the immune system, a balanced diet also has a strong effect on vascular function. Note that the immune system is dependent on blood flow because the bloodstream is the route along which infection-fighting cells travel throughout the body to where they are needed.
There isn’t one specific nutrient or food that can easily vanquish the cold germs and flu virus spells. Maintaining a well-balanced diet and keeping a healthy eating habit are your best assurance to keep the immune system functioning properly.
Fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamins A and C. It also has phytochemicals that lend fruits and vegetables their colors. These food groups also contain antioxidants that promote the body’s built-in anti-viral and anti-bacterial functions. These nutrients help ensure that the lymphocytes can divide and reproduce properly in response to a virus, and that the neutrophils and macrophages that engulf and kill invading bacteria can do their job.
Maximizing the variety of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants can be achieved by eating 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. It is necessary to consume two different colors of vegetables and fruits with each meal, and one-third of lean protein.
Include in your diet a generous amount of protein to ensure production of more white blood cells to help combat the invading antigens. The building blocks of all the body’s cells, including the cells that power the immune system, are the amino acids found in protein. Protein and amino acids are essential in increasing immune cell proliferation.
Realizing how important the role of nutrition plays in maintaining a healthy immune system can make the trip to your family doctor easily be re-routed to the kitchen instead. Apples, anyone?
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Tags: body, Health, immune, Protein, vegetables
Posted in Health Issues · November 17th, 2009 · Comments (0)
Healthy eating is difficult to achieve because we have so many health factors to consider and food choices to make. We know antioxidants are good for us so we want to eat lots of colorful fruits and vegetables because they contain phytochemicals like carotenoids and flavonoids which neutralize the free radicals that cause the age-related degenerative diseases. We know that we may not get all the antioxidants that we need in our food so we take supplements to ensure an adequate supply of antioxidants. But what about the actual food we eat. One of the major problems with our modern diet is that the food we eat is a tasty combination of saturated fats and highly processed and quickly digested carbohydrates. However in the last several years, people have become so concerned about fats in their diet that they have substituted carbohydrates and avoided even the good unsaturated fats in lean meat, olive oil and other plant oils. Now everybody seems to be eating a medium- to high-carbohydrate diet without giving proper attention to the type of carbs that they eat.
Not all carbohydrates behave the same in our bodies. We have been told for years to avoid simple carbs like honey and white bread and eat complex carbohydrates that our body doesn’t digest and turn to glucose as quickly. However determining whether a food containing carbohydrates is absorbed and raises our blood sugar quickly or slowly is not at all intuitive. Scientists have done a lot of rigorous testing over the past several years and have found that white bread and baked potatoes raise our blood sugar level much faster than honey, jams and chocolate bars. These scientists developed a numerical index called the Glycemic Index or GI to compare the ability of different carbohydrate containing foods to raise the body’s blood sugar levels – or in other words the speed of conversion to glucose. GI values are determined by feeding human subjects who have fasted overnight a fixed amount of the food and then measuring their blood glucose levels at fixed intervals of time. Pure glucose is set at 100 and then other foods are compared to this profile. Testing is time consuming and the tests have to be averaged for a number of individuals. However these studies have yielded some surprising results such as the fact that the starches in rice, bread, potatoes and many types of cereals were absorbed and raised blood sugars very quickly but the sugars in fruit, candy, chocolate and ice cream did not result in prolonged rises in blood sugars. In other words many of the starchy foods had a much higher Glycemic Index than many of the sugary foods. Needless to say these results seem counter intuitive and have caused a lot of controversy in the food industry. The rate of absorption is very dependant on how the carbs are bound up with the food fiber and the particle size. For example less gelatinized products like al dente spaghetti and oatmeal have lower GI values and stone ground flours have lower GI values than finely ground flours. The fibrous coat surrounding beans and seeds stop enzymes from getting at the starchy carbs inside and will slow the digestion of grainy breads, legumes and barley. The acidity of foods also slows down digestion and vinegar, lemon juice, pickles and sourdough bread will result in lower GI meal values.
The Glycemic Index is important not only to diabetics but also to non-diabetics because we need to know what foods will keep our blood sugars on an even keel and not raise them too high and then have them plummet down again causing hunger. The slow digestion of low GI foods and the gradual rise and fall in blood-glucose response helps people with diabetes control their blood sugar levels and increase their sensitivity to insulin. Low GI foods will help healthy people delay hunger pangs and promote weight loss in overweight individuals. In addition low GI carbohydrates can reduce blood cholesterol levels and also reduce our risk of heart disease. High blood glucose spikes can result in oxidative stress leading to the formation of plaque that can cause atherosclerosis and even blood clots. So keeping our blood sugar levels fairly level and low seems like what we should be trying to achieve through healthy eating. How do we go about achieving this?
The first step is to look at what carbohydrates we are consuming and the GI levels of the meals that we are eating. Then we should try and ensure we have at least one low GI food in each meal to keep the overall meal GI close to 50. Most fats and proteins have no effect on the GI level of our meal because they don’t contain carbs. However watch out for saturated fats and too many calories. Let’s look at some meals and see what substitutions we could make. The GI values are shown in brackets.
Breakfast
Cut back on Corn Flakes (92), Rice Krispies (82) and substitute All-Bran (32) or switch to a cereal based on oats, barley or bran. Stop eating white bagels (72), white bread (70) or whole-wheat bread (77) and switch to pumpernickel (50) or sourdough (55). Fruits are mostly low GI foods and surprisingly orange juice (46) is very good.
Lunch and Dinner
Eat your colored vegetables and make your salad dressings with olive oil and vinegar. Avoid parsnips (97) and substitute pastas like al dente white spaghetti (38), linguini (46) or macaroni (47) for Instant white rice (87) and potatoes – baked (85), red-skin peeled and boiled (88). Except for parsnips and potatoes most vegetables have a low GI value.
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Tags: body, eating, food, Health, vegetables
Posted in Health Issues · November 11th, 2009 · Comments (0)