6 new rules for building immunity

Keeping up your body’s natural defenses is all about making positive choices

I can describe the human immune system in one word: amazing. Our bodies are designed to fight, to defend themselves against disease. Now, in order for your immune system to take care of you, you have to feed it, stoke it, make sure it has what it needs to function at its best. Basically, if you want longevity, work on your immunity. 

So, I give you the new rules of building immunity so you can live a long and healthy life. They’re simple and easy to implement, for you and for your patients. 

Rule 1: Don’t live in fear of disease.

We are designed from birth onward to be exposed to different viruses, bacteria and all types of toxins. If you have a strong immune system, you won’t always get sick from exposure to illness, even something like COVID-19; and if you do, recovery will happen when the immune system does its job. 

Being exposed stimulates white blood cells to mount a response. In addition, when the immune system mounts a response, it is able to fight. Your body attacks it and gets rid of it and is victorious. Your immune system “remembers” exposures, like a general who’s gone into battle. And the next time your immune system encounters that same enemy, like a general, it comes prepared with the right ammunition, the right team to fight it off again.

Your immune system is designed to have this capability to fight in it, because there’s really no foolproof way to prevent anything from coming into your body. We have orifices. We have skin. There’s always going to be an entryway for viruses, bacteria, fungus, parasites and other toxins that will try to take over.   

We’ve scared people so badly about catching diseases, COVID in particular. People are afraid to let their bodies handle exposure the way they are designed to do. That’s how natural or herd immunity develops. We’re designed to be exposed, and to adapt. Building that natural herd immunity is what will get us through so we can keep being exposed, because COVID’s not going away, just as we have seen the flu last well over 100 years.

When the lockdowns from COVID occurred we suffered in many ways. One is that young, healthy kids who didn’t get exposed missed a chance to let their body “train” on COVID, to work on building future immunity as they aged. We weaken our immune systems by avoiding germs altogether. It becomes harder and harder to fight when we do get exposed.

Think of first-time teachers or day-care workers. When they are first starting out, they’re sick all the time because they’re chronically exposed to new things. Then all of a sudden they can fight it; they can be exposed more regularly without going down for the count. We become resilient.

Rule 2: Power up your immune system with food.

Eat these foods whenever you can: 

• Elderberry. It has antiviral properties. Mushrooms, onions and celery do, too. 
• Berries, like acai berries, and blueberries especially; blueberries carry a lot of antioxidants and cyanidines, which have an anti-inflammatory effect.
• Turmeric, besides making so many dishes delicious, is also anti-inflammatory. 
• One Brazil nut a day, as simple as that sounds, can give you really good levels of selenium without taking a supplement. Selenium plays a huge role in the function of the thymus gland, which produces white blood cells. 
• Citrus fruits to give you your vitamin C. Mangoes, oranges, grapefruit, anything citrus as long as patients can handle it. 
• Take a magnesium supplement. It’s very hard to get enough magnesium just through food. Signs and symptoms of magnesium deficiency include muscle aches and pains, insomnia, anxiety and headaches. There are many forms of magnesium, so try citrate if you have constipation, oxide if you also suffer from headaches, glycinate with muscle aches and pains and threonate if bowels are loose and you also want to support the brain.  
• Take vitamin D. I’m a huge fan of supplementing vitamin D, as very rarely do I see adequate levels of vitamin D in anybody who’s not supplementing. Try a sublingual (under-the-tongue) variety for easy absorption. Perfect levels are between 60-80 ng/mL.  
• Fish and nuts, for omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. You can also add a good fish oil with EPA, DHA and a little bit of GLA, which is very protective from an inflammatory standpoint. If you take EPA and DHA alone for an extended period of time, it can switch from being anti-inflammatory to pro-flammatory, so always include a little GLA when dosing.  
• Take a good-quality probiotic, something specific to your condition if you have one. Picking out the right probiotic can make a big difference. Take a prebiotic to help feed the probiotics, such as inulin or arabinogalactan. Some foods high in inulin include bananas, carrots, onions, radishes, pears, coconut and cumin. Get plenty of fiber; fiber also feeds good bacteria in the gut and promotes healthy levels of short-chain fatty acids that correlate with an increased risk of colon cancer if at low levels.  
• Load up on polyphenols with dark green leafy veggies, legumes, apples, broccoli, carrots, asparagus and flaxseeds. Polyphenols help reduce inflammation. 

Rule 3: If it isn’t food, don’t eat it.

Stay away from chemicals. No additives, no preservatives, no food coloring. Inflammation increases when your diet is filled with accessory ingredients. If you can pull it off a tree, pick it off a vine, grow it in the ground, slaughter it, fish for it, it’s food. If it’s got an expiration date of 2026 and can live in your pantry, it’s manufactured product. Eat food, not product.  

Read your food labels. Anything that ends in –ose, like dextrose, is a sugar. Or –ol, like mannitol, a sugar alcohol used as a sweetener. Watch out for “natural flavors” on labels, too; if you can’t confirm the source, you can assume they are chemicals, too. You can label something “natural flavoring” as long as it was in its natural state at one point prior to manufacturing. What actually is in the manufactured product may not be so healthy. 

I believe if we really ate well, half my patient population wouldn’t need my assistance improving their health. On a cellular level, when we feed ourselves the macro and micronutrients our cells need, they can then do most of the work to keep us well.  

Rule 4: Hydrate.

In school, we were always taught to drink half your body weight daily in ounces of water. There is absolutely zero research to support that. But you’ve got to drink water when you’re thirsty, says some of the literature. 

You can tell if you’re dehydrated by looking at your urine. If urine is dark all day, you’re definitely not getting enough water. It needs to be light in color. Sometimes you can feel the dehydration in your skin or with dry lips. Blood tests also play an important role. Elevated anion gap, RBCs or changes in creatinine, BUN or GFR levels can indicate a need for hydration.

Here’s what I suggest to patients: When you get up in the morning, first thing, grab a bottle of water. Don’t reach for the coffee, don’t reach for the juice. Drink a bottle of water. That will set your intention to stay hydrated throughout the day. And then it’s really about carrying the water with you throughout the day and finishing strong.
Remember: Tea is not water; coffee is not water; juice is not water. Yes, there’s water in them, but it changes the chemical components of those products you’re drinking. Think back to science class: If you add something to H2O, it becomes something else. 

If you hate the taste of water, I’m a big fan of flavoring your own water, like dropping in a little lemon or lime or watermelon. A little bit of mint can be fun. This can help with adherence if someone really dislikes water alone.

Water needs to really be water. Drink it before every meal. A bonus is it will help satiate you and prevent overeating.

Rule 5: Get moving.

Forget all the formulas and rules you’ve been told about exercise. There is no one-size-fits-all. The important thing is getting out and getting moving on most days, ideally doing a physical activity you love and look forward to. Aim for 30 to 60 minutes a day five to six days a week, combining cardio and weight-bearing exercise. Or jump on a rebounder to stimulate lymph drainage, run the stairs in your house if you don’t belong to a gym, maybe bring back roller-skating. 

Exercising can help reduce stress. Too much exercise actually triggers the adrenal glands, and exercise then becomes a source of negative stress. That can cause an increase in cortisol, starting the cascade of an alarm reaction in the adrenals, and then you’re in fight-or-flight mode and your immunity will be impacted. 

So get some exercise. But don’t overdo it. 

Rule 6: Enjoy feeling amazing.

Having a strong immune system isn’t just about avoiding getting sick. When your immune system is powerful, you will feel great. Like, daily. 

First of all, you will have energy like you wouldn’t believe. That’s because your system isn’t expending its energy on dealing with nutrient deficiencies and the other things that weaken it. You should be able to bounce out of bed in the morning, get through your day without caffeine or a nap and fall asleep easily, staying asleep until the next morning. Sleep is a time for our body to heal.
Your gut will be happy. What does that look like? You’ll move your bowels one to three times a day, feeling like you’re emptying with no burping, belching, bloating, gas, constipation or diarrhea. And you will only need one square of toilet paper to confirm you didn’t need it in the first place when your bowels work properly. The gut is responsible for a majority of our immune system.  

You won’t have those vague, general aches and pains or mental fogginess. You’ll notice the difference cognitively for sure: You’ll have clarity, focus, the ability to remember things.

Exercise and breathing will be easier. 

You’ll feel amazing. 

CINDY M. HOWARD, DC, DABCI, DACBN, FIAMA, FICC, is a board certified chiropractic internist and nutritionist specializing in finding the root cause to symptoms and disease. She earned her doctorate in chiropractic from National University of Health Sciences and is in private practice in Orland Park, Ill., where she focuses on individualized care. For more information, visit innovativehwc.com. 

Dr. Cindy’s top 10 favorite supplements to support the immune system in response to an infection

N-Acetyl-cysteine  

Arabinogalactan 

Copper 

Melatonin  

Olive leaf extract 

Quercetin 

Selenium 

Vitamin C 

Vitamin D 

Zinc