On-demand lifestyles mandate instant solutions - for everything. We can help improve our immune system in a variety of ways, including eating fermented foods “So if you do have an infection somewhere, the inflammation isn’t going to get back to where the immune response can be activated,” Professor O’Farrelly adds. If you’re sedentary, and it’s so easy to imagine sitting at a computer for eight hours a day, then your white cells become sluggish. “I suspect that’s one of the reasons why exercise is so important because you’re keeping the lymph moving, you’re keeping all of those white cells moving around. They’re not driven by a pump, so the only way the lymph can move is by the movement of our muscles. “Besides the circulatory blood system, we have this other system - the lymphatic that carries the lymph. What’s important is the movement of the muscles, explains Professor O’Farrelly. People fear gyms and can be intimidated by classes, but to reap the immune benefits of exercise, you don’t need a gym membership or expensive Californian yoga pants. The immune system likes to sample it and learn about it, so you’re giving the immune system a workout just by being outdoors.” 4.
It’s also a kind of communication management system for everything that comes from outside. “The immune system isn’t just there to defend against infections. “Exercise and fresh air have so many benefits - it’s good for the mind, it relieves stress, and stress inhibits your immune system,” says Professor O’Mahony.
#PILLS AND POTIONS BEAT FREE#
Going for a walk in your local park is free and will help you relieve stress. Unsurprisingly, home can be a crucible of pressure. Amid a cost of living crisis, many families feel the financial screws tightening. But the invocation of ‘be less stressed’ is hardly helpful - few start their day pledging to be stressed.
You have to eat fresh fruits and vegetables.” “Fermented foods like yoghurts are particularly good, but we know that non-digestible fibres in the diet are essential. “Feeding your microbiome needs a holistic approach - one vitamin or one mineral won’t fix everything for you,” says Professor Liam O’Mahony, principal investigator at APC Microbiome and UCC professor of immunology. Your microbiome has a shopping list - it wants fruits, vegetables, and maybe some yoghurt. And they’re all ticking away nicely, but somebody is helping, and you need the microbiome to do that.” 2. We talk about controlled inflammation, there’s a small amount of it in the gut, and there are loads of immune cells. It somehow modifies the local immune response to keep everything homeostatic or stable. “We’ve only just begun to realise just how important the microbiome is,” says Dr Cliona O’Farrelly, professor of comparative immunology at Trinity College. Granted, the composition and diversity of the adult microbiome is not entirely within our control - there are genetic, childhood and environmental factors at play - but we can all nourish what we have.
The gut - or the microbiome - controls and regulates immune response. No pills, potions, or assorted hocus pocus required. So here are 10 ways to empower your immune system this winter. Those caveats aside, we can all help improve our immune function. In the immunological lottery, some are nature’s supermodels. Alternatively, it might predispose us towards a long life, despite a lifestyle that might dictate otherwise.