Turn off the Shingles Virus

I recently gave a presentation to a large group of people and one woman in particular was frustrated that I thought supplements were needed on this diet if it was in fact a “perfect” diet. I explained how if she likes fermented veggies like Kim Chi, that she can get a lot of probiotics that way, but most people do not eat fermented veggies so I show the importance of supplementing with a few vitamins and minerals that help keep the immune system strong.

70% of our immune system comes from our gut.

Keeping the gut healthy with good gut bacteria is defense #1! After this discussion, I asked the group to raise their hand if they get the flu shot and sure enough, she raised her hand. Interesting…

To keep your immune system healthy, you must give your gut some tender-loving care! My family makes sure to get extra bifido bacteria (from food and/or supplements), vitamin D (in the fall and winter months), extra vitamin C from herbs and spices, zinc (from healthy sources) as well as eating a keto-adapted diet, which ensures uptake of vitamin C doesn’t get blocked by sugar.

Complex carbohydrates are just glucose molecules hooked together in a long chain. The digestive track breaks it down into glucose (sugar). Sugar depresses the immune system. Vitamin C is needed by white blood cells so that they could phagocytize viruses and bacteria. White blood cells require a 50 times higher concentration inside the cell as outside so they have to accumulate vitamin C.There is something called a “phagocytic index” which tells you how rapidly a particular lymphocyte can gobble up a virus, bacteria, or cancer cell.

In 1970, Linus Pauling, discovered that white blood cells need a high dose of vitamin C and that is when he came up with his theory that you need high doses of vitamin C to combat the common cold.We know that glucose and vitamin C have similar chemical structures, so what happens when the sugar levels go up? They compete for one another when entering the cells. And the thing that mediates the entry of glucose into the cells is the same thing that mediates the entry of vitamin C into the cells. If there is more glucose around, there is going to be less vitamin C allowed into the cell. It doesn’t take much: a blood sugar value of 120 reduces the phagocytic index by 75%.

So when you eat sugar, think of your immune system slowing down to a crawl. Simple sugars aggravate asthma, cause mood swings, magnify personality changes, muster mental illness, fuel nervous disorders, increase diabetes and heart disease, grow gallstones, accelerate hypertension, and magnify arthritis. Since sugar lacks minerals and vitamins, they draw upon the body’s micro-nutrient stores in order to be metabolized into the system.

 

 

Top 5 Ways to Boost Your Immune System

1. Add in Lauraciden. It comes from coconut and it helps fight off ALL infections and is even safe for children! Click HERE to find.  It is theBEST natural remedy instead of antibiotics! It even clears up UTIs and yeast infections!

2. Increase vitamin C with a keto-adapted diet and lots of herbs: Eating a well-formulated keto-adapted diet helps keep your vitamin C levels high and in return, enhances your immune system.

3. Optimize Zinc levels: Another one that many people are deficient in is zinc. Zinc is essential for keeping a healthy immune system, building proteins, triggering enzymes, and creating DNA. Zinc also helps the cells in your body communicate by functioning as a neurotransmitter. A deficiency in zinc can lead to stunted growth, diarrhea, impotence, hair loss, eye and skin lesions, impaired appetite, and depressed immunity. Zinc is critical in wound healing. It’s also important to have zinc to help build the stomach acid you need in order to pull the minerals from your food to begin with. A healthy thyroid produces stomach acid. If you are deficient in hydrochloric acid you can’t absorb the nutrients for bone health and thyroid function. You could be taking a “magic pill” and if you don’t have enough hydrochloric acid, you wouldn’t benefit from the “magic”. So focusing on your digestion is step one.

Correcting a zinc deficiency can go a long way toward helping the frustrated dieter control impulses to eat something sweet, something fatty, or something devoid of nutrition in an attempt to satisfy an inner compulsion.

You lose zinc as you sweat and through excess urination. So in the beginning of a keto-adapted diet, you will be low in zinc. The average American consumes less than 10 mg of zinc per day, far less than what is required for normal sugar metabolism or the other functions of zinc in the body. A zinc deficiency is a huge issue with PMS and salty cravings, or craving a bite of sweetness after each meal.

Our modern day soil is low in zinc, so the best source of zinc is animal products. Oysters, seafood and organic red meat are your best choices for zinc. So if you are a vegetarian, I suggest adding in a supplement. Certain prescriptions, including birth control, deplete zinc in our body. A zinc deficiency can cause birth defects such as cleft palates.

Click HERE to find the zinc I love because it is attached to an amino acid for quality absorption. I use to do a zinc test in my nutrition classes to see if the participants were deficient in zinc and on average 39 out of the 50 participants were! This bottle gives directions on how to test your zinc level too. I suggest 30-50mg at breakfast…please note that as you increase zinc, it can cause nausea so slowly increase. Start with 15mg a day for a week, and then double it the next week. Increase again until you are at 50mg a day.

4. Increase good gut bacteria: The first 2 years of life are crucial for our long-term immune responses. Bacterial colonization patterns set up in the first years and continue to grow throughout our lifetime. The medications and foods that we give our kids totally affect this delicate balance.

Acne would also be an indication of low good bacteria. Having a bought of diarrhea, taking an antibiotic, eating a diet high in refined carbohydrates as well as stress can all deplete a healthy intestinal flora. If a child has been on an antibiotic, it is extremely important to replenish the beneficial bacteria lost by taking a quality probiotics supplement.

A healthy body has 2 POUNDS of good gut bacteria in the large intestine where the typical American has almost none! Could this be why there is so much depression, obesity, sleep issues going on? Serotonin comes from our gut! Low gut bacteria causes low moods, intense cravings, poor sleep and even weight gain. Did you ever wonder why the Asians can eat so much rice without gaining weight? They eat fermented veggies and foods before meals which are filled with good gut bacteria (click HERE for source).  I think this is a supplement everyone should take. Click HERE for adults and use code Maria5 for 5% off and click HERE to find the one my kids take.

5. Enhancing vitamin D levels to 70-90 ng/ml (which is obtained by less than 5% of Americans!).  In an article called, “Vitamin D Proven More Effective Than Both Anti-Viral Drugs and Vaccines at Preventing the Flu,” studies show that Vitamin D is not only healthy for many other reasons, but it also is more effective than getting an expensive and toxic flu shot. I found it interesting how they link the flu to winter months because that is when the majority of people are deficient in vitamin D (since vitamin D comes naturally from the sun). “Vitamin D acts as an immune system modulator, preventing excessive production of inflammatory cytokines and increasing macrophage (a type of white cell) activity. Vitamin D also stimulates the production of potent anti-microbial peptides in other white blood cells and in epithelial cells lining the respiratory tract, protecting the lungs from infection.”

NOTE: Even my boys who were living on the Equator for the first years of their life and never had sunscreen on, had vitamin D levels LOWER than 30 ng/ml when we first brought them home.

Click HERE to find ways to increase your immune system.

Testimony of the Day

“Hi Maria! I wanted to tell you how you have helped me too! My weight started to fluctuate in my early 20’s, but the last straw was when I came down with shingles. I knew, at 28, that something bad was going on in my body. My doctor told me not to worry, and shingles were completely normal in a 28-year-old woman. 

I am ever so grateful to have met Maria!  I have never enjoyed such a wide array of foods in my entire life! Eating is now fun again! My stomach issues have completely disappeared but what’s more astonishing are the other changes: my clearer thinking, my muscle definition, my energy levels, my skin, my moods. The list goes on and on. 

I am forever indebted to Maria…for opening my horizons to the ketogenic diet and freeing me from a life of boring salads!” Kristen

To get the results like Kristen, click here to get started. A year from now you will thank yourself!