Boost Your Immunity – Stay Healthy This Cold and Flu Season.
I am not a physician, naturopath or a nutritionist, but I get asked all the time by my patients about what they can do to help themselves stay healthy. These days – I talk about steps to boost their immunity – build a good defence so your body can express health and build resiliency.
A quick call to a colleague at Turquoise Health on Main St in Markham, Jeff Millet, helped me outline some of the important things we can do to stay healthy today, tomorrow and in the future.
In these cold winter months we don’t get enough sun exposure – we need to supplement our Vitamin D absorption with a VIT D DROP. Research says that Canadians/North Americans can take 1000 IU’s per day, and some evidence suggests we could even take double or triple that. Also, with Vitamin D you can super dose if you forget it yesterday, add a little extra drop today – it won’t hurt you.
Zinc is another one that we can add to the immunity boosting list and an easy additive to our vitamins list.
Vitamin C – we all know how important vitamin C is and we remember our mom’s making us take them when we were kids. It still works!
Vitamin A and Vitamin E are also on the list of supplements Jeff mentions can keep us healthy. Vitamin A is an infection fighter and Vitamin E is a powerful anit-oxidant.
Most of these supplements can be found in food, but the reality is our diets are not always ideal and we need a little help. If you take a multivitamin, consider grabbing a couple of these other helpers next time you are at Turquoise or your local health food supplier.
For a list of foods that contain some of these immune boosters, head over to the post by Cleveland Clinic, 8 vitamins and minerals to boost your immunity – its simple but packed with valuable information.
Don’t forget to exercise, get some fresh air and take some time to yourself – this can help keep your batteries charged and build your reserves for when your body needs to fight.
As always if you have any questions – please don’t hesitate to ask, and to quote a friend:
Stay Positive and Test Negative 🙂
John Sage, R. Kin DOMP CAT(C)
Clinic Director