Immunity Hi, Virus Bye-Bye: Proven Strategies to Improve Your Immune Health During Pandemic Times by Wijnen Jorg

Author:Wijnen, Jorg [Wijnen, Jorg]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Jorg Wijnen
Published: 2020-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Foods and Their Relationship to Our Immune System

6.1 Fruits and Vegetables

P eople who try to lose weight get sick the most. That was the surprising outcome from a questionnaire published in The Australian Women’s Weekly magazine in 1978. 1 The questionnaire sought details about the individuals in the household who were most prone and who were least prone to respiratory infections. They received information from 8,470 individuals.

The people who were trying to lose weight got sick the most; almost three times (2.94) a year. This sounds contradictory, because a healthy weight corresponds with a better immune system after all, as discussed in Chapter 4 : “Weight Matters.” The problem most likely lies in the way they tried to lose weight. We know at least some of them were on low-carbohydrate diets. Why is that relevant? A low-carb diet could potentially be low in vegetables, although it isn’t completely certain because this data is missing. What is for certain, though, is that low-carb diets are generally low in fruit. Thankfully, there were also people surveyed who consumed a diet rich in fruit and vegetables, so we can compare the two groups.

The people who consumed the most fruit and vegetables got sick significantly less; almost two times (1.95) a year. What about the people consuming a more average diet? They fell somewhere in the middle, getting sick 2.53 times a year on average.

These statistics are quite outdated, some would argue. How does it compare to more recent science?

Before we look into that there is one more interesting statistic from the questionnaire that stands out. This statistic has relevance to what has happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. They found that the older one got, the higher the risk was for contracting a respiratory infection.

This data is exactly in line with what we know today and have known for quite a while: elderly people are generally more vulnerable and susceptible to virus infections. This becomes clear from the mortality rate caused by the influenza virus every year. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the mortality rate among older COVID-19 patients is higher as well. As a matter of fact, the older one gets, the higher the risk. People older than sixty are at a higher risk of dying from a COVID-19 infection, but this risk goes up even higher if one passes the age of eighty. 2 , 3

We should not form the conclusion that the elderly are condemned to die from COVID-19 or any other infectious disease. However, the older we get, the more we should take care of our health and immune system. It’s very encouraging that there are a multitude of different ways to optimize our immune system, as every chapter of this book demonstrates.

Pete is a good example of how you can still have a good functioning immune system at seventy, as we saw in Chapter 3, section 4 : “Exercise.” He rarely gets sick.

Elderly people benefit from a higher intake of fruits and vegetables. This can be demonstrated in the improved response to vaccines.

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