Immune-boosting medicine

Currently, there is no "panacea" that can quickly improve immunity for all healthy people. Most of the oral/injectable products on the market labeled as "improvement of immunity" are essentially immune-modulating substances that are only effective for people with specific immune deficiencies. Blind supplementation by healthy people is not only useless, but may also bring health risks.

I was helping my aunt sort out the family medicine box a while ago, and I took out half a box of "immunity miracle medicines" that were piled high on top: orange-flavored vitamin C effervescent tablets, colostrum powder with packaging all in foreign languages, and even horse milk that had been named by the State Food and Drug Administration. Domode had two boxes, and she dragged me to talk, saying that Sister Zhang’s grandson downstairs would always have a fever when the seasons changed. He had been taking a certain imported spore powder for half a year and had not been to the hospital this year. She insisted that I stock up three cans for my baby who had just started kindergarten.

Don't tell me, there are many people who firmly believe that they have found the "immunity code" correctly. The controversy about immunity-boosting drugs has been quarreling for several years, and practitioners in different fields have completely different opinions.

When I was in the clinic before, many patients did ask if they could prescribe some "immunity-improving drugs." However, in the Western medicine system, the drugs that really have a clear immune-improving effect are prescription drugs, such as thymusfaxin, intravenous human immunoglobulin, or drugs for tumors. It is used for patients with severely compromised immunity after radiotherapy and chemotherapy, or to deal with special cases of severe infection or congenital immune deficiency. If healthy people secretly take such injections, they will not only spend money in vain, but may also bring the risk of blood-borne transmission, increase the immune burden, and even induce autoimmune problems. As for the over-the-counter supplements that people often buy, such as vitamin C, zinc tablets, and transfer factors, current evidence-based medical evidence only shows that only people with clear nutrient deficiencies or mildly low immune function may experience some improvement after supplementation. If you usually have a balanced diet, regular work and rest, and take three or four vitamin C tablets a day, you may develop kidney stones.

Different from the precise supplementation of deficiencies in Western medicine, there is no concept of "improving immunity" in traditional Chinese medicine. The corresponding conditioning logic is called "strengthening". The core is balance, not higher is better. For example, Yupingfeng Powder, which is commonly consumed by everyone, was originally intended for people with weak constitutions, frequent sweating, and colds caused by cold wind. If you are prone to getting angry, dry mouth, bad breath, and constipation, if you drink it for a week, you are likely to get acne and nosebleeds. A while ago, a friend of mine who worked on the Internet drank astragalus water every day to prevent the flu. After drinking it for half a month, his gums swelled to the point that he could not open his mouth. When he went to see an old Chinese medicine doctor, he was scolded: You have a damp-heat constitution and you can't replenish qi. The more you replenish the qi, the greater the fire.

Of course, many people have come forward and said that I have indeed rarely caught a cold after taking a certain product. This is not entirely psychological. On the one hand, there is the blessing of the placebo effect. On the other hand, when many people start taking supplements, they also adjust their work schedules and get rid of the bad habit of staying up late. The credit for improving immunity is actually the change of living habits, but it is only attributed to the supplements. There is also the much-hyped probiotics that regulate immunity. At present, only a few specific strains have been proven to help improve allergies and recurrent intestinal infections in infants and young children. Most probiotic powders, which cost more than ten yuan for a box, are essentially sugar water with dead bacteria. They can only relieve constipation after drinking, but they have nothing to do with improving immunity for half a cent.

I met a 60-year-old man in the emergency department last year. He spent 3,800 yuan on a year-long supply of "immunity miracle medicine" after listening to a lecture on health care products. He said that if he took it, he would be free from colds and cancer for the rest of his life. However, after taking it for three months, he still had many colds. He was also hospitalized for a week because of drug-induced liver injury. After sending it for examination, it was discovered that the health product contained a large amount of illegal antipyretic and analgesic ingredients. It didn't feel uncomfortable for a while, but in fact it was hurting the liver.

To be honest, I have been in this industry for almost 10 years, and no one I have ever met who has a truly healthy immune system relies on taking supplements. If you really feel that your immunity is weak recently, for example, you have caught a cold every month for three consecutive months, or your wounds have not healed for half a month, go to the hospital to check your immune function first to see if there are really abnormal indicators, and if you are missing something, you can make up for it. Don’t buy a bunch of health supplements on your own. If there are no problems after the examination, then it is better to save money on buying supplements, sleep 7 hours a day, go for a half-hour walk three or four days a week, and eat enough vegetables and high-quality protein. It will be more effective than eating a box of spore powder that costs 1,000 yuan. In the first two months, I stayed up late for 10 consecutive days working on a project. During that period, I kept getting sore throats and mouth ulcers. Later, I forced myself to turn off the phone and go to bed before 11 o'clock. I didn't take any supplements, and everything was fine in half a month.

Of course, this does not mean that all immune supplements are useless. For example, proper supplementation of vitamin B12 for vegetarians and zinc for children with zinc deficiency can indeed reduce the probability of illness, but the premise is that you are really deficient and must supplement it under the guidance of a doctor or nutritionist. Just don’t take supplements as magic medicine. After all, immunity is much more reliable than supplementation.