Immunity boosting foods

The foods that can really help you improve your immunity are never some of the "magic foods" that have been touted as Internet celebrities, but daily ingredients that meet the three standards of "sufficient nutritional density, balanced mix, and adaptable to your own metabolic state." There is no single product that is "invulnerable to all poisons" after eating it. The core of dietary immunity is long-term and stable nutritional supply, rather than sudden supplementation of something.

Let me talk about a case I handled last year. Xiao Xia, a young girl who works in Internet operations, is prone to colds and fevers when the seasons change, and she is also prone to oral ulcers. She spent three thousand dollars to stock up on acerola cherry powder, broken Ganoderma spore powder, and imported lactoferrin. After two months of eating, she still got infected by the cold wind. Later, I helped her adjust her diet and didn't let her buy any expensive supplements. I replaced the takeout lunch box that was heavy in oil and salt that she ate every day with at least 100g of dark green vegetables and a boiled egg every day, and steamed sea bass or salmon twice a week. I also added a small requirement: don't drink milk tea as water, drink enough 1.5L of boiled water every day. With such a simple adjustment, she didn't even catch a cold last winter and only had an oral ulcer once.

Now regarding the diet to improve immunity, there are actually two schools of thought in the circle that have been arguing for a long time: one school is the "accurate supplement school", which believes that most modern people have an unreasonable diet structure. It is most efficient to supplement whatever is missing. If vitamin C is not enough, take effervescent tablets. If selenium is missing, take selenium tablets, which will save trouble and get quick results.； The other faction is the "natural food faction", which insists that as long as you can eat normally, all nutrients should be obtained from daily ingredients. The absorption efficiency of supplements is far less than that of natural foods, and there is a risk of overdose if you take too much. Among the nutrition doctors I have contacted, there are veteran experts who have been in the industry for 30 years and are firmly opposed to ordinary people taking supplements indiscriminately. There are also young nutritionists who have returned from studying abroad. They think that if you eat takeout at least five days a week, it is perfectly fine to take some multivitamins appropriately. In the end, there is no absolute right or wrong. The core is to adapt to your own living conditions.

Speaking of this, some people must want to ask, are those immunity "magic foods" uploaded on the Internet completely useless? No, it’s just that the price/performance ratio is too low. A mother asked me before, saying that she saw a can of lactoferrin sold in a live broadcast room for more than 300 yuan. She said that after eating it, her child would not catch a cold. Do you want to buy it? I directly asked her to go back and read the national standards. Lactoferrin is indeed a nutritional fortifier that is allowed to be added to infant formula powder by the state. However, there is currently no unified conclusion in the academic community about the immune benefits of additional supplements for ordinary healthy people. Instead of spending that wasted money, giving your baby 300-500ml of pure milk and eating a whole egg every day, which has enough high-quality protein and trace elements, is better than anything else. Cordyceps sinensis, which was very popular in the past few years, has been kicked off the list of health products by the Food and Drug Administration. The risk of arsenic content exceeding the standard is high. If you really need to supplement high-quality protein, eating two taels of lean beef is more effective than anything else.

Of course, there are exceptions. I met a patient with an autoimmune disease before. His digestion and absorption function was very poor, and his daily diet could not meet his nutritional needs. The doctor specially prescribed medical nutritional powder and trace element supplements for him. Supplements in this pathological state are not within the scope of what we call ordinary people's daily adjustments.

Don't tell me, I have met many people before who said, "I eat vegetables every day, but my immunity is still weak." When I asked, I found out that they were eating starch-based vegetables such as potatoes, lotus roots, and yams, as well as dark green spinach, rape, broccoli, and orange-red carrots and pumpkins with high nutrient density. They could not eat them more than once a week. You must know that the folic acid and vitamin K content in 100g of spinach is more than ten times that of 100g of potatoes. If you eat a pound of potatoes, the nutritional density is far less than that of a small plate of stir-fried spinach.

Oh, by the way, there is also the recently controversial issue of whether the ketogenic diet can improve immunity. Two friends of mine are completely opposite examples: one has severe insulin resistance and often suffered from folliculitis before. After adhering to the ketogenic diet for 3 months, the inflammatory response was significantly reduced, and he did not get sick much for a year.； The other had a weak stomach and insufficient dietary fiber intake. After taking ketogenic diet for half a month, he suffered from constipation and angular stomatitis every day, and his immunity was greatly reduced. Therefore, there is no one-size-fits-all "immune-boosting recipe". Your body's reaction is most honest as to whether the food you eat makes you feel comfortable or not.

Finally, don’t think that you can build up your immunity just by eating. If you stay up until two or three o’clock every day and are so anxious that you lose your hair, it will be useless no matter how much delicacies you eat. Diet is the foundation. Sleeping for 7 hours and taking a walk three or four days a week are more effective than any supplement. If you really get sick every now and then, first go to the hospital to get blood drawn to check your serum vitamin levels to see if you are really deficient in a certain nutrient. Replenishing supplements on your own may lead to problems - for example, too much vitamin A can lead to poisoning, and long-term overdose of vitamin C can easily lead to kidney stones. Don't step on these pitfalls.