Two winters ago, after a month of serial cold sores, Heather Stewart* came down with a terrible virus, followed by a serious sinus infection that required antibiotics. “I’d had my seasonal flu shot, and I was always the last person left standing when everyone else was felled by the flu,” says Heather, 50, who runs a busy home-based interior decorating business in Toronto.

Heather wondered if she should have been taking those TV ads to heart, the ones that offer immune-boosting products ranging from echinacea and ginseng, to oregano oil, vitamin C and zinc to boost the immune system. But no immune aids could have helped Heather’s challenging personal circumstances and poor self-care that undermined her immune system and left her vulnerable to infection.

For the past year, she had been caring 24-7 for her 76-year-old mother, who had colon cancer. In addition to serving her clients, Heather ferried her mom to all her oncology and imaging appointments and nursed her through two surgeries. “I was up a lot at night with her; I was smoking a lot, panicked most of the time and too frantic to eat,” she says.

With Heather’s stress level and her work and caregiving schedules, her health, along with her immune system, took a hit — what your grandmother would call letting yourself get rundown. “Granny is probably right. For your immune system to run optimally, you have to be well fed, well rested and not chronically stressed out,” says Dr. Brian Ward, a professor of infectious diseases at McGill University in Montreal.

In addition, Heather was spending a lot of time interfacing with the medical system, where nosocomial (hospital-acquired) infections are rampant. But could Heather have warded off this virus with any of the immune-boosting supplements touted in the media? “There is no definitive evidence that specific supplements, taken in large or unusual quantities, will help the immune system,” says Dr. Tania Watts, a professor of immunology at the University of Toronto. “But a good wellbalanced diet with proper nutrients is important to overall health, including a healthy immune system.”

And although, adds Ward, for people in the poorest countries, vitamin A supplementation is important for immune health, “for people who have a normal healthy diet, supplementary vitamins are unnecessary for protecting the immune system.” What Heather needed most was more help caring for her mother and more time to cultivate a healthier lifestyle for herself. Here are some all-purpose tips to help keep your immune system strong.

* Name has been changed.

Follow a nutritious, well-balanced diet rich in fluids, proteins, vitamins, minerals and fatty acids. Like other cells, your immune cells need nourishment.

Your bodily cells repair and restore themselves during slumber, so give them time to recharge.

Learn healthy ways to cope with stress. Excess stress hormones can tax the immune system. Try not to respond to life’s pressures with poor nutrition, smoking or excess alcohol consumption.

Smoking puts stress on the immune system by flooding the body with toxic chemicals. Smokers who get a cold or the flu are more vulnerable to respiratory complications such as pneumonia.

When antibiotics kill off weaker bacteria, they leave an open field in which hardto- treat superbugs can multiply. Faced with these drug-resistant strains, the immune system must fight off a more serious challenge. Antibiotics are needed only for stubborn bacterial infections such as bacterial pneumonia, so don’t ask your doctor for an antibiotic for a virus, against which it is powerless.

Don’t over-exercise, as this can stress your immune system and may leave you temporarily vulnerable.

Lather up several times a day to protect your immune system from having to battle more germs than necessary. If you can’t get to a sink, use pocket or public hand sanitizers.

Don’t be too clean We now know that a little bit of dirt is probably a good thing. “The human immune system evolved over tens of thousands of dirty, grimy years of very close contact with the environment,” says Ward. According to the Hygiene Hypothesis, if you over-sanitize your environment and ban pets, you are probably overprotecting your family from everyday germs. You thereby prevent the immune system from being gently stimulated, educated and programmed by not-too-threatening microbes, as in vaccination.

Most people probably just think of white blood cells when they think of the immune system. But your immune defences involve a complex system of organs, tissues and cells.

The skin is one of the first lines of defence in keeping out invaders. The hairs in your nose and even the wax in your ears stand guard as well, says Dr. Tania Watts, a professor of immunology at the University of Toronto.

Lining the respiratory and digestive systems, mucosal cells fight infectious agents, too, as does degrading acid in the stomach.

These tiny masses of lymphatic tissue collect bacteria and toxins and serve as the staging ground where the different immune cells marshal their forces to combat invading infections.

In the gut, huge numbers of benign bugs called commensal bacteria work to crowd out dangerous pathogens such as pathogenic E. coli and C. difficile. These symbiotic organisms play a critical role in human health, including influencing the absorption of nutrients and the way our immune system develops in the gut.

Internet site reference: http://www.canadian-health.ca/7_1/24_e.html