How To Boost Your Immune System This Flu Season

Colds and Flu – Ignore at Your Own Risk!

Every winter it’s the same old story – everybody comes down with colds and flu.  And there’s not really all that much you can do about it, right?  Sure, you can cover up the symptoms with over-the-counter (OTC) medications that mask the symptoms sufficiently that you feel somewhat better, or you can sit by the fire drinking tea and honey.  It will pass.  If you feel bad enough, you may go to your doctor, who may prescribe an antibiotic for you.  Which doesn’t work.

Is this really the way it has to be?  Exciting new research studies suggest that there is a natural solution that helps prevent colds and flu and, should you come down with a case anyway, helps your immune system rapidly fight off the illness with no side effects.  Let’s take a closer look at colds and flu.

What exactly is a cold or flu infection?

Common colds, more accurately called acute viral nasopharyngitis, are caused by viruses, mostly rhinovirus (from the Greek rhin – nose) as well as corona virus, human respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus, human parainfluenza virus, enterovirus or meta-pneumonia virus.  These viruses cause upper respiratory tract infections of varying severity.  Adults average 2-4 colds a year, while children of school age may have up to 12 colds in a season.  Cold viruses are highly infectious and are mainly spread by breathing in infected air from other people sneezing or coughing.

Colds are most commonly spread in places where lots of people tend to congregate, such as schools and at work.  Therefore they also create a lot of economic impact when people stay home from school or work.  In fact, as many as 189 million school days and 150 million work days are lost every year just to colds in the US.  It is estimated that cold suffers account for 75-100 million physician visits a year at an estimated cost of $7.7 billion.  They spend $2.9 billion on OTC cold remedies and another $400 million on pre-scribed drugs from their doctor.  The total annual economic cost of colds just in the US is about $30 billion. 

About one-third of cold sufferers who see a doctor receive a prescription for antibiotics.  Since colds are caused by viruses and antibiotics are only effective against bacterial infections, this is a complete waste of money.  Not only that, but the abuse of anti-biotics by prescribing them for illnesses on which they have no effect has resulted in new drug-resistant strains of bacteria appearing that aren’t affected by traditional antibiotics.  Antibiotics also have the dangerous side effect of wiping out all bacteria living in your gastrointestinal tract, including beneficial bacteria such as lactobacilli and bifidobacteria.  This can have serious conse-quences for your health beyond just a cold (link to article on Gut Health). 

Flu, or influenza, has symptoms similar to the common cold but usually more severe.  Flu sufferers often have a fever, while cold sufferers usually do not.  Symptoms also include nausea and vomiting, not commonly seen in cold sufferers.  Influenza affects 5-15% of the population worldwide every year.  In the US alone, some 2-2.5 million people die every flu season from flu-associated causes (including pneumonia and circulatory causes) (Thompson, et al, 2003).

Influenza also takes a serious economic toll, averaging around $10 billion per flu season in the US.  It has been estimated that a pandemic – a worldwide flu outbreak on the scale of the massive Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-19 – could have an economic impact of $700 billion on the US (Poland, 2006) and cause millions of deaths.  The Spanish Flu pandemic, for example, is estimated to have killed 50-100 million people worldwide (Knobler, et al, 2005) — some 5% of the total world population at that time.  It may have killed as many people as the Black Death which swept Europe in the Middle Ages.  It killed 25 million people in its first 25 weeks, while AIDS, by comparison, has killed 25 million people in its first 25 year.  It killed 2-20% of those infected, compared to 0.1% from common influenza.  Later pandemics, such as the Asian Flu pandemic of 1957-58 (1-1.5 million) and the Hong Kong Flu pandemic of 1968-69 (0.75-1 million), killed far fewer people, most likely due to the introduction of antibiotics to control the secondary infections, such as pneumonia, that formerly often proved fatal.

Pandemic influenza is cause by particularly virulent Influenza A viruses that pass rapidly throughout the world.  What is unusual about these pandemics is that they tend to kill healthy young people with very healthy immune systems, while common influenza strikes mainly the very young, the very old and those with damaged immune systems.  Common influenza kills by making the victim more susceptible to pneumonia and other illnesses that are what really kills the person.  Pandemic influenzas, like avian (bird) flu or swine flu, have an entirely different effect.  They set off what is known as a “cytokine storm” – a breakdown in the normal feedback loop that holds the immune system in check during an infection.  The immune system needs to mobilize adequate forces to defeat the infection, but it also needs to limit the response to what is needed as a response that is too great can lead to tissue damage.  In the case of bird flu and other pandemic influenzas, this system breaks down, and the immune system keeps pumping out chemical messengers – cytokines – that keep calling for more and more reinforcements.  As influenza affects the respiratory system, the lungs fill up with fluid from all the pus formed by the immune cells attacking the virus.  The patient eventually drowns in his or her own fluids.  That is why the young and healthy are most vulnerable to this form of influenza as they react to the infection with the most robust immune response (Chan, et al, 2006).

The most promising approach to treating this cytokine storm is the use of immunomodulators, particularly PRP (proline-rich polypeptides) and lactoferrin, to bring the immune system back into balance and calm the storm so that the body can fight off the influenza virus normally (Pizza, et al, 2006).  Lactopeptides®, derived from bovine colostrum, are a good source of PRP and lactoferrin.

How can you best protect yourself and your family against colds and flu? 

The first and perhaps most important step is to make sure your immune system is working at its optimal best.  The best way to do this is using one of nature’s oldest remedies: colostrum.  Colostrum is the first milk produced by the mother following the birth of a child.  It is loaded with all sorts of immune and growth factors that in the baby help condition the gastrointestinal tract and give it the immune protection it needs until its own immune system is up and running.  In the adult, colostrum helps heal the gut, which is crucial to our health and well-being.  Many, perhaps most, diseases and illnesses enter out bodies through the gut.  They are able to do this because of the damage we do to the gut lining by things like drinking alcohol, coffee and sodas, smoking, taking NSAIDs and aspirin for pain, poor diet and the like.  Our gut lining is also damaged by environmental toxins in the water we drink and the food we eat.  A healthy gut lining keeps out toxins and disease-causing organisms, but a damaged gut lining can allow these through due to increased permeability. 

Colostrum has been proven to heal these injuries and restore the permeability back to where it should be.  It promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria while killing harmful bacteria, like H. pylori (a major cause of ulcers) and fungus, like Candida.  The immune components of colostrum also helps protect us against pathogenic bacteria and viruses.  Taking colostrum regularly as a nutritional supplement keeps us healthy and prevents colds and flu before they can take root. 

But sometimes our best efforts do not prevent us from coming down with a cold or flu.  What can we do then?  Standard OTC medicines do not cure colds or flu; they just mask the symptoms so that we feel better until our immune systems deal with the viruses that cause the illness.  Antiviral medications have limited or no effectiveness and often come with side effects that are worse than the illness they’re supposed to treat.  There is an exciting new therapeutic technique, however, that does help.  It is based on immune components in colostrum that actually modulate the immune system to meet any challenge.  It can turn up the immune system when needed to fight off an infection, or it can tone down an overactive immune system before it can damage our tissues, such as is the case in autoimmune diseases.  These Lactopeptides® are concentrated from whole colostrum and are available in an easy-to-use spray product that all members of the family can use and at a relatively low cost.  This product can help spare you and your family the discomfort and the economic impact of colds and flu.  In the case of pandemic influenza, such as bird flu or swine flu, it could even save your life as the Lactopeptides modulate the immune response, preventing the overreaction seen in bird flu infections. 

Disclaimer: The information presented herein is intended to provide education about topics of general interest in the nutritional and nutraceutical areas. It is not intended as medical advice. iCNR, Inc. encourages all readers to discuss questions about information contained in this article with their health care practitioners.