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Fight Cold Weather Ailments with Nutritional Support

Colder weather and more time spent indoors make staying healthy a real challenge this time of year. Millions of people face getting sidelined or made miserable by the common cold. Taking steps for prevention could make life a lot more pleasant in the wintertime.

Typical Eating Patterns Let Down the Immune System

Building your body's immune system to help prevention is a good place to start. The typical North American eating pattern is high in sugar, artificial sweeteners, unhealthy fats, and lacking in fruits and vegetables. This unhealthy eating pattern has spread around the world. These eating habits fail to supply the body with adequate nutrition to truly support immunity.

Numerous studies have found that vitamins and minerals improve immune function. In addition, restricting unhealthy dietary fat is critical for building resistance because these fats diminish your body's natural defenses against infection.

Give Your Immune System A Boost with Nutrition

The specific nutrients with the most profound effects on immune function are the omega 3 essential fatty acids (EFAs), which are found in flax seed, fish, vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin B6, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc, selenium and iron. Examples of delicious foods that contain healthy fats are walnuts, salmon and extra-virgin olive oil. These nutrients are deficient in the typical American eating style.

Excellent food sources of immune boosting nutrients include vibrant green, red and orange vegetables, delicious nuts and seeds, fresh seafood, whole eggs, and poultry. Fresh herbs, such as basil, vegetables, like garlic and scallions add robust flavor to recipes and also add their own infection-fighting properties.

These are some areas of importance that help build immunity.

Vitamin D levels

Vitamin D is necessary for healthy bones and for strong immune function as well. If you live in the northern United States or Canada or use sun block regularly, your vitamin D levels may start to decline in late October, weakening immune function in winter.

Stress Reduction

Scientists have known for years that major and minor life stresses interfere with immune function and contribute to disease. Stressful life events increase your susceptibility to several types of infections, including the common cold. Meditation or prayer, moderate exercise, adequate sleep, and immune-boosting nutrients can keep you from becoming a victim of stress.

Exercise

Regular aerobic exercise, about 30 minutes a day, has been shown to improve immune function and decrease the incidence of common viral infections. Most Americans decrease their physical activity as the weather turns cold.

Sleep

Your sleep is an active time during which your body restores itself. Sleep deprivation of experimental animals increases susceptibility to viral and bacterial infection, and, in humans, insomnia reduces activity of natural killer cells, your main defense against viral infection. The natural sleep requirement of adults varies from as little as six to as much as ten hours per day, with most people needing seven to nine hours, preferably without interruption.