Smart Immunity- How Your Diet Can Help You Stay Healthy in the Time of Covid-19
There is a strong evidence that our diet and lifestyle choices influence how our bodies respond to illness. In the time of Covid-19, this wisdom for staying healthy is more important than ever. Some of the biggest Covid-19 risk factors are obesity, heart disease, asthma and other chronic illnesses. If you’re concerned about getting this virus, right now is the best time to implement every health promoting choice you can. This is a great time to lose excess weight and to clean up your diet and lifestyle so you can optimise your health. Whether or not you get Covid-19, the health promoting choices you make today will support you for the rest of your life.
Our understanding of the facts is constantly changing as new information comes out. About one in six people who get infected experience severe symptoms like difficulty breathing, resulting in hospitalization. Yet some people, perhaps even most, get what feels more like a flu.
Why doesn’t SARS-CoV-2 impact everyone in the same way?
We still have much to learn about this. But we do know that your underlying level of health has a profound impact on how your body responds to any infection. We also know that obesity, asthma, heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic illnesses are all considered risk factors for the most serious COVID-19 outcomes. And these diseases are all profoundly impacted by your diet and lifestyle. And we also know that a healthy and optimally functioning immune system is a critical line of defence against viruses of all kinds, including SARS-CoV-2.
Some of the healthiest foods for you and your immune health are what’s called G-BOMBS, a fun acronym developed by Joel Fuhrman, MD. It stands for Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, and Seeds. G-BOMBS are full of critical nutrients to help your body fight off illness.
How Does Food Affect Your Immune System?
It’s difficult to overstate how important nutrition is in promoting a healthy immune system. You need a diverse group of phytochemicals to create a strong barrier against pathogens that would otherwise make you ill. Because immunity typically declines as you age, it becomes especially important to eat more immune-supporting foods as you get older. Plus, there is considerable evidence that the immune systems of people who eat healthful diets abundant with fruits and vegetables do not decline nearly as rapidly with age.
Greens, such as spinach, kale, mustard greens, collard greens, broccoli, bok choy, and Brussels sprouts, are packed with the phytonutrients your immune system needs for optimal function. Green vegetables are rich in folate, calcium, and antioxidants like lutein and zeaxanthin. Folate is especially important for producing antibodies that work to destroy antigens that can make you sick. You can blend green veggies into smoothies, sauté them, use them as a base for colourful salads, chop and mix them into pasta dishes, or roast them.
Beans, peas, and lentils are full of fibre and resistant starch. The compounds in beans and other legumes can help enhance your gut microbiome, which is important because much of your immunity begins with the health of your digestive system. You can add beans, peas, and lentils to just about any dish, like spaghetti, on top of salads or pizzas, or in stews and soups.
Onions, along with shallots, scallions, leeks, garlic, and chives, are full of organosulfur compounds. These compounds have known benefits for immunity. Onions contain quercetin, a compound that may have particularly powerful bacteria-fighting abilities, as well as prebiotic fibre that feeds only the beneficial bacteria in our large intestine. Onions and garlic make great kitchen staples because you can use them in so many ways. You might enjoy sautéing them and adding them to soups, stir-fries, burritos, and homemade sauces.
Mushrooms have been studied for their immune-modulating and enhancing abilities. There’s so much evidence that mushrooms are good for your immune system that they’ve even been studied as a potential treatment for cancer. Note that you should only eat cooked mushrooms to reduce a potentially carcinogenic compound called agaritine. Cooked mushrooms are great on warm sandwiches, in noodle dishes, on salads, in soups, and on pizza. They can even serve as a base for plant-based burgers.
Berries of all kinds, including strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries, are high in phytochemicals and vitamins that may help keep the immune system functioning at its best. Berries are delicious eaten raw, but you can also blend them into smoothies, mix them into oatmeal or yogurt, make them into a homemade chia jam, or toss them into salads.
Seeds and nuts, like chia, flax, walnuts, and almonds, are rich in disease-preventing nutrients like fibre, healthy omega-3 fats, and micronutrients like vitamin E, iron, zinc, and calcium. Zinc, especially high in pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and hemp seeds, is a particularly potent nutrient that supports immunity. Nuts and seeds are a perfect afternoon snack and go well in homemade trail mix. You can blend them to make your own nut and seed butters or toss them into salads, stir-fries, and smoothies.
What Nutrients Are Most Important for Immune Function?
• Vitamin A, found in orange and yellow fruits and veggies like carrots, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin, as well as leafy greens
• Vitamin C, found in all plant foods, but especially oranges, bell peppers, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, melons, and strawberries
• Vitamin E, highly concentrated in butternut squash, leafy greens, nuts, seeds, and broccoli
• B Vitamins, which you can get from citrus fruits, whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds, avocados, bananas, spinach, and broccoli
• Folate, found abundantly in leafy green veggies like spinach, kale, broccoli, avocado, and Brussels sprouts, as well as oranges, and bananas
• Iron, rich in tofu, beans, lentils, cashews, dried fruit, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, and chickpeas
• Zinc, of which excellent sources are oatmeal, tofu, cashews, sunflower seeds, peanuts, lentils, and chickpeas
• Selenium, the best plant source of which are Brazil nuts, which can provide more than 100% of your daily needs in just one nut
As you can see, eating a diet that includes a wide variety of whole plant foods, including legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits, and veggies, is a great way to help your immune system stay healthy and in top shape.
Antioxidants and Coronavirus
Many of the best foods to prevent getting sick, and that can help you recover if you do, are high in antioxidants. Antioxidants are compounds that help prevent oxidative damage to your cells that can ultimately lead to the development of disease. One of the best antioxidants for fighting and preventing any virus, including potentially COVID-19, is vitamin C. We know that Vitamin C can reduce the inflammatory response and may help prevent and shorten the duration of the common cold. We also know that it has been shown to regenerate other antioxidants.
Vitamin D for Immune Support
Vitamin D is another essential nutrient for immunity. A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2017 showed how people who had optimal vitamin D levels and who took vitamin D during the winter had lower rates of flu than people who received flu vaccines. Studies have shown that people with vitamin D deficiency are 11 times more likely to get a cold or flu. While supplementing with vitamin D can reduce colds and flu by up to 42%.
Herbs, Spices, and Beverages for Prevention
There are a number of herbs and spices that can benefit your immune system. These are easy to keep stocked in your kitchen and incorporate into a variety of meals and recipes.
Turmeric, an Indian spice known for its bright orange color, is rich in curcumin, a compound with known disease-fighting and antioxidant-rich characteristics. Turmeric can reduce inflammation, boost heart and brain health, and even prevent heavy metal toxicity. Add turmeric to rice dishes, soups, stews, and aromatic sauces.
Garlic and ginger have potent anti- inflammatory and immune-optimizing properties. As a side benefit, ginger can help settle your stomach and reduce the pain associated with migraines, while garlic may reduce cancer risk. You can incorporate both of these into stir-fries, casseroles, pasta dishes, and baked goods.
Cinnamon is full of polyphenols and antioxidants, and is a known anti- inflammatory, antidiabetic, antimicrobial, anticancer, and heart-healthy spice. You can add it to tea, baked goods, hot cocoa, coffee, and warm stir-fries.
Hot peppers contain a compound called capsaicin, which is not only responsible for their spiciness but also their remarkable benefits in bringing down excessive inflammation. Some studies indicate that eating hot peppers may even increase longevity.
Echinacea is one of the most powerful herbs for fighting off upper respiratory infections. Studies have shown that taking it at the earliest signs of the cold or flu can reduce the severity of illness. Extracts of echinacea can stimulate immune function and may even be as effective as the flu drug without potential adverse side effects. The most common way to consume echinacea is as a tea or capsule.
Black Tea is rich in many polyphenols, including two, tannic acid and 3-isotheaflavin-3-gallate, which have been found to be inhibitive against the original SARS-CoV virus. While there have been no studies conducted with the use of black tea against SARS-CoV-2, it seems likely that it could be helpful. And if you want to steer clear of the caffeine, there are herbal teas — like ginger, thyme, sage, green, or rosehip — which have also been studied for their catechin and antioxidant content, and subsequent ability to shorten the severity and duration of cold and flu.
What we eat matters
Tens of thousands of studies make it clear that we need to eat more fruits, vegetables, and other whole plant foods and less sugar, white flour, meat, dairy, and eggs.
If you eat the typical western diet, then chances are you’re at risk for, or already have, one of the underlying conditions that could make you more susceptible to complications from COVID-19. But the good news is, there are choices you can make that will slash your risk of chronic disease. And in the time of COVID-19, they’re more important than ever before.
These are crazy times we’re living in. And none of us can control what goes on in the world around us. But we do get some say in the choices we make. And those play a fundamental role in shaping our destiny.