Supplements You Should Take For Your Immune System
It’s recommended that you eat 5 servings a day of a variety of fruits and vegetables a day. But with the fast pace modern man is living in. Currently, it’s challenging to find the time to eat these portions a day and source them. The main reason behind these servings is to maintain a healthy diet and get the necessary vitamins and minerals your body needs to make sure that your immune system is strong enough to fight the daily battle of germs and viruses. Taking supplements is the best possible alternative.
Out of the whole spectrum of vitamins, there are a few shining heroes that just give your immune system an extra boost when you take them:
Zinc
There are many benefits when you take zinc daily:
- Keeps your metabolism functioning
- Produce new cells for your immune system
- Assist with healing wounds
- Restoring taste and smell
The recommended amount of zinc to be taken daily is:
- Men – 11mg
- Women – 8mg
- Pregnant women – 11mg
- Breastfeeding women – 12mg
You need to ingest zinc on a daily basis because your body doesn’t store it.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C isn’t naturally produced by your body. Daily consumption is recommended:
- Me – 90mg
- Women – 75mg
- Not more than 2 000mg a day
There is a multitude of benefits to taking vitamin C. Ascorbic acid is a nutrient your body needs to form:
- Cartilage
- Blood vessels
- Muscles
- Collagen in bones
All of these are needed with any healing your body needs. For example, your immune system aids by producing white blood cells.
Elderberry
The flowers and the berries of the elderberry contain both vitamins and antioxidants that boost your immune system. This will help with:
- Protect your heart
- Tame inflammation
- Lessen stress
Elderberry is used in treatments like:
- Cold and flu
- Headaches
- Any infections that affect your breathing
- Muscle and joint pain
- Constipation
- Fever
- Epilepsy
- Kidney problems
Out of the 30 different types of elder plants and trees, it’s the Sambucus nigra that aids in the healing and immune boost.
Reishi Mushrooms
The reishi mushroom is a fungus and also known by two other names
- Ganoderma lucidum
- Lingzhi
The health benefits in the mushroom come from several molecules within the mushroom-like the
- Triterpenoids
- Peptidoglycans
- Polysaccharides
You can either eat the mushroom fresh, consume the extracts or powdered forms. It will help with:
- Lessen fatigue
- Improve sleep pattern
- Reducing stress
- Boost your immune system
- Lessen blood pressure
- Help with high cholesterol
- Studies done on white blood cells found that using reishi mushrooms can change the inflammation pathways there.
Vitamin D
Your body can produce vitamin D by exposure to the sun and is therefore referred to as the sunshine vitamin. Vitamins D-1, D-2, and D-3 are part of the family of compounds found in this fat-soluble vitamin. There are many critical functions vitamin D has:
- Regulating the absorption of phosphorus and calcium – keeps your muscles, teeth, and bones healthy.
- Boosting your immune health
The daily dosage for vitamin D is:
- Under 18 years old – 600 IU
- 18-70-year-old – 600 IU
- Over 70 years old – 800 IU
- Pregnant and breastfeeding women – 600 IU
Not getting enough vitamin D in your system will cause rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults.
Vitamin E
Best known for its antioxidant properties, vitamin E, not only protect you from the effect of free radicals but also helps with your:
- Vision
- Reproduction
- Blood
- Brain
- Skin
If you have a vitamin E deficiency, you might get neuropathy (nerve pain). The daily recommendation for vitamin E is 15 mg. Although there are 8 chemical forms of vitamin E that exist, alpha-tocopherol is the best for dietary requirements. Vitamin E gets stored in the fatty tissues and liver, and your body uses it when needed. Therefore it’s fat-soluble.
Vitamin B Complex
This complex is a vital component in keeping your immune system running at its peak. Vitamin B complex contains all 8 B vitamins:
- B1 – Thiamine is critical for helping convert nutrients to energy in your metabolism.
- B2 – Riboflavin acts as an antioxidant and also convert your food to energy
- B2 – Niacin helps to produce and repair your DNA and metabolism. It also plays a significant role in cellular signaling.
- B5 – Pantothenic acid not only converts your food to energy but also plays a part in your hormone and cholesterol production.
- B6 – Pyridoxine plays an integral role in creating neurotransmitters, producing red blood cells, and amino acid metabolism.
- B7 – Biotin is essential for regulating gene expression and fat and carbohydrate metabolism.
- B9 – Folate is required for proper cell division, formation of white and red blood cells, cell growth, and amino acid metabolism.
- B12 – Cobalamin is critical in red blood cell development, neurological function, and DNS production.
The recommended daily dosage of vitamin B complex is:
- Adults – 400 mg
- Pregnant women – 600 mg
- Breastfeeding women – 600mg
Selenium
This mineral is essential to boost your immune health but must be taken in small amounts. The health benefits of selenium are:
- It’s a powerful antioxidant – deter oxidative stress
- It can reduce the risk of certain cancers – and can increase patients that are doing radiation therapy quality of life
- Protect against heart disease
- Help to prevent declining mental health – improve memory loss in Alzheimer patients
- Protect thyroid glands – its necessary in the thyroid hormone production
- Lower inflammation – helps with asthma patients
Green Tea Extract
Green tea extract is a concentrated form of green tea. By only taking one capsule, you get the same amount as one cup of green tea’s active ingredients. It’s also known as Camellia sinensis and has been used for thousands of years in traditional medicine. As the ancients found, there are many benefits to this tea:
- High in catechins which is an antioxidant – it protects against oxidative stress.
- Promotes heart health – helps to improve blood fat levels and reduce blood pressure.
- Brain booster – helps with brain health, improves memory, and protects against brain disease.
- Improve liver function – this is done by decreasing oxidative stress and inflammation.
It is essential that you get all these important vitamins and minerals daily in your body for your immune system to be at its peak condition. Especially in the times that we are in where viruses literally take lives everyday. Taking your supplements gives your body the daily fighting chance it needs.