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IMMUNE HEALTH
How can I maintain a healthy and strong immune system?
This is a question we are often asked as a company that specializes in nutritional immunology.
Maintaining a healthy immune system is intricately linked to maintaining good general health. Afterall, the immune system is a component of your general health and wellbeing. What brings good general health also supports a strong and resilient immune system.
Here is a list to follow to maintain a healthy immune system:
Vitamin D Status – Sunshine Vitamin that Helps Your Immune System Shine
People who are Vitamin D deficient have compromised immune systems. Approximately 40% of Americans are chronically Vitamin D deficient. Additionally, some Americans are seasonally deficient and that depends on where people live. Seasonal deficiency occurs mostly in the northern states of the US during the fall and winter, but people who don’t get enough sun exposure or those who use sun screen all the time for health reasons, can also become deficient even if they live in very sunny states like California or Florida. Vitamin D plays a very important role in immune enhancement and if you’re severely deficient, it may take up to 6 to 8 weeks to gain proficiency through prescription high dose Vitamin D capsules.
Check your Vitamin D status every year at your annual check-up with your physician. It’s a part of the comprehensive blood test that is often ordered by doctors once a year to check your cholesterol, and other blood markers. Vitamin D status is usually one of the tests that is done.
If you are Vitamin D deficient, then follow your doctor’s advice in gaining proficiency. Sometimes he or she may recommend that you take supplements with Vitamin D in them, such as our supplement, and sometimes, if you’re very low, he or she may give you prescription high dose Vitamin D pills. These prescription Vitamin D pills are usually six to eight doses (six to eight pills) that you take once a week for six to eight weeks and you’re all set. Your deficiency can usually be addressed within that time period.
Healthy BMI (Body Mass Index) for a Healthy Immune System
Maintain a healthy body weight. Obesity negatively impacts the immune system and if your doctor has told you that you are over-weight, then address that at your earliest opportunity with input from your physician.
Exercise as often as you can with input and advice from your doctor. Both weight training and aerobic exercise are good for your overall wellbeing and in the maintenance of a strong immune system.
Healthy Sleeping Habits to Support Your Immune System
Sleep at least eight hours a day with ideally two of those hours before midnight. Sleeping before midnight makes a profound difference in people’s immune status. Chronic lack of good sleep can dramatically and negatively affect your immune system.
Immune Training – Teaching Your Immune System What to Look For
Stay up to date with all vaccinations recommended by your doctor. Immune training through vaccinations can help you ward off infections for which effective vaccinations exist.
Healthy Nutrition – Essential for a Strong Immune System
Eat healthy foods, with a lot of fruits and vegetables, and try to get as much raw Brassica vegetables in your diet as possible.
Take the Berkeley Formula daily to boost your immune system.
Healthy Habits – Foundation for a Healthy Immune System
If you smoke, please stop smoking as smoking negatively impacts the immune system.
If you drink alcoholic beverages, please do so in moderation.
If you don’t exercise regularly, start today! It’s never too late to start exercising. If you haven’t exercised for a long time, start after consulting your healthcare providers and after having received input and guidance from them. You need to slowly get back into an exercise regimen to not harm yourself by doing too much too quickly.
Healthy Hydration for a Healthy Immune System
Stay well-hydrated throughout the day. Try to drink at least 6-8 cups of purified water per day.
Water is the thread that ties all living organisms together. Without water, there would be no life on this planet. A remarkable liquid (at room and body temperature) that enables life in all of its forms from plants to mammals. When astronomers look for life in other planets, the first thing they look for is water.
The molecular biology of life and all of the processes of our body’s immune response system occur entirely within the various aqueous solutions of our organ systems and cells. It all happens in water. “All of life occurs in aqueous solution” as the late Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley, Dr. Alexander Nichols, used to say during his famous lectures at UC Berkeley with hundreds of students taking notes. Therefore, staying well hydrated throughout the day helps to support your immune function. It also helps to eliminate toxins from your body which is important for maintaining a healthy immune system.
Managing Stress to Support Your Immune Function
Manage psychological stress effectively. Chronic psychological stress has a profoundly negative impact on your health and the health of your immune system. Some find practicing yoga to be very helpful. Others find saunas to be very relaxing and rejuvenating. Practicing your favorite sport can be very helpful in reducing stress levels—basketball, golf, soccer, tennis, biking, swimming. Indeed, all recreational activities like hiking, fishing, cooking, dancing or art classes can help people manage stress effectively.
Some find that the best way to de-stress is to simply spend as much time as possible with friends and loved ones. Whatever you love to do that helps you relax and reduce your stress levels, then do those activities often to manage your stress. Modern life is filled with stressors and there are very few individuals who can state they have lives that are completely stress-free. However, learning how to manage stress effectively can go a long way in helping you achieve optimum health and a strong immune system.
This is how some of the co-founders of our company manage stress: after exercising in the mornings and subsequent to our post-exercise stretching, we set aside 15 minutes a day for meditation and deep relaxation. During those 15-minutes, in addition to meditating, we try to focus on things that we’re thankful for in our lives. Giving thanks for the gifts that we have in our lives and the loved ones who are still in our lives is very helpful in our ability to focus for the rest of the day and maintain a sense of peace and well-being throughout the day.
We wish you all health, peace and a strong immune system for years to come.
Do you have any diet or nutritional recommendations regarding how to lose weight to support my immune system?
Being overweight negatively impacts the immune system, and unfortunately, a large percentage of Americans are significantly overweight these days. According to the CDC, 74% of adult Americans are currently overweight, with 42% being obese. This is a national emergency, not just from the perspective of immune system health, but also, cardiovascular health, metabolic health (diabetes), risk of cancer development, risk of neurodegenerative disease, risk of joint damage (especially knees and ankles) and a lot of other health issues. As a result, roughly 3 out of 4 adults in the US have a compromised immune system because of their body mass index (BMI) being above what is considered healthy. This is a significant public health issue that we must address as a nation and do so in a resolute way.
Slow and Steady is the Best Approach
The best way to reduce excess weight to support your immune system is to do so in a slow and steady manner, combining a diet and exercise regimen. Given our background as nutritional scientists, we’re going to focus on diet and nutrition here.
Reduce High Glycemic Carbohydrates
Our first recommendation is that you reduce your high glycemic carbohydrate intake (bread, rice, pasta, cookies, sweets, soft drinks made with sugar, potato chips, alcoholic beverages, etc.). High glycemic foods raise blood sugar levels very quickly and their consumption interferes with weight loss, as they help to replete glycogen levels within your muscles that you have to first use up before your body starts to burn fat as a source of energy.
Eat 5 Small Meals Instead of 3 Big Ones
From a portioning perspective, we suggest that instead of three large meals per day, you switch to a plan of eating five small meals approximately 2 hours apart, with each meal being roughly the size of the fist of your hand with half of the meal being protein and half of it being vegetables and or a salad. Egg whites with broccoli and mushrooms, for example, or chicken breast, a salmon filet or tofu with a salad. A low carb protein shake with some fruit. Low carb and low-fat yogurt topped with some fruit and a few nuts. There are a lot of healthy options out there. (Please be very careful with pre-made store purchased salad dressings. They are full of carbs and unhealthy fats. Just use fresh lemon juice and some organic extra virgin olive oil for your salad dressing while you’re trying to lose weight.)
Eat Only Within an 8-Hour Window
Lastly, and this is very important, from a scheduling point of view, eat only within an established and pre-planned eight-hour time frame every day. Choose the time frame that fits your schedule best. Some prefer 8am to 4pm. Others, prefer 10am to 6pm. Still others, who may have long commutes to get home after work and wish to not miss dinner with their family, choose 11:30am to 7:30pm. Only eat your five small meals within this chosen 8-hour time frame and do not consume any calories outside of this time frame. This results in 16 hours of fasting per day which promotes slow and progressive weight loss—the best type of weight loss. Rapid crash diets never result in long-term weight loss.
Sleep Well
Get plenty of sleep at night and definitely avoid eating right before going to bed. Food right before bedtime often ends up as fat in your body as your body tries to store it for use during some other time when you may need the energy. Food right before bedtime also often leads to indigestion and interruptions to your sleep at night.
Chronic lack of sleep exacerbates obesity and causes weight gain. If you don’t clock at least 8 hours per day with 2 of them before midnight, it will be difficult to lose weight.
You have to rest well at night in order for your metabolism, including your fat metabolism, to work properly. Lack of sleep also significantly and negatively impacts the immune system.
So making sure you rest properly during your diet period is especially important. A lot of very important biological processes happen while we’re sleeping at night and slow and steady weight loss is among them.
Stay Focused
You have to stay focused and stick with this program until you reach your weight loss goals.
Once you’re there, you can switch to six small meals per day instead of five and increase your food intake window to 10 hours from the 8-hour window discussed earlier. This will help you maintain your newly achieved healthy body weight.
Losing 10 Pounds per Month is Easy to Do
Following this simple regimen, you should be able to easily lose 10 pounds per month without significant muscle loss and reach your weight loss goals fairly quickly.
Regular exercise is of course very important, and we highly recommend that you discuss that with your healthcare provider. That’s a different subject, however, than nutritional weight loss techniques.
Once you have reached your weight loss goals, you will enjoy a stronger and more resilient immune system.
Consuming the Berkeley Formula on a daily basis will support your immune system along your journey toward better health and vitality.
How does sleep affect the immune system?
Sleep profoundly impacts the immune system. Lack of good sleep on a chronic basis can have a very debilitating impact on the health of your immune system and your over-all health and wellbeing.
We recommend that all adults try to get at least 8 hours of sleep every night with at least 2 hours being before midnight, i.e., 10pm bed time for a healthy and resilient immune system.
Graph of How Sleep Loss Impacts the Immune System
Sleep loss can negatively affect different parts of the immune system:
- Sleep loss reduces natural killer (NK) cell activity, which increases the risk for cancer and viral infections.
- Sleep loss generates production of inflammatory cytokines, which increases the risk for cardiovascular and metabolic disorders.
- Sleep loss reduces production of antibodies, which increases the risk for infections.
Source: The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
The following papers on how sleep impacts the immune system are excellent resources and reads for everyone wishing to learn more about how sleep impacts the immune system.
Sleep and Immune Function, authored by our biomedical colleagues in Germany. Please click here to review this paper on sleep and immune function.
Role of Sleep Deprivation in Immune-related Disease Risk and Outcomes, authored by our biomedical colleagues in Italy. Please click here to review this paper on sleep and immune function.
How does obesity affect the immune system?
Obesity has been shown to impact the immune system in the following ways:
- Lower cytokine production
- Altered monocyte and lymphocyte function
- Dysfunction of natural killer cells
- Reduced macrophage and dendritic cell function
- Decreased response to antigen/mitogen stimulation
What all of the above mean is that having a Body Mass Index (BMI) that is above healthy impairs immune function.
Obesity and Its Impact on the Immune System
Source: Front Nutr. 2020 Nov 19;7:597600. de Frel DL, Atsma DE, Pijl H, Seidell JC, Leenen PJM, Dik WA, van Rossum EFC.
Factors Impacting Obesity and Immune System Function
(Green = Positive Impact / Red = Negative Impact)
Sports, Healthy Diet and Proper Rest have a Positive Impact
Sedentary Lifestyle, Poor Nutrition, Smoking and Stress have a Negative Impact
Source: Front Nutr. 2020 Nov 19;7:597600. de Frel DL, Atsma DE, Pijl H, Seidell JC, Leenen PJM, Dik WA, van Rossum EFC.
It has also been shown that vaccines don’t work as well in obese individuals as they do in individuals with a healthy body weight because the immune system of obese individuals is impaired. This matter was studied and published in the context of Hepatitis B vaccines.
References:
Front Nutr. 2020 Nov 19;7:597600. de Frel DL, Atsma DE, Pijl H, Seidell JC, Leenen PJM, Dik WA, van Rossum EFC. Please click here to review this reference.
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society (2012), 71, 332–338. Fatima Perez de Heredia, Sonia Gomez-Martinez and Ascension Marcos Immunonutrition Research Group, Department of Metabolism and Nutrition, Institute of Food Science, Technology and Nutrition of the Spanish National Research Council (ICTAN-CSIC), Madrid, Spain. Please click here to review this reference.
Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, 2017, VOL. 13, NO. 5, 1014–1017. Fang Liua , Zhirong Guob , and Chen Dongb; Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Suzhou, China; Department of Epidemiology and Statistics, School of Public Health, Jiangsu Key Laboratory and Translational Medicine for Geriatric Disease, Medical College of Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China. Please click here to review this reference.
Are there any short and concise references on the immune system that you recommend I read to learn more about how the immune system works?
There are a lot of excellent resources on the internet about how the immune system works.
The following three are excellent resources in our opinion to start with for people who want to get an introduction to how the immune system works.
The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has an excellent introduction to what the immune system is and how it works. Please click here to visit their page about how the immune system works.
The following paper by Dr. Lindsay Nicholson of the Cellular and Molecular Medicine Department of the University of Bristol, Bristol, U.K. is an excellent introduction to the immune system. Please click here to review this paper about the immune system.
The following paper entitled “An introduction to immunology and immunopathology” authored by our biomedical colleagues in Canada is also an excellent introduction to how the immune system works. Please click here to review this paper about the immune system.
If you have any questions about the Berkeley Formula Diindolylmethane (DIM) Supplement & Immune System Booster, please feel free to contact our customer service department at 877-777-0719 (9AM-5PM M-F PST) and our representatives will be happy to help answer any questions that you may have.
Additional Immune Health Questions
The following are a list of technical immune health questions that we are often asked about the immune system and the nutrients within the Berkeley Formula.
Please click on the question that you are interested in to review the answer to the question.
Romanesco Broccoli with a Natural Fractal Pattern
IMMUNE HEALTH
How can I maintain a healthy and strong immune system?
This is a question we are often asked as a company that specializes in nutritional immunology.
Maintaining a healthy immune system is intricately linked to maintaining good general health. Afterall, the immune system is a component of your general health and wellbeing. What brings good general health also supports a strong and resilient immune system.
Here is a list to follow to maintain a healthy immune system:
Vitamin D Status – Sunshine Vitamin that Helps Your Immune System Shine
People who are Vitamin D deficient have compromised immune systems. Approximately 40% of Americans are chronically Vitamin D deficient. Additionally, some Americans are seasonally deficient and that depends on where people live. Seasonal deficiency occurs mostly in the northern states of the US during the fall and winter, but people who don’t get enough sun exposure or those who use sun screen all the time for health reasons, can also become deficient even if they live in very sunny states like California or Florida. Vitamin D plays a very important role in immune enhancement and if you’re severely deficient, it may take up to 6 to 8 weeks to gain proficiency through prescription high dose Vitamin D capsules.
Check your Vitamin D status every year at your annual check-up with your physician. It’s a part of the comprehensive blood test that is often ordered by doctors once a year to check your cholesterol, and other blood markers. Vitamin D status is usually one of the tests that is done.
If you are Vitamin D deficient, then follow your doctor’s advice in gaining proficiency. Sometimes he or she may recommend that you take supplements with Vitamin D in them, such as our supplement, and sometimes, if you’re very low, he or she may give you prescription high dose Vitamin D pills. These prescription Vitamin D pills are usually six to eight doses (six to eight pills) that you take once a week for six to eight weeks and you’re all set. Your deficiency can usually be addressed within that time period.
Healthy BMI (Body Mass Index) for a Healthy Immune System
Maintain a healthy body weight. Obesity negatively impacts the immune system and if your doctor has told you that you are over-weight, then address that at your earliest opportunity with input from your physician.
Exercise as often as you can with input and advice from your doctor. Both weight training and aerobic exercise are good for your overall wellbeing and in the maintenance of a strong immune system.
Healthy Sleeping Habits to Support Your Immune System
Sleep at least eight hours a day with ideally two of those hours before midnight. Sleeping before midnight makes a profound difference in people’s immune status. Chronic lack of good sleep can dramatically and negatively affect your immune system.
Immune Training – Teaching Your Immune System What to Look For
Stay up to date with all vaccinations recommended by your doctor. Immune training through vaccinations can help you ward off infections for which effective vaccinations exist.
Healthy Nutrition – Essential for a Strong Immune System
Eat healthy foods, with a lot of fruits and vegetables, and try to get as much raw Brassica vegetables in your diet as possible.
Take the Berkeley Formula daily to boost your immune system.
Healthy Habits – Foundation for a Healthy Immune System
If you smoke, please stop smoking as smoking negatively impacts the immune system.
If you drink alcoholic beverages, please do so in moderation.
If you don’t exercise regularly, start today! It’s never too late to start exercising. If you haven’t exercised for a long time, start after consulting your healthcare providers and after having received input and guidance from them. You need to slowly get back into an exercise regimen to not harm yourself by doing too much too quickly.
Healthy Hydration for a Healthy Immune System
Stay well-hydrated throughout the day. Try to drink at least 6-8 cups of purified water per day.
Water is the thread that ties all living organisms together. Without water, there would be no life on this planet. A remarkable liquid (at room and body temperature) that enables life in all of its forms from plants to mammals. When astronomers look for life in other planets, the first thing they look for is water.
The molecular biology of life and all of the processes of our body’s immune response system occur entirely within the various aqueous solutions of our organ systems and cells. It all happens in water. “All of life occurs in aqueous solution” as the late Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley, Dr. Alexander Nichols, used to say during his famous lectures at UC Berkeley with hundreds of students taking notes. Therefore, staying well hydrated throughout the day helps to support your immune function. It also helps to eliminate toxins from your body which is important for maintaining a healthy immune system.
Managing Stress to Support Your Immune Function
Manage psychological stress effectively. Chronic psychological stress has a profoundly negative impact on your health and the health of your immune system. Some find practicing yoga to be very helpful. Others find saunas to be very relaxing and rejuvenating. Practicing your favorite sport can be very helpful in reducing stress levels—basketball, golf, soccer, tennis, biking, swimming. Indeed, all recreational activities like hiking, fishing, cooking, dancing or art classes can help people manage stress effectively.
Some find that the best way to de-stress is to simply spend as much time as possible with friends and loved ones. Whatever you love to do that helps you relax and reduce your stress levels, then do those activities often to manage your stress. Modern life is filled with stressors and there are very few individuals who can state they have lives that are completely stress-free. However, learning how to manage stress effectively can go a long way in helping you achieve optimum health and a strong immune system.
This is how some of the co-founders of our company manage stress: after exercising in the mornings and subsequent to our post-exercise stretching, we set aside 15 minutes a day for meditation and deep relaxation. During those 15-minutes, in addition to meditating, we try to focus on things that we’re thankful for in our lives. Giving thanks for the gifts that we have in our lives and the loved ones who are still in our lives is very helpful in our ability to focus for the rest of the day and maintain a sense of peace and well-being throughout the day.
We wish you all health, peace and a strong immune system for years to come.
Do you have any diet or nutritional recommendations regarding how to lose weight to support my immune system?
Being overweight negatively impacts the immune system, and unfortunately, a large percentage of Americans are significantly overweight these days. According to the CDC, 74% of adult Americans are currently overweight, with 42% being obese. This is a national emergency, not just from the perspective of immune system health, but also, cardiovascular health, metabolic health (diabetes), risk of cancer development, risk of neurodegenerative disease, risk of joint damage (especially knees and ankles) and a lot of other health issues. As a result, roughly 3 out of 4 adults in the US have a compromised immune system because of their body mass index (BMI) being above what is considered healthy. This is a significant public health issue that we must address as a nation and do so in a resolute way.
Slow and Steady is the Best Approach
The best way to reduce excess weight to support your immune system is to do so in a slow and steady manner, combining a diet and exercise regimen. Given our background as nutritional scientists, we’re going to focus on diet and nutrition here.
Reduce High Glycemic Carbohydrates
Our first recommendation is that you reduce your high glycemic carbohydrate intake (bread, rice, pasta, cookies, sweets, soft drinks made with sugar, potato chips, alcoholic beverages, etc.). High glycemic foods raise blood sugar levels very quickly and their consumption interferes with weight loss, as they help to replete glycogen levels within your muscles that you have to first use up before your body starts to burn fat as a source of energy.
Eat 5 Small Meals Instead of 3 Big Ones
From a portioning perspective, we suggest that instead of three large meals per day, you switch to a plan of eating five small meals approximately 2 hours apart, with each meal being roughly the size of the fist of your hand with half of the meal being protein and half of it being vegetables and or a salad. Egg whites with broccoli and mushrooms, for example, or chicken breast, a salmon filet or tofu with a salad. A low carb protein shake with some fruit. Low carb and low-fat yogurt topped with some fruit and a few nuts. There are a lot of healthy options out there. (Please be very careful with pre-made store purchased salad dressings. They are full of carbs and unhealthy fats. Just use fresh lemon juice and some organic extra virgin olive oil for your salad dressing while you’re trying to lose weight.)
Eat Only Within an 8-Hour Window
Lastly, and this is very important, from a scheduling point of view, eat only within an established and pre-planned eight-hour time frame every day. Choose the time frame that fits your schedule best. Some prefer 8am to 4pm. Others, prefer 10am to 6pm. Still others, who may have long commutes to get home after work and wish to not miss dinner with their family, choose 11:30am to 7:30pm. Only eat your five small meals within this chosen 8-hour time frame and do not consume any calories outside of this time frame. This results in 16 hours of fasting per day which promotes slow and progressive weight loss—the best type of weight loss. Rapid crash diets never result in long-term weight loss.
Sleep Well
Get plenty of sleep at night and definitely avoid eating right before going to bed. Food right before bedtime often ends up as fat in your body as your body tries to store it for use during some other time when you may need the energy. Food right before bedtime also often leads to indigestion and interruptions to your sleep at night.
Chronic lack of sleep exacerbates obesity and causes weight gain. If you don’t clock at least 8 hours per day with 2 of them before midnight, it will be difficult to lose weight.
You have to rest well at night in order for your metabolism, including your fat metabolism, to work properly. Lack of sleep also significantly and negatively impacts the immune system.
So making sure you rest properly during your diet period is especially important. A lot of very important biological processes happen while we’re sleeping at night and slow and steady weight loss is among them.
Stay Focused
You have to stay focused and stick with this program until you reach your weight loss goals.
Once you’re there, you can switch to six small meals per day instead of five and increase your food intake window to 10 hours from the 8-hour window discussed earlier. This will help you maintain your newly achieved healthy body weight.
Losing 10 Pounds per Month is Easy to Do
Following this simple regimen, you should be able to easily lose 10 pounds per month without significant muscle loss and reach your weight loss goals fairly quickly.
Regular exercise is of course very important, and we highly recommend that you discuss that with your healthcare provider. That’s a different subject, however, than nutritional weight loss techniques.
Once you have reached your weight loss goals, you will enjoy a stronger and more resilient immune system.
Consuming the Berkeley Formula on a daily basis will support your immune system along your journey toward better health and vitality.
How does sleep affect the immune system?
Sleep profoundly impacts the immune system. Lack of good sleep on a chronic basis can have a very debilitating impact on the health of your immune system and your over-all health and wellbeing.
We recommend that all adults try to get at least 8 hours of sleep every night with at least 2 hours being before midnight, i.e., 10pm bed time for a healthy and resilient immune system.
Graph of How Sleep Loss Impacts the Immune System
Sleep loss can negatively affect different parts of the immune system:
- Sleep loss reduces natural killer (NK) cell activity, which increases the risk for cancer and viral infections.
- Sleep loss generates production of inflammatory cytokines, which increases the risk for cardiovascular and metabolic disorders.
- Sleep loss reduces production of antibodies, which increases the risk for infections.
Source: The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
The following papers on how sleep impacts the immune system are excellent resources and reads for everyone wishing to learn more about how sleep impacts the immune system.
Sleep and Immune Function, authored by our biomedical colleagues in Germany. Please click here to review this paper on sleep and immune function.
Role of Sleep Deprivation in Immune-related Disease Risk and Outcomes, authored by our biomedical colleagues in Italy. Please click here to review this paper on sleep and immune function.
How does obesity affect the immune system?
Obesity has been shown to impact the immune system in the following ways:
- Lower cytokine production
- Altered monocyte and lymphocyte function
- Dysfunction of natural killer cells
- Reduced macrophage and dendritic cell function
- Decreased response to antigen/mitogen stimulation
What all of the above mean is that having a Body Mass Index (BMI) that is above healthy impairs immune function.
Obesity and Its Impact on the Immune System
Source: Front Nutr. 2020 Nov 19;7:597600. de Frel DL, Atsma DE, Pijl H, Seidell JC, Leenen PJM, Dik WA, van Rossum EFC.
Factors Impacting Obesity and Immune System Function
(Green = Positive Impact / Red = Negative Impact)
Sports, Healthy Diet and Proper Rest have a Positive Impact
Sedentary Lifestyle, Poor Nutrition, Smoking and Stress have a Negative Impact
Source: Front Nutr. 2020 Nov 19;7:597600. de Frel DL, Atsma DE, Pijl H, Seidell JC, Leenen PJM, Dik WA, van Rossum EFC.
It has also been shown that vaccines don’t work as well in obese individuals as they do in individuals with a healthy body weight because the immune system of obese individuals is impaired. This matter was studied and published in the context of Hepatitis B vaccines.
References:
Front Nutr. 2020 Nov 19;7:597600. de Frel DL, Atsma DE, Pijl H, Seidell JC, Leenen PJM, Dik WA, van Rossum EFC. Please click here to review this reference.
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society (2012), 71, 332–338. Fatima Perez de Heredia, Sonia Gomez-Martinez and Ascension Marcos Immunonutrition Research Group, Department of Metabolism and Nutrition, Institute of Food Science, Technology and Nutrition of the Spanish National Research Council (ICTAN-CSIC), Madrid, Spain. Please click here to review this reference.
Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, 2017, VOL. 13, NO. 5, 1014–1017. Fang Liua , Zhirong Guob , and Chen Dongb; Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Suzhou, China; Department of Epidemiology and Statistics, School of Public Health, Jiangsu Key Laboratory and Translational Medicine for Geriatric Disease, Medical College of Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China. Please click here to review this reference.
Are there any short and concise references on the immune system that you recommend I read to learn more about how the immune system works?
There are a lot of excellent resources on the internet about how the immune system works.
The following three are excellent resources in our opinion to start with for people who want to get an introduction to how the immune system works.
The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has an excellent introduction to what the immune system is and how it works. Please click here to visit their page about how the immune system works.
The following paper by Dr. Lindsay Nicholson of the Cellular and Molecular Medicine Department of the University of Bristol, Bristol, U.K. is an excellent introduction to the immune system. Please click here to review this paper about the immune system.
The following paper entitled “An introduction to immunology and immunopathology” authored by our biomedical colleagues in Canada is also an excellent introduction to how the immune system works. Please click here to review this paper about the immune system.
If you have any questions about the Berkeley Formula Diindolylmethane (DIM) Supplement & Immune System Booster, please feel free to contact our customer service department at 877-777-0719 (9AM-5PM M-F PST) and our representatives will be happy to help answer any questions that you may have.
Additional Immune Health Questions
The following are a list of technical immune health questions that we are often asked about the immune system and the nutrients within the Berkeley Formula.
Please click on the question that you are interested in to review the answer to the question.
Romanesco Broccoli with a Natural Fractal Pattern
Alex Amini, M.D.
Infectious Disease Specialist
Kaiser Permanente
Spinach:
Lutein
Zeaxanthin
Lutein
Zeaxanthin
Citrus Fruits:
Citrus Bioflavonoids
Citrus Bioflavonoids
Tomato:
Lycopene
Lycopene
Broccoli:
Diindolylmethane
Sulforaphane
Selenium
Diindolylmethane
Sulforaphane
Selenium
Diindolylmethane
Sulforaphane
Selenium