Balanced Immune Health

Mayo Clinic’s infectious disease online instruction on cold and flu remedies pretty much describes what we’ve been talking about; many of the commercial over-the-counter ”remedies” for colds really don’t add up to much.

Plus, the conventional mindset on supplementation with extra zinc or vitamin C does not have much scientific support behind it. Call it a wives tale if you will.

The tried and true home brewed advice of chicken soup, humidifiers, saline nose spray and/or plenty of water, while washing hands often, still look to be the best approach for avoiding or enduring a cold or flu. Germs and viruses love dried-out mucous membranes in the nose and throat. That makes it easier for those little nasties to plant themselves and multiply. Keeping those areas flushed and hydrated can help increase your defense against them.

Filed under: Bacteria, Bacterial Environments, Balanced Immune Health, Flu, Germs, Immune Balance, Immune System, Seasonal, Vitamin C | Leave a comment

I hate it when policemen try hitting on my wife.

Filed under: Balanced Immune Health, Immune Balance, Inflammation, humor | Leave a comment

I’m having a hard time understanding why everyone thinks we’re in a global recession. Sure, the macro-economic indicators look sick, but that’s just theory. Real-world evidence tells a different story. In my journey to help people achieve optimal immune health, I want to help alleviate emotional stress, which can impair immune function in the body. So here are some new economic indicators, compiled by the sprawling BalancedImmuneHealth.com  financial analysis division, that should help calm nerves:

1) A new growth industry is taking shape: Pirating.  A record 8 ships were seized this week. And the pirates are “spreading the wealth,” to coin a term. Obviously, business is booming in this sector. Read for yourself.

2) Dazzling sports stadiums in the U.S. are being constructed faster than a Terrell Owens 40-yard dash.  New stadiums for the Dallas Cowboys, New York Jets, Indianapolis Colts, and, heck, 3 new stadiums each in the Twin Cities and San Francisco go on unabated.

3) The new James Bond movie has the highest weekend gross of any Bond film. People are not staying home and watching Leave It To Beaver reruns.

4) Childhood obesity continues to increase. Everyone has plenty to eat, it seems. More than plenty. And X-Boxes and Play Stations must be selling well.

The new Dallas Cowboys Stadium

5) The car companies need billions to survive, but still have enough cash on hand to fly the CEOs to Washington in their private jet fleet to ask for handouts.  

6) Obama and McCain raised more than $1billion for their presidential campaigns combined. A record. I remember when Nixon’s campaign in ‘72 cost $30 million. That seemed enormous then.

So all in all, folks, don’t stew too much and get sick in the process. The money is there, somewhere.

Filed under: Balanced Immune Health, Immune Balance, Immune System, Stress, Stress-Related Illness | Comments (1)

More D. More D. That’s the mantra these days in the health world as more research is strongly suggesting that we’re not getting enough vitamin D.

A while back I attended a nutrition science conference in Virginia where a leading vitamin D researcher from Boston University presented the case that adults need much more than the RDA intake of 400 IUs of D each day. They need more like 1500 to 2000 a day, he said. 

He talked about seeing 60 cases of rickets each year among Boston area kids coming into the BU medical center. Rickets in this day and age is like the mumps coming back. It shouldn’t be happening.

Research is showing that Vit. D plays a positive role in immune system function as well, as documented by researchers at the University of Iowa.

As stated in a report summary, “Vitamin D not only increases proteins involved in bacterial killing but also can dampen inflammation. Controlling inflammation through vitamin D is good because too much inflammation can cause problems such as sepsis and seems to contribute to autoimmune disease.”

Getting out into the sunlight for 20 minutes a day could go a long way in producing more vitamin D in the body. But many folks these days spend prime sun hours — between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the spring summer and fall – indoors.  Bloggers, Facebookers and computer gamers are the worst offenders, I’m sure. A bad diet also doesn’t help.

So get outside and eat right.

Filed under: Balanced Immune Health, Immune Balance, Immune System, Inflammation, Nutrition, Research | Leave a comment

This blog is relatively new to the social network scene. So I’m obviously learning as I’m going (and have received a lot of help from folks such as LavaRow and Remarkablogger in figuring stuff out). So, when I see news about a major over-the-counter pain reliever, Motrin, messing up in its latest online marketing effort, I say, “lord, let me learn from the big dogs.”  The Wall Street Journal Health Blog has a story about how Motrin offended mothers far and wide who carry babies in body slings. It seems a Motrin online ad was a bit too smart-assed, to put it delicately, at least as viewed by a number of women.  Many women uploaded their video complaints and boycott messages on YouTube. Motrin’s parent company, Johnson & Johnson had to react quickly.

To their credit, J&J didn’t try to BS their way out of an apparent misfire. The company pulled the ad quickly. They came out and said, “we screwed up,  we’ll learn from this.”  Good for them.  Yet most of the comments on the story seemed to say, “What’s the big deal? You call that offensive?”  I guess if enough customers complain and launch a global social media campaign against your product, it IS a problem and it tenders no time for Socratic debate. As one retailer taught me, “the customer may not always be right, be he/she is never wrong.”

Of course, not to be too blatant, but I would be remiss if I didn’t take this moment to advocate for immune balance supplementation as a potential health agent for moms who may experience extra muscle and joint strain from carrying their infants throughout the day. Just a thought, as they say.

Filed under: Balanced Immune Health, Immune Balance, Immune System, Inflammation, Media, pain | Leave a comment

I’m a regular visitor to Iowa Avenue. This is a health social media site (and has nothing really to do with Iowa; the founder kind of liked the name and knew some cool people from Iowa).

Recently I posted a comment there about the statin/C-reactive protein news that’s been circulating (pardon the pun) lately. (See earllier post on this). One of the Iowa Avenue members, who goes by the handle Ask the Dietician, passed along to me a link that gives a nice overview of the C-reactive protein role as a marker for inflammation and the health connections to chronic inflammation.

Thought you’d like to read it, since this is directly connected to immune balance and its tie-in to reducing inflammation in the body. Also, click the Time Magazine cover photo to go to an older (2004) cover article on inflammation. It’s a doozy.

Filed under: Balanced Immune Health, Immune Balance, Immune System, Inflammation | Comments (2)

This is absolute genius. I wish I could think of these pranks. So have a good laugh and get those immune cells pumping.

Filed under: Balanced Immune Health, Immune Balance, Immune System, Thursdays with Munnie, humor | Leave a comment

The big news this week is that statins such as Crestor and other prescription brands appear to help lower bad cholesterol in people who already have moderate or even low cholesterol. But that doesn’t necessarily mean their chance of a heart attack is equally lowered. Experts have been saying that while high cholesterol can contribute to a cardiac episode, other factors are in play as well.

One marker of potential heart problems is C-reactive protein. High C-reactive protein levels in the blood can indicate potential for a number of age-related conditions, from coronary heart disease to eye disease, joint problems, diabetes and other chronic problems. What’s the connection? Inflammation. High C-reactive  (CRP) levels indicate an inflammatory condition somewhere in the body; arteries, joints, intestinal tracts. Chronic inflammation is a component of many disease states.

So does everyone need to get a CRP test? Not necessarily. As one physician this morning on National Public Radio pointed out, large abdominal girth–belly fat–is almost always associated with high CRP levels. If one can reduce belly fat, CRP levels subside considerably, and the risk for inflammation-associated conditions can decline as well.

What’s this have to do with immune balance? Well, one of the mainstays of a balanced immune system is the reduction of inflammation in the body. Immune cells are not over-reacting, and therefore not driving increased inflammatory responses. Proportionally functioning immune defenses should keep a check on inflammation.

That’s not to say that you can take EpiCor and not worry about a thing. As with any supplementation, overeating, overjunking, overdrinking, overstressing, underexercising can cancel out benefits.

Filed under: EpiCor, Immune Balance, Immune System, Inflammation, Prescription Drugs, Research, Stress-Related Illness | Leave a comment

I do. At least I’ve got a start. Squidoo is a collection of one-page, one-topic “lenses” as they are called. My is at http://www.squidoo.com/immunebalance.  The lenses can be blogs, white paper-type minisites, even e-commerce sales sites. The difference is, they are all housed and organized on the Squidoo platform.  And, there are hundreds of thousands of lenses, so almost anything you can think of has some kind of lens created for it.  Squidoo also ranks lenses based on visits, content quality and other factors that go into their secret ranking formula. After a week, my lens is ranked 60,802 out of more than half a million lenses. And I’m at 5072 out of tens of thousands of health lenses. Yea!

Immune balance, of course, has many lenses as well. Many are almost robotic, product sales pages with no active author taking care of them. So, I should beat their brains out if I stick with it.

I hope you’ll check it out sometime.

Filed under: Balanced Immune Health, EpiCor, Immune Balance, Immune System | Leave a comment