The research, a mouse study, showed that when two mice–one healthy, one obese with liver disease–were put in the same cage, the healthy mouse became obese. Many factors, including mice’s tendency to eat other mice’s feces, could enter into the equation. But, the bad bacterial strains from the fat mouse ended up in the healthy mouse’s gut. This change in gut microbe populations–more bad bacteria, less good–manifests itself in more disease susceptibility and weight gain (bad bacteria dominating the digestive track can inhibit nutrient absorption while also signaling for imbalanced immune response, triggering inflammation).

None of this, of course, is even close to being conclusive. But it does kind of relate to other research showing that a pregnant mother’s bacterial and pathogen exposure and the immune composition shaped by that exposure can be transferred to the fetus.

Here’s a brief explanation.

Stress can alter the bacterial composition of the digestive tract. When that happens, good/bad bacteria are out of balance. When bad bacteria rule the roost (in the gut), the ability of the body’s immune system to operate at top efficiency is compromised. Gut bacteria are the “educators” of the body’s immune cell behavior, signaling aggressive or passive response as needed, depending on the kinds of pathogens or antigens that enter the body and alert the immune system.

An even better, but lengthier, discussion is here. The author likens immune balance as a “four-way seesaw” that needs to maintain balance to work.

Go, stress, gut, immune. They make your health world go round. That’s why stress management over the long term is so important. It can impact so many other parts of your health and eventually, your quality of life.

The Five S’s refer to five things you can do to maintain optimal immune health. In my book, these measures will also impact many other health areas, including weight, cardio, skin and mental health.

The are:

Sustenance – Meaning diet and nutrition. A diet tilted toward fruits and veggies, less processed sugar, moderate lean fresh meat consumption, healthy fats, a good amount of water and maybe a red wine or dark beer here and there, can help feed healthy gut bacteria essential for immune health while also addressing cell inflammation that damages health. Think Mediterranean.

Sport – Moderate exercise can improve immune function. The science is there.

Stress – Managing stress helps impact gut health, where stress can upset the balance of immune-controlling beneficial bacteria.

Sleep – A solid 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night can do wonders for immune health.

Supplementation – Nutritional support with EpiCor can help optimize immune health, especially during stretches when diet, stress management, sleep or exercise might be lacking.

Keep these Five S’s at the fore. See how things go during the year. You may be surprised.

But how about African medicine? Rooted in herbalism with a spiritual component, there may be several overlapping philosophies with other cultural/medical practices. I’m the last to offer any familiarity or overarching perspective on the subject.

However, I did come across a fascinating article on immune balance in The Nigerian Tribune. The story provides some information on probiotic benefits of indigenous African foods that can lead to immune system improvement, with some studies cited. Well done, I say.

We’ve all known that stress and anxiety is something, when severe, you feel in your gut. That’s been known for centuries. However, more and more science is showing how that anxiety-driven upset stomach, if left unchecked long enough, actually can reconfigure the balance of beneficial bacteria in the gut, which can negatively impact immune function and overall health.

A very good description of gut health, stress and immune function can be found here. It’s a site about prescription meds, but the article itself is well done. In fact, they call the gut “the second brain” in this story. Very interesting.

Sauerkraut and sausage - two fermented mainstays

products to his cattle on his small farm. He eventually noticed that cattle eating those fermented material seemed to be healthier and require less attention than other herds.

Soon, he was developing a technology in 1943 for a natural, dried yeast-based fermentate as a livestock feed additive.  A lot of research was conducted on efficacy in animals, and as the science grew, the real-world animal health and production results grew and the company grew.  A similar natural fermentation technology was developed for human consumption, and is now the core ingredient product for EpiCor.  Which brings me to my point: fermented foods and beverages seems to be very good for you, and fermentation may be one big reason why EpiCor works so well in human trials. Why do fermented foods have such nutritional mojo? One source, Rebecca Wood, sums it up nicely:

1. Unprocessed fermented foods boost the immune system by increasing antibodies that fight infectious disease.
2. The flora in living cultured foods form a “living shield” that covers the small intestine’s inner lining and helps inhibit pathogenic organisms including E.coli, salmonella and an unhealthy overgrowth of candida (yeast).
3. Some ferments create antioxidants (glutathione and superoxide dismustase) that scavenge free radicals which are a cancer precursor.
4. Fermenting transforms hard-to-digest lactose from milk to the more easily digested lactic acid. It neutralizes the anti-nutrients found in many foods including the phytic acid found in all grains and the trypsin-inhibitors in soy.
5. Fermentation generates new nutrients including omega-3 fatty acids, digestive aids and the trace mineral GTF chromium.

What  fermented products, besides EpiCor, can you eat and drink that can provide even more imunne health benefit?

• Yogurt
• Sauerkraut
• Sourdough bread
• Beer (not too much)
• Miso, soy sauce
• Olives and other pickled vegetables (not mass produced, but traditionally marinated)
• Aged cheeses
• Wine
• Kimche (spicy Korean cabbage)

bacteria to the human gut, helping to support digestive health by increasing the amount of good bacteria. Prebiotics (such as EpiCor plus a variety of fruits and vegetables) contain natural matter that help feed the beneficial bacteria already in the gut, helping to promote growth of that bacteria.

As we all know by now (right?!) a healthy amount of beneficial bacteria in the gut determines a great portion of how well your immune system functions. The health site Vitabase gives a good overview:

“The role of probiotics in immune function has been studied for decades. Scientists were curious as to why our bodies would strike up such a close relationship with these bugs. The most crucial role probiotics seem to play for humans is that of training the immune system. Most people don’t know that 60-70% of their immune system is located in the gut as a vast network of lymph tissue referred to as GALT (gut associated lymphatic tissue). The probiotics in our gut are constantly interfacing with the GALT and essentially priming the immune system for contact with other bacteria. They serve as a way for the body to learn how to respond to bacteria without actually having to suffer an infection. This becomes particularly important in young children whose immune system is in constant state of development until about age 7.”

One question I have on prebiotics vs. probiotics: Is one better than the other? One BBC piece does a head to head comparison of cowboy “poo” to try to find a winner. And prebiotics won. This study probably won’t find its way to the New England Journal of Medicine, but it’s fun to read.  Another source sizes up the two, and concludes both could be beneficial in certain health circumstances. With probiotics, one issue is that it is difficult to know if most or even a majority of the live bacteria in a delivery system (yogurt, pills/capsules, etc.) actually make it to the gut. A lot of bacteria can get destroyed during processing, shipping and shelf time. So you may be spending money for additional bacteria that are not bioactive anymore.

For example, do most people know that allergies are a direct result of an over-aggressive immune response?  Do they also know that immune response can be a big part of joint and muscle inflammation?  Or how about cellular inflammation? That affects heart disease, obesity, etc. And don’t forget digestive health, where 70% of immune response starts. Digestive tract microflora, also known as beneficial gut bacteria, helps drive overall immune response, absorption of nutrients into the body, even brain health and cognitive function.

And I’m sure I haven’t even begun to cover all of the health ramifications of good immune health.

So when you talk about maintaining a healthy, balanced immune function,  just know it’s much more than colds and flu.

My dentist is great and she does a wonderful job, but I have no desire to be a frequent customer. That got me to wondering about immune health and dental health. Are the two related? You’ve heard the saying “healthy body, healthy mouth,” or something like that. Meaning that people in good overall health tend to have better dental health as well.  What about immune function, specifically? Any correlation there?

One health blogger writes extensively on how poor dental health can challenge immune response, especially in people with weakened immune function.

Another blogger on pediatric dentistry claims probiotic nutrition can improve oral health. EpiCor, with it’s prebiotic benefits (meaning it promotes growth of beneficial bacteria, while probiotics deliver new bacteria to the body), might have an impact in this regard, though no research has been conducted on EpiCor and dental health.

One dentist even claims that periodontal disease can be correlated with respiratory diseases.

The uptake: keeping your mouth healthy 1) reduces potential stress on mucosal immune cells that exist in your mouth to confront intruders that enter the body through the mouth; 2) gives your overall immune system a better chance of being at the ready to handle pathogens in the body because they are not being taxed from handling ongoing dental diseases.

One is a recent story in the Oakland Tribune/San Jose Mercury News. The piece takes a look at the general health of kids who grow up in violent urban neighborhoods.

“To a teen living in the rough areas of East Oakland, sorrow is no stranger. Random violence, worry about the future and a constant battle for basics such as healthy food, good schools and physical exercise, add up to a kind of life that can make an East Oakland teen far older than his or her chronological age.

Research shows that like adults, teens exposed to chronic stress can suffer from anxiety, insomnia, depression and eating disorders; they experience short-term memory loss and inability to focus or to manage time. As teens age, there is an even bigger physical toll: Adolescents exposed to chronic stress have higher adult rates of asthma, obesity and Type 2 diabetes, and are at higher risk for some cancers and stroke.

Chronic stress will upset a teens’ neurobiology, reducing their ability to regulate key hormones that restore equilibrium after stress, whether it’s a bad grade on a science quiz or a friend’s slaying.

It can also raise the level of inflammatory proteins in teens’ body, putting their immune system on permanent alert, and worsening both the risk and the symptoms of illnesses that include inflammation, from asthma and eczema to diabetes and heart disease.

Wow. Sounds like the classic stress/immune conflict so frequently written about here. It is sad that such a health scenario is amplified many times in the lives of young people who are brought into a violent world through no fault of there own.

The other California connection is news of a new milk beverage with added probiotic bacteria, produced by what the story describes as the largest privately owned dairy in California.

“In addition to providing essential calcium and vitamin D, Dairy Balance can help support digestive and immune health with the addition of GanedenBC30 Probiotics. Plus, there is no change in taste or texture to the new milk when GanedenBC30 is added.”

The company says that this particular probiotic ingredient can endure the stress of the manufacturing process to deliver enough viable, live bacteria to the gut to make the product effective. It’s another example of the growing importance of enhanced immune health benefits that consumer products are focusing on.

All in all, California, for good or bad, is at the heart of the immune health world this week.