More new research this week. Yesterday, news about a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences was racing all over the news stream. The study showed that constant arguing and personal conflict can trigger cellular inflammation within the body, which, if persisting over the long term, can lead to serious health problems including high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and depression.

Inflammation is an immune response. A bit of short-term, temporary inflammation can be protective and beneficial. Long-term inflammation is immune function running amok…out of balance. See my recent post on stress, the gut, and immune health.

During this political season, I’ll have a new perspective as I watch the election year unfold. Hope they are all taking EpiCor and doing The Five S’s.

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.

I am mindful of this because my college daughter just presented a huge project for a huge grade in her architecture studies. She did great. But, to get it done, she literally got 2 hours of sleep a night, spending most of every evening and overnight during the past two weeks at her design studio. Many other students had the same sleep regimen.

But, so far, no health problems. No viral crud, no  fever, no missed class or studio time. As we all know, lack of sleep coupled with little exercise, iffy diet and nutrition, and unabated stress can knock one’s immune system far off the rails. And, as we also know, stress and tension being allowed to build over the course of time can also lead to getting sick once the stressful stretch is over. Hence, many students and adults get sick during holiday break once the job duties or semester studies end.

I do think taking EpiCor may have helped my daughter get through these sleepless, stress-filled stretches. I can’t imagine how she could have performed like she did if she had been out for the count for several days, in bed, waiting to get well enough to get back to class.

Of course, now that I think about it, maybe when she was home during Thanksgiving helped prepare her immune system for the end-of-year grind at college. Watching all the recorded episodes of Glee that she missed, plus massive shopping, seeing high school friends and Mom and Dad’s home cooking might have also helped the cause.

The point I want to make is about humor and laughter. There’s always been stuff written about laughter and immune health…how laughing can improve immune performance.  A little or a lot of holiday cheer…the non-alcoholic kind…could be just the thing to help keep your immune system in good working order, right?  Well, maybe. Or maybe not.

I found a very good research summary on PubMed from Complementary and Alternative Medicine. It puts a collection of studies in some perspective. The overriding conclusion (surprise, surprise) is that larger, more controlled studies are needed before any definitive pronouncements about laughter, humor and immune health can be made.

But the article does point out the problem with variables and definitions when trying characterize humor or laughter. For example, it points out that people who consider themselves possessing a significant  ”sense of humor”  exhibited no more or less immune cell activity than others who did not. And, of course, what defines a “sense of humor?”  It also pointed to increased NK (natural killer) cell activity among people who laugh and laugh hard, as opposed to those who smile or kind of chuckle. Does that imply that the physical component of laughing can have as much or more impact on immune response than anything else? And what about longevity of the act of laughing? Does one need to sustain laughter regularly over the course of weeks or months for laughter to be effective?  Who knows? And don’t even start in about laughter in combination with other lifestyle aspects such as exercise, diet, sleep, etc. that we all know can impact immune health as well. That would seem to be a maze of variables and definitions that are nearly impossible to define, combine and measure.

Oh well. If laughter is not necessarily always the best medicine, it sure can’t hurt.

The bad is that lingering stress can knock immune function out of balance, clearing the way for seasonal health issues like colds, flu, or allergies to take hold.

The ugly is that chronic stress…long-term stress triggered by financial hardship, marital problems, radical change in diet (alcohol, high fat and sugar at every meal), or other life changes can set the stage for serious disease.

As we move into the holiday season–always a season ripe for stress–keep this in mind. Proactively doing things to reduce stress can make a difference in health, and make the season merrier.  This story might add some new thinking that may help as well.

The story talks about preparing your immune system for cold and flu season, as though your immune system is a downhill skier and needs to be exercising regularly, otherwise, the start of ski season and that big downhill run will produce sore, stiff muscles.  It compares that to the idea that protracted symptom duration is a function of poor, “out of shape”  immune response, not the virulence of the bug itself.  That’s a big 10-4 in my book and I’ve posted similar views here as well.

The story also says that “one teaspoon of sugar decreases immune function by 50 per cent for four hours.” I had not heard that before now, and would like to get some sourcing on that. I written about consuming too much processed sugar harming immune function, but had not seen that kind of “response ratio.” Interesting.

The story ends with something about “flu kit” vials. Not sure what that refers to. But all in all, it’s a good reminder that people can do a number of things–diet, exercise, sleep, stress management, supplementation–to keep their immune system in shape and ready for the winter cold/flu season.

The Good. Short bursts of getting scared. If you’re into watching scary movies or going through a haunted house, that quick-hitting fright can actually help your immune health. It gives your immune system a quick “wind sprint,” helping to keep it primed and ready should it need to kick in again for something really important. It’s the “fight or flight” immune response.

The Bad. Alcohol and sugar. Halloween parties with too much booze, and eating your kids’ Halloween candy (or your own stash you’ve been keeping) can harm your immune function. Unless you’re sipping a glass or two of red wine at a party and nothing more, a lot of alcohol can depress immune response. And processed sugar is always bad.

So have a great time this weekend. Watching Paranormal Activity 3 with a glass of Chianti is great. But don’t overdo it.

But what about the converse? Can working to naturally improve immune function result in beneficial weight loss? It’s hard to say. But there may be some correlations. Take diet and exercise, for example. Both are important for immune health. Exercise can aid with production of antibodies and T-cells to fight infection. Research is also suggesting moderate exercise for immune health support. Extreme exercise can, at least temporarily, weaken immune function.

Healthy diet can influence gut microbiota–the balance of healthy bacteria in the digestive system. And sleep. Always important for immune health and stress reduction, which impacts immune health, too. Stress reduction can also impact release of “stress hormones” in the gut, which can contribute to mid-section girth and weight gain. One outlyer I’ve found, though, is the concept of colon cleansing for weight loss. The concept is that a colon cleanse will rid the intestinal tract of toxins that can inhibit healthy weight loss. Problem is, colon cleanses may also take out beneficial bacteria as well, leading to questionable health results, to say the least.

While I’ve not found any sizable clincial study showing a direct correlation between improved immune function and healthy levels of weight loss, to me, it appears to be a circular sequence. Many of the things that go into healthy weight loss…better nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress reduction…can contribute to a healthier, balanced immune system as well. And vice versa.

Next time, maybe we’ll see a Top 10 List on immune health and stress. Stay tuned!