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

Today, I stumbled across some information that gives an almost opposite take on emotions and immune health: that falling love can damage your health! What?!?!?  I’ve always assumed that a hot romance would be good for your health.

Here’s my theory: the first stage of romance–falling head over heels for someone–probably does something a little crazy to bodily functions: restless sleep, an upsetting of daily routines, obsessive thoughts, racing pulse, stomach turbulence, etc.  And I can see how this combines to throw immune function off kilter.

But the center of my theory of  love and health problems is FEAR! When the relationship is new and you’re nuts about someone, there is a constant, overriding fear that person may not be as nuts about you, and may have a different outlook on the relationship. Hence, constant worry combined with the exhilaration of new romance.   The result? Sickness. As that article says, that’s why they coined the term “love sick.”

Then when the relationship turns into a stable, solid one, maybe even morphs into marriage, perhaps the health parameters return to normal.

After that, when kids enter the scene, hello sickness again. Finally, after years of togetherness, knowing all the faults and foibles of your spouse, and living in an empty nest, you don’t give a rip about much of anything, and a healthy life returns again.  That’s my theorem of the relationship/health continuum. In which case I should be…and am…very healthy.

A new study this summer from Ohio State, Cornell and The University of Akron show that such stress/health issues are amplified among single mothers who have children out of wedlock, especially white and black women. Hispanic single mothers in the study showed no significant adverse long-term health trends up to  midlife, possibly reflecting a history of greater family support among Hispanic populations for single moms.

There are around 14 million single custodial parents in the U.S. today, and 84 percent of them are mothers. Yet another population segment that may benefit from greater immune support.

A good read about the single mom and stress study is found here.

It would be easy to slide into a funk and get sick just from re-entering the post-vacation stress zone. But, hopefully, my immune system is working in a balanced way and will help keep me healthy.

Here are some WebMD tips for returning from vacation without going  bonkers. I like the analysis, except item 1: Plan for a smooth return. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of vacation? Having to do work while on vacation so as to not face more work when you get back? Although that is what I did: worked on projects for a couple hours early in the morning. Yeesh.

Post vacation stress and anxiety is a reality for many people. Just one more reason t

o keep your health and immune system in tact .

Inflammation, in its most efficient, optimal state, is the irritation that accompanies the immune system’s response to an injury or illness that immune cells are trying to heal. However, when immune response goes haywire over the long term, the result can be chronic inflammation that leads to heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, arthritis and cancer, to name a few.  See a good introductory slide show of inflammation here.

More people probably think of a swollen ankle or a bee sting when they think of inflammation. Will consumers, outside of the hard core health information seekers, ever understand inflammation as something more that can impact a lifetime of health?

And even if consumers eventually understand inflammation as an underlying foundation for chronic disease, with so many nutritional ingredients being viewed as having some level of anti-inflammatory activity, what’s a consumer to do?

Here’s my strategy – keep doing what I’m doing. Simple and reliable. My EpiCor daily 500 mg capsule is most likely giving me some anti-inflammatory benefit (as has been shown in lab research) plus probiotic digestive benefits and antioxidant benefits, all combining to balance immune response. Who needs more than that?!

The stress-o-meter is running

being talked about showed that rats induced with a standardized stressor showed that beneficial bacteria in their intestinal tract diminished significantly. Two types of bacteria changed in composition proportion by 25% each. But the real news was a 10- fold increase in two immune markers, showing that stress events can make the immune response go wacko and get seriously out of balance.

What does that imbalance mean? It means immune cells that are supposed to react aggressively don’t, because either their numbers are diminished or other cell signalers are not calling them to attack. It also means immune cells that function as
suppressors when something harmless enters the body, telling the immune system to call off the attack dogs, are not fulling their suppressor role. The result is immune cells running amok  to benign or weak pathogens, creating inflammation and all kinds of conditions.

Just the latest in the stress/immune/overall health combination package. They all come wrapped together.

On the same immune balance note:  Here’s a video that explains, in a simplified but informative way, how immune balancing works; the ins and outs of over-aggressive or under-aggressive immune response. And, it also integrates an explanation of EpiCor’s production process and its interaction with immune cells. It’s only a couple minutes in length and worth a watch. See it below.

Further into the piece comes a section that helps spell out the role of intestinal bacteria and immune function:

“The gastrointestinal tract is a complex and dangerous frontier.
All the nutrients required for life must pass through, while the bad guys are kept out. Given the large area, there is much that can go wrong, leading to a huge range of ailments. In keeping with its immense surface area and intense exposure to foreign antigens, the intestinal tract is the largest organ of immune surveillance and response in the human body.”

Yes, the gut is ground zero for the immune cavalry’s ride to the rescue in the rest of the body.  But what about the relationship to those parasites? As the Galland points out:

“…over two-thirds of your body’s immune system is located in the wall of the small intestine. The immune cells (called lymphocytes) leave the intestine and travel all over your body. When activated by a parasitic infection, they can carry the inflammatory message to your joints, your skin, your eyes, and your lungs.”

Hmmm. Interesting. We’ve talked in this blog about over-reaction of immune defenders being a big reason for all kinds of inflammation in the body. Now, it may appear immune cells are coded with inflammatory instructions spawning from parasitic infections in the gut, kind of like creating a bunch of Manchurian Candidates that go out and take up residence in the rest of the body.

Goes to show that balancing these good/bad role players in the body is highly complex.

If the  EpiCor research could ever be put into a real life picture, this would be it. Here’s hoping her run of good health continues.

EpiCor Science – Summary of Human Clinical Trials on EpiCor R11-03-2009-1

1. Immune-related problems like cold or flu are something you can’t avoid.
2. You just have to give it time to get over a cold or flu. A week to 10 days. Maybe take some over-the-counter remedy to help with fever, congestion, etc.
3. If you want to try some kind of supplement, just pound down a lot of Vitamin C or zinc to boost your immune system. That’ll help get you over the crud a little quicker, or may help you avoid it altogether.

These all have some level of credence, but I think science has now shown there is a forth leg of this stool, one that may outweigh the others in terms of scientific validity and actual experience:

4.  Balance of immune function through natural, nutrition-based modulation of the spectrum of the classes of the body’s immune cells; the aggressive cells and the passive/suppressor cells. This includes the influence of gut microbiota in a wide swath of immune-related conditions, influenced by probiotic and prebiotic effects of nutrition intervention and long-term regimens.

A very good overview of the immune system and natural approaches to immune health management and balance vs. symptom treatment was recently published this month. It’s a little lengthy but worth the read.