How to boost your immune system naturally with supplements – but not too much! Viruses, especially those that cause to respiratory syndrome, tend to provoke a big T helper cell response which can lead to a cytokine storm. As a matter of fact, new research indicates that the NF-kB pathway can over generate cytokines when provoked by viruses and end up killing our own tissue, much the same way that can happen in an autoimmune attack, such as the joints with Rheumatoid Arthritis and the organs with Lupus. In the case of a respiratory syndrome, such as SARS and MERS, the body’s cytotoxic T cells will clear the infection and kill the virus-infected cells while the body’s T helper cells, which are there to make sure the attack on the virus is appropriate, goes into DefCon 1 mode and attacks the alveoli in the lungs, causing them to take on fluid and depriving the patient of oxygen. So how can we better modulate our immune system’s response to make sure this doesn’t happen? According to a recently released article from Nutrition Genome ( ) several supplements can help our immune system’s respond to a virus appropriately and not have a ‘nuclear winter’ response. For instance, zinc appears to be helpful – those who had zinc deficiencies and infection had a higher NF-kB response. Vitamin D3 also soothes the over-reaction of the immune system. Betulinic acid which is found in mushrooms such as Chaga helps suppress an over-reactive immune response as well as being an anti-viral. Finally, Cordyceps, another mushroom with anti-viral power, has been shown to modulate the production of cytokines. So if you are looking to boost your body’s immune system but in a way that gets rid of virus without hurting your own tissue, these might be things to look at. I’m not a medical professional so please read this yourself, but I am an autoimmune patient and I don’t want to be a statistic with this virus.
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