OK look, the coronavirus outbreak has
a lot of you assessing your health.
I'm getting a bunch of questions asking
what can I do to boost my immunity.
In any given grocery store aisle,
you'll find an endless array of products
claiming to boost your immune system.
Then there's this article from
Curiosity dated September 2016.
The contradictory headline.
You can't boost your immune system. So
which is it? The verify we dug up
research from Harvard Medical School,
Bonzo University in China,
and talk to Doctor Centric spot
infectious disease specialist
at Baylor. Scott and white.
Let's start by clearing up.
What the immune system is, it is
not one kind of cell.
It's not one kind of hormone. It's
many things. Basically,
the immune system tags everything.
It comes in contact with identifying it
as either self or invader. That could
be infection. Could be
allergy could be cancer.
Its main job is to keep everything in
your body stable in the last 20 years,
scientists have learned a
lot about the immune system.
The 1st 24 months of life can
define the immune system for.
Your entire life, and in addition,
previous nine months before your life,
during gestation.
So during pregnancy,
the mother's health and what
the mother does can actually
impact the immune system.
Does that
mean my immune
system is the same as it was 36 years
ago? That's good question.
As you age, your immune system
changes in a variety of ways to
accommodate the challenges of your age.
This Harvard article
points to all the common sense stuff
that will help you to maintain.
A strong immune system so
healthy diet exercise.
Managing your weight routine
screenings and vaccinations.
These things will all
impact how the immune system
will work. Several studies,
including one from Guangzhou
University of Chinese Medicine,
make it very clear certain triggers
are bad for the immune system.
Heavy alcohol, stressful life
events and using tobacco.
Interestingly, we don't know
vaping does the same thing.
We're starting to worry it
does so back to our verify question. Can
you really boost your
immune system? It's hard
to show. It's really
hard to prove so as a whole it's
false. As for all that stuff
on the shelves,
there's essentially zero
regulation on what they
say. Turns out, you could
just save your money.
Joining me now via
Skype is Doctor Ruby Shah,
an obesity medicine specialist,
Doctor Shaw. You can support your
immune system and you can wreck
it with some of those bad habits.
But a lot of people have
asked what can I take vitamin
supplements to prevent COVID-19?
What's your answer to those people?
Yeah, good morning.
That's a good question.
So there isn't any.
There aren't any vitamins or minerals
that are going to protect us,
particularly from covid or
really any other infection.
The most common viral infection
we get is the common cold and.
Even with that, you know vitamin
C has been pretty well studied,
and we know that high doses
of vitamin C don't reduce the
incidence of the common cold,
but it can reduce the duration of it,
but those are all there,
not good studies. So
that's not something routinely
recommend to patients and doctors
from people who are most susceptible
to all infections, right?
Including COVID-19 are people with
chronic disease, including diabetes,
right? Absolutely,
so people who smoke and people with
diabetes are definitely the ones who are
most susceptible to chronic infections.
I mean, sorry to COVID-19.
Any chronic infection can really reduce
your immune immunity and put you
at risk for these viral infections,
but we know the worst offenders are
diseases like diabetes and smoking,
so trying to eat a healthy diet
and quit smoking, or probably the
best things you can do right now.
OK, doctor Shah, thank
you again so much for your time.
Doctor Shah has sent me a list of resources
to learn more about the efficacy of
vitamins, so I'll post all of that
for you on my social media channel.