let's talk about what happens to your immune system when you age as you age
your risk factor goes up dramatically for viral and bacterial infections and
the reason why is that the microbiome changes that is a term to describe
collectively all the microbes living in your body they're there to make up a
great majority of your immune system and they do a lot of other things too like
make vitamins but I want to focus on the immune factor as you age the microbes
age as well you get less diversity you have more pathogenic bacteria so we get
this ratio of more pathogens and less friendly bacteria and that makes you
more susceptible to getting infections also if you don't have the diversity of
microbes you're not going to make the quantity of butyrate and butyrate is
involved in helping someone with insulin resistance and their blood sugars also
it has a connection into supporting a healthy immune system on the flip side a
baby who's getting breast milk is getting a tremendous amount of good
bacteria in that breast milk not to mention immune factors anti microbials
colostrum which is building his or her immune system it's very very important
as you age to maintain your gut flora and even take a very high quality
probiotic now the second thing to know is that babies and children have a huge
thymus gland the thymus gland is not the thyroid the thyroid is in the front part
of the neck the thymus is a little bit lower right underneath your sternum
right on top of the heart the thymus is the key lymph gland having to do with
the training camp for your white blood cells they're also a reservoir for a lot
of your immune cells if a major infection happens your body will recruit
a lot of those T cells T standing for thymus to be able to pull those into the
battle to fight off the microbe now the problem is when you get older your
thymus shrinks down to nothing so you really lose that ability to make
not just the T cells but the b cells too and b cells make the antibody so the
less antibodies you have for different things the less defense you're gonna
have against certain microbes it's really important to take enough zinc to
support the thyroid because if your zinc deficient which a lot of people are you
will also have atrophy of the thymus gland I think would be very beneficial
as you age to not only make sure you're taking enough zinc and also to take a
thymus extract and you can get that as a supplement I don't have any brand names
you're gonna have to do your own research but I think that would be a
really good thing to support if someone is getting older and more fragile and
they wanted to boost the immune system also as a person ages they're usually
taking more medications the one that really destroys the microbiome is the
antibiotic and you probably already know that but also the PPIs the antacids
and the medications that have do with acid reflux GERD indigestion heartburn things
like that metformin interferes with your gut bacteria that's used for diabetes
type 2 also SSRIs that's a medication for anxiety or depression as big
negative impact on your microbiome laxatives and corticosteroids like
prednisone really affects the microbiome so the less of this you have the less
immune system that you have and lastly as you age you have a much more
difficult time absorbing vitamin D so vitamin D is one of the most important
what's called immune modulators which controls an overactive immune system and
I'm talking about inflammatory responses I'm talking about hypersensitivities
asthma allergies and especially autoimmune problems as well as the
condition called the cytokine storm which is a flurry of immune reactions
that can occur in your lung and that can actually kill you so vitamin D is a
really good call me action on a hyper reactive immune system and one of the
problems when you get an infection from a virus for example is that that virus
has the sneaky little strategy of blocking the receptors inside the cell
for vitamin D and knocking out your ability to use it you're gonna have to
take a lot more vitamin D to counter that effect because the receptors for
vitamin D called the vitamin D receptor is downgraded with certain viruses and
certain bacterial infections as well there's really two main things you want
to support as you get older the microbiome your friendly bacteria and
the thymus gland thanks for watching and if you want to know how to boost the
immune system check out this video right here