Do you want to support your immunity? Move more, advises an immunologist

Specialist MUDr. Mojmír Račanský from the Department of Allergology and Clinical Immunology of the Olomouc University Hospital talked with us about immunity and answered your FAQs.

Together we will tackle the aspects of immunity, from the environmental influence and eating habits to stress and genetics and we will learn to recognize weakened immunity and what to do for its strengthening.

What affects our immunity

Why there is an increased number of diseases during winter?

The biggest problem is setting of our circadian rhythm. We are meant to slow down during winter, but we actually often overload it instead. We also don't have enough of daylight, that means that our brains are switching off, refuse to focus, and suppress everything else, including immunity.

Other unfavourable factors in winter might be more smog and smoke. In winter, our natural barriers are also more vulnerable. Our skin is cracked and dry and the same happens in the nasopharynx or conjuctiva leaving us more inclinable to infections. Last but not least, the favourable clima for viruses and bacteria are unaired rooms that are wet, with temperature around 20-25 °C.

Why should we care of our gut microbiom and how do the antibiotics affect us?

Nowadays, excessive use of antibiotics is a major problem for our gut health. I recommend to use antibiotics only when it is really neccessary. Unfortunately, they are regularly prescribed even over the phone. The most important thing for gut health is giving the extra thought to what we eat. Our diet should be composed of enough fibre, complex carbohydrates, and fermented products such as kefir or sauerkraut. Probiotics are recommended after any intestinal infection. Try to avoid artifical stabilizers and preservatives in foodstuff. Implement bone char in your detoxes, soluble fibre, milk thistle, or sprouted wheat.

How does stress affect our immunity?

Its is proved based on laboratory examinations that there are acquired immunity disorders originated in chronic stress, which is a common threat to top managers, for example. When stressed, brain starts to release stress hormones corticoids. If there is too many of them, it might become a problem, since they surpass our immunity and disrupt the whole system.

Till which extent is immunity connected to genetics?

The majority of congenital immunological diseases are hereditary at multiple loci - this means we need something external to awaken them to life. The trigger can be, for example, a virus infection. Another problem is connected to our diet again - if we do not eat what we are supposed to, our immunity will develop improperly. For example, children in developing countries in Africa who suffer from protein deficiency in the early years of their life often develop immunity disorders and are prone to HIV transmission. Our behaviour can help us to be healthier even though we are genetically predisposed for something.

Weakened immunity and how to support it

How to recognize weakened immunity?

These criteria are set by the World Health Organization. The index of poor immunity are repeated infections that occur more than 6 times per year. Another thing is a family burden, if someone in our family has an immunity disease, we can expect the symptoms will develop for us, too. The third thing to watch is whether we are more sick than others around us. A mum with multiple kids can be sick more often. Unfortunately that is given by the increased frequency of infections, but it doesn't indicate poor immunity. If neccessary, your general practitioner can decide to perform an immunological laboratory examination

In relation to whether one feels healthy or sick, I need to remind the old proven practice of Vinzenz Priessnitz. Millionaires used to come see him and his treatment consisted of being given a pickaxe and a shovel for work and bathing in cold water. They ate nothing but bread and water for a week, but they were healthy after. Nowadays, we might just do too well. 😊

How to improve our immunity?

Let me use the ostentatious "we are what we eat". What we eat and the environment we exist in activate our genetic predispositions. If we do not have quality food and we will inhabit a polluted environment, our immunity will not work the way it is supposed to. Regneration is also crucial, especially enough of good sleep. We can also support our immunity with aerobic physical activity that helps with better excretion of waste products from our bodies.

Which vitamins are the most important for proper immunity functions?

All patients that visit us with any immune disorder undergo testing of levels of vitamin D, B12, and folic acid, that are all essential for maturation of immune cells. For the past 5 years, vitamin D has been in spotlight for its proven support of proper functions of the immune system. Based on mypractice, only 47 patients our of many thousands has normal levels of vitamin D, which is an extreme problem. Another important vitamin is vitamin C. Out of minerals then zinc and selenium that are a part of enzymatic phenomena and are capable to impact mucous membranes already in the mouth or nose.

Vitamin D demonstrably supports proper functions of the immune system.

On what principle does cold exposure support immunity?

For this we need to realize that we function based on affecting our internal body temperature. To make all our body cells, enzymes, and the rest of our body work, our brain sets a certain temperature. If we give a signal to our brain that we are experiencing a great coldness, it will start to defend - it will increase the internal temperature, trigger metabolism, and start cleansing body mechanisms. The breath becomes quicker, which improves body oxygenation. By exposure to cold and subsequent warming of our bodies we improve the blood flow.

The same principle work for sauning. The important part is switching temperatures. We give our bodies some impulses, we throw it out of balance, and that is exactly something that is needed for it to work normally. The worst thing is to be inactive, which is a huge challenge of today's world. Lack of body movement, sedentary job, excessive time spent by the computer - the body is inactive and that leads to the development of immunity complications.

Lack of body movement leads to development of immunity complications.

Immunity in children and babies

Is it true that first years of life may affect the functions of our immune system in adulthood?

Congenital immune disorders that are genetically given usually show already during first months after birth. In this case the external environment does not play a role. Furthermore, it depends whether the baby is born naturally or by caesarean section, based on that babies can be more prone to infections. What is unequivocally proven is the positive effect of breastfeeding on the child, both in the long-term production of the natural immune response and especially since the mum passes onto the baby through the breast milk a huge amount of the IgA antibodies that are protective directly in the mucous membranes. Breasfeeding is crucial also as prevention of allergies. Children that are not breastfed can be up to 30 times more prone to developing allergies than children that are breastfed.

Is hygiene hypothesis still valid? Can excessive cleanliness harm our health?

From my point of view, this theory is fully right. If you have a child that is growing up in a village, eats some sand time to time, gets licked by an animal from time to time, then the kid is simply healthy. On the other side, a kid that is growing up in the city and all his pacifiers are disinfected and are fed a lot of food supplements instead of quality fruits and vegetables, then he migh be much worse off. Simply said, if a kid grows up in a sterile environment, his immunity is "bored". And what happens when you are bored? Then you do stupid things. 😊

MUDr. Mojmír Račanský works at the Department of Allergology and Clinical Immunology at the Olomouc University Hospital. After obtaining his certification, he began to specialize in clinical practice mainly in congenital and acquired immune disorders and drug allergies.