Tag: immune

Understanding Vitamin C

Understanding Vitamin C

Understanding Vitamin C Dr. Claire Arcidiacono, ND  In my experience everyone has heard that Vitamin C is good for our health. In fact, it’s everywhere you look these days! But while you may have heard that using vitamin C is “good for the health of 

Immune Advice for the Fall Months

Immune Advice for the Fall Months

Amanda Williams MD, MPH talks about switching your supplement routine for winter to include food, vitamins & superfoods to support immunity

Why Beta Glucan Should Be Part of Your Immune System Arsenal – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 268

Why Beta Glucan Should Be Part of Your Immune System Arsenal – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 268

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Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Jerry Hickey. Ph

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Algae, those plant-like green velvet blankets on the surface of ponds and lakes, holds a vault’s worth of nutrition. One of these algae, called Euglena gracilis, supplies and insoluble fiber that stimulates our immune system whenever we need it. This ingredient is called Beta-1.3-Glucan and it’s very well researched. I’m going to refer to it as Beta Glucan for the rest of the episode.  

Some Beta Glucans are water-soluble. You find these in cereals, like oats. Those specific Beta Glucans lower our cholesterol, but the Beta Glucan from this algae called Euglena is insoluble. It stimulates the immune system when you need it and the amount you need to take is very tiny. It fits easily into one of those smaller, easy-to-swallow vegetable capsules. Additionally, Beta-1.3-Glucan has GRAS certification from our Food and Drug Administration (FDA), so the American FDA said this is safe for us to use.† 

How to Manage The New Covid-19 Mutations – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 266. Listen Now >>

Euglena is golden-green. It’s really not a plant, although it performs photosynthesis, and it’s really not an animal, although it can move about. It’s a little bit of each. The type of Beta Glucan found in Euglena is an insoluble fiber, in other words you can’t digest it, and it’s found in little pouches, so it’s easy to separate and concentrate. Euglena does not have a cell wall, so it’s also very easy for you to digest and absorb.†       

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Beta Glucans and the immune system

How does the Beta Glucan in Euglena help with the immune system? It actually interacts with our immune cells in our innate immune system. The innate immune system is the early part of the immune system. Very young people depend on their innate immune system, the immune system they’re kind of born with and develop very early on in life. It’s nonspecific and tackles all infections. It’s mainly composed of a cell called the neutrophil, but also a macrophage and dendritic cells. The dendritic cells kind of control the situation here. Macrophages are these huge cells that are phagocytes, which basically means they gobble up toxins, cellular waste debris, bacteria and viruses and literally dissolve them. The neutrophils travel about and they’re about 90% of our white blood cells.†  

Let’s take COVID-19, for instance. When a young person gets it, that early part of the immune system is very effective and very active. It destroys the virus before it hurts the child. That’s why many children do quite well with the COVID-19 infection.†  

How To Support Respiratory Health During A Pandemic – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 253. Listen Now >>

But what about older people? Once you hit your mid-20s, about age 25, that first part of the immune system starts to fade because you’ve already encountered the same viruses winter after winter, summer after summer, and you’ve built up specific antibodies to those viruses, so you don’t rely as much on your innate immune system. Now you’re looking at the adaptive immune system, which is the B-cells that have antibodies on them, the T-cells that direct the immune system and the natural killer cells that are kind of the bridge between the innate immune system and the adaptive immune system. The Beta Glucan interacts with the early part of the immune system and it primes them to fight viruses and other infections.†  

Tune into the full podcast episode for research about the important functions of Beta Glucans.

Beta-1.3-Glucan from Euglena supports optimal immune system function. It boosts the function of key immune cells that fight viruses early on. It’s an antioxidant and it promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria in our intestines, which is good because that’s also important for our immune system function.†       

My recommendation for Beta Glucan is to take one capsule every morning, about a half an hour before breakfast if I was surrounded by sick people. Some people might want to take it all winter long if they’re in constant touch with other people. You can find Beta Glucan in our new Beta Immunity Hx formula.†          

Thank you for tuning in to the Invite Health Podcast. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting www.invitehealth.com/podcast. Make sure you subscribe and leave us a review! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health today. We’ll see you next time on another episode of the Invite Health Podcast. 

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Traveling Soon? You Need These Supplements To Stay Healthy – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 231

Traveling Soon? You Need These Supplements To Stay Healthy – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 231

During cold and flu season and especially during a pandemic, it’s important to know the most beneficial supplements you need when traveling.

How Multivitamins Can Support Immunity – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 217

How Multivitamins Can Support Immunity – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 217

There’s mounting evidence that taking a high quality multivitamin in the winter can help boost immunity. But not all are created equal.

The Wonders of Vitamin C – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 200

The Wonders of Vitamin C – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 200

Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Amanda Williams, MPH.

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When we think about antioxidants in the body, many people will think immediately of Vitamin C, and there’s a really good reason for this. Vitamin C is utilized in so many different pathways in the human body, and it really is quite critical and essential for our overall survival. Many times when we think about this vitamin, people will have heard that it’s good for the immune system. It certainly is, but there are so many other ways in which it is required by the human body.†

We know that, as humans, we do not internally produce Vitamin C, so it’s not an endogenous antioxidant like glutathione, which is produced in the human body. We know that we have to acquire it from different dietary sources. For the most part, many people will get enough Vitamin C to avoid things such as scurvy. But are we getting enough Vitamin C that we get into that category of having the ability to promote cellular longevity? That’s what the key is.†   

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The Benefits of Vitamin C

A really interesting study that came out a couple of years ago talked about the impact of Vitamin C on our overall health. It was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The study looked at just how impactful having adequate levels in the body was when it came to all-cause mortality. In this study, what they actually assessed was looking at the long-term impact of the vitamin on human health. They took a group of people that they followed over the course of 16 years and they were looking at their serum blood levels, so the researchers were looking at the actual amount of Vitamin C that was circulating in their bodies. What they found was that those who had the highest levels in their blood of the vitamin had a 25% reduction in all-cause mortality. That’s some really important information to look at. Just being in the group that had higher Vitamin C levels led to longer lives.† 

Ask Your Doctor: Vitamin C for Cellular Health – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 192. Listen Now >>

This is why we really have to understand what it is doing for longevity and aging gracefully. We know that Vitamin C has this potential to reverse these different age-related abnormalities, and this is really something that we should focus in on. We know that it is certainly critical when we talk about our immune system. Vitamin C helps with these immune-boosting properties and it helps to promote the actions of certain things like phagocytes, which chew up intruders in the body such as bacteria and fungus. It also helps with the activation of T cells, which are white blood cells that scan through the body, looking for any detectable levels of infections.†

Learn more about the role that this important vitamin plays in your body by tuning into the full podcast episode. 

I definitely encourage you to consider adding additional Vitamin C to your routine, even if you already take a multivitamin. The amount you need varies. For some people, it may be 500mg per day. For others, 1000mg. For some, maybe 3000mg per day. It depends what your underlying health concerns are. We do know that dietary intake of Vitamin C alone is usually enough to keep us out of that scary zone of the development of scurvy, which has been, for the most part, eliminated. Making sure that we’re getting adequate amounts is essential because it plays an important role systemically.†     

Questions about this important vitamin? Its benefit on immunity? Leave a comment below to join the discussion.

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