Preventing the Flu
Since the threat of a serious influenza epidemic is again in the news and on our minds, people are asking for ways to keep from getting the flu. The advice from public health officials is to wash your hands often and stay home if you feel sick. While these measures are useful, they focus only on exposure to the virus.
I would like to talk about ways to stay as healthy as possible so you will be less likely to get sick in the event that you are exposed. To illustrate this, I am going to provide a real-world hypothetical situation. You finish your day at work and crowd into the elevator with others heading home for the day. Someone in the back is harboring the influenza virus H1N1 in their nose and do not even know it. He sneezes sending tiny droplets of saliva with the virus through the air at thousands of feet per second literally filling the crowded elevator with virus-laden air. Everyone breathes in the virus. Everyone goes their separate ways. A few days later, one person is sick in bed, another feels tired and has stuffy sinuses, and another is coughing up a little gunk from their lungs but otherwise feels fine. All of the other elevator passengers are symptom-free. Why would this happen? The answer lies not in how well each person washes their hands, but in each person’s susceptibility to the virus and each person’s immune system.
Population Genetics:
Population genetics as related to epidemics is fascinating. The example I love to use to explain this is small pox. Small pox is a deadly virus killing millions of people throughout Europe and Asia. The populations of Europe and Asia gradually recovered. Years later, Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and forever connected the hemispheres. When he did that, he started a terrible epidemic among the Native Americans. Some estimate that up to 90% of the native populations throughout theAmericas died. This percentage was actually witnessed in some tribes. But the Spaniards visiting the Americas did not die. In fact, smallpox did not go away, it was still alive within the European population. Why did it quit killing the Europeans when it obviously still had that deadly potential? The amazing answer is that Europeans developed, or evolved, immunity to the virus. We all have slightly different immune systems and genes. Those that were least susceptible to smallpox survived the epidemics of Europe and lived on to reproduce. They then passed on their “anti-smallpox” genes.
At the same time, the smallpox virus changes with the host (that’s us) population. Pretend for a moment that you are a virus, smallpox in this case. Each virus strain is slightly more or less virulent (how sick it makes you). If you think about it, from your perspective as a virus who has found a good home in a French farmer of the Middle Ages, it is to your advantage to infect the farmer without killing him. Killing your host would be destroying your home. In fact, your best option would be to infect the farmer and not even make him sick; that way, he doesn’t take anything to get rid of you. So the more virulent strains of the virus lose their homes and do not survive to make more viruses. The less virulent strains keep their homes and survive and reproduce within the host.
This dance of microbe with host occurs with most infectious disease. Unfortunately, sometimes the virus breaks the order when a mutation occurs creating a strain of the virus that is new and can be more virulent. That is what we are all afraid of with avian and swine flu.
Keep Your Immune System Strong!!
I personally want to be one of the people in the elevator story who does not get sick, who knows nothing about getting the flu. These are the people who have strong, effective immune systems.
The immune system is our defense system. It consists of your barriers such as your skin and mucous membranes. There are many little cells and chemicals in your body that play complex roles in figuring out what of all the stuff coming into our body is “good” and what is “bad.” We want to make sure that our immune system does its job well. The best way to do this is maintain a healthy body.
Things you can do to strengthen your immune system:
- Get at least 8 hours of quality sleep per night
- Create daily practices such as prayer, meditation, or relaxing walks that allow you to unwind from your hectic life and release stress
- Avoid sugar and refined carbohydrates such as white bread and pastries
- Avoid trans-fats and rancid fats such as hydrogenated oils, corn oil, soy oil, cottonseed oil, and canola oil. read more
- Eat good quality fats from butter or other animal fats, olive oil, coconut oil, and fish.
- Take 1 tablespoon of cod liver oil with vitamin D (Nordic Naturals is a good brand) to provide high-quality omega-3 fats along with good forms of vitamins A and D.
- Get vitamin C from fruits and vegetables (fruit juice has too much sugar).
If you are feeling like you are coming down with something or feel run-down, using an herbal product like Quick Defense from Gaia Herbs can stop the flu in its tracks.
Doing these relatively simple things can keep you healthy even in the face of an influenza epidemic.
