Can you chop your health immune system?

It is a cold morning in the depths of winter.

And I have the feeling that I left my mental health and my warm clothes in the changing room when I roam the edge of a reservoir in my swimming shorts.

A colored chalk shield informs me that the water temperature today is 3.9 ° C, as one of the regular guests tells me that this is not a cold water swimming, it is “ice cream” water swimming.

How did I land here?

Well, I am enthusiastic about the idea of ​​improving or increasing the immune system. My body was the lively embodiment of the “quademy”, about which the NHS warned all winter. It was a relentless stream of colds and cough and an explosive belly.

Our immune systems are already doing fantastic work to combat viruses and other inauid. If I would collect the entire air that I exhaled over a minute, according to Prof. John Tregoning, immunologist at Imperial College London, it would contain 100 to 10,000 bacteria, 25,000 viruses and a single fungus.

“They breathe these things throughout the time; there is only one swirling mass of pathogens [organisms that cause disease] In the air, “he says.

But there are many foods, nutritional supplements and activities that are advertised for their “immune -reinforcing” properties. Can we see our protection?

And that’s why I got out and push myself off for a terrifying chest huthon.

The icy water is like fire on my skin and my whole brain can make it into the pontoon without needing help from the lifeguards.

However, studies have shown that the adrenaline hit of the cold water flooded the blood flow with infection control cells.

White blood cells – producing antibodies or attacking infected tissue – move from their normal houses and go to the patrol and think that there could be an infection. So does that mean that I am more protected?

“Within a few hours in which everything normalizes,” says Prof. Eleanor Riley, immunologist at the University of Edinburgh.

“There is no evidence that people who swim cold water have fewer colds or fewer infections.”

There may be no evidence of cold water, but regular movement can certainly make the trick.

On average, adults receive two to three colds per year and children between five and eight, says Dr. Margaret McCartney, family doctor and expert for evidence -based medicine at the University of St. Andrews.

“[But] People who do moderate exercises report fewer virus infections, ”she says.

There is a lack of conclusive clinical studies, but the data we have is “everything towards that it is good for you … but no miracle cure,” said Dr. McCartney.

Laboratory studies have suggested that the aging of the immune system can slow down regularly. Your body’s defenses have been decreased from our 20s, but the research of the 80-year-old cyclists suggested that they had the Immune system of people for decades younger.

“I know that the attempts are not really carried out to a large extent, but I will do a lot of cycling,” she says.

The first thing that comes to mind is vitamin C – either by devouring a mountain of oranges or in pill form.

“It’s a no from me,” says Dr. McCartney. If you are poor, the immune system can be impaired, but there is little to win for the vast majority when it comes to additional times. The same applies to Multivitamine that says that Dr. McCartney only makes “expensive urine”.

However, the evidence of vitamin D is heavily discussed and not a fixed no. Vitamin D level in winter, how it is produced when our skin is exposed to sunlight.

“I think the evidence indicates possible advantages for people who have respiratory diseases and who have very low in vitamin D,” says Dr. McCartney, but there is “inadequate” evidence that this would help everyone.

And while you are thinking about what you could put in the shopping cart, the jury is still not there, whether prebiotics and probiotics that change the good bacteria in your intestine also benefit from immunity.

“I believe that this is a really important area of ​​study, but we lack the real data that enable you to recommend this,” says Dr. McCartney.

She also says that Echinacea, turmeric and ginger recordings will not give them immunod.

The skills of your immune system are not defined all day.

“Our immune system is most effective in the early morning when we wake up, very effective up to the early part of the day and later on the day on which it subsides,” says Prof. Riley.

For this reason, her cold often feels worse in the morning, since her symptoms are the result of an immune system fired on all cylinders.

The decline is in “about four or five in the afternoon”, so that you may have better protection if you are vaccinated or exposed to someone in the morning.

Since the immune system has this 24-hour cycle, the “regular daily rhythm” and not a mixture of late nights and long lies on weekends can help “to increase your immune system,” says Prof. Riley.

While we think about increasing our immune system, we should also remember that there are things that increase our susceptibility to infections.

One of the big ones is smoking because it damages the lungs directly so that they are a less effective barrier for viruses.

“If you imagine that the lungs like a sieve, smoking will break holes in the sieve so that more can get through,” says Prof. Tregoning.

It also chooses inflammation in the entire body. The inflammation is like a thermostat for the immune system and a normal component of the way the body reacts to an infection.

But “uncontrolled inflammation is bad for them” because it bothers the immune system “so that they can react less well”.

Obesity is another factor that can increase the susceptibility to infections and the severity by increasing the inflammation in the body.

“Both things can be difficult for people to stop or reverse, but they are probably the most variable,” says Dr. McCartney.

To be constantly stressed increases the mirrors of the hormone cortisol in the body.

However, cortisol dampens the immune system, which may make it more susceptible to infection.

Prof. Tregoning says that this could be the explanation of why it may have an advantageous effect to go in nature, go for a walk, spend with friends – even cold water swimming.

“They are less stressed, less cortisol, so their immune system is more suitable for the role it tries,” he says.

Prof. Riley adds: “There is no doubt that it has very, very important effects on our physical functions to be happy in a positive past.”

You have probably seen products in the shop where you can spray each of your nostrils when you first sign a cold.

A report in the Lancet showed that they work.

There were thousands of people either a salt water (salt) spray or a gel base. They could use it up to six times a day if they felt like they got something.

People who have just left their daily life without a nasal spray spent an average of eight days during their studies.

But that fell on six days for those who used either salt water (saline solution) or a brand-gel-based spray.

Dr. McCartney argues that a brand spray would not be better than a normal saline solutions.

If you are already doing all the usual things to maintain your health – not to smoke, eat healthy, train regularly – your immune system is already in the “best possible disease” to react to an infection, says Prof. Riley.

“Can you do something to increase a normal, healthy person? There is simply no real evidence that you can,” she says.

“But there are things that you can do to improve your immunity against certain individual infections, and that is vaccinated.”

And maybe instead of spending your money on the latest madness, she suggests thinking about opportunities, not infecting yourself at all, so be “careful with whom you can make contacts”.

Inside Health was produced by Hannah Robins and the program is broadcast on Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. on BBC Radio 4 and on BBC sounds.