Find out how your immune system works. Understanding how your immune system works to defend your body is invaluable in learning how to support that same system.
Its purpose is to recognize and fight harmful pathogens from the outside, including “diseased changes in the body, such as cancer cells,” according to the Institute for Healthcare Quality and Efficiency.
While boosting the immune system may be “tempting,” Harvard Health Publishing Harvard Medical School noted that figuring out how to do so “has proven elusive for several reasons.”
The basis of this is that the immune system “is just that—a system, not a single entity.” It “requires balance and harmony” to function properly.
Try to live a healthy lifestyle
A healthy lifestyle is the best defense against disease and the best way to maintain a healthy immune system. “Taking care of yourself will help your immune system take care of you,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity recommends building healthy habits, such as eating well and exercising regularly to maintain a healthy weight, getting enough sleep, and not smoking or drinking too much alcohol.
Try to manage your stress levels
Managing stress is no small task, but it can have a big impact on your health, said Self John Sellick, an infectious disease expert and professor of medicine at the University of Buffalo SUNY. If you’re overworked, sleep-deprived and stressed all the time, “you’re not looking at the things you need to do to maintain your health,” Sellick said.
In the short term, stress can be helpful because it “creates an inflammatory response” in the body that activates increased levels of cytokines, proteins that help fight infection, Dr. Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health, Self said.
Be wary of products that claim to boost immunity
There are plenty of treatments, supplements and other products that claim to boost immunity even though they are not FDA-approved, wrote Robert Shmerling, senior faculty editor for Harvard Health Publishing.
They usually come with a disclaimer: “This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”
Despite this disclaimer, marketers can still “use phrases like ‘boosts immune function’ and ‘supports immune health,'” Shmerling pointed out.
He added that he found these terms “always vague”. “More importantly, they are confusing.
The first describes what vaccines do by helping your body prepare to fight a “specific infectious organism (such as getting a flu shot before each flu season),” he explained.
