Don’t Let a Cold Get You Down: Try These Immunity Hacks

Mark Hyman, MD

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Dr. Mark Hyman
Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Farmacy. Why is this important? Why is protecting your gut barrier important? About 60 to 70% of your immune system is in your gut. Why?

Because that's where your body comes into contact with a lot of foreign stuff, and your immune system is supposed to help you identify and fight off foreign stuff like bugs or things that leak into your system. Before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone via my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at this scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand, well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out function health for real time lab insights. If you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, check out my membership community, Hyman Hive.

And if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your routine, visit my website, supplement store, for a summary of my favorite and tested products. Hey, everyone. It's doctor Mark Hyman. Ever wanted to ask me your health and wellness questions directly? Well, here's your chance.

I have an exciting exclusive event coming up that you could be part of as a thank you for being a loyal listener on The Doctor's Farmacy. On Wednesday, December 4th, I'm hosting a live digital experience called the Diet Wars, and I want you to join me. I'll be chatting with doctor Gabrielle Lyon, a board certified family doc and New York Times best selling author as we tackle one of the biggest wellness questions out there. Which diet really gives you the best shot at optimal health? Should you be a vegan?

Should you be a carnivore or somewhere in between? From paleo to vegan to carnivore and GLP ones, we'll break down the science, debunk the myths, and share our expert perspectives, help you make the best choices for your health. And here's the best part. You'll be able to interact with me and chat with our amazing community in real time during the event. Plus, if you're a VIP ticket holder, you'll get to join an exclusive q and a after party where you can ask us all your questions directly.

The Dye Wars is a one time only experience that you don't wanna miss, including limited edition merch. It's all happening live on Moment by Patreon, so mark your calendars for Wednesday, December 4th at 9 PM EST, 6 PM Pacific, and head over to moment dotc0forward/marc hyman to get your tickets. I can't wait to see you there. Welcome back to another episode of the doctor's pharmacy and health bites, where we take juicy little bites into current health topics. And today we're diving into the incredible world of polyphenols.

What are those? Well, they're nature's powerhouse when it comes to supporting our immune system and our overall health. Now these mighty compounds are found in abundance in plant foods, and they do so much more than just nourish our bodies. Right? They help us feed our good gut bacteria.

They reduce inflammation. They strengthen our immune defenses, and they make us more resilient to illness, meaning we don't get sick. Polyphenols work their magic in lots of fascinating ways. They act as kind of mild stressors, and they trigger our body to ramp up their defense mechanisms. This process is known as hormesis.

It's, basically a stress that doesn't kill you, but makes you stronger. And this makes ourselves stronger and better equipped to handle oxidative stress and inflammation and lots of other challenges. So by incorporating polyphenol rich foods in our diet, we're essentially giving our bodies a mini workout that keeps us healthy and protected against chronic diseases. In this episode, we're gonna explore some of the best sources of polyphenols like green tea and, yes, my friends, dark chocolate and citrus fruits and how they can help you stay ahead of the cold and flu season, which is coming up soon, to a station near you. Now whether it's boosting your immune system or improving your gut health, polyphenols are just an essential part of any health focused diet.

So let's jump in and discover how you can eat your medicine and give your body the support it needs to thrive. So let's start by diving into one of nature's most powerful immune supporting agents, polyphenols. Now what are those? Polyphenols are a type of phytochemical. Phyto means plant, chemical means chemical or phytonutrient.

And these are found in our diet if we're eating an abundance of whole real plant foods. They're definitely not in ultra processed food at all, which is a real problem and partly why we're so sick, not just the bad stuff, but none of the good stuff. So this is the good stuff, my folks. Not only do these polyphenols provide a trove of benefits for health and for longevity, but they also support our immunity and our gut health, which is so important for our immune system because they feed our good gut bugs. They're literally fuel for your intestinal microbiome.

And if you don't feed your inner garden right and you don't tend it right, it's not gonna be nice to you. It's gonna cause all kinds of issues from chronic disease and many other things, all connected to inflammation. So polyphenols reduce inflammation, and they also are beneficial for modulating our immune system. All right. So what is the impact of polyphenols on immunity?

Well, there's over 8,000 polyphenolic compounds that I've identified to date. Now, many more phytochemicals, but these are just the polyphenolic compounds. Now, these are a diverse group of bioactive phytochemicals that have been extensively studied for their antioxidant and their anti inflammatory properties. They modulate immune cells and they turn on our anti inflammatory pathways, which then helps reduce inflammation, which is the scourge of of everybody as far as chronic disease and acute disease. They combat oxidative stress, which leads to rusting and aging, and they protect against all sorts of chronic diseases.

So how do they do this? Is this really kinda cool idea called phytohormesis. Now hormesis is this stress that doesn't kill you that makes you stronger. It's a process where a low dose of a potentially harmful thing like exercise or where your strength training and ripping muscle fibers actually stimulates a positive beneficial adaptive response, like building new muscle. Same thing with cold therapy or cryotherapy or saunas.

There's a whole bunch of different hormetic therapies. I talk about these in my book Young Forever, and they're a key part of longevity. But what's interesting is that these phytochemicals are tiny little stress molecules because they're the the plant's defense systems. They're not there for us. I mean, obviously, the plant didn't create these for us, but we've adapted with them to use them in our bodies to activate healing responses.

It's really amazing. So it's like a little stress that makes us stronger, and and it's very powerful. So these polyphenols, which are actually the plant's defense mechanisms, make them a little sort of stressful in our body. They create a little bit of a stress response, but that activates in response our healing system. And it's super important to remember because these polyphenols are rich in plant foods, but they're richer in wild foods.

They're richer in foods that are grown regeneratively and then organic and then conventional. So it's sort of hierarchy because we basically have bred these out of our modern diet literally by breeding for starch and for yield and for drought resistance and for, you know, transportability and shelf stability, but not for nutrition. So we have a real issue of nutrition security here. Food security is not having enough food to eat, but nutrition security is having enough nutrients to eat, and we are definitely not having those. And I and I think of these polyphenols as conditionally essential nutrients.

We're not we're not seeing deficiency diseases like, you know, scurvy or rickets if you don't have them. But over the long term, if you don't have them, they actually accelerate all of our aging processes. And by using them, they activate our longevity pathways and switches to help us live a long, healthy life. Alright. So what happens when we consume them?

Our bodies respond by ramping up our own defense mechanisms. They increase the production of our own antioxidant enzymes. They enhance our detoxification pathways. They boost our immune system. They help our mitochondria.

They help repair DNA. They're doing all kinds of amazing things that help us live longer and healthier. They basically trigger a mini workout for your cells, making them more resilient to stress and damage. Now one of the key benefits of this hormetic response, this hormesis I'm talking about, is the reduction of free radicals or oxidative stress. You know what that is.

It's rusting. It's when your, apple turns brown in the air or or your face wrinkles from the sun. Right? These are all oxidative stress reactions. And polyphenols can directly reduce oxidative stress by fighting off damages caused by these free radicals.

So when you incorporate a polyphenol rich set of foods into your diet, you can mitigate this damage to your cells and the harmful, pro inflammatory disease causing effects that come with it. So it's really powerful to include these because they sort of are you're you're working with your body to activate healing systems. So when you do this, when you activate and enhance your body's antioxidant defense systems, these polyphenols actually protect our cells from the things that cause rapid aging and disease, inflammation, and oxidative stress. Now what about gut health? Now, until recently we thought, oh, you need prebiotics, which is fiber, and you need probiotics, which is true.

But recent discoveries have made it really clear that polyphenols are essential for creating a healthy gut microbiome. And why do you need a healthy gut microbiome? Because it regulates everything in your body. There's probably a third to a half of all your blood metabolites that come from your gut. They interact with all your biological systems and abnormalities in your gut microbiome, meaning have having bad gut bugs by not eating enough of the right foods and too much of the wrong foods and not having enough polyphenols linked to everything from heart disease to cancer to diabetes to dementia to autism to autoimmune disease to asthma to fibromyalgia to chronic fatigue syndrome.

The list goes on and on and on, even aging itself. So polyphenols are kind of newly understood to have a huge role in the microbiome, and they help support our microbiome by basically feeding and growing the good gut bugs which produce anti inflammatory metabolites, and also it's for other compounds we call postbiotics. Now what are postbiotics? Well, you've heard of prebiotics. You've heard of probiotics.

Postbiotics are basically compounds that are made by the bacteria in your gut that have a role in our physiology and our biology in a good way that makes us healthier. And these are really beneficial. They're quite amazing. That's why I said about a third and a half of all the things floating around your blood, all the molecules floating around your blood come from the gut bacteria. Now postbiotics support something called the innate immune system as well as the adaptive immune system.

These are our 2 immune systems that help fight off infection. Now it's super important to keep these good gut bugs around and keep them happy because they strengthen the gut barrier, which prevents a leaky gut, which causes a lot of inflammation, and that leads to a healthier, stronger, more robust immune system. Why is this important? Why is protecting your gut barrier important? About 60 to 70% of your immune system is in your gut.

Why? Because that's where your body comes into contact with a lot of foreign stuff and your immune system is supposed to help you identify and fight off foreign stuff like bugs or weird proteins or food proteins, things that leak into your system. The more polyphenols you consume, the stronger and more resilient your immune system. And and many studies have shown that there's an inverse relationship between viral infection and polyphenol rich diets. Meaning, if you're eating a lot of colorful fruits and vegetables, you're less likely to get a virus and get sick from it.

Not bad just from eating a bunch of good food. Now let's talk about a few foods that you can start including in your diet that will help protect you against the cold and flu foods and foods, that contain these compounds. The first is a category of compounds called catechins. Catechins are powerful polyphenols that are found in green tea and they have shown to have significant benefit to reduce the incidence of influenza and the common cold symptoms. Now catechins are also abundant in dark chocolate, apples, gooseberries, grape seeds, kiwis, strawberries, red wine.

Oh, I wouldn't use that. Beer also, I wouldn't use that. Chocolate, cocoa, all that is is a source of some of these catechins, although green tea is one of the highest sources. And they have a lot of benefits. Right?

These catechins are anticancer compounds. They fight obesity. They're anti diabetic compounds. They're anti inflammatory. They're detoxifying compounds.

They're antiviral, and they have a role in preventing colds and flus, and that's really important. In fact, research shows that regular consumption of green tea catechins, either by drinking green tea or taking it as a supplement or gargling with green tea, I've never done that, but it sounds interesting, And that's been linked to a decrease in in the flu. So just just drinking green tea or taking green tea supplements or just gargling with it lowers your risk of getting the flu. That's great. By the way, I never get the flu shot for many reasons, but I I think if your immune system's healthy and your vitamin d levels are up and you're eating a healthy diet, you're you're really not gonna get the flu or it's gonna be very mild.

Obviously, if you're chronically ill or sick or some other reason you might need a flu vaccine, that's fine. But for most of us, I think it's it's overkill. And then, basically, when you drink green tea, it's been linked to a reduced incidence of influenza infection and cold symptoms. So when you're looking to beat that seasonal cold, just have a cup of green tea or better yet, have a piece of dark chocolate. That's my favorite.

Now these these are great and delicious source of catechins, and they're simple and effective ways to support your immune system. Another really important polyphenol is called quercetin. Now you probably heard me talk about this in in longevity talks I've done or in in podcasts. It's really important. It's it's very high in Himalayan tarry buckwheat, which I love.

I use Himalayan tarry buckwheat sprout powder every day. You can get it from Big Bold Health. And it's it's a very potent, flavonoid and has remarkable antiviral properties. And it gained a lot of attention recently for being effective against infections like COVID 19, and it's found in a variety of whole foods, including apples, berries, brassicas like the broccoli family, capers, grapes, onions, shallots, green tea, cranberries, blueberries, dark cherries, olive oil, parsley, sage, and even honey. So all of these, contain quercetin and some in higher amounts than others, but I think the highest source is Himalayan tardigrid buckwheat, and you can use it as capsules, as sprout powder, as flour.

You make great buckwheat pancakes. In fact, there's a recipe in my book, Young Forever, The Young Forever Cookbook, using Himalayan tardive buckwheat as a way to get, delicious sprout powder. Now you can also take it as a supplement, as I mentioned, and my favorite is HTB Rejuvenate from Big Bold Health. Just make sure you're getting a good source of it. I think that's really my favorite source because it has lots of other phytochemicals too and other polyphenols.

Now we're going to talk about more about this in a little bit, but quercetin is known well for its its antiviral, anti inflammatory, anticancer and antioxidant properties. And it's been studied extensively for this and even was actually studied in a trial to reverse biological age and was effective in just reversing biological age. Now the most notable example of this antiviral effect is COVID 19. It was making headlines throughout the pandemic for its strong antiviral properties. It exhibits these antiviral activity by doing a few things.

It blocks the virus' entry into your cells. It inhibits, viral enzyme activity, so it can't do what it's supposed to do. It reduces the viral load, the overall load of the virus, which relates to how severely ill you are, and it reduces inflammation. And there's lots of research to support this. A small scale randomized controlled trial, which is the highest level of evidence, found that 500 milligrams of quercetin 3 times a week for 1 week, followed by 500 milligrams 2 times a day for another week in those who tested positive for COVID 19 led to a whole bunch of benefits, like improved inflammatory biomarkers and faster clearance of the COVID virus.

In the Korsten group, 68% tested negative at 1 week versus 24% in the control group. 54% had earlier resolution of acute symptoms at 1 week versus 24% in the control. That's very impressive. Another clinical trial with about a 152 COVID 19 patients found that quercetin supplementation about a 1000 milligrams a day for a month led to reduced hospitalization rate, which is amazing, shorter length of hospital stays, decreased need for noninvasive oxygen, lower progression to intensive care, so you basically prevented you from going to intensive care, and reduced death. Now now just think about this for a moment, folks.

There's no good drugs that can do this. The vaccine may help with this, although there are a lot of issues with the vaccine. But think about these benefits from taking a simple, harmless nutritional supplement or including foods with high have this in them every single day. It's really that effective. These these are not trivial effects.

These are really powerful effects. Rutin is another polyphenol. It's the 3rd polyphenol I want to talk about. It's a powerhouse polyphenol found in a whole bunch of fruits and vegetables, like apple peels, black tea, asparagus, buckwheat, and I particularly like the Himalayan tartaried buckwheat I mentioned. It's probably the highest source of of rutin.

Onions, green tea, figs, most citrus foods like grapefruit, lemon, limes, apples, cranberries. And as I mentioned, this Himalayan tartaree buckwheat is a polyphenol rich superfood. It's uniquely rich in quercetin and rutin, and it's known for its immune rejuvenation properties which strengthens immunity. It boosts your cellular health. It boosts your energy, your focus, and your clarity.

In fact, exciting new research from my mentor, doctor Jeffrey Bland, and his friends at Big Bold Health show they can even help lower the age of your immune cells. So it's basically versus your immunological age, which is important because that's how we age is through inflammation. Now Rutin has, anti inflammatory properties, anti carcinogenic properties. It's neuroprotective, cardio protective. It has antifungal properties and antiviral properties.

All that makes it extremely effective and versatile in supporting overall health and longevity. It's based on immune resilience. These are really amazing compounds that you can get as part of your diet, and they will help you. Now there's a whole other class called flavonoids, and many other polyphenols in this class exhibit immune supporting properties and also have antiviral benefits. Now there's a big class of these polyphenols called flavonoids.

There are subclasses of these called flavonols, isoflavones, flavonones, flavonols, anthocyanins, which are just a few examples. Now flavonoids have been shown to exhibit direct antiviral effects against respiratory viruses, including influenza, rhinovirus, which is also known as the common cold, and SARS CoV 2 or COVID 19. Now they enhance immune function by increasing the circulation and the activity of your immune cells, particularly antibodies and white blood cells. Pretty darn good. Right?

And and these are these are really important, and they're found in a lot of foods you can eat. They also reduce the expression of what we call pro inflammatory cytokines. Cytokines are the immune messenger chemicals, and they work together with their gut microbes to enhance protection against infection. And one amazing source of flavonoids is propolis. Propolis or propolis or propolis, however you say it.

It's a natural resin complex. It's made by honeybees with immune supporting properties. It's antiviral, antibacterial, and anti inflammatory. It's basically what the hive uses to protect itself. Now you can take propolis as a supplement, as a liquid extract, or as a nasal spray.

Beekeepers Natural makes a great throat spray with with propolis. It's really awesome for daily immune support. Now there's other foods that belong to flavonoids include, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, also apples, pears, lettuce, tomatoes, kale, soybeans, citrus fruits, and the list goes on. Alright. Well, let's talk about citrus fruits because they're also great in all sorts of properties.

They're great in terms of their antioxidant properties. They have high levels of IVCC and flavonoids, and that helps protect yourselves from oxidative stress. Now something to keep in mind is that the bioavailability of these flavonoids from fresh citrus fruits is up to 2 times higher than frozen fruit. So, also the longer the fruit travels to get you, the more nutrients it loses. So basically, you wanna eat, lemon, lime, orange, or grapefruit right off the tree if you can, or basically in season and not stored for weeks or months in warehouses.

Industrial farming practices and processing really reduces the nutrient content and the polyphenol content really significantly. And that's why it's important to eat seasonal, local, fresh fruits and veggies. Farmer's market is a great place to find these in the summertime. I love the farmer's market. I pretty much only shop at the farmer's market when I can in the summer.

Now you can purchase frozen fruits because they are actually flash frozen at their peak ripeness, which is great and actually contains more phytochemicals than typically what you get sitting on the shelf in a grocery store. Now, studies show that when picked at peak ripeness in their flash frozen immediately, they actually retain more polyphenols and vitamin c than just regular stuff you can get that's not frozen. In addition to, obviously, the flavonoids and the citrus foods, they're also high, as I mentioned, in vitamin c. Now vitamin c supports the immune system by stimulating the production of white blood cells, which are really important for fighting infections. It also enhances the function of something called phagocytes.

These are cells that kind of engulf the bad bacteria and the viruses. And that's why many studies suggest that vitamin c can reduce the severity and the duration of common colds, sort of what Linus Pauling kinda came up with near the end of his life. And he was ridiculed for it, but he's actually right. He was really the godfather of functional medicine. He wrote the first paper in Science, journal, in 1969 called Orthomolecular Psychiatry about using nutrients to correct psychiatric disorders.

And now we have departments of nutritional psychiatry, you know, I don't know how many years, 50 years later in major academic medical schools. The combination of vitamin c and polyphenols in citrus fruits provides a synergistic effect in supporting immune function, things like oranges, grapefruit, also strawberries, blackberries, red peppers, bell broccoli, brussels sprouts, kiwis, also great whole food sources of vitamin c that you can put in your diet. Also, you can take vitamin c. Right? You can just take vitamin c every day during cold and flu season, or when you get your symptoms.

Hopefully, you don't get symptoms if you follow what I'm telling you, but really important to help you prevent, illness. I like the pure encapsulations ascorbic acid or liposomal vitamin C for more rapid absorption. You can find in my online store on doctorhyman.com. You can see the link in the show notes as well. Also, you want to eat your medicine, folks.

You really want to eat your medicine. And I don't say this metaphorically as I, as I talk about food, and I want you to understand that food is the most powerful, biological response modifier that you interact with every day. It signals your biochemistry to do all sorts of things, and the nutrients in it play a huge role in your biology. So you need to eat your medicine. Another way to get, medicine and food is, zinc.

Zinc is really important for immune function. It's another food first way to get your medicine, and get lots of foods that get zinc in them. It's essential mineral that supports immune system and it fights off viral infection. It helps stop viral replication or, you know, viruses, you know, just kind of breeding, I guess you'd call it. Some studies suggest it actually even helps reduce the duration and the severity of cold symptoms.

So where do you get those? Well, grass fed meat, pumpkin seeds are a great source. Oysters, cashews, almonds, salmon, sardines, are great food sources. You can take them in different forms as a supplement, lozenges, gels, capsules or sprays. All that's really important.

So that's hack 1. Hack 1 was all the polyphenols and nutrients that you can use to help reduce your risk of getting sick during cold and flu season. Alright. As we wrap up today's episode, I hope you're inspired to take full advantage of the incredible benefits that polyphenols offer by incorporating these polyphenol rich foods in your daily routine like green tea, dark chocolate, not so hard, and a variety of colorful fruits and veggies. You're giving your body the tools it needs to stay strong and resilient and protected against illness.

Remember, it's not just about eating for taste, although that's a great bonus, but also eating with intention to nourish your body and support your health in the long run. But here's a little fun fact. Food that naturally tastes good. Right? A summer peach that's so ripe and juicy and delicious.

A strawberry picked right off a summer vine. A a tomato, cherry tomato, ripe right off the the August, tomato vines. These are so flavorful. You don't need anything on them to just create an explosion of flavor. And why do they have that flavor?

It's because they are full of phytochemicals. So actually, taste follows phytochemical richness. This is a major take home. And when a food food tastes bland, it's because it's got no phytochemicals in it. Now these small conscious choices make a huge difference and impact on your overall being, help you live longer, better.

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