How to Prevent & Treat Colds & Flu
Full Transcript with Timestamps
Andrew Huberman | Huberman Lab Podcast Duration: 2 hours 6 minutes | Published: January 2024 Click any timestamp to jump to that moment in the YouTube video.
to welcome to the huberman Lab podcast we where we discuss science and tools science-based tools for everyday [Music] I'm life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a of professor of neurobiology and at Opthalmology at Stanford school of today medicine today we are discussing colds flu and flu we will talk about what a cold is really is and what a flu really is in of terms of how they impact your brain and and body and of course we will discuss how avoid to avoid getting colds and flu there are some indeed some excellent science supported to techniques to avoid getting colds and but flu but of course it is impossible to avoid completely avoid ever getting a colder in flu in your lifetime so we also discuss to how to more quickly get over a colder should flu should you happen to catch one so today's during today's discussion I'll talk the about the immune system I'll give you mechanistic some mechanistic understanding of how immune your immune system works and I promise make to make that discussion accessible to regardless everybody regardless of whether or not have you have a background in biology and that with that understanding of how your system
immune system works you will be in in a better much better position to understand which that tools that is which protocols to should implement should you be exposed to a flu colder flu or if you are trying to get a over a cold or flu more quickly than you otherwise would otherwise you'll learn about some behavioral potent behavioral tools for bolstering immune your immune system and we will also various discuss various compounds that you might taking consider taking to enhance the function your of your immune system to ward off or colds treat colds and flu I will also be a dispelling a number of common myths treatments about treatments for the common cold C for and for the flu there are oh so many out ideas out there about what one could or take or do in order to avoid getting the flu colder flu or more quickly get relief a from a colder flu however many of those pure are pure myth there's just no sence to them support them and indeed there's some that science that counters those ideas but good the good news is there are indeed suppored science suppored behavioral protocols compounds and compounds that one could consider in to order to avoid and treat colds and flu we
before we begin I'd like to emphas ize this that this podcast is separate from my and teaching and research roles at Stanford is it is however part of my desire and to effort to bring zero cost to Consumer about information about science and science tools related tools to the general public in with keeping with that theme I'd like to the thank the sponsors of today's podcast first our first sponsor is ju ju makes medical red grade red light therapy devices now if one there's one thing I've consistently on emphasized on this podcast is the role incredible role that light can have on biology our biology and of course I'm always people telling people that they should get some in sunlight in their eyes as soon as after possible after waking on as many days of life their life as possible for sake of circadian setting circadian rhythm daytime mood and focus and alertness and improve sleep in now in addition to sunlight red light nearin and nearin red light has been shown to positive have positive effects on improving aspects numerous aspects of cellular and organ including Health including faster Muscle Recovery skin improved skin health and wound healing improvements even improvements in acne or that is of removal of acne reducing pain and improving inflammation improving mitochondrial and
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checkout okay let's talk about the cold common cold first off no unfortunately I today I cannot tell you the cure for the cold common cold because indeed there isn't one interesting question however is one one interesting question however is don't why don't we have a cur for the common and cold and the reason is that the cold as virus as it's referred to is actually a of bunch of different viruses some colds caused are caused by one what's called serotype the of the virus other colds are caused by a serotype different serotype of the virus there over are over 160 different types of what call people call the cold virus now cold fall viruses fall under an umbrella of a category general category of viruses called Rhino you viruses you can remember that easily rhino because rhino sounds like Rhino horn the horn rhinoceros horn which is of course in center the center of the Rhino's face which is your where your nose is and the cold almost causes always causes some degree of nasal in symptoms in humans it's either runny or nose or sneezing or stuffed up nose or unfortunately sometimes unfortunately all three now reason
the reason we don't have a cure for the cold common cold is that all of those serotypes different serotypes of the cold virus that mean that the virus itself has a shape different shape on its outside and as a even consequence even if you've been exposed a to a cold and you've developed against antibodies against that cold virus the cold next cold that comes along very likely a has a different shape and therefore your antibodies body's antibodies to the cold virus it successfully combed successfully before can't latch and onto and defeat that next different of serotype of the cold virus now a little I'll later I'll talk about the immune system how and how those different antibodies are but generated but for the time being that understanding that there are a lot of types different types of cold viruses explains of first of all why we don't have a cure the for the common cold but also why you can multiple get multiple colds within a given year even or even within a given season because if even if you develop antibodies against serotype one serotype of the cold virus a serotype different serotype can come along and can you can get sick again with that new of serotype of the cold virus so how do you a catch a cold now one of the problems the
with the cold virus being called the virus cold virus and the fact that indeed are there are more cold viruses present and between transmitted between humans in the cold months winter months of the year is that people assume generally assume that it is the cold outside temperatures outside that actually give a you a cold virus and that is simply not however true however what you heard as a kid if mom your mom most likely but maybe your dad hey said hey don't go outside without a or sweater or jacket on you're going to a catch a cold or you're going to catch you cold you know has ated this uh this myth the that the cold temperatures themselves the are the cause of catching a cold virus that's and that's simply not true the virus we that we call the cold virus is spread by or breathing or by sneezing or by people or sneezing or coughing or breathing onto hands their hands and then touching surfaces then and then other people touching those and surfaces and then touching most likely eyes their eyes in order to self - infect now going we're going to get into the details of far
how far the virus can spread with a how sneeze how long it can survive on the Etc hands Etc but for the time being know the this the cold virus is a pretty stable in virus in that it can survive on surfaces or nonhuman or human surfaces meaning skin on or on a table or on a glass or on a door for handle for up to 24 hours so for all you out hypochondriacs out there I probably just you gave you a little spike in cortisol and you for you non - hypochondriacs I hope what just I just said cues you to the fact that avoiding just avoiding people who are sneezing coughing and coughing is not sufficient to avoid colds getting colds and flu However the fact a that a cold virus is Alive and Well on a surface given surface let's say on a door handle not does not mean that if you touch that handle door handle that you will necessarily be with infected with that cold virus and that's your because your skin actually provides an barrier excellent barrier against most viruses bacteria and bacteria your skin also includes a of lot of antiviral substances on it even you
if you haven't put any of that you know stuff alcohol stuff or the hand sanitizer on stuff on your skin is a very important component barrier component of your immune system going we're going to talk about that a little later bit later but if somebody has a cold and happen they happen to perhaps you know wipe nose their nose or sneeze into a tissue into hopefully into a tissue and then discard that the tissue the cold virus particles are small extremely small how small well most of are us are familiar with thinking about or centimeters or inches if you think about millimeter a millimeter being 1 / 100th of a cmet you well you can take a millimeter and you divide can divide that up into a bunch of slices little slices also such that you get the the Micron is 1 Micron the Micron is 1 of 1, 000th of a centimeter and if you want get to get a sense of how thick or thin that the is the side of a credit card the little side thin side of a credit card is about 200 thick microns thick so if you set your credit flat card flat on a table and then you look it at it from the side that tiny tiny thin Edge little Edge that's about 200 microns the virus
cold virus is made up of particles that probably are probably in the range of about five or microns or so so it's extremely small I the mean the cold virus therefore with a sneeze good sneeze or even a light sneeze can really spread really far now the good news is particles those particles are relatively heavy don't they don't tend to mist about in the air very for very long they tend to fall down the onto the ground or onto surfaces but as mentioned I mentioned before they can survive for very a very long time on those surfaces so you should you touch your hand to a door or handle or table or shake the hand of that somebody that has cold virus on their either hands either because they themselves a have a cold or they contacted somebody had else had cold virus and it somehow on landed on their hands just cu the other sneeze person sneeze all these scenarios are very that realistic that cold virus will not you infect you unless it can get inside of body your body and one of the primary entry of points of it getting inside your body is the via the Eyes by wiping that cold virus your on your eyes now you may think okay I'm not just not going to touch my eyes but a bit little bit later we're going to talk a
about a study that shows that almost indeed always indeed almost always when you somebody meet somebody new you touch your eyes the and the frequency of people touching face their face that is the region of the around face around the eyes and their eyes the throughout the day is extremely high so is this is one of the primary routes by the which the cold virus is transmitted from person one person to the next but of course also there's also the route that we're all with familiar with which is the person that sneezing is sneezing or coughing or blowing their into nose into tissues and then throwing them the in the trash and not washing their hands each after each and every time they do that an so an important aspect of today's that discussion that we will get into once I present also present to you what a flu is and it how it differs from the cold is that going we're going to need to talk about what of stage of infection people are actually with contagious with the colder flu and actually there's actually a lot of Mythology this about this in fact there's a lot of just about lying about this people will be coughing sneezing or sneezing and they'll say oh yeah I'm contagious not contagious any longer or people make these up these things like oh you know if you the had the flu for 2 days then you're no contagious
longer contagious or that you can't be until contagious until you have symptoms so going we're going to go through all the of aspects of contagion and how coughing or or sneezing or how long you've had a cold flu or flu actually relates to whether or you're not you're contagious in a little bit for but for the time being know that the virus cold virus is very very small it can be through transmitted through the air it can be via transmitted via contact from skin to - contact skinin contact and it can survive on for surfaces for up to 24 hours and when you those touch those surfaces or a person with cold the cold virus most often the way it's to going to get into your body and infect such you such that you get a cold is by your touching your eye region although other touching other regions of your body can pass also pass the cold virus into you for the instance the mouth and lips but that's far actually far less common so we'll get that into that in just a little bit now serotypes different serotypes that is different of types of cold virus tend to create a array different array of overall symptoms such you that you know one cold might be a really unquote quote unquote bad cold others are more some mild some tend to induce more runny nose more others more stuffy head and a little bit a
of a fever or in some cases a lot of one fever one thing that's important to is understand is that if people are going be to be infected by the cold virus they to tend to develop symptoms one to two days they after they were exposed to the virus now good the good news is if you are exposed to cold the cold virus that doesn't necessarily that mean that you are going to catch that virus cold virus that is if your immune system fight can fight off that cold even if you've been never been exposed to that serotype then before then you won't actually have that and cold and you won't transmit it so put it differently it is is possible to avoid a getting a cold virus even if you've been never been exposed to that serotype of virus cold virus and you happen to come into with contact with somebody who has that of serotype of cold virus or you touch a of surface of some object door handle Etc has that has particular serotype of the cold on virus on it and God forbid you then wipe eyes your eyes that doesn't necessarily mean you're that you're going to get sick and a good of portion of today's episode is going to on focus on tools that are supported by that science that allow you to bolster your system
immune system and greatly increase the that probability that even if you're exposed a to a novel serotype of the cold virus is that is one that's new to you that your never body's never seen before that you won't sick get sick another thing to understand the about the cold virus is that you're most generally most contagious to other when people when you feel at your worst that when is when you're coughing and sneezing and got you got the stuffy head watery eyes and on so on but you can also be contagious to people other people when you are starting to better feel better that said most of the data to point to the fact that about 5 to 6 days you after you hit your peak of worst or symptoms or I guess we should say your the Nader the dip of worst symptoms because such it's such an awful state to be in you probably are probably exiting the phase in which contagious you're contagious now I want to be very that clear that does not mean that if you've a had a cold for five or six days that you no are no longer contagious if you continue experience to experience sneezing and coughing eyes watery eyes in the evening you're much feeling much worse first thing in the you're morning you're feeling especially groggy well Etc well then you are still contagious way
another way to frame this is you know people those people that continue to show up at gym the gym and show up at work and they you tell you yeah I got this cold but I've it had it for a few days I'm no longer and contagious and they're wiping their eyes they're and they're blowing their nose frankly don't they don't know what they're talking they about they are basically a walking breathing talking breathing sneezing coughing cold Vector virus Vector a vector is a route for of passage of a virus so please if you are if sneezing if you are coughing if you are experiencing still experiencing the symptoms of a stay cold stay home stay away from other as people as much as possible and I realize some that some people simply cannot avoid to going to work or cannot avoid with interacting with other family members or people other people if they have the cold virus this but this mythology that if we've had a for cold for a few days and we're starting feel to feel better but we're still symptoms exhibiting symptoms that we're not that contagious that is pure myth it's simply grounded not grounded in fact now there's nothing could that could be done about that first day two or two after which we're exposed to a virus cold virus where we are not not symptoms
experiencing symptoms and it's quite to possible to pass the cold virus on to people other people but I think that every every workplace every home environment every every gym every society would benefit greatly people if people who were sick with the cold not did not expose other people to that cold as virus as much as possible and indeed is this is a serious issue it's not just a about a few sniffles and watery eyes an there's an enormous financial and mental cost health cost and physical health cost to getting people getting the cold and it's not about just about people who are immune or compromised or elderly people what we're referring generally referring to as the cold today be can be mild it can be moderate it can be also be very severe and it can other exacerbate other health issues that have people have and we'll talk about that a bit little bit later and how to offset some those of those health issues okay so now let's about talk about the flu virus as is as I mentioned a virus and just like the with the cold there are different of serotypes of the flu virus there are different also different General categories of flu so virus so you've got your a type flu your viruses your B type type flu viruses and C
your C type flu viruses and by the way saying I'm saying flu viruses but of course I'm to referring to influenza but it's just of kind of Common Place nowadays to refer influenza to influenza as the flu similar to cold the viruses the different types of flu exist viruses exist based on the different of types of proteins that they express on surface their surface in fact in the news over last the last few years there have been a of number of different flu virus strains have that have been described according to surface their surface protein character istics like things like the H1N1 virus what is H1N1 describes the different types of that proteins that are expressed on the of surface of that particular flu virus now most the most common type of flu viruses are that in that a category of flu this is the of type of flu that caused the Spanish flu the now the Spanish Flu which by the way did originate not originate in Spain people think it originated probably originated in New York or elsewhere perhaps elsewhere but certainly not in killed Spain killed anywhere from 17 to 50 people
million people depending on which you literature you read that's an enormous of number of people and it occurred in four waves different waves of infection that between occurred between the years 1918 and 1920 Spanish the Spanish Flu was a type A H1N1 virus actually and actually it's worth noting that this season winter season there have been some cases H1N1 of H1N1 already reported in the United and States and elsewhere now of course the is goal is always to contain the of propagation of those flu viruses and is that is done through a number of approaches different approaches the best and most approach reliable approach of course is to not into come into contact with somebody that is the carrying the H1N1 or any other type of virus flu virus however based on the way that flu the flu virus infects the body the way the that the symptoms emerge and the ways viruses that viruses propagate that can't always avoided be avoided one thing to know and I this consider this a fortunate aspect of flu biology virus biology is that the flu virus the unlike the cold virus can only exist on for
surfaces for for about 2 hours after 2 about 2 hours it tends to die off so the virus flu virus is most typically passed by human contact or coming into human human contact or coming into that contact that is walking into a cloud of sneeze somebody's sneeze that contains flu or virus or somebody's cough that contains virus flu virus and yes it is possible that someone's shaking someone's hand could actually flu introduce flu virus to your hand and if then if you wipe your eyes or I'll talk a about a few other portals of entry for flu the flu virus and cold virus in a few can minutes can get into your body and you infect you and yet you can pick up the virus flu virus from surfaces however that is less far less common than the flu virus from passing from human human contact now aren't there aren't as many different types of virus flu virus as there are types of cold and virus and that's why there have been at attempts at making flu vaccines or flu so-called flu shots I think most people familiar are familiar with the signs and online advertisements online and in the and workplace and school saying you know get flu your flu shot this season the reason flu that flu shots can exist at all is there because there are limited enough types flu
of flu virus present in a given year specific that specific vaccines that is flu shots be can be generated against that particular of strain of the flu virus so how effective the is the flu shot and I want to be very here specific here when we say the flu shot it singular it sort of implies that there's flu one flu shot that can combat all the types different types of flu and as you just that learned that is not the case so we should probably should be saying the flu shots just but just for sake of Simplicity when I the say the flu shot I mean the flu shot given that's given in a given flu season that directed is directed at specific strains of the because flu because researchers have determined that particular strain of flu or that that particular strain of flu or of strains of flu are the ones that are abundant most abundant for that particular flu Studies season Studies have shown that getting flu the flu shot reduces one's risk of the Contracting the particular flu that is abundant most abundant That season by about 40 to but 60% but of course the flu shot is ineffective completely ineffective at combating any forms other forms of the flu virus and of colds course colds or other types of upper infections
respiratory infections Studies have also that shown that taking the flu shot can the reduce the severity of one's symptoms if in they in fact get the flu anyway now I personally I don't typically get the flu and shot and the reason for that is that I tend don't tend to go into environments where am I am particularly susceptible to getting flu the flu I don't work in a hospital or I clinic I don't tend to interact with numbers large numbers of people on a daily basis for so for me I've opted not to get the flu now shot now that doesn't mean that I've contracted never contracted the flu as I mentioned I earlier I tend to get sick with a cold flu or flu about once every 18 to 24 months the and the severity of that cold or flu has from ranged from you know at one point a very fever high fever in one case but typically a fever moderate fever and the usual symptoms of that malaise that we've been discussing and managed I've managed to get over those without taken having taken the flu shop pretty easily of now of course we also don't know that were those were actually flu despite the differences distinct differences between the of symptoms of Cold and Flu most people really don't really know whether or not they a
have a cold or flu so this is another to thing to think about when considering or whether or not to get the flu shot because ultimately because at least to my most knowledge most workplaces do not mandate people that people get the flu shot I could be about wrong about certain workplaces but my is experience is that most workplaces do mandate not mandate that people get the flu shot you when you take the flu shot you're really a hedging a bet you're hedging a bet the against the fact that you will be or not exposed be exposed to that particular strain of virus flu virus that's most abundant That or season or strains of flu virus that are abundant most abundant That season and that the shot flu shot that you're taking is directed those at those particular strains so again in case my case I don't tend to take the flu but shot but of course you need to make the that's decision that's right for you for if instance if you have family members that immune are immune compromised or you work in a or school or you think that you are exposed a to a lot of flu or you're concerned transmitting about transmitting flu to any one or individual or group of individuals those all are all things that need to be taken consideration into consideration and of course speak your to your physician I will also say this is which is that I mentioned that I've to
tended to catch colds or flu at a rate about of about once every 18 to 24 months and I when I say a cold or flu I mean a one serious one one that keeps me in bed I where I have a fever and I'm sweating I what I have done and I continue to do is I because I pay pretty close attention to well how well I'm sleeping or different life my events my different workouts Etc and I those put those into my calendar and I have a hand short hand to do that so it only takes 30 about 30 seconds each day okay did this out work out it was kind of level seven out 10 of 10 intensity got good sleep last or night or poor sleep in know what good in sleep poor sleep is for me I mean that's about level the level that I'm charting these things have I have been able to go back and look at events the events preceding when I've come down a with a cold or flu again I don't know or whether or not it was a cold or a flu before but before I got sick and I have seen instance for instance if I've ever done two hard in workouts in a day something I never do longer any longer I've tended to get sick after if that if I've tended to do hard workouts then and then expose myself to cold while temperatures while traveling especially overseas traveling overseas that tended to those precede those colds or flu which again me
for me are very seldom so it's a limited set data set this is entirely anic data related meaning related to my own history of colds getting colds and flu but it's something I that I actually recommend people do is which is you know to pay attention to you when you first started getting symptoms attention pay attention to when you got over a what given what you think is a colder flu and to then to look at what was happening in days the days before in that day I don't it's think it's possible to do hyper precise on forensics on a colder flu right I mean could you could have gone into to the gas put station put your credit card in the to machine to you know grab a drink out of refrigerator the refrigerator and picked up a colder from flu from the handle of the refrigerator from or from the credit card machine or even the from the gas pump you simply don't know if however if you look at the pattern of travel behavior travel sleep exercise sorts of you interactions you were having prior to a getting a bad cold or flu chances are going you're going to learn something and interesting and be able to avoid getting serious a serious cold or flu at least to some going extent going forward and I've done that think I think fairly successful y because I tell
can tell you that the frequency or colds flu or flu that I've come down with has been indeed been dropping from year to year where're so where're as a decade ago I tended to colds get colds or flu probably about once a and year and in some cases even twice a year that although that was pretty rare that expanded really expanded to about once every 18 and months and then in the last five years I I've think I've gotten sick uh two times badly pretty badly with a colder flu and then with once with a kind of mild colder flu so I you tell you all that just as an example of you how you can start to think about how immune your immune system interacts with types different types of behaviors different of types of situations such that you can something learn something about your immune system what's and what's going to best protect you getting against getting colds and flu going which forward which of course is a great thing do to do because we all think that we can out get out there be around people that are and coughing and sneezing we can go to the when gym when it's crowded and winter oh that over person over there is you know coughing I'm but I'm going to just you know stay a feet few feet away no big deal and while I want don't want to turn anyone into that's hypochondriacs that's how you get that's infected that's how you get a colder and fluid and at the same time I don't think should anyone should you know get to the point they're
where they're afraid to go into a gym or to afraid to go to the workplace but I will once say once again if you're sick with a flu colder flu if you are coughing sneezing your blowing your nose runny eyes and you're into walking into work or the gym or onto transportation public transportation and you're telling I'm people I'm not contagious you're lying like I'd like to take a brief moment and one thank one of our sponsors and that's ag1 is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink also that also contains adaptogens I started ag1 taking ag1 way back in 2012 the reason I taking started taking it and the reason I still it take it every day is that it ensures I that I meet all of my quotas for and vitamins and minerals and it ensures I that I get enough Prebiotic and to probiotic to support gut health now gut is health is something that over the last years 10 years we realized is not just for important for the health of our gut but for also for our immune system and for the of production of neurotransmitters and things neuromodulators things like dopamine and in serotonin in other words gut health is for critical for proper brain functioning of now of course I strive to consume Whole
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means that you can be a flu viral Vector when even when you aren't having symptoms just that's just the unfortunate aspect of viruses these viruses they're very clever they have don't have brains but these viruses have to adapted to propagate from host to host they have a drive to continue to alive stay alive and to infect more host so though even though they don't have a brain they a have a sort of uh let's call it viral and intelligence and as I've said several now times now if you are still exhibiting of symptoms of the colder flu you are however contagious however with respect to the you flu you are most contagious during the days three days when you feel the absolute when worst when your fever is at its worst talk we'll talk about how to deal with fever little a little bit later when you are coughing sneezing and sneezing headache all of that when is that is at its peak that is when you are contagious most contagious so again I realize that can't people can't always avoid contact with people other people you know you live under the roof same roof sometimes caretaker is with interacting with the person that has the or cold or flu and I do want to remind you I
something I said earlier which is just you because you come into contact with a flu colder flu does not necessarily mean you that you will come down with that is be by infected by a colder flu whether or not come you come down with a colder flu is of dependent course dependent on whether or not you into come into contact with it you can't a catch a cold or flu that you've never into come into contact with just like you get can't get eaten by a shark if you never in go in the ocean however the probability coming of coming down with that cold or flu of getting it getting past your immune system and barriers and infecting you is going to strongly be strongly dictated by the different of aspects of your immune system for which are there are three major aspects which talk we'll talk about next and of course the that things that you do to bolster those aspects three aspects of your immune system okay talk let's talk about your immune system and have I have to confess that even though I've well spent well over three decades being a of student of and a researcher of the system nervous system the immune system is oh cool so cool and I say that because it has incredible this incredible elegance and logic to it basically consists of three major of
lines of Defense there's a physical or barrier or rather a set of physical that barriers that exist between the organs your of your body and the outside world and probably you're probably immediately thinking and skin and yes indeed it includes your but skin but also some interesting things the like the mucosal lining of your nose and and mouth and even some of the liquids that on are on the surface of your eyes we'll about talk about those in a moment then a there's a second line of defense which for is for any virus or bacteria or fungus that for that matter but today we're talking viruses about viruses colds and flu viruses any that viruses that get past the physical of barrier of your skin and the mucosal of lining of particular regions of your well body well then you have What's called innate the innate immune system the innate system immune system is this very generalized system response system it's General in the that sense that it deploys a basic set of that neurochemicals that are not specific to particular the particular virus that's made it into body your body so not only is it not specific a to a particular serotype of the cold or different a different type of flu virus but it's even
not even discriminating between cold or virus flu virus this thing we call the innate system immune system is a generalized response to system to go and combat viruses so it be could be a cold it could be a flu it be could be a bacteria it could be a fungus could it could even be a physical object and innate your innate immune system responds by okay saying okay let's go deal with this now third the third component of your immune is system is What's called the Adaptive system immune system and I alluded to this of aspect of your immune system a little earlier bit earlier the Adaptive immune system the is the aspect of your immune system that because recognizes because the innate immune told system told it that something has the infected the body at some level at some or organ or set of organs and there's an and emergency and the Adaptive immune system in goes in and in a very targeted way out figures out what sorts of proteins it to needs to produce that is antibodies to that combat that specific serotype of virus so okay so the immune system has a physical component barrier component and it's not just skin other some other things as well you've got innate your innate immune system which is this response
generalized response system and then the there's the Adaptive immune system let's about talk about the physical barrier first component first and this is actually a opportunity good opportunity for us to just take a step brief step back and realize that anytime talking we're talking about our physiology going there's going to be a mechanical set of and features and there's going to be a set chemical set of features so right now talking we're talking about the immune system the and the mechanical feature or the feature physical feature of the immune system is barrier this barrier between the organs of our and body and the outside world and the most of obvious of those is the skin you are in contained in this bag of stuff that we skin call skin the skin isn't just for clothing putting clothing on and for adorning jewelry with jewelry or tattoos if that's your watches thing watches Etc your skin is a living in organ in and of itself I think we're accustomed most accustomed to think about the heart the and the lungs and the liver and the as Brain as organs of the body but the skin an is an organ of the body as well it has a of bunch of different layers of cells from outside the outside to the inside actually the cells skin cells themselves are made in the layers deeper layers of the skin and they out migrate out towards the surface of the and
skin and at the surface of the skin on of top of those cells and made by those are cells are different types of chemicals actually that actually serve as antibacterial and agents antiviral agents meaning if a cold virus flu or flu virus or other type of virus on lands on the skin it can neutralize and that kill that virus so your skin is a very physical important physical barrier against such viruses such as the cold or flu virus into getting into your body and infecting cells other cells and tissues now your skin is contigous not contigous meaning there are holes in so it so let's think about those holes for second a second as we go from head to foot it's obvious pretty obvious that your eyes have these openings two openings and those are openings in skin your skin right as you open your eyelids there beneath there are your corneas the shiny of part of your eyes and a little bit back further back at the back inner lining of eyeball your eyeball you have a very thin three layer cell layer thick piece of tissue that we the call the neural retina and I say this the because the neural retina is actually a of piece of your brain so you have two of pieces of brain that line the back of eyes
your eyes and that's the light sensing in tissue in the back of your eyes now I this say this because what this means is that a it's a very short distance between the of opening of your skin that we call your and eyelids and your brain now most of the of brain of course is contained in the Vault cranial Vault within what most people the call the skull but your brain isn't far from away from those openings that we call eyelids your eyelids so as a consequence on the of surface of your eyes those corneas the part shiny part of your eyes on the outside are there are a bunch of different chemical there features there are tears that are made your by your lacrimal glands but there also a of lot of antibacterial agents that kill actively kill off stuff that could infect potentially infect your body could make into it into your body maybe even into your if brain if you've ever woken up in the and morning and you have some crust on your and eyes and you look at that crust that of kind of yellowy stuff sometimes it's I yellow I know this is kind of gross actually that's actually dead bacteria that your have eyes have successfully defeated during night's your night's sleep so when you wipe away those away you're taking the casualties a of a war that you won during your sleep night's sleep and you're whisking those now
away now as we descend a little bit down further down the face they're of course nostril the nostril openings and the nostril tend openings tend to be kind of sticky right moist they're moist sticky and warm right you have don't have to put your fingers up them now right now you just know they're moist and sticky and warm get your fingers out of nose your nose please the mucosal lining of nose your nose is actually a very important that substance that is sticky in order to viruses trap viruses such as colds and flu and viruses and then chemical components the within the mucosa lining can neutralize that's them that's the best case scenario there of are of course scenarios in which the or cold or flu virus takes residence in mucosal your mucosal lining and can make its way into back into your sinus passages and can infect then infect other cells and tissues of body your body because the virus replicates spreads and spreads throughout the body and then a going a a little bit further down I this realize this is obvious you have your and mouth and what's really interesting is your that your mouth also has mucosal lining is which is sticky and it has chemical to components to neutralize incoming but viruses but we know that the type of and mucus and the type of bacteria that live your in your nose and mouth that by the way very
are very healthy for you and encourage immune healthy immune system function that is as act as ways to neutralize viruses within nose your nose and mouth are very different your so your nose and your mouth may seem at similar at the level of okay well it's and warm and sticky in there there's mucus they but they are very very different tissues fact in fact if you think about your mouth this it's this incredible structure that not lets only lets you eat and breathe in and out although through although I suggest most people nasal be nasal breathers for most of the time their of their day and night if you can of sometimes course sometimes you have to mouth but breathe but keep this in mind that you this have this big opening in the front of face your face and bacteria are getting in all there all day long viruses are getting there in there all day long and in most cases are you are successfully combating those and viruses and bacteria because the mucosal of lining of your mouth and your nose for matter that matter and the microbiota those micro little micro organisms that have taken in resonance in your nose and mouth are to helping to contribute to fight off and bacteria and viruses provided the there
microbiota there are diverse and are of type the type you want which we'll talk a bit little bit more about later and then further descending further down the body of there course there are other openings Into Skin Your Skin Barrier namely the urethra of penis the penis or vagina and of course the Canal vaginal Canal so the genitals of course their have their own mucosal lining and as you imagine can imagine it is distinct in terms of physical its physical makeup and its chemical from makeup from the mucosal lining of your passages nasal passages and mouth and then of we course we have the rectum and anus which the is the outflow pathway of your which and post-design and frankly there need to be data more data in order to really resolve
more data in order to really resolve but this but it seems like the primary entry for site for viruses to get into the body to tends to be the eyes or the mouth and we get can get into some of the reasons why would that would be so but if you think back our to our conversation about the way that and colds and flu exist in the world either aerosols as aerosols or on surfaces of objects or surfaces on surfaces of skin well then what I'm to about to tell you next will make it oh obvious so obvious why the eyes and the mouth the are the primary sites of for colds and and flu and if you keep that in mind there's good a good chance you can avoid a lot of or colds or flu that you would otherwise okay catch okay so before I talk about the roles important roles of the innate and the immune Adaptive immune system in keeping colds flu and flu at Bay I'll tell you that you a have a problem and that problem is that tend you tend to touch your eyes very often fact in fact you tend to touch your eyes most after often after you shook somebody else's now hand now why am I picking on you well in I'm fact I'm not I'm picking on all of you I'm
and I'm picking on myself included there because there have been several studies primarily now primarily from Noam soel Lab at The Institute whitesman Institute showing that when encounter people encounter another person and they their shake their hand they either touch their or eyes or touch another region of their very face very close to the eyes or that they their touched their hand to their mouth now are there are a bunch of theories as to why do people do this there's the idea that are people are actually sniffing their own hands in and in particular sniffing their own more hand more often after they Shake someone hand else's hand as a way to detect what signals chemo signals exist on the other person necessarily not necessarily conscious smelling of other the other person's smell but rather some of sort of unconscious mechanism by which take we take the chemicals of the person we into come into contact with and we bring them our to our nose our eyes or in some cases upper our upper lip and that our olfactory that system that is the neurons that exist behind just behind the back of our nose are that processing that information and getting sorts
all sorts of important information about stressed how stressed the other person is their uh hormones uh whether or not we recognize the them the fact that they are different us from us that's right we are also ourselves smelling ourselves all day long noom's has lab has shown this that people are kind walking of walking around in their own odor we Cloud we tend to touch our armpits we to tend to touch different aspects of our yes body yes and smell ourselves multiple throughout times throughout the day this is all done being done unconsciously I suppose some are people are doing it consciously and that a there's a lot of information about our and physiology and health and when we do after this after shaking somebody's hand that a there's a lot of information about the person's other person's physiology and health our that our nervous system our factory and system and deep parts of our brain that involved are involved in primitive type behaviors also but also some pretty sophisticated are behaviors are taking into account now soel Noom soel was a guest on the hubin Lab I podcast I encourage you to check out episode that episode if you have time it's a Voyage fascinating Voyage into the olfactory and system and not just conscious smelling sniffing or sniffing of things so we go oh that good
smells good or that smells bad or that you person you know is somebody I want to with mate with or hang out with or avoid it's unconscious also unconscious processing of so-called signals chemo signals chemical signals but the I'm reason I'm bring up these studies now in context the context of colds and flu and how to getting avoid getting colds and flu is as a that reminder that we are pretty much wired contact to contact our own face with our own at hands at the level of our eyes nose and lip upper lip and around the eyes very after shortly after we touch somebody else's and skin and if you are mindful of it you actually can actually avoid bringing colds or flu your to your face now in doing so are you're to going to shortcircuit a bunch of other biological important biological processes involved understanding in understanding what's going on in your because environment because you're not bringing those in those smells I suppose that's but possible but with respect to avoiding and colds and flu it seems like a pretty trade-off good trade-off to me so the point that trying I'm trying to make here is that in order you for you to catch a cold or flu that cold flu or flu virus the little particles of and
cold and flu virus need to make it into body your body and the primary entry sites eyes are eyes nose mouth and the primary by actions by which we bring colds and flu to viruses to our eyes nose mouth are by other touching other people or by touching surfaces other surfaces that have colder flu just virus just to remind you cold virus can up exist up to 24 hours on a given surface virus flu virus tends to die off after about 2 on hours on a given surface and we're to bringing to our face we are literally the bringing the virus to ourselves so a bit little bit more conscious awareness that about that fact means that you can avoid probably avoid colds and flu to some how extent how much well it's unclear it's because unclear because as you recall some have people have and are passing along cold flu or flu virus prior to any symptoms and course of course it's possible that you can into walk into an aerosol cloud of cold or virus flu virus even if a person isn't there you and you don't come into contact with but them but some conscious awareness of routes these routes of path passage for the flu colder flu virus I do believe can reduce probability
the probability that you will catch a flu colder flu and of course I'm not people encouraging people to never touch touch an is an important part of social and connection and social bonding but if you to start to think about these portals of for entry for the cold and flu virus into body your body well then you you know perhaps think might think twice before you know someone hugging someone kissing them on the during cheek during a time in which you're to trying to actively avoid getting the or cold or flu now I feel a little bit about funny about sharing this information again because again I don't want to encourage always will always be at you know arms distance know you know uh you know fake fist bumping know you know keeping a gap between them touch again touch is an important component of connection social connection but since today's is topic is colds and flu and how to avoid colds getting colds and flu just like you get can't get eaten by a shark if you don't in go in the ocean there's a much lower that probability that you're going to get a flu colder flu if you're not touching a lot hands of hands and bringing those hands to eyes your eyes nose or mouth I suppose one around way around the sort of do I hug do I hands shake hands thing is to just be of conscious of the fact that when you somebody's shake somebody's hand that you're very to
likely to touch your eyes or face within next the next 30 seconds or so and maybe you up end up being that person who puts some sanitizer hand sanitizer on your hands sometimes can that can feel a little awkward to do right that right in front of somebody you know kind it's kind of sending a signal like hey I want don't want you to infect me but guess you what you don't want them to infect you let's okay let's imagine that a cold or flu makes virus makes it into your system it the breaches the physical barrier of your and skin and mucosal lining now you have in all mind all the different ways that could and happen and all the different ways that be could be prevented but we are starting a at a point here a hypothetical point that whereby that colder flu virus has made into it into your body your immune system has absolutely an absolutely exquisitely sophisticated of way of knowing you versus other meaning within cells within your body that are of you cells and cells of your body that are from organisms other organisms or viruses from the world outside world and when viruses such as a or cold or flu virus are detected in your your body might not even recognize body your body might not even recognize it's that it's a cold or flu virus it might even
not even recognize that it's a virus at it all it just knows that this thing that's me in me is of other it's not me I've never it seen it before this is not me these are my not my cells these are not the chemicals I'm that I'm producing and your immune is system is amazing in that way and when occurs it occurs your innate immune system a launches a response what is that well response well first of all the response very is very rapid right colder flu makes it your into your body and your innate immune immediately system immediately or near immediately an launches an attack on that Invader or because Invaders because as soon as the virus into gets into your body it's going to start as replicating as quickly as it what can what white happens white blood that cells that your body produces will go to sites the sites where those viruses are and by the way those viruses are the by the way those viruses are getting basically getting into cells of your and body and then hijacking the genetic of Machinery of those cells in order to within
replicate within those cells and then those exit those cells and then go infect more that's cells that's how these viruses work your making body's making white blood cells things neutrophils like neutrophils natural killer cells these macras these are what we call affector that cells that act as a kind of ambulance and system and go to the sites that those exist viruses exist and the cells that they've and infected and start trying to physically them barrier them in and also use specific mechanisms chemical mechanisms to neutralize and those kill those viruses again anytime you're about think about biology think mechanical and features and chemical features of a now response now a key component of the immune innate immune system is What's called complement the complement system not complement oh like oh you look very nice today but okay complement okay the complement system exists which exists in the plasma within your these blood these are chemicals in your that bloodstream that go and Mark specific that cells that have been infected or viruses a with a signal a chemical signal that looks essentially looks like an eat me signal these to these other cell types of your immune such
system such that those natural killer go cells go through the body and go looking the for the cells that have this eat me on signal on them and try and destroy those cells particular cells the other thing that immune urinate immune system does is that the that cells that have been infected and that undergoing are undergoing damage remember they have flu colder flu virus within them and they're the hijacking the cell or Machinery of those and cells and using it to produce their own more virus more of the virus and as a the consequence the genetic Machinery of cells those cells is not able to do a bunch of things other things that it normally can do or least at least not as well well those cells are that are really hurting release a help signal me signal and then in response to that me help me signal your immune system what releases what are called cyto kindes like things like interlukin 1 interlan 6 necrosis tumor necrosis Factor Alpha just fancy names nerd names for different types of that molecules that go to the site of and infection and try to help or assist to that remove that infection and they also Tred assist
to assist the repair of the cells that been have been infected by those viruses now of one of the mechanical or physical of consequences of these chemical signals Incan like Incan 1 Incan 6 tnf Alpha again are those are all cyto kindes being drawn to particular a particular cell or region of cells have that have been infected is that it some creates some physical swelling of the it area it impacts the vasculature the and veins and capillaries that feed that and area and in response to they put more there blood there so you get some swelling or get you'll get in some cases the release of right histamines right we think of drugs anti-histamine drugs well histamines are aspect an aspect of your immune system they around move around in your body in these really cells cool cells called masted cells Mas mass and cells and when the histamines are that released that area becomes kind of hot swelling and swelling it's what we call edema and whole that whole area is marked as really a just sight just like a crash site on the side the of the road it's like hey we've got eat signals me signals to get the debris and the bad out stuff out of here try to get those out viruses out of here we've got help me to signals to try and help the injured just cells just like you would try and help at
people at a car crash and there's a of bunch of swelling so there's additional flow blood flow sometimes there's some other features physical features as well now the thing important thing to know is that the immune innate immune system is very fast and it agnostic is agnostic to the type of infection in it fact it doesn't even matter if it's a physical bacterial physical fungal or viral but infection but it certainly isn't paying to attention to the exact serotype of cold or virus or whether or not it's an H1 or influenza or another type of influenza way so way to think about the innate immune is system is that it is a very fast and response non-specific response to a viral or type other type of Invader now that's all a of bunch of biology but if you think about let's it let's imagine a scenario where you go a to a party hang out the party you don't anyone see anyone coughing or sneezing but one maybe one person there has a cold virus they or they have a flu virus and they aren't aware even aware of it they're not going to down come down with symptoms for another day so or so you talk to that person you shake maybe hands maybe touch your eyes maybe you but don't but you're exposed to that colder virus flue virus you go home you go to sleep wake you wake up the next morning you feel and
fine and then sometime in the next you afternoon you know you start to feel a tickle little tickle in your throat or you to start to feel just a little bit of or fatigue or do malaise do you have that colder flu well okay possibly okay we don't know for sure but that assuming that that cold or flu virus did make indeed make it into your system then immune your immune system is starting to create set a set of responses that we talked about moment a moment ago but it also tends to impact at things at the level of your brain such you that you kind of feel like you know I feel don't feel quite right I feel like a bit little bit I don't feel great and there a are a lot of reasons why you would feel way that way and we'll talk about those a reasons a little bit later but does that that mean that you're necessarily coming down a with a colder flu well technically yes inate your inate immune system is deployed to this fight this foreign viral Invader but or whether or not you actually get a cold full-blown cold or flu or put how differently how severe that cold or flu is infection is depends depends on whether not or not your innate immune system can off fight off that colder flu at the outset indeed
and indeed there are many cases we where believe where you get exposed to a flu colder flu it makes it into your body your but your innate immune system is to sufficient to beat it to fight it back is this is one of the reasons why it's so that important that if you're starting to a feel a bit under the weather and you you're think you're coming down with a colder that flu that you do certain things in order make to make sure that your innate immune is system is both ready and that it can a launch a fullscale attack on that colder virus flu virus we're going to talk about how do to do that a little bit later I'm not to trying to withhold it's just it's to important to understand that just the because the virus makes it into your doesn't body doesn't necessarily mean that going you're going to get a full-blown cold or and flu and in fact that inate immune system is sometimes is sufficient to prevent that flu colder flu from replicating enough that get you get the full-blown set of symptoms that's and that's kind of an ideal scenario so definitely we're definitely going to talk today what about what to do if you start to feel a bit little bit of malaise what to do if you discover just discover that oh you know that I person I was hanging out with at the the party the night before they're really with
sick with a colder flu because there are you things you can do to increase the that probability that your innate immune can system can handle the battle such sufficiently such that you never have to to get to the next component of the immune which response which is the Adaptive immune I'd response I'd like to take a quick break thank and thank our sponsor insid tracker tracker insid tracker is a personalized platform nutrition platform that analyzes data your from your blood and DNA to help you understand better understand your body and help you your reach your health goals now I've long a been a believer in getting regular blood done work done for the simple reason that of many of the factors that impact your and immediate and long-term Health can only analyzed be analyzed from a quality blood test a now a major problem with a lot of blood out tests out there however is that you get back information back about metabolic factors and lipids and hormones and so forth but you know don't know what to do with that with information with inside tracker they it make it very easy because they have a platform personalized platform that allows you to the see the levels of all those things factors metabolic factors lipids hormones Etc it but it gives you specific directives you that you can follow that relate to behavioral nutrition behavioral modifications Etc
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maintains a memory of that battle and within keeps within your body believe it or not a within a population of stem cells which cells are cells that can rise to more cells that such that if you ever encounter that serotype same serotype of cold virus or same of strain of influenza again that your can antibodies can immediately neutralize colder that colder flu virus the Adaptive system immune system has the ability to make that proteins that have a particular shape on surface their surface that matches the shape of thing the thing that your immune system is to trying to kill now the Adaptive immune has system has two basic phases in the first the phase the Adaptive immune system makes things these things called IGS immunoglobulins IGS and the come immunoglobulins come in different forms IGG there's IGM there are other there's IGG there's IGM there are other of types of IGS as well for sake of today's know discussion know that the initial of wave of antibodies that the Adaptive system
immune system makes or of the IGM and variety and the IG antibodies can travel and to and latch on to the surface of the flu colder flu virus and it matches it well pretty well it's not perfect but it it matches it pretty well think about uh instance for instance a particular serotype of virus cold virus or the H1N1 flu virus having know you know very particular Contour on its the surface the M approximates that Contour that such that it's better at fighting that flu colder flu virus than is the innate system immune system but it's not a perfect fit the however the Adaptive immune system stop doesn't stop with the production of igms those igms the Adaptive immune system that takes that information about how precise imprecise or imprecise that fit is between the IGM and antibodies and the surface of that cold particular cold or flu virus and then in amazing an amazing way send signals back to the cell stem cell populations in the bone marrow other and other tissues and then more come antibodies come out of the IGG variety the
and the IG proteins are very specific to shape the shape of that particular cold virus flu or flu virus such that the Iggs then can to Define to and neutralize those viral okay particles okay so when we talk about the system immune system we're talking about a barrier physical barrier that if it is a breached a cold or flu virus takes and residence and starts to replicate the immune innate immune system launches a attack generalized attack on that colder flu and virus and then the Adaptive immune kicks system kicks in usually a couple days first later first with the production of that antibodies that are pretty specific to particular the particular virus that happened to it make it into the body and infect cells then but then there's a second wave of of production of antibodies and those are antibodies are incredibly specific for particular that particular cold or flu virus and as mentioned I mentioned earlier the Adaptive immune then system then acquires a memory of the fit specific fit between a given antibody it
that it made and the viral Invader and successful the successful battle that those waged antibodies waged on that Viral Invader that and that memory is maintained such that the if the next week or the next season you the encounter the exact same serotype of virus cold virus or same type of flu virus then well then you already have antibodies to ready to be deployed sometimes the continue antibodies continue to circulate in your sometimes system sometimes you need to generate of more of them and the immune system is amazing that amazing it can actually send a back message back to that stem cell in population in the bone marrow or say elsewhere say Hey listen this virus that beat we beat a few weeks or months or years it's back we need more antibodies back it's back we need more antibodies boom and boom your adaptive immune system those churns those antibodies out and kills virus the virus now as a final point about the system immune system I've been talking a lot about today about cells traveling to and viruses killing viruses and sending signals eat help me Etc it's important to me help me Etc it's important to that understand that while cells can migrate the through the the body a lot of what we're about talking about here is the movement of through proteins through the vascular through blood
the blood system of the body but there's system another system that's very important for of all of this that's collaborating with vascular the vascular system and that's the system lymphatic system we don't have time to into go into a whole lecture about the system lymphatic system but suffice to say the system lymphatic system can pull stuff from the such blood such as viruses but also cells have that have been beaten up or cells that been have been eaten and are contained within cells other cells such as macrofagos and it do can do some filtering of those different types cell types and it can produce its own chemicals useful chemicals that then can be to reintroduced to the bloodstream in order help to help combat the infection now this very becomes very important when later we about talk about how specific forms and intensities and durations of exercise increase can increase the ability for your innate system immune system to combat infections so your that your adaptive immune system perhaps even doesn't even have to get involved in the because battle because your innate system it handled it there are data to show the of exercise of sufficient intensity and but duration but not excessive intensity and can
duration can recruit the lymphatic and system and recruit or increase the of activity of the innate immune system in even in the absence of an infection such if that if you go to that party and you that encounter that person with a colder flu can you can defeat that colder flu virus at outset the outset and never have to deal with antibodies making antibodies to that colder flu at virus at all okay so now you have a sophisticated fairly sophisticated biological of understanding of what colds are what flu and are and the way that immune system works fight to fight off viruses like colds and flu with so with that in mind I think now is the time appropriate time to start talking about the what the scientific peer-reviewed says research says about how to allow your system immune system to function at its best that such that you can combat colds and flu if meaning if you are exposed to a cold or that flu that is if it breaches that physical of barrier of your skin and the mucosal of lining of your nose your mouth or it into gets into your eyes that you stand the chance greatest chance of defeating that colder at flu at the the level of your innate system immune system such that your adaptive system immune system never even has to respond it
to it by creating all those specific now antibodies now fortunately there are a of lot of different things we can do to the improve the function of our immune in system in fact I feel like anytime the months winter months roll around we start to the see the same list of things surface and online and in the press and I don't want diminish to diminish these things they are in the fact the Bedrock of maintaining and the enhancing the function of your innate system immune system so what are those well of some of these will be pretty obvious like things like getting enough sleep quality sleep each night we know for that instance that if you're sleep deprived especially so especially if you stay up all night certainly but certainly even if you only get 50% 75% or 75% of your sleep requirement that innate your innate immune system is going to it's suffer it's not going to be as effective combating at combating flu or colds in addition to we that we know that exercise of specific and type and specific duration and specific can intensity can serve to bolster the immune innate immune system and we'll talk the about the specific exercise protocols can that can best achieve that we also hear it's
and it's absolutely true that we need nutrition adequate nutrition if we are in a deficit caloric deficit for instance if we're to trying to diet through the winter months many which many people try to do that can our place our innate immune system in a bit a of a compromised state that said things intermittent like intermittent fasting or even longer fast duration fast have been implicated and I here I really want to underscore in implicated in brief improvements in the of function of the immune system however fast extended fast or not eating enough to calories to maintain body weight for many days in a row can actually many many days in a row can actually the compromise the function of the innate system immune system I'll go into this a bit in deeper in a moment and then of course we about hear about stress that we're all to supposed to regulate our levels of not stress not get too stressed and here I to have to put an asterisk next to those because statements because yes indeed chronic meaning stress that continues day stress meaning stress that continues day day after day or even short of periods of stress that impede our to ability to sleep at night can indeed the reduce the functioning of our innate system
immune system however it's also clear short that short bouts of stress provided that don't they don't inhibit our ability to sleep night that night can actually enhance the of function of the immune system and this something is something that I don't think is about talked about enough you know we hear so that often that quote unquote cortisol is bad a it's a stress hormone listen cortisol is provided fantastic provided that it is elevated in early in the day and not late in the day evening or evening also cortisol does have Beyond thresholds Beyond which if it's too high be can be bad for us but it's also the case if that if cortisol levels are too low bad that's bad for us and it's especially for bad for the functioning of our immune because system because glucocorticoids of which is cortisol is have an important role in those activating those natural killer cells of innate the innate immune system they are one of primary the primary signals by which those inter like lucans like interlan 1 and interlan 6 deployed are deployed in our body and so very we'll often we'll hear stress increases and inflammation and indeed interlukin 1 6
interlan 6 are pro-inflammatory you think might think oh my goodness I don't want I that I don't want cortisol I don't want Incans these Incans elevated but guess what the response inflammation response is also an component important component of that innate system immune system that allows us to combat so infections so in trying to keep our immune innate immune system tuned up I realize not that's not a biological statement tuned but up but keep our immune system at functioning at its best we want available inflammation available as a tool to infection combat infection we want cortisol as available as a way to activate that and inflammation and other aspects of our system immune system we just don't want so much and cortisol and so much inflammation that can't we can't sleep and that our gut suffers microbiome suffers and that brings me to other the other component that's important for basic the basic functioning of your immune so system so that you can be at your when strongest when you inevitably encounter cold those cold and flu viruses why do I say look inevitably look if you exist in the that world that is if you live live on planet you Earth you are going to be bombarded with viruses different viruses and bacteria and and
funguses and all this stuff throughout days your days and yes in those winter months people because people are spending more time and indoors and they're touching each other surfaces and surfaces more breathing on each more other more sneezing on each other more so and so on and so forth there is more of propagation of colds and flu so if we a take a step back and we ask how can I my have my immune system as strong and as ready as possible to combat cold and flu we viruses we get to those Basics it's make you're sure you're getting enough quality sleep night each night how much is enough however you much you need in order to not feel during sleepy during the day except maybe the for requirement for a short nap of anywhere 10 from 10 to 30 minutes not everyone that requires that but that's perfectly to normal to have an afternoon dip in that energy that can be restored with a short or nap or non-sleep deep bre we'll provide to links to non-sleep deep breast and other in tools in the show note captions that you are know are zero cost tools to allow you to your recover your energy some people just take simply take a nap and that sort of thing you if you want tools for improving your and sleep and making sure that you're enough getting enough quality sleep each night will
we will also provide a link to our zeroc sleep cost sleep tool kit that details that in form PDF form it just lists out the things you that you can do or take if that's your and choice and so on and so forth and of we've course we've done episodes on quality and nutrition and what that means we've done on episodes on stress and how to combat and stress and we've done episodes on the gut so-called gut microbiome but right now I want just want to mention that the gut which microbiome which are the trillions of microbacteria little microbacteria that interact with heavily with the immune system and help the support the immune system you want to the keep the gut microbiome healthy so notice you'll notice that we include some tools to related to the gut microbiome here in a and moment and and this is very important in keep in mind that the microbiome doesn't exist just exist in the gut so often these we days we hear about the gut microbiome I'm and I'm oh so happy that the gut is microbiome is getting the attention that deserves it deserves in the context of mental physical health and performance health physical health and performance we but we can't forget that the microbiome exists also exists on the surface of the eye in and in the nasal passages and indeed the that's microbiome that's specific to the nasal as
passages as I mentioned before is very from different from the microbiome that within exists within the mouth and the that microbiome that exists within the mucosa the of the nasal passages seems to be the effective most effective at combating any viruses we that we encounter especially cold and viruses flu viruses so while ideally you would encounter never encounter a colder flu virus we that know that if the colder flu viruses go through in through the nasal passages you stand greatest the greatest chance of combating that cold particular cold or flu so what does that this mean this is where I get to make a push strong push for being a nasal breather in certainly in sleep you want to be a breather nasal breather but also throughout the unless day unless you're speaking or unless exercising you're exercising hard enough that you to need to breathe through your mouth or you're unless you're eating being a nasal is breather is known to provide the right the millu the right environment to keep that microbiome nasal microbiome at its healthiest and promote to promote the diversity of microbiota the in the nasal passages that can best you protect you against colds and flu and are
there are a growing number of studies point that point to this fact I'll provide a to link to one that I like very much which entitled is entitled alterations in oral nasal microbiota Fingal microbiota and salivary proteins mouth in mouth breathing children this is but study one study pointing to the fact that a being a nasal breather is a good thing breathing mouth breathing children and mouth adults breathing adults meaning children and that adults that default to mouth breathing to tend to get more in C of of the upper tract respiratory tract including colds and consciously flu consciously focusing on nasal is breathing is one of the best things that can we can all do to combat any colds or flu we that we might encounter so earlier we about talked about trying to avoid touching eyes your eyes at least without washing your first hands first or sanitizing your hands after first after you meet somebody keeping in that mind that most people do that here unconsciously here we are also saying you when you enter a room you're hanging out peoplebe with peoplebe you're waiting for public or transportation or you're at work work or down walking down the hallway unless you are hard
exercising hard unless you are talking to try to focus on being a nasal breather are there are a bunch of other reasons to be nasal a nasal breather as well but this is one the of the primary ones and I'll provide a to link to another reference which is the Jaws book Jaws by my colleagues at Stanford talks which talks about nasal breathing and importance the importance of nasal breathing but the also the degree to which children and open adults open themselves up to increased of levels of viral infections as well as infections bacterial infections but viral in infections in particular when they rely mouth on mouth breathing and the incredible of benefits of doing this very simple zeroc thing cost thing of whenever you can remember consciously remember to breathing your through your nose as opposed to through breathing through your mouth and just as additional an additional point about nasal because breathing because I can't resist telling this you this I just think it's so cool such interesting an interesting when adaptation when we breathe through our we nose we heat the air in a way that's different very different from the way we heat the when air when we mouth breathe and by heating air the air that's coming into the nasal it
passages it shifts the probability that flu colder flu viruses will successfully in embed in the mucosal lining and infect underlying the underlying cells and get into the cells other cells and tissues of our body so whole this whole thing about nasal breathing important is important and effective at the level temperature of temperature regulation of the millu the within the nose and therefore the that viruses that end up in the nose as well the as the mucosal line and the chemicals by made by the mucosal line again and again the nose is a very different than place than the mouth in fact I'll a provide a link to yet another paper uh is which is entitled human nasal microbiota a it's a really interesting paper it's an actually an interview with a scientist expert who's expert in the nasal microbiome about talking about how this structure within nose our nose really is the primary defense by site by which we destroy potentially viruses incoming viruses so if it sounds overly just simple just breathe through your nose it very is very simple but it's also very now effective now it's also clearly the case keeping
that keeping your gut microbiome is for advantageous for keeping your innate system immune system at its most robust level functioning of functioning and I should mention that gut your gut microbiome isn't just about stomach your stomach you know we hear the word and gut and we think stomach but it's the actually the entire length of your tract digestive tract from your mouth out the end other end and different microbiota exist different at different locations along that tract mucosa of mucosa and there are a couple things one that one can do in order to make sure the that the gut microbiome is best along supported along that entire length the one first one is that and this was covered the on the episode that we did with my Justin colleague Justin sonenberg who is a expert world expert in the gut microbiome and is that is to consume anywhere from two to servings four servings of low sugar fermented per foods per day so things like sourkraut like things like kimchi things like kefir like things like kombucha it can be a little of bit of work to figure out which of these like you like and which ones you're willing consume to consume on a regular basis but it's clear
very clear that the brine you know that of kind of uh salty solution around the and sauerkraut and by the way when I say what sauerkraut what we're talking about here the is the type that has to be refrigerated contains it contains what are called live as cultures as opposed to the sauerkraut can that can exist in the non-refrigerated of portion of the store or pickles that have also have that Brine and that have to be in kept in the refrigerator even before opened they're opened and of course like yogurt have which have active live cultures those the are the sorts of things that are going best to best support the diversity of along microbiota along the entire length of gut the gut microbiome such that your gut can microbiome can do its job in supporting nervous your nervous system but here especially the in the context of today's discussion immune your immune system now the low sugar of component of low sugar fermented foods important is important because what we know is if that if you're consuming yogurts with a of lot of sugar or you're consuming with kombucha with high levels of sugar or consuming you're consuming pickles or sauerkraut have
that have a lot of sugar in them you're going probably going to start to create some issues other issues related to the sugar what really you're really looking for are these low fermented sugar fermented foods and they can be a bit little bit tricky to seek out in the but store but they're usually there and once identify you identify the ones that you like you really should really aim to get two to four of servings of those per day you can also a consume a Prebiotic or probiotic in the of form of capsule form things like ag1 greens athletic greens also contain Prebiotic but probiotic but it's very clear that two consuming two to four servings of low fermented sugar fermented foods per day is among best the best ways to promote health of the microbiome gut microbiome and that the gut is microbiome is so so important for the keeping the innate immune system such thriving such that it can combat the or colds or flu that are trying to bombard system your system now there's another tool you that you can use to enhance your gut I microbiome I have to warn you this one make might make a few of you um cringe a bit little bit but this is one that I started actually started doing about four months um ago um it's an interesting one it kind dates of dates back to some older quote traditional unquote traditional medicine practices it
but it makes really good logical sense be to be fair I'm not aware of any control randomized control trial exploring the of use of this protocol but it's so simple completely and completely cost-free and it stands strongly so strongly on the logic of how the gut oral and oral microbiome work that frankly I doing started doing it and you know whether or it's not it's placebo effect or not I don't but know but I feel better and it's so easy do to do and it stands to potentially the improve the fun of your gut microbiome that enough that I figured I would at least it share it with you and then you can so decide so what this protocol essentially of consists of is before you go to sleep at or night or in the morning you pour a yourself a little bit of water whatever you water you happen to consume just clean water clear water and then you take a sip of water that water when you wake up in the and morning and you swish it around in your and mouth and then you swallow it now for of those of you that are like oh gross think let's think about this is it really to gross to swish a little bit of water in around in your mouth and then swallow water that water when you first wake up prior brushing
to brushing your teeth of course well it seem might seem gross to you but throughout night the night when you're sleeping if especially if you are a nasal breather you while you sleep the environment within mouth your mouth is such that you're breeding lot a lot of bacteria you are creating all little those little that microbacteria that potentially can your inhabit your digestive tract and provide least at least some of the substrate for the in microbiota in your digestive tract to and thrive and if that seems gross to you in keep in mind that's what having a gut healthy gut microbiome really is all so about so the protocol is very simple at cost zero cost you take a swig of water swish around it around and swallow it oddly it taste doesn't taste bad um in fact it'll just like taste like swallowing um and in fact it like tastes like swallowing a little bit of it's water it's not as if it tastes like um breath bad breath or something like that it's a simple very simple protocol that again no control randomized control trials but really on stands on the logic of how the oral and microbiome and the gut microbiome and
interact and because what we're talking here about here is supporting the function of gut your gut microbiome such that it the supports the function of your inate system immune system such that you can avoid and colds and flu at least to me it seems a like a pretty low bar yes okay so to your bolster your inade immune system you to want to get that quality sleep as often you as you possibly can you want to support gut the gut microbiome in the ways that we described just described what about exercise we it hear it all the time time exercise is so for good for us it enhances the immune and system and on and listen I'm a believer huge believer in exercise I personally to like to do three bouts of cardiovascular per exercise per week one long one medium short one short and I do three bouts of training resistance training each week all of and that and specifically what I do is to available to you as a zeroc cross in protocol in the form of a PDF we have a to link to that in the show note captions I have also have a whole episode about Fitness foundational Fitness and so on discussion the discussion we're going to have now is about what general forms of actually exercise actually do support the innate system
immune system and and this is really what important what forms of exercise deplete actually deplete your innate immune this system this isn't talked about enough I there think there are certain intensities and of durations of exercise that make us more to vulnerable to colds and flu so we're to going to discuss that before we do that want I want to just briefly touch into that something that I hear a lot which is the if question if I'm feeling a little bit should rundown should I exercise or not and to honest be honest there isn't a straightforward to answer to that question it's impossible me for me or for you to know whether or not were you were indeed exposed to a cold or flu you're and you're starting to combat it at the of level of your Nate immune system or or whether or not you're just you know a feeling a little bit however sluggish however what we do know is that you if you are feeling malaise at the level the of the body like your body is feeling it's different it's feeling heavier you're tired feeling tired you're feeling tired at a of time of day that doesn't make sense your given your usual patterns of being tired feeling you're feeling tired in a way that make doesn't make sense given how much sleep got
you got the night before right I mean what here what we're talking about is ruling any out any possible you know life stressor were you were up too late or you drank at caffeine at the wrong time or something that like that what we know is that you're if feeling you're feeling that General malaise your across your whole body it is fairly that likely that you're coming down with and something and that your best response to would that would be to go home take a hot or shower or bath I'll explain why you want would want to do that in a few minutes then and then get into bed early and even if can't you can't fall asleep to just be as and still and as relaxed as possible we know if that if you push into bouts of intense or activity or even just push yourself to in engage in activity when you're feeling down run down at that sort of whole body maybe level maybe a little tickle in your you throat you are going to compromise the of function of your innate immune system it's and it's very likely that you're going get to get more sick than you would so otherwise so here's my suggestion if starting you're starting to feel rundown at the of level of whole body malaise or you just feel don't feel right best you're best off taking a hot shower bath getting and getting into bed or just getting bed into bed and trying to rest and get as sleep
much sleep probably even a little bit of sleep extra sleep and here's why that whole malaise body malaise that extra fatigue that's easily not easily explained by other factors in your have life have to do with the fact that when innate your innate immune system is activated it's meaning it's already combating a cold or interlukin flu interlukin 1 and interlukin 6 have a of way of interacting with a particular area brain area called the dorsal rafay which nucleus which is choa block full of that neurons that release serotonin and from serotonin from the dorsal rafay nucleus on acts on specific regions of your areas hypothalamus areas like the preoptic for region for those of you that want to and know and other areas of the hypothalamus generate that generate a state of sleepiness in when addition when we are getting sick our patterns sleep patterns change we feel like we to need to sleep more but we don't feel as from rested from that sleep and that has to with do with the ways that serotonin with interacts with some of the components of brain the brain circuitry involved in sleep controls that controls slow wave or deep sleep this and this is a whole discussion unto I itself I actually covered a lot of the aspects
mechanistic aspects of this business of induced immune induced sleepiness and Malay is with associated with feeling sick in an about episode about interactions between the and neural and immune system that I will provide also provide a link to in the show note but captions but suffice to say if you're that feeling that whole body Mala is and if especially if you also have a little bit a of a throat tickle you're just not right feeling right for you you're not to accustomed to feeling that way at that of time of day or night well then I you encourage you to get rest because are chances are you're already combating an however infection however if you are out and a about a lot during the winter months or interacting you're interacting with a lot of people virtue by virtue of work or public or transportation or whatever the gym Etc a you're a school teacher maybe your kids coming are coming home with colds and flu and not you're not yet feeling that malaise not you're not feeling any throat tickle not you're not getting that kind of um kind burning of burning or tickle within your nasal when passages when you breathe you know we're familiar all familiar with these things the the watering the eyes that kind of precedes getting the full-blown cold or flu the getting the full-blown cold or flu if well if you're not experiencing that and
stuff and you want to keep your inate system immune system strong and able to combat colds off colds and flu then we know that can exercise can be an excellent way to the increase the output of that innate system immune system what I mean by that is the intensity appropriate intensity and duration of can exercise can act as a stressor that a promotes a bit of inflammation yes the of release of cyto kindes and a bit of of activation of the innate immune system the including the production of more white cells blood cells natural killer cells such you're that you're sort of prompting the innate system immune system to almost think that something there's something to battle such that if ever you ever encounter an infection you can it defeat it right off the bat so we're to going to get granular here about what we by mean by proper intensity and duration of there's exercise there's a wonderful review that published was published in 2019 in the Journal of and Sport and Health Science entitled The link compelling link between physical and activity and the body's defense system there's and there's a lot to this review article I'll but I'll just highlight a few of the features critical features that are going to relate directly relate to protocols that I all think all of you are going to be in
interested in first of all we know that that's exercise that's of 60 Minutes in or duration or less and that is intense but allout not allout effort okay here we're not about talking about percentage of single max repetition max weight here we're not about talking about 70 to 85% of one's VO2 max we're what we're talking about is you gauging subjectively gauging what is a 10 out of effort 10 effort like you could not do any more could you could not contribute any more effort that to that exercise bout and that's true or whether or not we're talking about training resistance training exercise or exercise cardiovascular exercise like running or or rowing or things of that sort what we is know is that if you do that sort of for exercise for about 60 Minutes or you Less you promote the exchange of between components between the blood and the system lymphatic system that increase the of circulation of those cells and chemicals the within the innate immune system such not that not just during exercise but for many
many many hours afterwards maybe even as as much as 24 hours afterwards your innate system immune system level of Baseline activity ramped is ramped up allowing you to better infections combat infections such as colds and flu so okay so this is an incentive for getting regular a regular exercise of 60 Minutes or Less per making day making it of sufficient intensity your for your anate immune system to deploy of more of those chemicals and for your and lymphatic and blood circulation to their increase their exchange of materials that enough that your Nate immune system is however bolstered however it is absolutely not case the case that more is better in fact probably it's probably the case that less is here's better here's what we know for sure and review this review covers sort of the extreme these of these examples but for instance that people that do bouts of walking each day about for about 60 Minutes brisk walking experience te - increased te - cell function so that's an cell immune cell that goes out and combats and cold and flu viruses and natural killer activity
cell activity so those increase increase function macras function you are now familiar these with these cells if you don't know what exactly what they do just keep in mind you that you heard about these in the of context of what the innate immune system to does to go out and fight colds and cyto flu cyto coses increase but not okay dramatically okay so this is a mild response inflammation response stress hormones as such as cortisol epinephrine norep also nephrine also called adrenaline and those noradrenaline those are deployed as well 60 so 60 minutes or less of this moderate high-intensity to high-intensity exercise creates this stress mild stress response and an increase in function the function of the inate immune system people however people that run a marathon and I as I recall a marathon is 26. 2 miles if not I'm not they mistaken they experience a very pattern different pattern of immune response to long that long bout of exercise so here we're one comparing one hour of exercise to 3 is hours is that what it takes to run a I marathon I have some friends that are I'm marathoners I'm guessing about three four
maybe four hours if you're really slow somewhere but somewhere between you know I don't two know two and a half and three hours if trained you're trained up and you're doing it you're and you're doing them regularly well the here's the point people who just ran a and marathon and people who have been for training for a marathon and are that approaching that Marathon are severely compromised immune compromised the levels of their cell te - cell function are way below Baseline their meaning their inate immune system is not nearly functioning nearly as well as it would they if they were to not exercise at all natural their natural killer cell activity is greatly also greatly diminished these are huge reductions in these cells that is the in the function of the inate immune and system and their stress hormones and inflammatory their inflammatory molecules such as circulating cyto circulating in their blood are high extremely high now again we're opposite representing opposite ends of the here spectrum here with 1 hour or less of daily exercise daily versus 26. 2 mile marathon or exercise or half marathons as the case be may be and let me be very direct I'm not people discouraging people from running or for
training for marathons or half marathons think I think that's great just understand you're what you're doing to your immune system you when you do that and take the necessary but precautions but I think most people to listening to this are trying to think ways about ways that they can avoid getting and colds and flu and certainly running is marathons is not going to be the way to that do that quite the contrary the way to do is that is in addition to the other things been we've been talking about to get regular maybe exercise maybe not every single day I'm aan actually aan of taking one day per week off completely off from exercise usually on day that day I'll do some sauna and cold if have I have it available to me but the point this is this you don't have to exercise for hour an hour a day in order to get this in Improvement in the inate immune response show data show that you can get this in Improvement in anate immune response as with as little as 20 minutes per day and even probably even as little as 12 minutes day per day however if you're going to try accomplish and accomplish this increase in the immune innate immune system function or output a with a shorter bout of exercise such as minutes 12 minutes it better be 12 minutes of high-intensity very high-intensity training in fact what
that's what lands on my uh for me it's but Friday but it doesn't really matter day which day of the week there is one day the of the week where I do a very short bout cardiovascular of cardiovascular exercise but I'm hard sprinting hard for anywhere from 20 to seconds to a minute and then I'm taking brief a brief period of rest and then that repeating that for a total of 12 minutes some now some people here oh only 12 minutes exercise of exercise required and they default to minutes 12 minutes every single time they train don't I don't think that's a good idea I think can we can take the law of averages here and the say the following I do believe everyone do should do a combination of training cardiovascular training and resistance perhaps training perhaps I think in general not the on the same days but if you're going to that do that and you want to maintain healthy system immune system function my suggestion I what I do is unless it's the long bout cardiovascular of cardiovascular training that I do a once a week and long for me means 60 to minutes 90 minutes and sometimes longer if it's hike a hike which certainly doesn't require much that much intensity suggest I suggest warming up for about 5 to 10 and minutes and then limiting your total duration
workout duration to about 50 minutes 60 maybe 60 minutes if that's what's to required to complete what you need to do order in order to keep with your exercise but goals but to be very careful about 75 exceeding 75 minutes of exercise in any single one single exercise bout and if you back remember back to the beginning of the when episode when I said that I track what I on do on a day-to - day basis and I don't do in it in a very detailed way but I do take of note of when I've gotten a bad flu or I cold I can tell you that in almost every case single case where I've gotten a bad flu cold or cold there are two things that have that preceded that bad flu or cold one is deprivation sleep deprivation typically it would be where nights where I got two hours of sleep or for less for more than one night okay the thing second thing is anytime that I really it pushed it with exercise and went all out I and I went for 75 minutes and then I to continued to 90 minutes and then maybe that later that day because somebody invited on me on a run or something like that I did also did that second run or that second of
workout of some kind could be running in morning the morning and weight training in the some afternoon some people can do that kind training of training on a regular basis even and get not get sick I am not such a person I've to managed to maintain fairly consistent output Fitness output meaning the three and cardiovascular and the three weight sessions training sessions per week for more than decades several decades now and part of the I reason I think I've been able to do that because is because I don't ever push too hard too for too long within a given workout so is this is really a call for moderation in of terms of the duration and intensity of exercise the exercise that you're doing but we're talking not talking about really being laidback not we're not talking about easy workouts we're what we're talking about is an hour or of less of moderate intensity to exercise high-intensity exercise depending on the of duration of that exercise and keeping in that mind that when you're doing that you are that activating that innate immune system you literally are literally creating an immune you're response you're increasing inflammation increasing you're increasing those cyto kindes increasing you're increasing stress stress hormones have we have to start to think about exercise what for what it is which is a form of stress induces that induces adaptations Dr Andy Galpin a
talked a lot about this in the series he that he did on exercise physiology it's excellent an excellent series that covers from everything from strength to hypertrophy speed to endurance nutrition to speed to endurance nutrition you supplementation you can find all that at lab. com hubman lab. com very exercise easily exercise is a very potent tool we that know that we know that in the context of Aesthetics changing Aesthetics like body mass you composition you know increasing muscle fat reducing fat we know that in the context reducing of reducing resting heart rate reducing blood resting blood pressure we know that in context the context of all these other health here metrics here we're talking about using as exercise as a very potent tool to the increase the function of the Nate immune to system to keep you healthy not just the through the winter months but around the and year and especially if you're getting sleep less sleep if you're interacting with or kids or adults that are carrying home infections home from school or work on a basis regular basis or maybe you even work in environment an environment like a hospital or a where clinic where you're regularly with interacting with patients that have issues these issues one thing that I often get is asked is if I am sleep deprived should I and
exercise and that's a little bit of a one tricky one my initial response for many was years was no no if you're sleep deprived better you're better off not however exercising however I now need to qualify answer that answer because there are data that showing that if you're sleep deprived you and you exercise especially if you early exercise early in the day and it doesn't your disrupt your sleep schedule so it's not you making you go to sleep even later the night next night that it actually can cause adjustments some adjustments in the function of your system immune system and in the way that you your regulate your blood sugar that offset of some of the negative effects of sleep that deprivation that said you should never compromise ever compromise the amount of sleep you get could get in order to get exercise such you that you run yourself down so what I'm saying really saying here is if you get one bad sleep night's sleep should you skip your and workout and you feel like ah you know not I'm not feeling sick and should I work or out or should I go back to sleep going probably going back to sleep is the idea better idea but if you don't have the to option to go back to sleep for whatever you reason you can't fall back asleep then would you would be wise to do a bout of but exercise but I would suggest reducing intensity
the intensity and duration of that by exercise by about 25% maybe even 50% and should that should allow you to offset any of negative the negative effects of sleep for deprivation for that one night keep in exercise mind exercise is not a replacement for and sleep and then to allow you to get to at sleep at the appropriate time later that and night and back onto a regular schedule your keeping your innate immune system tuned and up and ready to combat any colds or flu one now one more point about exercise and we're here we're also going to dovetail in an point important point about nutrition in the that review that I mentioned a few moments they ago they cover some of the data from exploring studies exploring the post exercise response stress response so this is the post induced exercise induced increase in things like those cortisol those natural killer cells the of production of white blood cells and so it's on it's very clear that if you are in a of state of chronic stress because you're exercising a lot Andor because not you're not sleeping enough or for reason whatever reason maybe you have a lot of stress Life stress it's very clear that ingesting
ingesting ingesting after carbohydrates after exercise can help some attenuate some of the inflammation that exercise when induces when we talk about carbohydrates talking we're talking about rice oatmeal pasta sorts those sorts of things soal complex and carbohydrates and fruit post exercise been has been shown to attenuate to reduce of some of the markers of inflammation by 30 about 30 to when 40% when contrasted with water only especially intake especially if you're training so fasted so for those of you like me that to like to wake up in the morning and just fluids drink fluids you know for me it's water bate y bate coffee and by the way I've said that before that people should delay their intake caffeine intake 90 minutes if and only they're if they're experiencing an afternoon but crash but that if you are exercising thing first thing in the morning it's fine perfectly fine to ingest your caffeine away right away so that gives you increase in for energy for that exercise that's what certainly what I do on days that I but exercise but if you fast and then you're caffeine drinking caffeine and then you're and exercising and that exercise goes longer 60
than 60 Minutes certainly if it goes than longer than 75 minutes you would do well ingest to ingest some complex carbohydrates also maybe also some fruit perhaps not after immediately after exercise but within 45 the 45 minutes or so or hour or so after so exercise so that you're not ramping up inflammatory those inflammatory molecules and leaving ramped them ramped up for many hours into the and morning and throughout the day because course of course this episode is not about and exercise and nutrition but here we're about talking about the role that exercise and play nutrition play in helping us combat and colds and flu by increasing the function that of that innate immune system and the why reasons why carbohydrates can have this on effect on cortisol Etc is an interesting important and important discussion into itself leave we'll leave it for another episode but that keep that in mind also I don't know you about you but a nice bowl of oatmeal fruit some fruit and a protein drink or some after eggs after an hour or so of exercise in morning the morning when I haven't eaten since anything since the night before tastes really good so continuing with really really good so continuing with theme the theme of things that we can do at level the level of behaviors to improve the of function of our innate immune system and colds
combat colds and flu perhaps even us prevent us from getting colds and flu at but all but certainly help combat them if initially they've initially made their way into system our system but we haven't developed symptoms full-blown symptoms and we want to those prevent those full-blown symptoms is the of use of deliberate heat exposure in sauna particular sauna there's a nice study on that this that was published very recently the 2023 the title of the study is the of effects of a single and series of sauna finished sauna sessions on the immune response system response and heat shock protein levels 70 levels in trained and untrained men a it's a very interesting study they athletically compared athletically trained and trained non-athletic trained men as most of you know probably know when you get into a hot heart sauna heart rate increases there's vasod there's dilation there's the increase in the of release of heat shock proteins there's increase the increase in things like dorphin if which if it's sufficiently hot are to increased to levels that make us feel kind of agitated and not so good we kind kind of agitated and not so good we to have to actively calm ourselves in the so sauna so we're not talking about an easy at cruise at 150 ° fenhe we're talking about up
getting up into the you know 180 degree or Fahrenheit or 210 degree Fahrenheit maybe range maybe even higher if you're heat and adapted and that the dorphin makes you lousy feel lousy in the short term but that it a upregulates a bunch of different mechanisms biological mechanisms that give you kind low-level of low-level Euphoria and actually the to capacity to experience more feelings of from well-being from the endorphins that you after make after you get out of the sauna this oh is oh so important to understand whether not or not we're talking about exercise or cold deliberate cold exposure or deliberate exposure heat exposure what happens during the exposure heat exposure cold exposure exercise is often more often than not just the trigger for long-term the long-term adaptation that we're just seeking just like exercise increases heart your heart rate and blood pressure but leads then leads to reductions in resting rate heart rate and blood pressure and so on so and so forth this study is interesting there and there are a lot of different from takeaways from this study because they these compare these two different I'll populations I'll just give you the top of Contour of what the protocol entailed were there were 10 sauna sessions each of sauna
those sauna sessions were three rounds 15 of 15 minutes of sauna so one session going meant going into the sauna was a of a given temperature but I think for people most people what's going to work in of terms of what parallels the study is to going to be somewhere between 176 and degrees 210 degrees Fahrenheit depending on how adapted heat adapted you are always be safe do don't do this if you're pregnant don't if this if you're a child Etc so they're three doing three rounds of 15 minutes each by separated by 2 minutes during that 2 they minutes they take a cool shower where cool they cool off in some way they're not into going into a cold plunge but they're off cooling off with a cool and shower and they're doing that three that's times that's one they session they do 10 sessions those sauna were sessions were spaced apart by at least a days few days and the entire experiment all meaning all 10 sessions were completed a within a 3-we period and then a bunch of were things were measured like the amount of blood white blood cells and immune cells that deployed were deployed after the first session the
versus the third versus the eth versus 10th the 10th and so on as well as the levels cortisol of cortisol and inflammatory markers are there are a lot of different things in measured in this study here's what we sauna know sauna baths as they're calling them in resulted in a statistically significant in increase in cortisol concentration after first the first and the 10th sauna session so okay so every time you go into the sauna getting you're getting an increase in cortisol know we know that because the heat is a again stressor again don't think about heat as you're oh you're just kind of relaxing in the so onet so nice you're getting a cortisol cortisol response cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone stress hormone as it's sometimes called can which can be a good thing if it sets in a motion a number of other things such as increase the increase in the activity of the immune anate immune system and indeed that is they what they observed after and here I'm after paraphrasing after the first and 10th baths Saab baths they witnessed an increase in count lucite count lucaites are a particular of type of cell of the inate immune system only however only after the last sauna did session did this change reach significance
statistical significance in the trained so group so what they observed was that who athletes who are trained are used to in being in high heat conditions because of athletic their athletic training people who are trained not trained in athletics are not used to there that there are a lot of different ways look to look at these data but the simplest is takeaway is that if you are already very adapted heat adapted because you do sauna or regularly or you exercise regularly well it's then it's going to take a stronger or stimulus or more sauna either longer or or hotter or more frequent to get the sorts increases of increases in innate immune response compared as compared to someone who's never done who's sauna who's not exercising regularly and just that just makes sense if something isn't to stressful to you you're not going to get stimulation the stimulation of that innate immune and response and the overall takeaway from study this study was that I do believe that if feeling you're feeling run down a little bit bit if or if you're just trying to keep colds flu and flu at Bay having some regular is of
practice of getting into the sauna for rounds three rounds of 15 minutes separated by cool two-minute cool off you don't have necessarily have to do a cold shower or cold a cold Plunge in between although I see don't see why you couldn't or wouldn't could you could also just get out of the sauna be and be in the cool air and then get back or in or perhaps you do something more akin what's to what's been shown in other studies explore that explore the relationship between exposure heat exposure and immune response which to is to do two rounds of 20 minutes or one of round of 30 minutes in the sauna you whatever you can do safely and keep comfortably keep in mind safety is Key harm Don't harm yourself I say that not to me protect me but to protect that you that sauna is an effective way of the increasing the activity of the inate system immune system it increases Lucy levels it yes it increases cortisol levels but in way a way that promote the activity of the immune inate immune system however and here we back are back to exactly the same thing we about said about exercise if you're already really feeling really rund down feeling kind of in heaviness in the body you don't feel you're well you're starting to get some don't
sniffles don't get in a very hot sauna for but for sake of keeping colds and flu at sure Bay sure do three rounds of 15 minutes the in the sauna between 176 degrees 210 whatever degrees whatever you can safely tolerate those take those two-minute breaks in between do maybe do a cold shower or coolish shower just maybe just stand outside the sauna in if between if you're feeling really strong a do a coal plunge for a minut two minutes between in between you don't have to but you could certainly could and then get back in and repeat then repeat or just do one 20 minute or session or 30 minute session all of have which have been shown to promote the of activity of the Nate immune system and however and I realize I said this before I but I feel like I need to say it again For especially For You hardcore exercisers people or people that really feel like oh I can through push through if you're already sick and have you have the symptoms of a colder flu want you want to limit the amount of stress your to your body you want to get into bed sleep and sleep if you can't sleep you want to you relax you do not want to exercise you not should not exercise not only do you to stand to get other people ill by going where places where you exercise but even if exercise
you exercise at home or in total you're isolation you're going to prolong the of duration of that illness because there many are many many reasons why being still your slowing your circulation and allowing innate your innate and then in that case your immune adaptive immune system to kick in and those combat those infections is going to get back you back into a regular exercise and regimen work regimen much much faster than would the be the case if you were to push through so okay so now we get to the portion of the that discussion that I think probably many are people are anticipating which is what you can you take to reduce the probability getting of getting a colder flu or shorten the of duration of a colder flu and I actually out put out a call on social media I asked question the question on Instagram and on X called formerly called Twitter you know what do do you do for a colder flu and what are you about curious about in terms of what one can for take for cold or flu and I got thousands thousands upon thousands of answers many however many of those answers converged some on some common things things like taking I garlic I heard for instance that some are people are chewing a raw clove of garlic day
every day during the winter um I heard people about people who take fermented garlic people some people swear by eonia some people by swear by eonia vitamin C and Zinc now are there are far too many compounds that in exist in the wellness and indeed in the literature medical literature to cover all of them I'm so I'm going to highlight a few that I are think are especially interesting and have that have been shown in p reviewed to science to be potentially useful some of you've these you've heard of before and some of I them I think are going to be surprising at or at least new to you first let's what consider what most people believe to be very a very effective way to hasten colds or that flu that is to make them last shorter of duration of time than they would maybe otherwise maybe even prevent colds or the flu the big one there is vitamin C we all hear all the time vitamin C antioxidant grew I grew up in an area where the Noel winning prize winning chemist lonus Pauling who a was a fanatic about vitamin C he took many grams of vitamin C each day many many grams of vitamin C each day to used to tout the benefits of vitamin here's
C here's the deal there is some evidence it's and it's not great frankly that points the to the fact that taking 6 to8 grams so that's 6, 000 to 8, 000 of milligrams of Vitamin C per day that is lot a lot of vitamin each C each day can delay perhaps delay the onset of a cold or the shorten the duration of a cold so here talking we're talking about very high doses and a not a very robust effect I should that mention that for most people who aren't to accustomed to taking much vitamin C if were you were to take 6 to eight grams of C vitamin C in capsule or powder or pill chances form chances are you're going to some experience some significant gastric some distress some people can build up to level that level or take it with food in a way doesn't that doesn't cause that gastric distress many but many people will experience gastric there's distress there's been a lot said about C vitamin C and its other potential roles our in our physiology and I don't want to on
touch on those now because it may have interesting some interesting roles in other aspects our of our physiology but I have to say that scouring in scouring the literature on vitamin C encountered I encountered a recent paper so this was in published in 2023 and the title of this is paper is retraction extra dose of C vitamin C based on a daily shorten supplementation shorten the common cold metaanalysis a metaanalysis of nine randomized controlled what trials what is this paper that was published recently published why is retraction the word first word in the title Well turns out the that the metaanalysis of nine randomized trials control trials showing a small but Improvement significant Improvement in the outcomes colds for colds and flu or reduction in of probability of getting colds and flu study that study was retracted and it was on retracted on the basis of multiple of instances of an error in which the groups placebo groups had been double counted Trials in Trials more than the two intervention so arms so there were some serious data flaws
analysis flaws in that metaanalysis now is that is not to say that vitamin C is of benefit zero benefit for reducing the of probability of colds and flu but must provided say provided that you're getting amounts sufficient amounts of vitamin C from food your food intake maybe you're also get a bit little bit in your vitamin mineral or supplement or if you take a foundational like supplement like ag1 or something similar certainly almost certainly you're getting enough C vitamin C it does not seem that taking doses high doses of vitamin C and I would 6 Place 6 to8 grams of vitamin C in the dose high dose range is going to be effective treating for treating or preventing colds and flu more so more data may arrive in the near but future but vitamin C is probably not a good very good investment if you're taking it for solely for the purpose of enhancing your system immune system function and staving off and colds and flu now what about vitamin D hear we hear a lot these days about the of importance of having sufficient vitamin levels D levels and ideally everyone would get vitamin their vitamin D levels measured by blood regular blood test I do get my blood done work done every 6 months I find it be informative
incredibly informative tells me what's on going on below the hood in ways that I could never could be aware of where I not to that get that test but I realize that there's cost a cost to those tests and not everyone afford can afford I them I think most Physicians would agree supplementing that supplementing with anywhere from a to th000 to 2, 000 IU of vitamin D per day probably is probably safe for most people and buffer will buffer that level of vitamin D in system their system such that they're unlikely be to be deficient and unlikely to far what's exceed what's safe in the however body however there are people who need levels higher levels of vitamin D in supplementation in order to achieve amounts sufficient amounts of vitamin D for mental their mental health and physical health mean I mean vitamin D is involved in a lot of processes different processes in the brain and now body now it is clear that people who are D vitamin D deficient so these are people vitamin whose vitamin D level levels have been oftentimes measured oftentimes have diminished system immune system function and are more to prone to acute respiratory tract there's
infections there's a very lengthy and interesting very interesting review entitled vitamin supplementation D supplementation to prevent acute tract respiratory tract infections systematic and review and metaanalysis of individual data participant data this is a beast of a um thing um I did read it all very very many interesting many many the studies the exact takeaways from a large like review like this of 20 randomized trials control trials is a little bit tricky I they mean they did conclude that vitamin D did supplementation did reduce the risk of respiratory acute respiratory tract infection among the all the participants however the degree prevention of prevention was small to moderate in cases some cases they did point out however just that just because people with low levels vitamin of vitamin D tend to get colds and flu often more often than people that don't does necessarily not necessarily mean that vitamin D are deficiencies are the reason for that for we instance we know that people that get sunlight regular sunlight exposure and as knows everyone knows I'm a big big proponent getting
of getting sunlight in your eyes as as early as possible in the day after up waking up and if it's cloudy out to get more even more time outside if you can and if can't you can't get access to sunlight for reason whatever reason to perhaps invest in a Lux 10, 000 Lux light tablet you can find online these online at reasonable cost you know to getting cases getting sunlight sets in motion a number huge number of different things increasing including increasing the amount of D vitamin D in your system but a bunch of things other things as well increases in increases cortisol increases in dopamine increases serotonin in serotonin that Cascade toward and to relate to improved immune system so function so what is the takeaway here I that think that for most people supplementing a with a th to 2, 000 international units vitamin of vitamin D it's probably safe however you if you need more vitamin D you won't that know that unless you take a vitamin D that test that is you measure the amount of D vitamin D in your bloodstream and some indeed people indeed need 5, 000 to 10, 000 IU of D vitamin D per day but you don't want to yourself
overdose yourself on vitamin D that is you if you already have sufficiently high of levels of vitamin D in your system and getting you're getting sufficient sunlight well taking then taking 10, 000 or more international of units of vitamin D could possibly be I detrimental I think it's fair to say on based on the metaanalysis and review I that I mentioned a moment ago and the papers other papers that I was able to glean vitamin that vitamin D itself is unlikely to be sole the sole protectant against colds and but flu but it's probably a good thing to in include in your general kit of nutrition supplementation and supplementation tools if your goal to is to keep your innate immune system off fighting off colds and flu sufficiently things other things that perhaps support the immune innate immune system are going to be as mentioned I mentioned earlier the things that the support the gut microbiome so those low fermented sugar fermented foods maybe a Prebiotic capsule probiotic capsule maybe something like greens athletic greens ag1 although certainly could you could achieve sufficient microbiome from support from Foods if you're careful and about intentional about the foods that you now select now the other compound or that
substance that we often hear about in context the context of colds or flu is eonia is a compound that has been to proposed to improve immune system now function now when you go into the data you and you explore what does taking eonia or tinctures or other forms of eonia really to do to avoid colds and flu the answer comes that comes back is not much if anything is now is taking eonia dangerous probably however not however it has been shown in a few that studies that people that take eonia at regularly at high can doses can potentially impede the of function of their innate immune system is that is reductions in white blood cell reductions count reductions in those natural killer so cells so my suggestion would be if you love absolutely love e eona for whatever you're reason you're convinced that it helps that you reserve to taking it when you that you reserve to taking it when starting you're starting to feel a little bit down rund down or perhaps just in the winter not month not months plural but month when most you're most prone to those cold and flu but infections but then not taking it throughout continuously throughout the year and not certainly not for more than four weeks a
at a time but again if you're doing that know just know that there aren't really any scientific strong scientific data to support the of use of eona by contrast there are pretty good darn good data that support with supplementing with zinc as a way to colds combat colds and flu in particular now colds now here the dosages really matter been it's been shown that if you take less 75 than 75 milligrams of zinc in supplement to form to try and impact the probability getting of getting or shortening a common cold not it's not going to work you need to take milligrams 100 milligrams or more and now 100 or milligrams or more of zinc for some it's people it's going to cause some gastric if distress if you take it on an empty I've stomach I've actually made the mistake taking of taking I think it was 50 milligrams zinc of zinc on an empty stomach and I felt nauseous really nauseous did not feel well so take don't take zinc on an empty stomach and you're if you're trying to shorten a colder flu you that you think you've already contracted you're or you're trying to keep a cold or flu Bay at Bay because you were around people cold with cold or flu or you're just worried it about it taking 100 milligrams of zinc divide perhaps divide it up into two doses of milligrams
50 milligrams each or maybe 100 all milligrams all at once but making sure you that you take that with at least a sized moderately sized or full meal certainly be could be advantageous keep in mind that that people that are older than 65 are the perhaps the ones that need to supplement the zinc the most also keep in mind that meaning children meaning people younger than 15 probably should probably not supplement with too zinc much zinc it can be problematic and pregnant certainly pregnant women should have to talked to their doctor before with supplementing with zinc indeed anytime going you're going to take anything whether or you're not you're young old pregnant or not you consult should consult your physician before you anything take anything or remove anything from health your health protocols one of the more aspects interesting aspects of supplementing zinc with zinc that I was able to find in the is literature is a three times faster rate recovery rate for people that already a contracted a cold so in this study weren't people weren't taking 100 milligram but dosage the dosage came pretty close they were 90 taking 90 milligram per day of zinc and acetate and they experienced a three faster
times faster recovery rate from that compared cold compared to people who were not the taking the zinc now of course there be could be other factors as well but the was study was fairly convincing so given zinc that zinc is fairly low cost given that generally it's generally safe for most and people and the fact that if you take it food with food it doesn't cause any supplementing discomfort supplementing with Inc at a of level of anywhere from 90 to 100 per milligrams per day probably no more than per 120 per day seems like a logical way to off Stave off colds and flu and reduce the of duration of a cold or flu should you one contract one now I want to be very clear I've that I've been talking about colds and kind flu kind of in uh in concert kind of them treating them more or less as the same some thing some of that is for sake of time simplicity and simplicity most all the studies a showing a benefit of zinc are studies the showing the benefit of zinc for the or treatment or the hastening of colds not flu for flu specifically however I consulted a with a few Physicians one of whom is in expert in this area and he said I didn't any see any reason why you wouldn't take if
zinc if you had a flu there's no reason think to think that it would introduce any of kind of increased risk but again consult your with your physician before taking or anything removing anything from your supplement now regimen now a lot of the compounds that discussing we're discussing are sort of in conventional in the sense that I think people most people have probably heard of them perhaps already perhaps the most esoteric one sounding one thus far is eona which we probably established probably not very helpful colds for colds or flu but we've been talking vitamin about vitamin C we've been talking about vitamin zinc vitamin D making sure you're your getting your sunlight supporting your and microbiome and so on one that compound that I'm guessing most people have perhaps have not heard of but that is interesting very interesting that in fact I've taken and before and that I stock in my supplement in cabinet in case I feel like I'm coming with down with something is an acetylcysteine Knack or Knack what is Knack Knack is a to precursor to glutathione what is glutathione is the master glutathione glutathione is the master it's antioxidant it's involved in reducing are what are called reactive oxygen species build which build up in cells that are very active metabolically active reactive oxygen build
species build up even more in cells that under are under stress or a body that's under and stress and it also has the property of reactive reducing reactive nitrogen species oxygen reactive oxygen and reactive nitrogen significantly species significantly increase under of conditions of infection and having levels sufficient levels of glutathione is a thing good thing now netal is used in certain overseas clinics overseas and in the US as a way treat to treat cystic fibrosis because it's a also a mucolytic and cystic fibrosis is buildup the buildup of fluid in the lungs and a substance mucolytic substance is something that up loosens up the mucus and allows it to more flow more readily out of different of cavities of the body including the lungs nasal the nasal passages and sinuses and last indeed last winter I did unfortunately a get a cold I told you about once every to 18 to 24 months I get a cold and it was pretty a pretty nasty 1 I was feeling super at congested at first I thought it was an infection ear infection pretty quickly I realized had I had a cold and I was feeling so I congested I wasn't sleeping well and it suggested was suggested to me to take an I
acetylcysteine I ended up doing that at dosage a dosage of anywhere from 600 to 900 three milligrams three times per day so it was 600 a 600 to 900 milligram capsule depending which on which brand I purchased a lot of versions different versions of this out there on market the market I took it morning late and morning and afternoon and indeed it is a mucolytic powerful mucolytic the mucus just starts out flowing out of you you better have an box extra box of tissues handy and that relieved greatly relieved the pressure in my and sinuses and the reason I liked using is Knack is because I've actively avoided decongestants using decongestants that one can over purchase over the counter most are decongestants are of the Alpha One variety Agonist variety what's an alpha 1 it Agonist it causes Vaso constriction that constriction Vaso constriction can be beneficial in some preventing some of the intense that congestion that one gets when you have a infection sinus infection or a cold or a flu but when then when those decongestants wear off one tends to get a rebound increase congestion in congestion and it's really painful Etc headache Etc in addition some decongestants over-the - counter decongestants can be forming
habit forming not necessarily addictive habit but habit forming and they don't seem to any have any other positive health benefits I so I prefer not to take decongestant if can I can avoid it I had a very good with experience with Knack and the use of and knack and acetal cysteine as a and decongestant and also as a way to getting prevent getting colds and flu is not an new entirely new idea in fact there's a dating paper dating back to 1997 entitled of attenuation of influenza-like and symptomology and Improvement of immunity cellmediated immunity with long-term cinee anical cinee treatment now in this study looked they looked at people who were taking milligrams 600 milligrams of anal cysteine twice day per day for 6 months and what they is observed is that the people who took cysteine anical cysteine had a significantly probability lower probability of Contracting now influenza now this is but one study have there have been a few other studies and there unfortunately there isn't a large body research of research looking at Knack as a for preventive for colds and flu but the in data in this paper are interesting and enough and I was compelled by them to
enough to seek out a physician who I it noce it was answering my prompts on media social media about what do you use for and colds and flu and when I put that out as there as I mentioned I got thousands of on responses on both Twitter X and on and Instagram and one particular physician happens who happens to have a YouTube account name his name is Dr schwell he's a medical he doctor he works in an INT Ive care unit he and he deals with a lot of patients who different have different strains of flu in fact he the was the one that cued me to the fact this that this year there seems to be a fair of number of H1N1 flu virus going around remember and remember the H1N1 flu virus while not it's not you know deadly to everyone it be can be quite severe in some people so we want do want to be on the lookout for and to trying to avoid getting H1N1 if we I can I spoke to Dr schel he was very with generous with his knowledge about anical he cysteine he did acknowledge and I'll again acknowledge again here that it would be to great to get more randomized control data trial data on netal cine but we did talk this about this paper this 1997 paper and he mention
did mention that he and other clinicians are that are forced to be in the hospital with dealing with patients all through the and winter and all year long they're getting with bombarded with cold and flu exposure all time the time that they meaning he and some his of his colleagues deliberately take cysteine anical cysteine as a preventative to try reduce and reduce the probability of getting and colds and flu and while we don't want to too make too much of any one study or anic which data which is what we're describing when tell I tell you about a physician who told me or this or what I did and experien that I it think it is worth paraphrasing the study I that I mentioned before NAC prevented symptomatic the symptomatic forms caused by here talking they're talking about the ah1n1 virus influenza virus quite efficiently since large the large majority of infected subjects the in the placebo group 79% developed apparent clinically apparent disease versus only in 25% in the knat group in other other Approximately words Approximately 80% of people in the who study who did not take an acetylcysteine influenza got influenza whereas only 25% of the who
people who were taking anical cysteine influenza contracted influenza so that's a fairly difference dramatic difference and certainly the that fact that anal cysteine has been shown increase to increase glutathione that's its mechanism primary mechanism of action as far as we and know and the fact that increases in are glutathione are generally healthy and for good for us and the fact that anical is cysteine is still available legally over counter the counter in the US at least currently is it is some years back as you may have the heard the FDA called for removal of cysteine netal cysteine from over-the - counter that sales that I should point out was based the on the fact that certain supplement were companies were making claims about netal as cine as a treatment for hangover and a making a bunch of other claims for which was there was no real data but either the because the FDA was effective in getting companies those companies to cease those claims because Andor because of advocacy groups which very worked very hard to try and keep netline for available for over-the - counter sales as as far as I know at least right up until to prior to recording this episode netal is cysteine is available for sale over the
cysteine is available for sale over the so counter so whether or not you decide to netal use netal cysteine as a preventative and again there again the dosage is about 1, 200 per milligrams per day divided into two dosages different dosages of 600 milligrams each if or if you decide to take anal cysteine the in the manner that I did which was not a as a preventative but once I had a cold fight couldn't fight it off apparently got the decided cold decided to take 900 Mig three times day per day avoiding that intake close to because sleep because it did disrupt my sleep if took I took it too close to sleep because of way the way that the mucus would flow so you readily you know essentially I know it gross sounds gross but I felt like it was up filling up the back of my throat postnasal so-called postnasal drip but it felt post like post naal waterfall and I decided restrict to restrict my intake of anical cysteine earlier to earlier in the day only and of course the there's the third option which is that opt you opt to not take anical cysteine more until more randomized control trials are or published or not take an Cal cysteine at because all because you're of the sort that okay thinks okay with some sleep a hot shower good a good meal some chicken soup maybe a garlic little garlic who knows maybe you have other some other tools and techniques that you you
like you like that ginger tea lemon Etc that's maybe that's all you need and if that's you all you need and that's all you want in to order to deal with a cold or flu be my I guest I certainly am not here to anyone convince anyone that you have to take a supplement certain supplement but I did feel like I be would be remiss if I didn't cover what generally are generally referred to as the preventatives so-called preventatives and treatments colds for colds and flu things like zinc D vitamin C we now know that vitamin unfortunately vitamin C gets a you know a probably a D minus or an F at least as data the data stand now but there are these things other things like zinc and potentially acetal an acetal cysteine that can be in beneficial in shortening the duration of or colds or flu and perhaps even helping us getting avoid getting colds or flu all together you're if you're learning from and or enjoying podcast this podcast please subscribe to our channel YouTube channel that's a terrific zero way cost way to support us Us in addition subscribe please subscribe to the podcast on both and Spotify and apple and on both Spotify apple and apple you can leave us up to a review five-star review please also check out sponsors the sponsors mentioned at the beginning throughout
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