As the days shorten and people trade their
tank tops and shorts for sweaters and tights, the turn of autumn signals
another new beginning: the start of flu and cold season, and
COVID winter No.
3.
اضافة اعلان
According to Dr Helen Chu, a public health
researcher and infectious-disease physician at the University of Washington
School of Public Health, it’s a myth that simply being cold will make you more
likely to get sick. But viruses do tend to transmit most efficiently in drier,
colder conditions, leading to spikes in winter months. So now is the time to
get serious about immune health.
Here are four things health experts say you can do
to prepare ahead of fall and winter surges.
Get active
Exercise is a great way to bolster your health and reduce your
susceptibility to disease, said David Nieman, a professor of biology at
Appalachian State University who researches exercise, nutrition, and
immunology. In one study published in 2011, Nieman and his colleagues followed
more than 1,000 adults living in
North Carolina for three months in 2008. They
logged their lifestyle habits — including diet, exercise, and exposure to
stressful events — as well as how often they were sick with upper respiratory
tract infections, such as common colds or laryngitis, and the severity of their
symptoms.
“The No. 1 lifestyle factor that emerged was
physical activity,” Nieman said. Those who exercised five or more days per week
were 43 percent less likely to be sick with an upper respiratory tract
infection than those who exercised for less than one day per week. But even
those who did a little bit of exercise — at least 20 minutes of moderate
exercise (as simple as a brisk walk) at least one day per week — were better
off than those who did none.
We see this effect in part because exercise
stimulates immune cells to “patrol the body” for virus-infected cells so that
it can identify and eliminate them, Nieman said. Just a few hours of moderate
exercise spread across a week is enough to get your immune cells circulating
optimally, he said. And the exercises don’t have to be intense — just walking,
dancing, or “vigorous yard work” is enough to experience a boost in your
health.
Do not underestimate the power of rest
Too much exercise, though,
can tax the body and temporarily suppress the immune system, Nieman said,
increasing your risk of infections. There is no simple formula for what
constitutes too much exercise, the experts said, but if you are suddenly
feeling unwell or constantly tired, or if previously easy workouts are feeling
hard, it might be a signal that you need to slow down.
Research has also shown that not getting enough
sleep, or sleep of good quality, can reduce your body’s capability for fighting
off infections, said Kathi Heffner, a professor of nursing, medicine, and
psychiatry at the
University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. While not
everyone requires the same amount of sleep, the general guidance for adults is
six to eight hours each night, Heffner said.
Good sleep can also help regulate your stress, she
added. When stress occurs chronically, it can reduce the body’s response to
vaccines and infections and can increase inflammation, “all of which can
increase our susceptibility to infection as well as other kinds of chronic
diseases,” she said. Even day-to-day stressors — from your job, your commute or
your care-taking responsibilities, for example — can weaken the immune system,
she added.
If you are tempted to try supplements that claim to improve immune health, she added, do not — especially if you are already following a healthy and balanced diet.
Reducing that kind of stress is often difficult,
Heffner said, but if you can find time to do so, whether via practicing
mindfulness exercises like meditation or yoga or even just “finding time to do
pleasurable activities,” that can reduce your stress and in turn help your
immune health.
Follow a healthy diet
What you choose to eat and
drink is one of the most important lifestyle choices that can influence your
immune health, Nieman said.
A variety of brightly colored fruits and vegetables
— berries, citrus fruits, red cabbage, and kale, for instance — are great
sources of flavonoids, chemical compounds found in plants that can help the
body fight inflammation and illness, he said. Tea, coffee, dark chocolate, and
certain grains, like buckwheat, are also good sources of flavonoids. In
Nieman’s 2011 study, his team found that adults who ate at least three servings
of fruit per day had fewer upper respiratory tract infections throughout the
year than those who did not eat as much fruit.
Research has also shown that exposure to cigarette
smoke and drinking alcohol in excess — more than two drinks a day for men or
one drink a day for women — can suppress your immune system. Minimizing your
alcohol consumption (or at least keeping within the dietary guidelines) or
quitting smoking can help reduce your risk of infections, Chu said.
If you are tempted to try supplements that claim to
improve immune health, she added, do not — especially if you are already
following a healthy and balanced diet. For the most part, she said, “there’s
really not much data at all to support the use of most supplements to prevent
illness or to boost your immunity.”
Keep up the pandemic precautions
“Probably the most important
thing that people can do right now is to get both their up-to-date COVID
booster shots and their flu vaccines as soon as possible,” Chu said, since flu
and COVID-19 cases will almost certainly go up this fall and winter.
And while many people have stopped wearing masks in
public indoor spaces, continuing to do so will help protect you against all
sorts of viruses, not just the coronavirus. This is especially true if you have
a weaker immune system. Using rapid COVID tests before gatherings or when you
have symptoms, and asking others to do so as well, can also minimize everyone’s
risk of infection, Chu said.
“One of the things we’ve learned through this
pandemic is just how important hygiene is,” Heffner said. “Washing hands,
keeping your distance when you have a cold — those kinds of things are highly
effective for keeping people healthy.”
In fact, Chu said, good hygiene includes staying home when
you have symptoms of any type of infection at all. “People tend to try to power
through, even if they’re sick,” she said. “They want to continue to do their
job, to continue to go to school, to continue to do what they were doing
before.” But that behavior just increases exposure and risk of transmission to
other people. Stay home and give yourself time to rest instead, Chu urged.
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