[How To] Protect Against Viruses with Built-In Immunity
Our ancestors got us this far, so they must have been doing a few things right.
Wuhan, Wuhan, Wuhan! The world has been getting hammered with headlines about the Wuhan coronavirus lately. The good news is that coronavirus (CoV) belongs to the same virus class that causes the common cold. Writers Megan Henry and Grace Hauck reported in a major newspaper headline that “Coronavirus is scary, but the flu is deadlier, more widespread.” They have a point. The numbers for annual flu deaths look worse, not to mention cancer deaths.
Even so, a coronavirus-induced cold can lead to influenza which can be deadly for people in a weakened state of immunity. Years ago in college, I suddenly got awfully sick with painful coughing and airway-constricting congestion for weeks on end, so I understand the life-threatening seriousness of the symptoms associated with a cold, flu, or other coronavirus-associated illness.
Although viral outbreaks can be deadly, they don’t have to be. If you’re a European-American, Middle Easterner, or probably any race of living person descended from urban dwellers in the Roman empire, there’s a good chance your ancestors survived the medieval Plague, biblical leprosy, and other pandemics without help from vaccines or other modern medicine. They survived long enough to continue their bloodline, eventually leading to you.
In many health articles, unfortunately, genetics are a convenient scapegoat for health problems, but our natural genes have gotten us and our families through many historic troubles in this world.
The human immune system is well-suited to fight off naturally occurring pathogens only under the right conditions. A plague happens when people have environmentally-induced underlying illnesses that become most apparent when bacteria and viruses make them sick. Pathogens are all around us, but most of the time we’re in a strong enough state to keep them at bay. The immune system must be weak or compromised in order for pathogens to cause real damage. If you hang on until the end, you’ll see a brief glimpse of the science behind this as well as the rare exception.
These are the top immune-boosting aids I’ve found in my research and personal trials. I’ll explain these solutions in more scientific detail in tomorrow’s post.
Elderberries
Pesticide-less food and clean mineral water
Echinacea, garlic, ginger, oregano, wormwood, and peppermint
Fresh raw milk, kefir, and yogurt
Herbal detoxification
Household pest deterrence
Hemp cannabis
GcMAF: vitamin D binding protein
These holistic immune-strengthening methods come with perks: they don’t require the assistance of costly government-sanctioned drugs; they don’t create obscene profits for pharmaceutical conglomerates at the expense of the sick; and they don’t require mass quarantines or embargoes enforced by martial law.
Immunology is a fascinating field that demonstrates how powerful our lymph nodes, white blood cells, and blood all can be when they work together to ward off pathogens as long as they’re not weighed down by environmental contaminants. I remember learning about killer T-cells and macrophages in high school, so I took an immunology class at NC State as part of my biotechnology studies. Mammals’ protein-coding genes, regulatory feedback DNA sequences, and cellular signaling pathways cooperate in astounding unison to deal with a complex assortment of foreign threats.
There are only a small handful of rare viruses that have proven themselves capable of taking down our immune defenses, but even those ones must be introduced to the bloodstream through a contaminated injection or other direct route, and they also need prior weakness in our defenses caused by something else -- aluminum or mercury poisoning for example. If you think of a healthy person’s immune system as a castle, in the vast majority of cases, nothing is getting past those castle walls unless a Trojan horse is accidentally invited in from the surrounding environment.
When I personally saw improved skin, less congestion, fewer sick days, better endurance, stronger muscles and joints, and less inflamed digestion in my own body, I knew I was on the right track toward building a resilient immune system. I still have a long way to go to overcome past mistakes, but it’s a path worth taking.
Breathe vitality, spread the word.