Your body’s immune system is essential: without it even the mildest cold or infection could be fatal. Anything you can do to boost the effectiveness of your body’s immune system is A Good Thing; this is where a sensible diet that includesacai berry can help.

Your immune system uses a combination of tools such as enzymes, good bacteria, proteins, cells, organs and tissues to protect against diseases, viruses, bad bacteria, tumors and parasites. If we are able to strengthen just one of these tools in our body’s biological ‘toolbox’ then that that tool will become more efficient at its job: greater efficiency means more effective protection. The million dollar question is how one goes about strengthening these tools.

Well actually, there is good news: scientists have been studying the immune system in humans and other organisms for nearly two and a half centuries. Now we are able accurately to identify those naturally occurring substances which can assist each of the tools in our toolbox. The way to help may be as simple as getting enough sleep or drinking the right amount of water every day. This article discusses 10 ways in which to boost your immune system, and none of them take much effort.

Other more difficult — but equally worthy — goals may be, for example, getting more antioxidants into the system; this is not ‘difficult’ in the sense of being hard to do, but difficult in the sense that your average person doesn’t know what an antioxidant looks like, nor where it could come from. The same goes for vitamins A and C, and other ‘invisible’ nutrients which help the body and its immune system in some vital way.

As noted in an article about the antioxidants in acai berry fighting cancer cells, antioxidants and anthocyanins (which are in fact a special type of antioxidant. Read more in this New Hope article) can be very useful things to have floating around your body. Antioxidants in your blood help to cancel out the effects of ‘free radicals’ (molecules arising from various wastes and pollutants that can damage your cells). A paper by Silvina B. Lotito and Balz Frei tells us that

Increased fruit and vegetable consumption is associated with a decreased incidence of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and other chronic diseases. The beneficial health effects of fruits and vegetables have been attributed, in part, to antioxidant flavonoids present in these foods.

Vegetables and fruit contain antioxidants; the acai berry contains a lot more than most.

Your skin is in itself an organ, and is a vital barrier against intrusion from the outside world. Keeping your skin healthy is one of the jobs of Vitamin A. Plenty of Vitamin A is a recipe for good, clear skin (in fact it is one of the best forms of attack against acne).

Vitamin C is equally vital to our health. Lack of vitamin C can result in scurvy and was of great concern to the sailors and pirates of yesteryear who spent a long time without fruit and vegetables. It was for this reason that British sailors transported — and ate — large volumes of limes; this particular predilection for citrus fruit was the genesis of the nickname ‘Limey’.

People who enjoy a sensible diet will generally find that they have most of the nutrients they need for a moderately effective immune system, but why stop there? Fruits, vegetables andsuperfoods like the acai berry can give your body a much needed boost in these, and many other, areas.

References

  1. Can Acai Berries Really Help To Fight Cancer?, AcaiBerrySite.com. Source [retrieved Mar 04 2009]
  2. Anisman-Reiner, 10 Ways to Boost Immune Health, naturalmedicine.suite101.com. Source [retrieved Mar 04 2009]
  3. Sterling, Got Anthocyanins?, NewHope.com. Source [retrieved Mar 04 2009]
  4. Lotito and Frei, Consumption of flavonoid-rich foods and increased plasma antioxidant capacity in humans: cause, consequence, or epiphenomenon?, Free Radical Biology And Medicine, [2006 Dec 15;41(12):1727-46. Epub 2006 Jun 3] Summary

More Acai Berry Posts