Cell Environment
A healthy environment is important for good health!
Cell Environment
Cell environment is an important part of the Healthy Cell Concept, but it is also perhaps the most frustrating. This is because it is probably the hardest concept for us to change. We have the means to easily obtain or change cell food and cell exercise; but changing our environment is a much more difficult chore. It is difficult to avoid air and water pollutants.
Air
In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recently proposed new air-quality standards. They have met with a firestorm of criticism from many who believe they’re too expensive, too regulatory. But whatever you think of the government and regulation, the EPA proposed these new standards for reason; the air around us is polluted, and living in polluted air affects our health.
Air pollution comes in many different forms. The most well-known air pollutants are sulfur dioxide (power plants, diesel engines), suspended particulate matter (construction, industry, wood-burning), ground-level ozone (automobiles), and carbon monoxide (automobiles).
Our indoor air is often polluted, too…approximately 35% of the office space in the United States has pollution levels higher than the air outside. This comes from chemicals in cleaners, carpet adhesives, plastic products, and other sources, and is compounded by poor ventilation.
The result of these air pollutants is a decrease in quality of life and an increase in medical bills. Air pollution damages the lungs by causing irritation that leads to inflammation and the destruction of lung tissue. It weakens the lungs’ ability to fight further contamination which makes the prolonged exposure to air pollutants increasingly destructive.
Air pollution also hurts our natural defenses against airborne invaders such as dust, pollen, and germs. Air pollution dries up mucus and destroys cilia. This is dangerous because the mucus in our airways traps germs and particles before they reach our lungs, and the cilia, hairlike cells, push the mucus out of the body.
Health statistics are telling. The examination of lung tissue from young people who were raised in cities indicate that 80% suffered from precancerous lung lesions, most likely due to breathing polluted air. Other studies estimate that 5% of the deaths in major U.S. cities can be linked to air pollution, and that some 60,000 deaths a year can be attributed to air pollution.
Last July, researchers from the EPA and the National Center for Health Studies released a report saying that air pollution may increase the risk of babies dying from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The researchers found that there were higher rates of SIDS in areas with high levels of soot.
What Can Be Done?
If you live in a polluted area, there is little you can do. Monitor air quality and on “bad air” days, stay indoors, especially if you are young, elderly, or suffer from heart or respiratory problems. Also, avoid cigarette smoke…stay out of smoking areas, indoors and outdoors. You can contribute to clean air by limiting your driving…join car pools, ride bicycles, or use mass transit. Finally, support strong federal, state, and local pollution-control laws. These may appear to cause a hardship, but they will help your health and save you money. After all, would you rather pay a few dollars a month for car emission tests, or thousands of dollars a month in hospital bills for respiratory disease?
Water
Water is perhaps the most important nutrient in our bodies. Although water does not contain “nutrients” as we know them…protein, carbohydrates, enzymes, vitamins, without water, we cannot survive.
What Does Water Do?
- Water helps break down foods into the nutrients we need. Without it, we would have no digestive juices.
- Water transports nutrients and helps us absorb them.
- Water helps remove from the body the waste created naturally by the body. If we do not dispose of this waste, we die.
- Water helps remove toxins that we get through foods and pollution.
- Water lubricates the body. It prevents friction from destroying our joints, lubricates our eyes, and makes it possible for muscles to work smoothly.
- Water keeps us from overheating by regulating our temperature.
Drink Pure Water
One of the best things we can do for our health is drink water. The human body needs approximately 2 qts. of water a day. We get this through the food we eat, through metabolism, and through drinking water. We should drink eight glasses of pure water throughout each day…try to drink a glass every hour.
This is important because if you do not give your body enough water, it takes it from your cells and from your blood. This causes your body to close some smaller blood vessels, called capillaries, and makes your blood thicker and harder to pump around your body. This has implications in high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease. Lack of water may also be linked to headaches, arthritis, and heartburn.
Dehydration is also linked to obesity. Without water your body cannot convert triglycerides (a type of fat) into energy.
Just any liquid will not do! Soda, tea, and coffee often function as diuretics, which stop your body from recycling salt and water and causes you to loose important nutrients.
What To Do
Pay attention to what you drink. Tap water is polluted almost everywhere…according to the EPA, virtually every type of industrial substance we create ends up in our water supply. And when we use this water, the pollutants it carries harm our cells.
this means you should consider the options. Many people buy bottled water, but be careful. There are no standards for bottled water, and it can be as bad as, if not worse than, tap water. Others buy water filters. Today, technology has made possible efficient and cost effective filters.
You can help maintain water quality by watching your habits. When you use fertilizer on your lawn or dump old paint in an alley, these substances eventually end up in the water supply. See if your community has a “hazardous waste day” when you can dispose of toxic substances. As with air-pollution standards, get together with others to ensure that water-quality standards in your community are sufficient and are met.
Cell Protection / The Immune System
Cell Protection
A major factor in having healthy cells and a healthy life is the condition of the immune system. This system, a miracle inside our bodies, works to keep us well. It fights disease-that is, it fights the viruses, bacteria, fungi, and other microbes that cause disease. When our systems are not working well, we can come down with common illnesses, such as colds, more easily; can run a greater risk of contracting more serious illnesses; and can take a long time to recover from health problems. It pays, then, to keep the immune system in tip- top shape.
A Brief Introduction
One of the reasons that we fall ill is because the body’s defense system-the immune system-is breached by a pathogen. A pathogen is simply an organism that causes disease. Three examples of pathogens are viruses (colds, AIDS), bacteria (strep throat, pneumonia), and fungi (athlete’s foot, candida).
The immune system fights pathogens by first refusing them entry: the skin and mucous membranes at body openings act as guardians. If a pathogen does make it inside the body, different types of white blood cells engulf and destroy it. (For information on the components of the immune system, see the “Cell Protection” sections of the Healthy Cell Concept softcover or pocket books.)
Protecting Cell Protection
We can enhance our immune systems through lifestyle. In improving your immunity, you should focus on diet, exercise, and attitude. Note that these are three components of the Healthy Cell Concept- and a great example of how its individual components work together to form a greater whole, in this case cell protection.
Diet
You can use diet to aid your immune system in two ways: by eating the right foods and by avoiding the wrong foods. What are the right foods? As we learned in the Cell Food section of the Healthy Cell Concept, fruits, vegetables, and complex carbohydrates such as grains and whole wheat breads are great. Keep fat intake low, and get plenty of fiber. Certain vitamins and minerals are especially good for the immune system. These include the B vitamins and vitamins A, C, and E, and the minerals potassium, copper, iron, and zinc.
Certain foods should be avoided. These include foods with simple sugars. When you digest sugar, the activity of a type of disease-fighting white blood cell slows down. Remember: if you eat sugar throughout the day, you slow down your immune system throughout the day.
Nancy Appleton, Ph.D., in her book, “Lick the Sugar Habit” documents some 77 consequences of sugar. These include hyperactivity in children, kidney damage, mineral deficiency and imbalance, weakened eyesight, arthritis, asthma, candida, and hormonal imbalance. Supplements may help boost your immunity. Echinacea and garlic are proven immune enhancers. A study conducted at Ball State University, Muncie Center for Medical Education, showed that green barley extract may increase leukocytes- white blood cells important in immunity.
Exercise
Exercising also helps bolster the immune system. With exercise, some of the white blood cell components of the immune system circulate throughout the body more quickly, which means they have more opportunities to combat viruses and bacteria.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that you have to become an athlete and exert maximum energy everyday to use exercise as an immune booster. Researchers in Minnesota found that one exercise session a week was effective in reducing the risk of death from a variety of causes.
Regular exercise also reduces the risk of dying prematurely, of dying from heart disease, of developing diabetes, of developing high blood pressure, and of developing colon cancer; helps reduce blood pressure in people who already have high blood pressure; reduces feelings of depression and anxiety; promotes psychological well-being; helps control weight; helps build and maintain healthy bones, muscles, and joints; and helps older adults become stronger and better able to move about without falling.
Attitude
Another component in helping the immune system should be easy: relaxation. This means sleep, low stress, and a good attitude. When we sleep, our bodies recharge themselves: this means repairing tissue, healing, and fueling cells and organs. Sleep may be the single most important thing we can do to help our immune systems.
Stress hurts the immune system. Indirectly, when we worry about family, jobs, friends, or school, we often lose sleep and cannot relax. This takes valuable recharge time away from our immune systems. On a more technical level, recent studies have shown that stressful arguments change the level of hormones that promote or reduce immune system functions. A 1993 study demonstrated that immune function markers showed significant changes after newlywed couples had words on a sensitive topic. Finally, feeling good about things makes a difference. Although there have long been reports of laughter helping people through illness, they were often dismissed as “testimonial.” Now, however, research is discovering why a healthy mental attitude bolsters the immune system. Studies have shown that components of the immune system can respond to chemical secretions by the central nervous system.
White blood cells, for example, become less active in fighting infection when exposed to a neurochemical released in response to stress. David Spiegel of the University of California-San Francisco led a study showing that women with advanced breast cancer survived nearly twice as long if they participated in a weekly support group. Other researchers have found the same results in patients with melanoma, leukemia, and lymphoma.
Eating for your immune system
Eat a variety of foods, not just “immune system foods.”
The immune system is varied and, thus, needs many different nutrients. If you stick with only a few foods, you may deprive the body of its nutritional needs.
Eat generous amounts of fruits and vegetables.
Fruits and vegetables contain important vitamins as well as phytochemicals that can help the body fight disease.
Eat foods rich in vitamins, minerals, and enzymes.
Superfoods like bee pollen, spirulina, chlerella, raw milk, spinach, and kale are a fantastic way to get everything your body needs. (Which is why you should eat foods, not take supplements.)
Eat complex carbohydrates such as grains and legumes.
This results in longer- lasting energy. If you do not get enough carbohydrates, your body will draw on protein, robbing immunological cells of important foods.
Eat foods high in fiber.
Try to consume 30-40 grams of fiber a day. Eat before or during times of stress. This way you make sure you get adequate energy for your “normal” functions and the extra energy needed during times of stress.
Eat the right kind of fat.
Coconut oil, flax oil, hemp oil, and organic butter made from unpaseurized milk are the fats of the gods; eat them as much as you like.
Don’t eat sweets.
They suppress the immune system, and provide your body with deadly doses of sugar, toxic sweeteners, flavor enhancers and colors, something that leads you on a path of disease and ill health.
Medication can hurt as it “helps”
The pharmaceutical industry produces many over-the-counter products for “routine” illnesses such as colds, fevers, and so on. Unfortunately, in the long run many of these do you more harm than good. What a cold medicine does is suppress the cold’s symptoms-and doing this actually suppresses the immune system. When you take these remedies to “feel better,” what you actually do is prolong your illness and weaken your immune system.
For example, antihistamines, found in many popular cold-relief products, interfere with the components of the immune system that fight allergies. Decongestant sprays suppress signals to the nose and throat that do little to promote natural defenses against invaders.
In other words, if you have a cold, the best thing you can do is eat well and rest. Stay home if you can; don’t go to work and tire yourself, or spread your cold. It may mean a few days of uncomfortable symptoms, but this beats a lifetime of a weakened immune system.
By: AIM for Health, edited by Max Sidorov