What Drives Low Immunity?

“Prevention is not just better than cure, prevention IS the cure.” Professor Robert Lustig

As the days get shorter and darker, many of us are feeling emotionally fatigued at the prospect of more challenging months ahead with the pandemic. If you feel the same, we’re keen to fill you with fresh inspiration about how you can support your immune system, and overall health and wellbeing, over the coming months.

Normally the immune system is equipped to swiftly deal with exposure to pathogens. However, our immune defences are often compromised nowadays, resulting in low immunity, notably frequent, severe, and/or persistent infections. Other than the obvious risk factor – high environmental exposure to pathogens (e.g. from public transport, schools) - what are the other causes of low immunity?

Identifying and addressing the ‘why’ behind our presenting signs, symptoms, or conditions is a cornerstone of how we work as natural health practitioners. This approach facilitates implementation of natural interventions (the ‘what’) tailored to an individual’s unique needs, which have the most chance of helping them to feel better. Indeed, understanding why we might be prone to low immunity, together with a clear idea of why we want to feel better, helps us to find the inner drive needed to implement sustainable, nourishing habits, and the right immune support.

As Sonya Renee Taylor said in recent conversation with Bréne Brown:¹

“…it’s almost less about what we do and almost always about why we do it. And if we can be in the why, then the what becomes a lot more easy to navigate.” Sonya Renee Taylor

In this vein, we’re going to explore the role of poor digestion, obesity and vitamin D, and stress in driving low immunity over the course of the next few blogs.

Part 1: Gut health “All disease begins in the gut” Hippocrates The gut is well-recognised for its central role in immunity, but so many of us have poor digestion these days due to the stresses and strains of the modern world! We find that individuals prone to low immunity tend to also present with poor gut health (e.g. reflux, bloading, constipation), and when their digestion is optimised through nutrition and lifestyle interventions, so too is their immune function. In this blog, we explore the many ways in which poor gut health can drive low immunity. We hope it will inspire you to nourish your gut this winter. Your immune system, and the rest of your body, will thank you for it! Learn more

Part 2: Obesity and vitamin D deficiency "We should therefore think of metabolic disease as a disease of the immune system too.” Dr. Aseem Malhotra Obesity and low vitamin D are heavily discussed topics at the moment. In this blog, we delve into the latest research and explore how obesity and low vitamin D are major risk factors for low immunity. This blog is packed full of useful information which we hope will inspire you to make sustainable nutritional and lifestyle changes this autumn and winter. Learn more

Part 3: Stress “You can’t always control what goes on outside, but you can always control what goes on inside.” Wayne Dyer In our blog, we continue our exploration into the common drivers of low immunity, this time with a focus on stress! We are united by our shared experience of grappling with the first pandemic of our lifetime. It is unquestionably stressful and all of us have experienced the emotional and physical symptoms of stress to some degree this year. We’re keen to increase your awareness of just how detrimental stress is to our immune system and crucially, what you can proactively do through nutrition and lifestyle to minimise the impact of stressful situations on your nervous and immune system, and every other body system for that matter! Learn more