Nine Tips to Recharge Your Immune System (Feb 13, 2013)
Optimizing Your Health Part 13: Strengthening Immunity
Dear Readers,
The U.S. government spends about 1/5th of its budget on defense. In the same way, your body "spends" a lot of its resources to protect you from outside invaders — using your military-like immune system.
Yes, you can think of your immune system as a kind of military organization. And its mission is to protect you from outside invaders called antigens. Antigens include not only infections, but can include any protein that looks foreign to your immune system, including toxins, allergens, and even (and especially!) incompletely digested food.
Your immune system does not believe in the Geneva convention, and it will kill outside invaders by any means possible, including chemical warfare (antibodies and cytokines), tank divisions (made up of whole armies of white blood cells), and more. This makes your immune system very complex — and very effective. But it remains so only as long as it has the resources needed to fight, and as long as it's not constantly getting overwhelmed.
In this newsletter, I discuss the 8 key factors that can sabotage your immune system — and 9 tips that can help keep your system strong.
Love & blessings,
Dr. T
Research Briefs
Omega-3s for Your Bones
A new study shows that postmenopausal women with higher blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids — found in fatty fish like salmon, tuna and sardines, and in fish oil supplements — have healthier bones.
New, Highly Effective Treatment for CRPS/ Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy
I have been unimpressed by the long-term effectiveness and safety of a family of medications called biphosphonates used for optimizing bone health. Frankly, I find natural approaches to be dramatically more effective, much safer, and far cheaper. But here is a fascinating study, suggesting that an intravenous biphosphonate (one available in Italy, though others would also likely work) also can be dramatically effective at treating a horrible pain condition called CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome; it was previously called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy). At the end of one year of taking the biphosphonate, the CRPS patients were largely pain free. Until now, the best medical treatment was to keep people in a coma for a week with an IV anesthetic. Given the dramatic benefits and low side effects seen in the study, I suspect this will represent a dramatic step forward in treating CRPS!
See study abstract at the Journal of Rheumatology »
Cool Stuff
Dog and Baby Chatting Up a Storm
Funny Stuff
More on Kids and Dogs Chatting It Up
My sister was guardian to a little girl who was fascinated with animals of any kind. After a trip to the local store, my sister was having trouble dragging three year old Miria away from her ardent conversation with the stray dog that was sprawled on the pavement, right next to the car.
My sister's repeated requests that Miria get into the car were ignored. Holding the door wide open, my sister finally shouted in exasperation, "GET INTO THE CAR!"
Whereupon the dog promptly jumped in.
Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D. is one of the world's leading integrative medical authorities on fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. He is the lead author of eight research studies on their effective treatments, and has published numerous health & wellness books, including the bestseller on fibromyalgia From Fatigued to Fantastic! and The Fatigue and Fibromyalgia Solution. Dr. Teitelbaum is one of the most frequently quoted fibromyalgia experts in the world and appears often as a guest on news and talk shows nationwide including Good Morning America, The Dr. Oz Show, Oprah & Friends, CNN, and Fox News Health.
