STAY HEALTHY!
By J. Manuel Cordova, M. D.t
Immune and Auto Immune Disorders
Part II
Why do people over 50 die from diseases like pneumonia, bronchitis, lupus, hepatitis, and kidney disease (to name a few) when young people seldom die from the same diseases?
Finding the right Balance in Life when it comes to our health issues is a difficult task, but if you want to live a long and healthy life, we must all take charge of doing the right things to stay healthy.
Poor nutrition, a sedentary lifestyle and mismanaged stress all impair immunity. We all want an instant fix for every sniffle, cough or tummy ache. Advertising bombards us with information telling us this illness is abnormal and we run quickly to the local drug store for help.
Consequently, our view toward illness is largely one-sided and unbalanced. Nature created illness for a reason. It is usually a signal to slow down, get more rest and rebuild your immune system with pure water, good food and nutritional support. It is not a signal to run to the nearest pharmacy and buy over-the-counter remedies.
Illness is a part of the longevity process!
Disease is not the same thing as illness. Illness is a cold, sore throat, earache….. Disease is cancer, heart disease, stroke, pneumonia, tuberculosis….
As we age the Natural Killer cells decline and the ones produced are less active. Those are the ones needed to kill cancer, for example.
The Thymus gland when you’re young turns white blood cells into T-cells for the brain and the NK (Natural Killer) cells. By age 65, the average person has ‘no’ Thymus gland function.
Nature has equipped us with a number of immune weapons, most notably the ability to generate tremendous amounts of heat, known as fever.
You don’t get a fever every time you get a cold. Fever is a weapon. It is a powerful immune tool to kill bacteria and viruses. But what do we usually do at the first sign of fever? Run to the pharmacy to buy medicine to eliminate the fever!
The good news is you can strengthen your immune system and reverse a lot of the aging process. Your metabolism is the factor that makes good food, regular exercise and vitamin supplements really effective.
For most people, the immune system starts to go “out of whack” starting at age forty.
Don’t overdo it on supplements. Each person is different based on your ability to digest food and your metabolism. Some people think that if a little bit of something is good, a lot more will be even better. Not true. Everything is being processed through your liver and kidneys and if your body does not expel the excess, it can remain in the body and be more harmful than good.
Stay Healthy.
Some of the information in this article was obtained from The Metabolic Plan - Stay Younger Longer by Stephen Cherniske, M.S.
