Simple Nutrition Insights

Fortify Your Immune Defense with Food as Medicine

• Leonila • Season 2 • Episode 3

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Have you ever wondered how food can serve as your best defense against sickness? Join me, Leonila Campos, as I share a personal holiday story that serves as a vivid reminder of just how crucial nutrition is for our immune system—especially when the flu hits the whole family. By understanding the organs, cells, and functions that make up our body's defense mechanisms, you'll learn how to meet the increased energy demands that illness brings. Whether it’s fatigue or muscle aches, we explore why rest and proper nutrition are vital for recovery, setting the stage for maintaining robust health not just during flu season, but all year long.

Discover the profound impact that protein and nutrients have on our immune well-being. This episode is packed with insights on how foods like lean meats, tofu, and legumes can power up your immune cells and antibodies. I’ll guide you in embracing the concept of food as medicine, focusing on nutrient-dense choices like Greek yogurt, quinoa, salmon, and even immune-boosting spices such as garlic, ginger, and turmeric. With practical advice on reducing sugar and managing stress, we aim to provide a holistic approach to wellness that keeps your immune system resilient against future invaders.

How to Keep Your Immune System Strong with Nutrition- your guide

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Speaker 1:

Hey, hey, everybody, happy 2025. Welcome back to Simple Nutrition Insights, the podcast where we break down the science of nutrition into practical tips you can use in your daily life. I am Dernila Campos, registered dietitian and your host. Today, we are diving into a hot topic how to keep your immune system strong with the power of nutrition, whether it's cold and flu season or you are just looking to stay healthy year-round. You won't want to miss this episode. We will cover the essential nutrients for immune health, foods to include in your diet and even some habits that may be working against your immunity.

Speaker 1:

Now, it's interesting that I'm doing this episode today and actually the whole reason why I decided to do this episode, it's because it made me think about our health, right, our health on a day-to-day basis, our health when we get sick, the frequency that we get sick, and so we spend the holiday season sick Like my entire family got sick. It started with my oldest son. He got sick the day the last day of school, right, like he wasn't feeling well, and then like he spent the entire week sick, and then my youngest son got sick only for a few days, then my husband got sick and then I got sick last, and I think this has been the sickest I've been in a long time. Like I can't remember being this sick, and so I was thinking, oh my gosh, I can't imagine maybe people that are chronically sick and like how they feel. And so nutrition does play a huge role in our immune system and our ability to recover, the length it takes to recover and, obviously, how often we get sick. So I said it is still winter flu season and just being sick the numbers are higher, right, and so I said let's do an episode on that so you can still hear my congestion. It's gotten better, but at one point I felt like I wasn't myself, right, I was just really weak and I wasn't hungry. I was drinking a lot of fluids, but I'm getting and feeling better, more like myself. I have been able to see clients feeling better, more like myself. I have been able to see clients. Last Friday I had to cancel some sessions because I was just absolutely wiped out, right, I wasn't feeling well at all.

Speaker 1:

So anyway, let's start with the basics, right? Just a quick overview of our immune system. It is our body's defense army. It protects us from harmful invaders like bacteria, viruses and toxins. It's made of organs, cells and proteins that work together to fight off infections. And guess what? What we eat plays a huge role in how well our immune system performs. So I want to linger here for a little bit and I want to talk a bit more about what the immune system is, right, as I quickly mentioned.

Speaker 1:

But it is composed of various organs like the bone marrow, the thymus, the spleen, lymph nodes, along with specialized white blood cells, including lymphocytes, lymphocyte B and T cells, neutrophils, monocytes and macrophages, and natural killer cells. They all work together to defend the body against any pathogen, anything that is foreign right, that the body sees as that it shouldn't be in our bodies, and so it's a network of cells, tissues and organs that identify and neutralize threats to the body. Now there are specific cells, right, that do specific jobs, so, for example, b cells and T cells. They directly attack infectious cells. And natural killer cells fight viruses in cancerous cells. And then we have phagocytes, which are neutrophils. So when you do blood work right and oftentimes they'll do like they'll check your neutrophils, your monocytes, your white blood cells, and if those are elevated right, it could be an indication of some kind of sickness. We have our bone marrow that produces all blood cells, including immune cells, and our thymus, where T cells mature and develop. Our spleen, which filters blood and stores immune cells, and our lymph nodes, which are small bean-shaped organs throughout the body where lymphocytes encounter antigens and get activated. So all these organs, all these cells and tissues right work together when we are sick.

Speaker 1:

Now we think about okay, how much does that affect our bodies when we get sick, if we think about, just like the general symptoms, right, we feel tired, our temperature might increase, but we might not be as hungry. We just feel like blah. Right, we just feel like we want to sleep. Now, here is why, when we are sick, we might think that our bodies are not working right. Our bodies work 24-7, non-stop. But when we get sick, our bodies work significantly harder than usual, as our immune system is actively fighting off the infection, which does require a large amount of energy right, calories Often leading to symptoms like fatigue, muscle aches and fever, as our body is prioritizing battling the illness over other functions. Essentially, our body is using a lot of resources to defend itself, making us feel weaker and less energetic than normal. Because, if we think about, okay, our bodies are working 24-7. Now, if we get sick. Our bodies are trying to do their best to get us better soon, right? So they're working even harder to be able to do that job, and so it does require a lot of energy right to be able to do that, and so our white blisters are rapidly produced and deployed right to fight the invading pathogen, and that can lead to some inflammation and some aches. Also, if we're having a fever, that increases our metabolism and so it can also increase our energy, the way that we are burning calories. The inflammation response from our immune system can also lead to widespread muscle aches and feeling of tiredness, and that can also increase our heart rate, because our heart is working extra hard to circulate blood and oxygen throughout our bodies and that contributes to a faster heart rate. So rest is crucial.

Speaker 1:

Now, I learned these the hard way because I am a super active person and in my mind I was like, okay, maybe I should move my body more to get the blood flow, which does help, right. But I had been fighting these sickness for a while and I was feeling pretty weak. But on Thursday of last week I woke up and I was like I feel pretty good. I did a quick workout and I said okay, I feel good, and usually Tuesdays and Thursdays I do a swim class, right, a 60-minute swim class. The pool is heated, it is outside, so you still feel really cold, so I was like I think I'll be okay. So I went swimming on Thursday and swimming requires a lot of energy, right, because you're using a lot of muscles, and so I hadn't been eating very well because I wasn't hungry.

Speaker 1:

Digestion is another process that slows down because it also requires energy, right, and it requires your body to work to be able to digest the food, and so sometimes that slows down because your body's trying to fight the infection or trying to fight whatever pathogen is in your system. So you're not going to feel hungry, right, because it's another thing that your body has to worry about, even though we still need the nutrients. So I wasn't feeling very well during the week, so I wasn't very hungry, and so I felt okay on Thursday and I went swimming. Well, after my swim I was feeling like nauseous and just weak and then I was having like this head congestion and like a lot of pressure and I said, oh, my God, like I'm feeling worse today.

Speaker 1:

So usually, when I don't eat enough and I work out at the level where the swim classes usually is, I get really nauseous because my blood sugars drop significantly, and so I have to be able to fuel myself consistently. But when you're not hungry, right, it's harder to do that. So my husband said you know, you're not getting well because you're not allowing your body to rest. He was upset at me. He said you need to slow down. You're not getting well because you're not allowing your body to rest. He was upset at me. He said you need to slow down. You need, instead of like going swimming and waking up so early and working out, just give your body some time to really recover. Rest, you're going to feel better.

Speaker 1:

In my mind I was like man, but I thought that moving my body would help me faster. In this case it didn't, and so I said okay, you know what it's Thursday, I'll just rest. Friday I was still feeling really sick and I did some work. I didn't work out, I just did some work that I needed to work to do, and then at the end of the day, I just took stronger medicine, you know, to be able to rest and like get that congestion out. And then on the weekend I was, you know, I was just a bum. I didn't do anything, obviously, you know, took care of the kids, fed them, my husband helped me with some cooking.

Speaker 1:

So rest is crucial, right, especially if we are so used to being on the go go go. Right, sleep and rest is where our bodies are going to be able to recover and repair. They do that already when we sleep at night. When we are that sick, oftentimes taking that extra rest is what's going to help us. So I've been able to do that a little bit more. I'm feeling better. I can still hear my congestion, and so I'm working through that, but, yeah, it has been an interesting case, to say the least.

Speaker 1:

Focusing on healing is extremely important. Right, hydration is extremely important because it's what's going to take extra nutrients. Right, it's going to keep our cells hydrated, being able to move where they need to go, and so that is definitely extremely important. Here's what I want to focus on right, there's only so much that we can do when we're sick. Right, aside from maybe we need to take medication, staying hydrated, getting some nutrients in, some protein in, if possible, to help our cells and our organs. But every single day, right, and day after day, week after week, we have to be able to give our bodies the building blocks and the nutrients that our bodies need, so that way they are equipped with these nutrients. So when we are fighting, when our bodies are fighting these pathogens, we have enough of those nutrients to recover sooner, to be able to recover properly, but also to prevent the frequency of the sickness right, how often we get sick.

Speaker 1:

So here are some key nutrients and their roles. The first one is vitamin C. Vitamin C is found in citrus fruits like oranges, mandarins, cuties, bell peppers, strawberries and broccoli. Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant that helps our bodies produce white blood cells which fight infections. An antioxidant is it reduces the oxidative stress which damage the walls of our cells, just in general. So we need to add these foods on a consistent basis.

Speaker 1:

Vitamin D, which is found in fatty fish, fortified dairy products or fortified plant-based products, and sunlight exposure. The role of vitamin D is that it plays a critical role in immune regulation and helps prevent infections, and unfortunately, over 90% of the population is deficient in vitamin D. Now, this might be a combination of not getting enough sunlight exposure, not eating enough of these fatty fish or fortified dairy, or plant or dairy alternatives, and so in order to meet this goal right, we would need to have about three servings of dairy or three servings of dairy alternatives. So think of, like almond milk, soy milk, that is fortified right. If it's just something that you make at home, you have to add the vitamin D to it right to be fortified. So about three servings of that to get the vitamin D that your body needs. The role of that to get the vitamin D that your body needs. The role I mentioned that. The other one is zinc. Zinc is found in shellfish, pumpkin, seeds, beans and nuts. Zinc is essential for the development and activation of certain immune cells, so adding these foods right will help with the development and the activation of those certain immune cells.

Speaker 1:

Probiotics like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi and other fermented foods they support our gut health and since 70% of our immune system resides in our gut, this is a game changer, right. We have to focus on adding these fermented foods to be able to help our gut, which is going to help with our immunity. If you have gut issues or you have diarrhea consistently, those probiotics right, which is the good gut microbiome oftentimes that gets dysregulated right, and so adding these probiotic, these fermented foods, can help as well as with the prebiotic, which is the fuel for the probiotics, the fiber Antioxidants, which are found in colorful fruits and vegetables like berries, spinach and sweet potatoes. They help reduce inflammation and protect our cells from damage. So adding them as well.

Speaker 1:

Protein, which is found in our lean meats, eggs, tofu and legumes. Protein, which is found in our lean meats, eggs, tofu and legumes. Protein has so many roles. It's a macronutrient right, which is a bigger molecule that is essential. But protein provides the building blocks for immune cells and antibodies. We need to be able to add these foods every single day so our bodies get those building blocks that it needs to one, help us prevent the sicknesses, but also, as we get sick right, to be able to recover faster. So I truly believe in the power of food that it has in our bodies and like food as the sense of like food is medicine, because it absolutely is right if we give our bodies these nutrients that it needs to protect us right, protect ourselves, but also to have these building blocks right to help us recover sooner and maybe not get us sick. It's, it's just a life changer.

Speaker 1:

Now I like to always work on adding these things in a way that it makes sense. If, right now, you're like I hardly eat anything with vitamin C or anything with vitamin D or zinc, the idea is to incorporate them slowly, right, in a way that it makes sense for you, and then build onto that, because if we change everything at once and we're like, okay, this is what I'm going to do, it's a new year, new me resolutions, and I'm just going to do it Because of the motivation you might, you will do it right, but most likely, as the episode that I did, right, 80% of those resolutions are going to fail by February because sometimes they are too big or they're too big right, so making them work for you and something that makes sense. So let's put these things into practice. Here are some examples on how we can add this type of nutrients that I mentioned.

Speaker 1:

For example, for breakfast, you can have Greek yogurt rich, high in vitamin D and protein. You can also choose a plant-based Greek-style yogurt like Kite Hill that is also high in protein about 15, 17 grams and it's also fortified with calcium and vitamin D. You can add berries for your antioxidants and a handful of walnuts for omega-3. If you want to add chia or ground flaxseed for some extra fiber and omega-3s. That's wonderful and you have a rich and nutritious breakfast. You can also do that as a snack if you want to Lunch spinach and quinoa salad with grilled salmon in a citrus vinaigrette. Or you can do tofu, so you have your spinach for your antioxidants, your quinoa for your fiber and also your protein, as well as your salmon it's fatty fish, so rich in omega-3s or tofu which is going to be fortified with calcium and vitamin d and it's going to have fiber and protein and you have citrus right from vitamin c in that vinaigrette. Or if you're like I don't like dressing, you can just juice the orange and add it to your salad, or lemon or lime juice, and you're still going to get some vitamin c from that snack Snack.

Speaker 1:

For example, carrot sticks, high in vitamin C and vitamin A, with hummus, some fiber and protein. Or an orange and some pumpkin seeds for zinc. Dinner, stir-fry veggies with tofu or any other protein that you want to add Garlic and ginger over brown rice. Again, you have your high antioxidants, high anti-inflammatory foods. Tofu to add is fortified with calcium and vitamin D and it is naturally high in fiber and protein. Garlic and ginger are immune-busting spices and your brown rice for fiber and some protein. So these meals are quick, right. They don't require a higher level of cooking expertise and it's something that you can do right away, right? So try to incorporate these meals. Plan ahead, do your grocery shopping Really, really understand what your challenges are that are preventing you from adding these foods, and work through those challenges. Now you can also add other immune boosting spices, like turmeric. We talked about ginger and garlic, which are are in anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial, perfect for our immune system.

Speaker 1:

Now let's talk about habits that weaken our immunity. Number one excess sugar. Eating too much sugar can suppress our immune response for hours after consumption, but it also increases our inflammation. So, if we're eating just a bunch of sugar right or sugary foods number one and we're already sick, that is contributing to more inflammation, right. And also, you're not providing your system with these nutrients that it needs to fight off the pathogens. So, as we think about again, on a day-to-day basis, if we are adding tons of sugar every single day, that is contributing to systemic and chronic inflammation, right. So your immune system is already compromised. I'm not telling you that you have to eliminate it completely, but you have to be aware, right, of how much sugar you consume on a day-to-day basis.

Speaker 1:

Chronic stress. Stress increases cortisol, which can weaken our immune defenses over time. So incorporating stress management techniques like meditation or exercise can help. Chronic stress affects our bodies in so many levels, not only increasing cortisol levels, but also other hormonal imbalances which can lead to adrenal fatigue, which is also going to weaken our immune system. We have these alerts in our systems that are going off 24-7, and that is a lot of work for our bodies. We do get to a point where we're fatigued all the time, we're foggy all the time, we can't seem to get well. You know, rest very well, and all the combination right is a disaster right for our immune system. So managing our cortisol levels, our chronic stress, is going to help us in so many ways, not only to boost our immune system, for sleep right.

Speaker 1:

Our immune system needs sleep to recharge. So aiming for seven to nine hours per night is the recommendation, but not only the amount. The quality of sleep also plays a huge role. So we could be sleeping nine hours, but the quality is not what it needs to be, meaning that we're not getting good deep sleep, good REM sleep, which is where our body's truly recovered and repaired, and so when we wake up. We wake up tired, right, we're tired throughout the evening or throughout the day, and so really, looking at and I've done an episode on sleep, so take a look at that but figure out what are the challenges and what is your routine leading to bed? Right, if you're overstimulated, you might want to decompress yourself. Or if you have so many thoughts in your mind and your mind is racing and it's not letting you to like calm down to a level where you feel rested, figure out how you can transfer those thoughts into paper or somewhere else that is going to allow your body to rest and recharge.

Speaker 1:

Dehydration I have a lot of people that say I hate water. Well, water is essential. It's something that our bodies need. Obviously, the things that we eat are going to have some kind of water right. Especially if we eat more fruits and veggies. A little water there. If you eat more dry foods, more fried foods, not a lot of water there. But when you think about water and staying hydrated, it helps our body flush out toxins and maintains healthy mucous membranes. So it is your first light of defense. And when you're sick, you need more water right, because your body's working so hard at getting rid of all those toxins, and your kidneys need that extra help. So, if you don't like water, add a little bit of flavoring. Add some fresh chopped fruit in it. Add some tea. Figure out a way to stay more hydrated, because this is going to help you not only with your immune system, with your skin, but just for overall well-being, and I think I've done another episode on hydration, so take a look at that as well.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's look into more of a holistic approach. We're not just our immune system, right. We are a whole person, and so nutrition is just one piece of the puzzle. Combine it with regular exercise to improve circulation and immune cell activity. Now, this is on a day-to-day basis, right. If you're sick, obviously you need your rest. That's the example that I gave of me not resting. But this is after you recover, right. On a day-to-day basis, you need to move your body. Our bodies are meant for movement, and that helps with circulation and taking oxygen throughout our bodies. Find whatever it is that you want to add in for movement right Walking, yoga, pilates, strength training whatever it is that you want to start with but do it consistently to a level where it is a habit and you just automatically do it make it a non-negotiable managing stress through mindfulness or yoga, by finding a way to manage your stress, because it's going to help you with your cortisol levels and your immune system and just overall mental health well-being. Now, this one is up to you, right. If you are doing vaccines or immunizations right and you want to be up to date with that, that's wonderful. It can give you a boost in your immune system too, for extra support.

Speaker 1:

Okay, a few questions, common questions about our immune system and our immune health here. Can supplements replace a healthy diet? The answer is no. Food is the best source of nutrients. It should always be your first line of defense, because food is not only going to give you vitamin C right, for example, the foods that I gave you that were high in vitamin C, like bell peppers and citrus they're not only giving you vitamin C, they're giving you vitamin A and fiber, and so you want to add the food, because the food is going to give you so many other nutrients and a supplement can only give you those specific nutrients. But also, when you add it in food, your body uses most of it and what it needs, and then, if it has enough, then we get rid of it right with supplements. Some of the supplements can accumulate, can also be harder on your kidneys and they can also lead to kidney stones. So a high dose of vitamin c for a long period of time can lead to kidney stones. So keep those things in mind. Right, you have to do food first. If you have a deficiency like vitamin D, which is something that is common, consult with your dietician. Consult with your doctor to see if a vitamin D supplement is needed.

Speaker 1:

Does drinking more water directly boost immunity? As we mentioned, staying hydrated supports overall health, just like in anything. Right, it's not a magic bullet for immunity. We still have to do these other things that we talked about on top of staying hydrated. So remember, building a strong immune system doesn't happen overnight, but working small, consistent changes to our nutrition and lifestyle can make a big difference. Start by adding those nutrients-rich foods we talked about and cutting back on habits that may weaken your defenses. My friend, if you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who could use a little immune system boost. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. You can also follow me on Instagram at nutrition underscore, with underscore Leonila, for more daily tips. And remember to stay safe and stay strong. In the show notes, you're going to find a recap of what I talked about and some tips to boost your immune system. Don't neglect your health. Don't neglect your health. Don't neglect your nutrition. You need to give your body what it needs to build a strong immune system. Until next time, take care. Bye-bye for now.