I was completely shocked recently when I read a report that over 400,000 people die each year in the United States alone from getting treated in a hospital.

I don’t know what it is, but we Americans love to brag about how good our health care is yet according to The World Health Organization, the Unites States ranks 37th best in the world and yet we spend 3.8 trillion (that’s with a T).

Something isn’t adding up here people.

Here are some more fun facts for ya…

Did you know that according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, over 100,000 people die per year from taking prescription drugs and medications properly?

These people took the right amount of pills, at the right time and in the right way, that their doctor told them.

That means 290 people every single day die needlessly because they took the pills their doctor gave them.

That’s sickening.

Listen, whatever we’re doing….it’s not working.

It’s simply not working.

In 2012 8.2 million people died from cancer and 14.1 million cases were diagnosed.

Our immune system is our first line of defense when it comes to preventing and reversing cancer naturally.

And cancer isn’t even #1 on the list. It is the #2 cause of death in the world only behind heart disease.

I don’t need to convince you, the medical industry has failed us miserably.

Guess how many people have died from taking herbs? You guessed it zero people have died as a result of taking herbs properly.

How many people have died from taking amino acids, vitamins or minerals in 2008?

Yep, you guessed it, zero.

I realize that herbs, medications, drugs, food and everything is a poison really. It’s all about taking the right dosage for your body at the right time.

As the famous Greek philosopher Paracelsus said…

[spp-tweet tweet=”Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy. – Paracelsus”]

If you are relying on vaccines or getting a flu shot to somehow bolster your immune system I highly suggest you look into the research as to what’s actually in a flu shot. According to Center For Disease (CDC) itself, the flu shot contains thimerosal and mercury.

According to former guest Mike Adams of Natural News even low amounts of mercury actually put a tremendous burden on your immune system.

Why would you want to put mercury into your body to boost your immune system, if it actually suppresses it?

It doesn’t make any sense!

Our ancestors never had flu shots or needed vaccines to help them get through the “flu season”. I don’t believe there is such a thing as flu season.

As the image says, the reason why people are getting the flu is a lack of hydration from drinking clean pure water. We all know that we should be drinking at least half our weight in ounces of water per day.

Also a lack of sunshine and vitamin D results in a lowered immune function in the human body.

Let’s take a look at the mechanism for a moment of getting a vaccine or flu shot. The human body was never designed to take in (let me say this very carefully) “unnatural” substances through the skin.

I can hear many of you now saying well what about people who put (for example) magnesium oil mixed with DMSO on their skin? What about people who administer coffee enemas or get high dose IV therapies?

Remember what I said, I used the word unnatural. DMSO is a natural substance derived from tree pulp in the logging industry. Magnesium is a natural mineral that if put on the skin can actually help the body.

But again, even putting natural ingredients on the skin is unnatural. We are designed to take nutrients into our mouth orally.

When you bypass the mouth and the entire digestive tract, you’re bypassing the buffering organs like the liver, the intestines, the stomach lining with all its acid and the colon.

These organs are designed to prevent toxins, pathogens and other chemicals from entering into the bloodstream. When you get an injection (natural or not) you are directly injecting these man made pharmaceutical compounds to the area of the body that the body itself is dying to protect, the blood stream.

The body will do whatever it takes to protect the blood. As it says in the bible the life is in the blood.

The blood must maintain a very specific temperature and pH and it will do whatever it takes to maintain that homeostasis.

Getting a flu shot makes no sense even on a mechanical level. The body was never designed for it.

So now that we’ve seen that our current medical system is failing us and with how few people have been harmed or injured from supplements, herbs and super-foods let’s take a look at what the immune system actually is.

There has been a lot of misinformation about what the immune system is.

What Exactly Is The Immune System?

People think the immune system is an actual system in your body like a set of nerves or some actual physical “thing”. Actually the immune system was first observed in during a plague of Athens in 430 BC. Interestingly enough Thucydides who was a political historian and philosopher during that time noted that people who were sick from the plague (and happened to recover) were able to care for and nurse sick people without coming down with the sickness again.

Roughly 80% of the immune system lives in the mucosal lining of the gastrointestinal tract in the body. Your immune system primarily resides in your gut!

Inside your digestive tract lives what’s called the gut associated lymphoid tissue (or GALT as it’s called) and the GALT is a smaller part of what’s called mucosal-associated lymphoid tissue (aka MALT) which is comprised of plasma cells in the mucosal lining.

Be that as it may for our intents and purposes the immune system lives primarily in the gut. This is why our main man Hippocrotes said…

[spp-tweet tweet=”All disease begins in the gut.”]

Properly taking care of the microbiome in the gut is of utmost importance if you wish to build immune system health. What’s kind of shocking is that we have more “other” cells in the body than we do cells that contain our own DNA.

Those other cells include viruses (which aren’t alive or cells for that matter), fungi, yeast, protozoa, bacteria (both good and bad).

This is a weird thought, most of what makes us up, isn’t even us!

In order for our immune system to function at high levels we need to think of our body as an ecosystem instead of a battle ground where things need to be killed.

We need to live in harmony with these other organisms that are feeding off of the dead cells in our body.

According to Dr. Richard Massey every human should have roughly 1,000 different strains of bacteria in their intestines. Yet because of anti-biotics, flu shots, vaccines, drugs and environmental toxins, we are dangerously low at around 400.

That means we’ve lost 60% of the different strains of bacteria.

Given the fact that we have lost so much or our own friendly flora, inside your body right now sits about 5 pounds of bacteria.

Many people are now doing fecal transplants from people who have never had vaccines, flu shots or taken any anti-biotics in their lives in order to repopulate the beneficial gut flora in their body.

According to Matt Russell, Ph.D there are more “bacterial cells in the poop than the number of humans who ever lived on earth” and according to Daniel Vitalis a former guest on our show, 80% of your poop is bacteria.

For more in depth information on all things poop, former guest Konstantin Monastyrsky would be somebody you’d want to listen to. He’s got a great website called Gut Sense we often refer people to.

What Is The Immune System Responsible For?

As we know the immune system is made of or bacteria, white blood cells, T-Cells (produced by the thymus gland), lymphocytes (aka leukocytes), tissues, proteins and organs that all work in harmony to help protect the body from infectious organisms that seek to kill the host from disease.

Check out how T-Cells attack a cancer cell…

It’s a beautiful dance that all of this happens without us even knowing it.

The T-cells or lymphocytes are stored all throughout the body. They can also be found in the spleen, pancreas, liver, lungs and most importantly in the lymphatic tissues. This is why if you get an infection on your hand, the lymph nodes in your armpit of the side of your hand will begin to swell.

The lymph nodes are strategically placed on the 5 places of the body that lead directly into the chest cavity. These are your armpits, groin and neck. This is to prevent infections in our extremities from infecting our organs which are responsible for life.

Your immune system is your first line of defense for fighting off any kind of disease whether it’s cancer, heart disease, strokes, auto immune disease and even simple things like a cold or flu.

Remember that the body works holistically as a single harmonious unit. By working on your immune system, you’re also improving digestion and visa versa.

By taking general steps to be healthy you’re going to be improving every area of your health. For example if you decide to go to bed earlier and drink green juice every day, you’re improving digestion, immune system function and helping the body do its job on many different levels.

The medical industry has got us believing that systems in the body should be isolated and separate from one another. In traditional western medicine we have ear, nose and throat doctors, general practitioners (aka GP’s), surgeons, orthopedics, cardiologists and the list of distinctions between doctors goes on and on.

In reality when you work on one area of your health, you’re entire body improves.

It’s a sick society that believes in needing specialized doctors to treat specific areas of the body.

We are a single organism that works as one and cannot be isolated and cut off from one another, literally and physically.

People say that we are like a machine or worse an animal. I prefer to refer to our bodies as holographic energetic ecosystems wrapped in a plasma energy field.

Much better than a simple machine isn’t it? 😉

What Weakens Or Compromises The Immune System?

Since the immune system itself is holographic in nature and not necessarily located in only one particular area of the body, like a heart or a lung for example, it’s affected by lots of factors like…

Negativity

Studies suggest that even thinking negative thoughts can lower immune system function. According to Richard Davidson, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison subjects were asked to dwell on negative life situations and stressful or distressing situations.

The subjects had previously been given a flu shot. Researchers noticed a dramatic decrease in the amount of antibodies the body made as a result of the flu shot while thinking these types of negative thoughts.

Social Interaction

It appears that having social interactions (physically not just digitally) helps to boost immunity and white blood cell production. We’re social creatures and were not meant to be isolated emotionally or physically.

Sleep

Not getting enough sleep can dramatically reduce immune system function. A Dutch study found that reduced immunity with higher instances of getting sick is directly correlated to a lack of adequate sleep.

Stress

One of the major factors that weakens the immune system is stress. Stress has been shown to lower the activation of NK-Cells as well as affect the microbiome and benefitial flora of the gut thereby impacting immunity.

Sugar

Sugar is widely known to not only cause massive amounts of inflammation in the body but it also suppresses the immune system in a major way. According to Dr. Jonathan Wright there’s only about 2 teaspoons of dissolved sugars throughout our entire blood stream.

A study way back in 1976 reported that people who consumed twenty four ounces of soda dramatically reduced the activity of bacteria in their body that eat neutrophils for no less than 5 hours.

That means sugar is killing a part of your immune system.

I don’t recommend that.

A can of soda as roughly about 9.5 teaspoons of sugar. The body can perhaps deal with 2 teaspoons but what does it do with the other 7.5 teaspoons?

There are many great sugar alternatives you can use that are natural and lower glycemic.

Here are some of them that you can look further into…

• Green leaf stevia
• Monk fruit
• Xylitol
• Lakanto
• Agave (Make sure it’s authentic)
• Black strap molasses
• Grade B maple syrup
• Raw honey
• And many others….do your research!

Antibiotics…

As we’ve discussed taking antibiotics actually destroys the very essence of your immune system. Remember how the word is broken up: anti (against) biotics (life).

Antibiotics which are chemical substances mostly derived from yeast and fungi that help kill pathogenic strains of bacteria and micro-organisms in the body which eventually lead to disease.

Only take an anti-biotic if you are in dire need. Antibiotics kill the very core of our immune system. Martin Blaser conducted a study showing that our microflora in our gut may forever be altered as the result of taking a single round of antibiotics. People just don’t realize how serious it is to ingest these chemical compounds.

Obviously there are many other things that weaken the immune system like lack of proper exercise and a poor diet. I’ve only highlighted a few of the main components that harm your immunity.

To recap…

• Stay positive & happy
• Surround yourself (physically) with supportive uplifting friends & family
• Get at least 8 or more hours of sleep each night
• Meditate, or do Qigong to lower stress levels
• Stop eating sugar
• Avoid antibiotics if possible

What Symptoms Show Up When You Have A Weak Immune System?

Most of us have compromised immune systems. Nobody gets optimal sleep each night. We all don’t drink enough water per day or have zero stress. It’s not possible to have an immune system working at 100% efficiency 100% of the time.

It’s just not humanly possible.

But it is possible to optimize immune system health to a very high degree.

If you crave sugar or don’t have at least one bowel movement per day (2 or 3 per day is ideal) you might have immune system issues. As we saw previously gut health is directly correlated with how well our immunity is.

Other signs to look for could be any rashes on the skin, losing weight, frequent colds or flu, or even poor dental health.

Many people wonder if they’re immune system is good or not. Feeling good is important to immune health as we’ve seen previously in this article. Feel good about how great your health is, while at the same time always looking to improve your immune system health.

Don’t focus on how weak your immune system is. This will only make it weaker.

It’s like people wondering if they have candida, parasites or yeast infections, just assume that you do while at the same time being in harmony with them and thanking them for sharing your body with you.

Because without candida and yeast what would eat up and consume the billions of cells that die each day?

Without candida, you’d be dead. 🙂

How To Strengthen Your Immune System

Sometimes there’s as much power in avoiding certain activities as there is in doing certain activities. Instead of taking aspirin or its natural equivalent (white willow bark) for your headache, stop banging your head against the wall!

For some reason we take positive action for our health while still participating in the very things that negate the positive steps we are taking.

I often wonder if we would even have to “do” anything positive if we just stopped doing the very things that are damaging our health and immune systems in the first place.

Feel free to go back and review all of the things that weaken your immune system BEFORE actively doing many of the items I’ve listed below.

Sweating

Sweating has been shown in studies to increase heat shock proteins in the body and be associated with longevity. This apparent increase in heat shock proteins has been shown to increase immune system strength by as much as 40% in some cases.

Regular sauna use is a great way to detoxify the body of toxins, heavy metals, chemicals like BPA and more.

Stress

As mentioned before do everything you can to set up your life to be as stress free as possible. Remember stress is what happens “outside of you”. This means that nothing is really stressful it’s only how our brain perceives such events. Our attachments are what cause us to hold on to our preconceived desires whether they be unfounded or not.

Sleep

If you want to improve your immune system health you have to get sleep. Sleep is when our bodies recharge. We repair during sleep. We reset our hormones, digest our food, and replenish the body.

We restore energy to the body. Your immune system needs as much energy as possible to work at the highest levels.

In the video below I share with you some ways to naturally improve your sleep

Your body needs that time to repair and during this time of sleep your hormones rebuild, you gather and store energy and repair the body from damage and stress. If you want to improve your immune system health the single most important thing you can do is get a solid 8 or 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night starting at 9 or 10pm.

Water

Ever since getting my Berkey water filter I’ve made it my goal to drink at least 64 ounces of clean pure water each day. Water helps you to…

• Sweat
• Stay hydrated
• Sleep
• Flush toxins from your body
• Feel full
• Increase cellular communication & transfer of minerals, nutrients and vitamins
• Improve bowel movements

Every metabolic process in the body, whether it be a muscle contraction or a biochemical reaction in the liver, requires water to be present. – Lonny Horowitz, a board certified bariatrician

It’s such a simple thing and for some reason we don’t do it. Jim Rohn says, that it’s the simple things that lead to success. Drinking water is simple and easy.

It’s easy to do and it’s also easy NOT to do.

If it’s simple….do it. Drink more water, it’s easy and will improve your immune system health dramatically.

In fact water is so important we did an entire show about it with our guest Daniel Vitalis.

Sunlight

Getting enough sun is absolutely critical for our health. In today’s day and age people will tell you to avoid the sun at all costs for fear of getting skin cancer. Although there is evidence to suggest that sun exposure can be linked (not caused) by sun exposure, I do not suggest people avoid the sun all together.

The sun is responsible for giving off electromagnetic radiation and stimulates our body to create a steroid hormone that we call vitamin D. Vitamin D directly influences 3,000 of your 35,000 genes in the the body for immune system response.

It helps improve immunity, absorb calcium and lower cholesterol. Deficiency in Vitamin D has been linked to autoimmune disorders and more.

A study in Japan suggested that school kids who took vitamin D were 58% less likely to come down with Influenza A.

Grounding

For those that are unfamiliar, grounding or “earthing” as it’s called, is the idea of actually having bare skin contact directly with the earth. It’s been called skin to earth contact. The earth is releasing free electrons every moment of every day. When our skin touches the earth, those electrons get transferred to us.

This transfer of electrons helps regulate our circadian rhythms and lower inflammation in the body. This free flow of electrons seems to help the immune system reset itself.

This supports the idea that we ought to be connected to the earth and I imagine that in time, more studies will bear this out.

There are earthing mats (I’m connected to one right now) and even bed sheets you can sleep on during the night if you’re interested.

If you’re interested in these ideas listen to this show.

Minerals

Minerals are the key to life. Without all 92 trace elements we die. The immune system needs minerals to function properly. The average tomato is genetically programmed to update roughly 56 minerals from the soil. Each plant has a different ability to uptake minerals. Tomatoes are programmed to uptake roughly 56.

But that’s if the soil is teeming with life and contains all those minerals. There are ways to make sure your garden soils have all the minerals possible.

You want to use rock dust, diluted ocean water, composting and manure. If you want to get even more fancy you can use something called compost tea which we discussed during this podcast episode.

If you’re lucky enough to be able to grow your own food that’s highly mineralized those fruits and vegetables will contain more enzymes, vitamins, phytochemicals and will be better able to protect itself (think immunity here) from invaders (think germs and viruses) so it won’t need artificial pesticides (think pharmecutical drugs, chemotherapy, radiation, antibiotics, flu shots and vaccines!).

Minerals are the name of the game!

Food

The more food we eat (regardless if it’s organic, vegan, raw or wild) the more our body has to break it down and deal with it. The less we eat the longer we live.

Here are some foods that you can add into your diet that will help you improve your immune system.

• Garlic
• Mushrooms
• Fermented foods (sauerkraut, kefir, yogurt etc)
• Coconut products (anti fungal)
• Antioxidant rich foods (berries)
• Bee products (honey, propolis, bee pollen)
• Aloe vera
• Astragalus
• Echinacea
• Glycyrrhiza glabra (licorice root)

Fasting

Every spiritual leader in just about every religious tradition fasted. The list of famous fasters include Muhammad, Jesus, Paramahansa Yogananda, Gandhi, Moses, Joseph, Paul, Peter, Solomon and many others.

[spp-tweet tweet=”The best of all medicines is resting and fasting – Benjamin Franklin”]

When you’re eating the body must deal with that food. Every organ must work hard to process, digest, break down, absorb and assimilate that food and then excrete what it doesn’t need.

That’s a lot of work.

It’s been said that eating food takes up more energy from your body than it would to run an entire marathon.

Whenever an animal in the wild gets sick they immediately stop eating, find a nice warm place like a cave, hunker down and let their body heal.

It’s natural.

Instead of having to deal with food, the body and immune system can begin sending all the wonderful healing cells to the area of inflammation or sickness and heal it.

Fasting has been shown to help the immune system heal and be more powerful.

The Bible says that..

[spp-tweet tweet=”We are fearfully and wonderfully made!”]

Here are all the types of cells that make up the immune system:

• B Cells
• Dendritic Cells
• Granulocytes
• Innate Lymphoid Cells (ILCs)
• Megakaryocytes
• White Blood Cells
• Monocytes/Macrophages
• Natural Killer (NK) Cells
• Platelets
• Red Blood Cells (RBCs)
• T Cells
• Thymocytes

Rebounding

Rebounding is the practice of jumping up and down on a mini trampoline. You might think, “how does this improve my immune system?” Rebounding has many benefits which you can read here if your’e interested.

But for the focus of this article I’d like to talk about the lymphatic fluid of the body. The lymphatic system is closely intertwined with our immune system.

The lymph system is connected to the thymus gland, the spleen, the tonsils and other key organs.

Did you know that you have more lymphatic fluid in your body than you do blood?

As far as the immune system goes, the lymph fluid collects toxins and chemicals stored in the body. The lymph system unfortunately has no pump. So when you jump up and down on a rebounder you’re opening and closing all of these one way valves. The jumping almost acts like a pump and helps keep circulation going.

Remember life is movement.

The better your bowels move, the less toxins and waste you store in your colon and intestines. The more your lymphatic system is able to move fluid, the more toxins, chemicals and poisons get moved out when that fluid can circulate.

Supplements

Obviously living a healthy lifestyle with organic whole foods, lots of clean water, plenty of sleep, sunlight, fresh air and happiness is your first order of business.

Taking immune building supplements is helpful but it should fit into a broader scope of living a life that supports specific targeted supplement regimen.

If you can focus on the items listed above, your won’t have to spend much money on expensive supplements. 🙂

In this article I’m not going to focus on supplements to take if you get sick. There are many you can take that act as a natural antibiotic like olive leaf extract, MMS, oxygen or oregano oil. I like to make what I call the anti plague venom which is pretty powerful!

These substances are more to be used when you’re already caught the flu or your lungs are congested and you feel a cold coming on. I’m going to focus on supplements you can take daily to keep your immunity strong so you never get sick!

• Vitamin C
• Probiotics
• Reishi & Chaga Mushrooms
• Astragulus
• Zinc
• Vitamin D
• Iodine
• Beta Glucan
• Olive Leaf Extract
• Selenium
• Colostrum
• Essential Fatty Acids
• B Vitamins especially Vitamin B12

I’m big on vitamin b12 because if you don’t have adequate b12 levels phagocytic cell production and t-cell production get diminished and that’s definitely not a good sign.

The Takeaway

Here’s the big takeaway….take care of your body, your health and your life before you need to resort to taking massive amounts of ozone or oxygen therapy. Or even worse don’t let your immune system become so depleted that you get some kind of disease and take chemotherapy or radiation that further destroy your immunity.

As they say and ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

It’s much easier to keep a healthy body healthy, than it is to turn a sick body into a healthy one. Much more effort and resources are required for that kind of undertaking.

If you’re living a healthy life full of all the right health practices that we’ve described above, most likely you’ll never catch anything other than a cold or a flu.

If you do get those than you can take herbs, supplements, juices and adopt cleansing strategies to overcome the illness.

It’s imperative that people not just understand digestion or how the immune system works but also live a happy health life so they don’t get sick in the first place.

Share some ways you improve your immune system below. And if you do get sick, what are some “go to” strategies that work?

Comment below!