Antibiotics, C-sections, and Food Dyes: Toxins That Harm Your Immune System

Every medication you can take depletes your body of vitamins and minerals. If you take an antibiotic drug, here's the problem. You might have gotten rid of that one bacteria, but now your body is weakened and not as effective and strong at fighting any other virus or bacteria you have to fight in the future. And those doctors lack wisdom and they're breaking the Hippocratic Oath.

Children often getting more than 2 dozen treatments by age 2. Whoa. Emotions are strongly tied to the health of your immune system. What? It's absolutely just crazy. I mean, it's absolutely crazy. So going back to this, here's the issue. Hey, everyone. Welcome to my podcast. I'm Dr. Josh Axe. I'm a graduate of Johns Hopkins University.

I'm the founder of draxe.com, Ancient Nutrition, and leaders.com. And I'm so excited today to dive into the immune system. So this is going to be, we'll call it kind of a masterclass on the immune system today. And this is so important because we are seeing more and more immune-related issues today.

And so whether you're trying to protect yourself from a virus like COVID, or you're looking to fight cancer or strengthen your own immune system or prevent or start to reverse autoimmune disease, there are certain things you need to do in terms of the foods you eat, the supplements you take, the lifestyle that you have if you want to care for your immune system.

So this might be one of the most important episodes ever because The principles I'm going to talk about today, a few you've heard of, but there's many that you may not have heard of. And I think I'm going to really help you understand how to care for your immune system in the most powerful way possible. Now, we're— our immune systems are under attack.

And if you look at the statistics, immune-related conditions are growing. They've been growing astronomically for the past 50 or so years. You know, cases of allergies, asthma, autoimmune disease, and even cancer since the 1950s have gone up every year in adults and especially in children and teenagers. And our immune system protects us from disease and dysfunction.

And a weakened immune system affects your quality of life. In fact, if you ever, you know, get exposed to a virus— Here's, here's something just to remember. There are— we are constantly surrounded by viruses and bacteria and parasites and things that can affect our immune system. But if your immune system is strong, you'll handle it just fine.

Have you ever been in the office or, uh, or just somewhere where, uh, where some people got sick and other people didn't? Well, why did one people— people with both the same exposure and the same virus got exposed to things and one got it, another person didn't seem to come down with it, or it affected one person much more severely, or Or for a longer period of time, another period not so long.

Why is that? It all has to do with how your immune system is functioning. And most doctors and medical organizations don't view the immune system in the correct light. What they believe is, is, well, your immune system is just the way it is, and so we need to go and attack the germ, the invader, the bug, the virus, the bacteria.

When the reality is, no, you need to strengthen your own immune system, and then your immune system will easily take care of any virus or bacteria or thing that you've been exposed to. And it could also be something like gluten or casein or a heavy metal. If your immune system is really strong, your body can deal with most everything.

However, we have major deficiencies today that are causing immune system issues and major toxicity issues that are causing a weakened immune system that I'm going to dive into the science and some studies and some practical things according to some of the most ancient, uh, ancient principles that you're gonna learn today. Now, I wanna start off talking about what your immune system is.

So here's what your immune system is. It's a complex network of organs, cells, proteins, and microbes. So bacteria that defend the body against infections, also while protecting its own cells. So remember this, your, what's your immune system? Your immune system is compromised of organs such as your gut, And your spleen and your pituitary gland, uh, or thymus.

So your immune system is made up of certain organs, your lungs and your colon. So, so those are the, those are, it's made up of organs, it's made up of cells. So your cells and your mitochondria affect your immune system. Again, proteins that are in your body, and then bacteria, microbes, fungi even, uh, make up your immune system.

So there are many things that make up your immune system as a whole. And you want all of these organ systems working synergistically. You want your lungs flowing and, and helping, uh, create a balance of nitrogen and oxygen and, and, and clearing out and filtering out, uh, bad bacteria and mold and those sort of things. So your lungs are critical.

Your colon, where all your microbes are, those will go and help detoxify and cleanse out things that can— of, of, of things that are broken down to eliminate those bad viruses and bacteria. Yeah. Uh, as an example. So, um, it's really important that then what you do is you strengthen those organ systems, because if your lungs are weak, well, now a major part of your immune system's weak.

Or if your gut microbiome is weak and there's not enough good bacteria and there's too much bad bacteria, well, now that system is weak. Okay? And so it's really important that we strengthen up your organ systems. And listen, that's really the key. That's something no one's talking about. Why is vitamin D good? Well, because it helps strengthen up your entire immune system.

That's why probiotics are good. It's why vitamin C is good. It's why zinc is critical, because zinc helps repair and strengthen your gut microbiome, which is a key part of your immune system. Now, I want to go through some statistics here that I think are going to blow your mind.

It has to do with the frequency of autoimmune disease and how it's increased significantly over the past 30 to 70 years. Now, listen, there was a study done in 1990, and they found that 11% of the US population, so 22 million people had autoimmune disease. That's pretty high already. Think about that. 11% Of the population had autoimmune disease in 1990.

Now, if we go then 10 years later to 2000, it was 11.5%. So a little jump. It's still 27 million people. Now go to 2012, 12 years later, 16%. So we've seen over the past You know, let's call it 30, 35 years, nearly a double increase in autoimmune disease. Okay. And this increase in autoimmune markers, it was the steepest at children aged 12 to 19 years old.

So teenagers actually tripled in the study. So what we're going to see is these numbers are going to continue to snowball because the older population has a very small amount of autoimmune disease. But the younger generation, we're talking about Gen Z and millennials, the numbers are astronomical.

And that 20% will likely eventually turn into, based on the tripling of this younger generation, possibly 30% of the population, one-third in the future projected having some form of autoimmune disease if we extrapolate the data and where it's headed. And so what do we do about this?

And I want to go in this episode, I'm going to go through how do you strengthen your immune system, how do you prevent autoimmune disease, how do you fight it, and also how do you strengthen your immune system and balance it in how it fights viruses.

So if you come down with something like a certain type of virus or cold or flu, how to build your body to where you either, either you don't catch it at all, to where your immune system's so strong you don't have symptoms, or if you do, your body can kick it quickly with less Lesser symptoms. Okay. And I'm gonna talk about cancer a little bit too.

We'll get into all this because all of this is relevant to your immune system. Now, here's one of the big issues we have today when it comes to our immune systems. We are continually bombarded with toxins. And remember this, there are 2 main causes of weakened immune systems and autoimmune disease: toxicity and deficiency. So remember, it's really simple. I think sometimes we overcomplicate this.

So your immune system, you have immune system issues because of toxicities and deficiencies. And by the way, this is according to scientists say environmental factors may be responsible for up to 70% of autoimmune disease. So what are some of these toxins we're exposed to?

What could be persistent organic pollutants such as Roundup chemicals in our food supply, toxic heavy metals like lead and arsenic? Arsenic is found in our food supply, in our water supply. Mercury from silver fillings that people have had put in, solvents.

So chemicals that are just Regularly used as our household cleaners, endocrine disruptors such as BPA plastics in our foods and drinks, aluminum in our deodorant and body care products.

A lot of these chemicals start to add up in the body, and it's something scientists call the bucket effect, to where if your body is like a bucket, your body and your immune system can handle a certain amount of chemicals naturally. Okay, so hey, you have a little heavy metals here and there, you have a little bit of You know, plastic exposure, you know, environment and smog that you breathe in.

So your body can handle so much, but over time, if you just keep dumping it in and your organs, your liver and your lungs and your detoxification organs are not able to eliminate those chemicals quickly enough or not functioning properly, then your bucket, that load gets higher and higher and higher till finally your body can't handle anymore, starts spilling over, and then your immune system starts overreacting with something like an autoimmune disease.

You may end up with something Like brain fog, chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothyroidism, like Hashimoto's thyroiditis, or some other issue. So that's what starts to happen. Now listen, there are 4 main causes of toxicity I wanna talk about right now and talk about how to eliminate those.

And then I'm gonna get into the supplements, the foods, the vitamins, everything you need to start to build up and strengthen these various organs that strengthen your immune response. First thing is, uh, let me just go through the list of 4 here. The first thing, uh, number 1 is medications and antibiotic drugs. Number 2 is abnormal chemical exposures. Number 3 is microplastics.

Number 4 is food dyes and colorings. And if I throw in a 5th one, it's going to be emotional trauma. All of these things are toxic to our bodies, which impact our immune system. Let's talk— touch on the first one here, toxicity from medications and antibiotics. Now, uh, I wanna start off here at birth, and this is when most autoimmune disease starts. It's at birth. Okay?

Uh, or let's say the first couple years of life, per example. And I'm gonna get into actually birth here in our, in my next one as I talk about deficiencies. Uh, but when it comes to toxicity, antibiotic drugs, when they're given to children, destroy the gut microbiome. They kill off many, many good microbes that if they're given antibiotics, it's very hard to repopulate.

Some may never be repopulated. Okay. And children who have taken— listen, this is a medical study. Babies or children that have received antibiotic drugs have a higher risk of developing asthma, eczema, and allergies.

Kids, however, who have a lot more good exposure early on, such as having a pet or growing up on a farm or spending more time outdoors, they have a lower incidence of autoimmune disease. And there was a 2017 study conducted at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. And here's what they found. Antibiotics disrupt the gut microbiome.

So the actual lining, so your tissue, so the organ and the bacteria. So it's really disrupting 2 areas that are important for your immune system, the actual gut and the probiotics. And what happened was, is it decreased the activity of neutrophils, which neutrophils are things like, have you heard of like natural killer cells or your white blood cells? These are— Yeah.

Immune cells that, that are a major part of your immune system, that white blood cells, they go and they will gobble up, let's say, a virus like a COVID virus or a flu virus that will go and attack those, break them down, and then help your body get rid of those. So you have to have those.

Well, if you take antibiotics, it decreases your neutrophil activity, blocking these important white blood cells from responding when needed. So listen, if you take an antibiotic drug, here's the problem. You might have gotten rid of that one bacteria, but now your body is weakened and not as effective and strong at fighting any other virus or bacteria you have to fight in the future.

This leaves your immune system weaker when you take an antibiotic drug. And basically your gut, uh, is responsible for doing so many things. So, so, and this goes far beyond just fighting viruses. If your gut microbiome isn't healthy, you're not absorbing your vitamins and nutrients. You might be taking multivitamins, you might be taking of vitamin B12.

You might be, uh, taking, uh, you know, eating healthy food, but you may not be absorbing the nutrients because you don't have the good bacteria and the gut lining isn't healthy. So it's not absorbing and bringing that into the bloodstream, then into your body's cells, if you've taken antibiotic drugs or if you're just deficient in good bacteria.

The other thing antibiotics do, uh, I, I should mention, is they also— and by the way, the studies show over and over again that if you— every single medication, there isn't one single medication, everything from a Baby aspirin to Synthroid to birth control pills, every medication you can take depletes your body of vitamins and minerals. There isn't a single one.

Birth control depletes your body of B vitamins. Uh, metformin, a diabetic drug, depletes your body of coenzyme Q10. Um, you know, there's a lot of drugs, most of them deplete your body of B vitamins. Okay. And so, for instance, okay, So, so let's say you had taken metformin and now your body's depleted in coenzyme Q10. Well, if you don't have coenzyme Q10, your heart can't function properly.

So now what happens is now you've increased your risk of a heart attack. So you can see here how there's this cascading effect, this domino effect of you take one drug, an antibiotic, well, now your immune system's weaker. Now you're not absorbing nutrients. Now all of these things start to happen over time. So really medications, especially antibiotics. Can be incredibly damaging.

And I'm going to go through how to repopulate over time. By the way, the same study found that— here's the quote of Bill Petrie, who he was— he's an infectious disease specialist. And here's what he said about this specific study. He says, unwise use of antibiotics not only increased the risk of multidrug-resistant bacteria.

So what he's saying is you now have an increased risk of getting something like MRSA. So a bacterial-resistant strain of virus or a bacteria-resistant strain of bacteria. And he says the risk of C. difficile infection, but also impairs white blood cell function. So he's saying here it's unwise. Listen, if you don't think there's major side effects of using antibiotic drugs, you're not wise. Okay?

So obviously wisdom— any doctor who knows what they're doing is if they're going to prescribe their patients something, they're going to say, okay, listen, I don't wanna give you this antibiotic drug. I'm gonna do everything in my power to keep you away from this. So I'm gonna give you vitamins, I'm gonna give you supplements, I'm gonna recommend a certain way of eating.

I'm gonna recommend you spend time outdoors in sunshine. I'm gonna give all these natural ways because I'm a physician and I took an oath to say, first do no harm, right? Any doctor that just goes in and they just say, well, there's an antibiotic, and that's all they do, they are breaking their oath. They don't have integrity. They don't have character. That's the reality.

If doctors are just prescribing drugs in that manner versus they get to the point where they've tried everything possible, it's a really, really aggressive bacteria and they say, okay, you know what? I don't wanna give this to you, but we have to because this is just so severe. It's life-threatening. I'm gonna give it to you for the, for a certain amount of time.

We're gonna be doing all of these other healthy things in conjunction with these antibiotics, and I'm putting you on super high dose probiotics and other things afterwards. To help repair your cells, to help repair your gut microbiome, and to repopulate the good flora in your gut.

That is what a wise physician, whether it be an MD or a chiropractor or an osteopath or a naturopath, that's what they would do if you come in and you have a bacterial or viral issue. I also want to mention in this study, they also found in this study that antibiotic use is widespread in low and middle income countries. With children often getting more than 2 dozen treatments by age 2. Whoa.

So we are seeing what's happening. Kids between the ages of 0 and 12, they go into their doctor, it's like antibiotic, antibiotic, antibiotic. And those doctors lack wisdom and they're breaking the Hippocratic Oath. So again, if you want to protect your immune system, know so much of it is tied into your gut health.

And that's why antibiotics— I spent so much time there because it's just that That's important. Now, some other areas I wanna mention of toxicity. Remember, there's 2 things that weaken your immune system, okay? Toxicity and deficiency. So here's another one regarding toxicity. Exposure to heavy metals and chemicals. It could be mercury, okay, from silver fillings.

It could be arsenic in the food supply. It could be aluminum in your deodorant. It could be, listen, it could be drugs, right? Those are chemicals. Chemical exposures. Vaccines have chemicals, right? Chemical exposures. Food can have chemical exposures. You know, If you go to a city that has a lot of smog, like Mexico City or LA, you're having more chemical exposures, right?

So no, you know, Roundup, if you're living in a place where they spray a lot of chemicals, or mosquito spray, all of these things, they add up over time, creating toxicity in our body. It can cause overreaction. Another big form of toxicity that we are exposed to is microplastics.

If you ingest Plastics, uh, on a regular basis, which a lot of us do, basically your— it's been shown in studies, your, your, your mucous membranes in your mouth, your throat, your gut, really your entire, uh, your entire digestive tract responds with an inflammatory response. Okay? So it's gonna cause inflammation.

If you have a lot of this in your gut, it'll actually cause a condition known as leaky gut syndrome.

If you're exposed to a lot of these toxins and microplastics, antibiotics, But the microplastics in particular, research has shown that adults take in approximately 883 plastic particles every day, whether it be you're drinking out of a plastic container, uh, or you're eating, you know, you're using a plastic fork or whatever it might be. We're constantly exposed. Also, here's another big one.

There are a lot of microplastics embedded in our fruits. Our vegetables, and even some, uh, packaged meat such as, you know, uh, like, like turkey sandwich meat. All of these are, uh, you know, embedded.

So have you ever bought— you know, you, if you buy vegetables today, let's say you go and buy a zucchini, okay, or squash, you'll notice there's almost like this kind of like, uh, like there's like this coating on it, like almost like, uh, it's, it's like a, like a plasticky layer. Those are microplastics, okay? That's, that's not good. That's adding to that toxic burden.

That's why buying organic can be so important for certain foods. The other big one is, and we see this with kids, is toxicity from food dyes and colorings. Over the past 50 years, the amount of synthetic dye used in foods has increased by 500%, and this consumption can activate this inflammatory cascade.

And we've— the studies have linked this to ADHD, autism, allergies, and asthma, every one of those conditions in children. But here's the other big one: autoimmune disease. Okay. The consumption of food dyes and food colorings and food additives has also been linked to autoimmune disease in children. And so it's really important that we reduce our toxic exposure.

Now, now I wanna dive into deficiency. By the way, if you're watching this on YouTube, I'd love to know what are your thoughts on this? Have you, have you noticed that, that, that same dramatic increase in autoimmune disease doubling likely or close to over the past probably 50 or 60 years? And we're gonna likely see, because we see the stats. The younger generation has more.

So as they age and the younger generation continues to come in, we're gonna continue to see auto— autoimmune disease on the rise. By the way, my expectation, my prediction is in about probably 20 to 30 years, we'll have one-third of the entire population will have autoimmune disease in the United States and in Europe and Western countries.

So, so if you wanna strengthen your autoimmune disease, if you wanna strengthen your immune system, Stay away from the big ones, antibiotic drugs. And it's not just the drugs, those hand sanitizers, the gel you put on your hands constantly, most of them contain antibiotics. The hand soap, the things you clean your house with, all of those add up.

In fact, meat and dairy products, if they're not organic, they also carry antibiotic residue that we get in our food supply. Did you know that 80% of antibiotics Are given to the, uh, given to animals, livestock. So beef, chickens, lamb, that's, that's where most of the antibiotic goes.

And so if you're eating food, meat that's not organic or wild, well, and by the way, if, if you're shopping on a budget, the most important foods to buy organic would be meat and dairy products. They're much more important than actually vegetables or fruits or, or grains and any food like that because, uh, they, they, they, they, they, they will accumulate a lot more toxins in their tissues.

So, so that's why it's important to buy meat and dairy specifically organic if you're eating those foods consistently. Okay. So again, let, let's now touch on deficiency. Now I wanna give you some practical things. So again, avoid the antibiotics as much as you can. Avoid the, you know, the, the excessive hand sanitizers, all of those things that damage our immune systems.

But by the way, one other form of toxicity I didn't get into yet, I do wanna mention, is emotional trauma. Okay? If you have been through, well, by the way, it's not just emotional trauma, physical abuse.

Emotional abuse, if you have a lot of negative thoughts, mental health issues, any of those things that are— you're living in a state of fear constantly or worry or anxiety, those also weaken your immune system in a really profound way.

In fact, they will weaken your immune system as much or more than all the toxins, other toxins I talked about that were actually mechanical, that are actually physical. These emotional, spiritual, those sort of toxins. Are just as weakening to your immune system. In fact, if you look at Chinese medicine, they will say that that is the primary cause of toxicity, is toxic emotions.

So if you live in a state of, uh, for instance, if you live in the past to a degree and you have something that bothered you from many years ago, like you're living with unforgiveness, there's somebody that wronged you and you haven't forgiven them, that has been shown to weaken your lungs, colon, and liver. Those are all part of and contribute some way to your immune system.

And so it's really, really important that if you have a constant narrative or cycle of a, of being anxious or depressed or something, that, that you do everything in your power to, uh, to remedy and improve those negative emotions. And basically what you want to do is you want to now start to strengthen the opposite.

So if you have— now obviously if you have something like unforgiveness or something in the past, you want to go then and forgive the person. And, and do your best to start to move forward from that. Um, you want to, if you have something issue, like you worry a lot, well, now you need to say, well, why am I worrying? Well, I don't feel safe and secure. Why don't I feel safe and secure? Okay.

For these reasons. Well, what can I do to, to help that? Right? So, so you need to start moving in the opposite direction. But again, remember this, emotions are strongly tied to the health of your immune system. So if you have unhealthy emotions, it, you're, it's causing unhealthy immune system.

If you have healthy emotions, Like hope and joy and love and gratitude that will actually strengthen your immune system. Let's now talk about deficiencies and some things you can start doing in order to improve. So I wanna talk about the biggest deficiencies we tend to have. There's 3 I'm gonna dive into, really 4. Number 1, lack of exposure to pollen and limited time outdoors.

So the things that are just naturally floating in the air, you need greater exposure there. During most of the time of the year. Number 2, a lack of security and safety. I'm going to throw in the emotional, the deficiency of healthy emotions there. Okay? So, there's 3 things. Number 3 is probiotic deficiency. We talked about this, okay?

But, I'm going to dive into the exact things to do for it here. So, deficiency outdoors. Listen to this. First off, this is unbelievable and I'm interested to see if you think this is as crazy as I do. The average child only gets 4 to 7 minutes of outdoor free time every day. This means the average child is probably outside for 30 minutes or so, just a few times a week.

So the average kid is probably outdoors less than 3 hours a week. Here's what's crazy is according to an expert on this, her name's Angela Handscom. She's a pediatric therapist. She says kids of all ages should get at least 3 hours of free play outdoors a day.

So one of the leading experts in the study and the research of this, she says most kids today are getting 3 hours outside a week because so much time on video games and in school and watching TV and on their phones. When it should be 3 hours a day is the ideal number.

And so this deficiency in spending time outdoors and in nature is probably the single biggest weakener of the immune system in a lot of kids today. Okay, now sometimes kids already start off at a deficiency, and I've seen kids— now this is 1% of the population— but allergic to trees and grass and leaves. But this is why it's so important. Kids early on in life Get them outdoors.

You know, when my daughter Arwen was born, uh, it was— I remember being, uh, being cold outside, okay? And, um, and, and we— what I would do is even if it was cold out, I would go out there and still for 5 minutes or so, or stand in the window, and I would hold her on my chest and we would go outside and I would make sure she got sun for, for, you know, for, for so many minutes a day.

And, um, you know, we typically would bring her out for about 20 minutes a day, okay? And we would get a little sun on both sides of her and walk her outdoors. And if I couldn't, if it was just too cold or windy or raining, well then I would just hold her even by the window so she even got some of that sunlight.

But, but kids really, even if— listen, no matter where you live, whether you're in Canada or Denmark or, or, or somewhere in Russia, somewhere up north, you still want to do your best to get outside as much as possible. Now listen, if it's -50 out, you know, stay indoors, okay? But if even if it's, you know, even if it's in the teens or zero, you want to get a little bit of time outdoors.

And of course, in this fall and spring In summer, make up for it even more time outside if possible. But again, 3 hours a day is the ideal amount of time outdoors for children. By the way, it's also the ideal time outdoors for adults. Think about a lot of adults today and think about yourself, especially if it's winter or it's just not summer.

I think a lot of adults during the weekdays, you might wake up, be indoors, be in your car, be in your workspace, get home, be indoors, and never spend more than just a couple minutes outdoor the entire day. This is why going on walks, let's say you, you know, You're at work and you have a, you have a lunch break.

Well, eat your meal and then go for a 20-minute walk every single time you can, because even that 20 minutes outside a day does incredible things for your immune system, both because of the sunlight, but also because you want to be breathing in and getting exposure to the pollen in the air and the actual regional microbes, because that strengthens your own immune system.

And, and this is also why you might have heard that raw honey is good. Have you heard that raw honey and bee pollen? Those in particular are really good for your immune system. Here's why. If you eat honey that's local, it contains over 200 microbes and types of pollen.

So when you're eating that, your body is now building up a natural immunity to high doses of pollen you could get in the spring and the fall during allergy season. I found for myself, one time I moved to a new area and I don't think I was caring for myself like I should. I was a student just coming out of school. And I had allergy symptoms. I'd never had them before in my whole life.

And then the next year, I, I, I, I, I had read some research on honey and bee pollen. I started eating it. I had, I had a teaspoon of bee pollen, a teaspoon of raw local honey from that area every day the rest of the year. And then when that next spring and fall rolled around, had no allergies, no issues. I also started eating some local produce. No, no, no, no, no problems at all.

So again, it's one of the best ways to strengthen your immune system is do both pollen and local honey. A teaspoon a day really makes a difference. Um, and so, and think about this, it's microdosing, okay? So, so you have no tolerance to pollen, so you're exposed to pollen, you're exposed to something your body, your body isn't used to it, so it overreacts.

If you get these microdoses over time, your body builds up a resilience to it, so then it can handle it in the future, okay? Your body becomes more tolerant. That's the idea there. Uh, as well. So next thing here, here's another big deficiency we have: lack of security and safety.

According to ancient Chinese medicine, if your body— if you don't feel safe and secure in your identity, within your family, in your relationships, in your, in your financials, all those, your job— if you don't feel emotionally safe and secure and confident in a number of things, it could be worthy, all of those things. Then it weakens your immune system.

Uh, one organ in particular, 2 in particular, your spleen and your pancreas. According to Chinese medicine, if you don't feel safe and secure and you have a level of worry and anxiousness because of it, uh, that weakens your spleen. So your red blood cells, uh, is, is a big part of that there and part of your immune system.

Your pancreas, which is your enzymes, which breaks down food, which then affects your immune system. So all that being said, if you don't feel safe and secure, your immune system's weakened. Think about the lack of masculine fathers and healthy family relationships and how that leads to children constantly in a fight or flight state.

So think about a child if they don't have— and the statistics of fatherless homes are continuing to increase. And so if a child doesn't have a father around, oftentimes— now listen, I'm not saying 100% of the time, But statistically, what I'm saying is 100% true. If a child does not have a father figure around, they feel less safe and less secure.

Okay, well, if you don't feel less safe and less secure, then your body gets in what's called a fight or flight state. You know, there is a significant association between early caregiving environments such as child that have really both parents, a mother loving and a father protecting.

And a high-functioning, what's called your HPA axis system, which is a key neurobiological system involved in stress reactivity and regulation. And in the face of physical and psychological stressors, your HPA axis system releases cortisol, which activates various systems throughout the body, like your inflammatory system, to manage those challenges.

So if a child does not feel safe and secure and feels A center of a level of chaos in their life. So for instance, let's think about how some of these things can add up over time. Okay. A child, one, let's say they don't have a father in the home. Okay. That'd be one. So there's less safety and security.

Let's say there's a mother, and I'm not saying anyone here, but let's say there's a mother and because she's just so overwhelmed, she's not able to give some of the love and care and nurturing that the child needs. Okay. Well, so we have deficiency of protection and safety. There's also deficiency maybe of love, compassion, and caring. And then let's say maybe they get put into a daycare.

Okay, it's a crazy daycare, and now the kids are being bullied. And so now can you see where you start adding up deficiency of love, deficiency of safety, you know, being bullied, all of these things together, what that does to a child's neurological system and their immune system over time?

What happens is their fight or flight system, their sympathetic nerve system goes up, but their parasympathetic and their immune system starts to go down and get weakened. You can see where emotions and light, the things going on in life, our emotional, our spiritual, our mental life plays such a role in the immune system.

Now, I wanna talk about and switch gears here and talk about another deficiency, the last one here before I get into exactly what to do to strengthen your immune system. Another major deficiency is probiotics. A major determinant of the composition of neonatal microbiota is the delivery mode.

Okay, so, so the way that a child is born, whether it be C-section or vaginal, has a major, major impact on the child's gut microbiome early on. In fact, listen, here's the thing I want to say. C-section is an important operation. In the field of obstetrics, right? It, it, it, it can save the life of the mom and the child in certain situations. Here's what I'm seeing though, okay?

I see kind of— listen, I believe probably, you know, a very, very minute small percentage of, of women actually need C-section. Now, now sometimes they do, by the way. Sometimes absolutely women need a C-section. I'm so glad that we have the wisdom. And the innovation of C-section to save the lives of the mom and the child. But it's overdone. Statistics have shown it. Studies have shown it.

Many doctors have said it, that it is overdone. Listen to this. In recent years, C-section has been greatly overused. The proportion of C-sections delivered infants has increased year by year. In fact, listen to this. China has a rate of close to 50% of C-sections. So listen to this. 50% Of the kids born in China are via C-section. Whoa. That's crazy.

Can I tell you something so crazy that, that, that I've, I've, I've heard multiple times? We had a, uh, I, I have a, I have a mom, uh, a few, by the way, this isn't just one, a few. And their doctors told them, hey, you've got a small body type. So these might be women that are just short and just smaller bodies. And, um, and the doctor told 'em, and by the way, this is their first birth.

This isn't their second or third even. This is even for their first birth. They said, We need to do a C-section and go ahead and schedule you a couple weeks early because we don't think your pelvis, your body is big enough. The baby will be too big for it, for it to come out. What?

Do you think that God created a woman's body to where the baby growing inside her, the baby is just— it's too big to come out? You might think I'm kidding. I'm not kidding when I say this. This isn't one doctor. There's multiple doctors, multiple women I've heard this from, that the baby might be too big to come out.

The reality is oxytocin, all these hormones relax the ligaments and the woman's pelvis will just open up and the baby will come out at the time of birth. And it's absolutely just crazy. I mean, it's absolutely crazy. So going back to this, here's the issue. If a child is born via vaginal birth, there are a lot— I mean, I'm talking about thousands.

Of types of bacteria, uh, in the woman's reproductive system that when a baby is born vaginally, they get covered in these bacteria. And that's the— their first exposure to microbes, which then they breathe in through their nose, get some in through their mouth, through their skin, and that starts to go and populate their gut. Okay? And so if you can, having a birth naturally is the way to go.

Now, sometimes it's not possible, right? I know some moms and they tried so hard. Yeah. And it just didn't happen. And that's okay. And there's things you can do, and I'm gonna get into that. But that being said, if you ever go to a doctor and they tell you, oh, the child's too big, or we have to schedule it ahead of time, or you're gonna do it just for convenience sake, don't.

Because it is healthier for the child to be born vaginally versus C-section because of all the bacteria passed on from the mom and what that does for strengthening their gut microbiome and their entire immune system. Okay. Now here's something I do wanna mention. So, so listen to this. I, I, there is a, a, a scientist who, who, who had a great solution for this.

He said, if a child is born via C-section, you should go in and take, take swabs of the mother's vaginal canal and then coat the baby afterwards if they're born via C-section. Okay. That's a solution. So listen, even if you have a child that's gonna be born via C-section, you can still go and take. Some of those microbes from the mother and then pass those on and cover the, the child.

Specifically, you want to do the, the, the, the, the, the, the face, uh, area. And that's, again, there's some good, good research around that and good recommendations from some very innovative, um, OB-GYNs. Okay, so let's get into some solutions now. Okay, number 1, let's talk about lifestyle. First one is spend more time outdoors, ideally 3 hours a day. If you can't do 3 hours, do 2.

If you can't do Do one. If you can't do one, do 30 minutes. But whatever you do, do your best to get children outdoors the maximum amount of time. By the way, there's another study here. Part 2 is have a pet, a dog ideally. The next best would be a cat.

And listen, it's mostly, I'm just saying that cuz I'm a dog person and not a cat person, but a cat actually is equally, I think the study was, it was like a 1% difference, but it was very, very close. Okay. So, but dogs or cats? Or hey, if you live on a farm, even better. If you have some sheep or goats, wonderful. I know Jordan Rubin and I, we have a farm now.

We don't live on the farm, so we only go out there occasionally, but we have water buffalo and yaks and things like that. So those are, those are wonderful too. But children with pets, especially dogs, according to the study, during their first year of life, actually have better immune systems than those who do not.

Research shows that exposure to dogs may have positively boosted the maturation of children's immune systems. During infancy. When they did fall ill, they needed a shorter course of antibiotics compared to children who did not live with pets, according to the medical study.

So the more you can spend time outdoors or with pets and animals and things in the environment, the better your immune system will be for both you now and your children. Here's the next solution, is support your immune system with the foods you eat. All right. Um, according to Chinese medicine, The most, uh, the foods that most boost the immune system are— tend to be light yellow in color.

Okay, so here's a list of a few you want to consider. Chicken bone broth contains collagen, glucosamine, chondroitin, and hyaluronic acid. These are all things that help strengthen up the immune system. So chicken bone broth. Ginger, it's also light yellow, right? So ginger herbal tea, ginger in your food, but ginger, other herbs like galangal, Similar color.

That's going to help strengthen immunity. Miso— this is a Japanese, uh, uh, creation that can be added to soup, or it could be chicken. We add it to our chicken soup. We add it to certain things. I've added it to hummus. But miso strengthens your immune system. It's high in something called nattokinase. Uh, it's an enzyme as well and has some SBO probiotics. Uh, Bacillus subtilis.

So miso is an un— it's probably not talked about enough, but miso is an amazing immune-boosting food. Honey, as I talked about, honey, bee honey, honey and pollen strengthen your immune system. Onions contain quercetin, uh, which, which, which boosts the immune system. And garlic contains allicin, which boosts the immune system. So those are some of the top immune-boosting foods.

If you really want to boost your immune system, do a lot of soups, a lot of stews, chicken bone broth, a miso immunity soup. Um, even beef stew, things like that. A lot of soups, uh, will strengthen your immune system. Congee. So rice, actually, if you cook it for a long time and add some protein to it like chicken, that's very good for the immune system.

But you want to, to boost your immune system, a lot of meat, a lot of vegetables, a lot of herbs and spices. That's sort of the, the formula for creating a very, very strong immune system. When it comes to supplements, the top ones you need to boost your immune system, number one is zinc. Zinc is critical because it is the mineral that helps repair a damaged gut.

So if you've been exposed to toxins or taken an antibiotic and have any sort of leaky gut or damage, zinc is like— imagine there's a, there's a hole in your wall, like you've— somebody punched a hole in your wall, like, and that's, that's the equivalent of your gut lining. Well, you need the right building blocks to repair. Let's say it's bricks that have been broken.

Well, zinc is like the bricks, the minerals that go in, you replace it and help patch up the damage there. Zinc and collagen. That's how I would think about it is zincs are like the brick, collagen is like that paste in between that you have, the grout there in order to build a strong structure. So, zinc is critical. Vitamin D is very important.

Vitamin D, that'll work primarily with your liver for this. Your body will when you get sunshine or if you just take it as a supplement, both ways. But vitamin D is a prohormone that strengthens your immune response and strengthens everything from your bones, which another area of your immune system that's important is your bone marrow. Okay?

So you have your bones, which is mostly collagen and calcium, but in between, but in the center of your bone, you have bone marrow, which is where a large part, that's where your stem cells are. And so vitamin D is known for strengthening your bones and likely your body's own stem cell production. Now, zinc does that as well.

But vitamin D and zinc are the 2 most important things for— we've, we've heard vitamin C, and vitamin C is my next one. It is important, but I actually believe for most people today, zinc and vitamin D are more important for you strengthening your immune system. The next one is vitamin C. You know, with that, typically get that as food.

By the way, zinc, uh, as a number, it's 30 to 60 milligrams a day. Vitamin D, 5,000 to 10,000 I use a day. The great thing about these is you can do easy blood tests.

You can vitamin D test, and you can also do a micronutrient test if you go and see a doctor that practices functional medicine, and they can do either an organic acids test or a micronutrient test and test for every single one of these you might be deficient in. So vitamin C is important, about 1,000 milligrams a day typically. If you're sick, you can do higher doses than that.

Vitamin A, you know, the place I like to get vitamin A is from liver. I like to get it from organ meat. So, if you take a liver supplement or an organ blend supplement, Ancient Nutrition is the brand that I use and love. They have an organ blend supplement. They also have a male supplement that helps with testosterone. They have a woman's blend that helps with women's hormones.

But, I really like that because that has vitamin A in it, liver does, which is really great for strengthening your immune system. And then, selenium is another one that's key for thyroid function. Uh, and cellular, uh, immunity. The next here things are herbs and spices. Listen, there are a lot of amazing herbs and spices that strengthen the immune system, but here are some of my favorites.

Number one is elderberry. Elderberry has been shown in studies to shorten your cold and flu time and strengthen your body's immune response. Um, and I think you can do this even as a, uh, both if you're sick, but also as a preventative measure, measure, taking all of these herbs I'm about to mention. Elderberry. Uh, the next one is echinacea. Echinacea's known for strengthening your lungs.

So if you especially have bronchitis or some sort of issue that is lung-related, echinacea is good. Also, in studies have been shown to be good for endurance athletes because it's so good at strengthening the young— the lungs and the cardiovascular system, that part of your immune system. The next herb is probably my favorite for long-term immune health, and that is astragalus.

Astragalus, typically 1,000 to 2,000 milligrams a day. If you're in the middle of being very sick, Yeah. Or for something like the studies show in terms of fighting, uh, a major cellular condition like cancer, uh, astragalus of 4,000 milligrams a day. But for most people, about 1,000 milligrams regularly as a preventative measure is one of the best. It's also good for hypothyroidism.

Loads of benefits of astragalus for the immune system. Ginger reduces inflammation both of the gut and strengthens the immune system and helps the colon. So ginger is one of the best. And then the last one here is not an herb, it's a mushroom. It's turkey tail mushroom. And by the way, reishi is another good one that I could have thrown in there as well.

But all mushrooms, what I do is I take, again, Ancient Nutrition is a brand I take it. They have a multi-mushroom blend that has reishi and turkey tail and cordyceps and lion's mane and all these mushrooms in there. But mushrooms have tremendous benefits for your immune system.

So elderberry, echinacea, astragalus, ginger, turkey tail mushroom, some of the best for strengthening up your immune system. And depending on— you might know that, oh, my biggest immune issue is related to my gut health. Maybe you have inflammatory bowel disease, or you just know your digestion isn't healthy.

Well, in that case, you want to take a probiotic supplement and probably do something like ginger. Okay. So, and I should have mentioned supplements. That would be another one. It's not a vitamin or mineral, but probiotics are something you should take. If you're taking a probiotic, I like SBO. That stands for soil-based organisms.

Probiotics, you can find those online, but soil-based organism probiotics and ginger. If you know it's more lung-related for you, well, you should do echinacea and probably something like astragalus, uh, there as well. So, but these are the top things you should be doing on a regular basis, and you can start doing these now to strengthen your immune system.

If you can get— if you, if you do get sick, you can sort of up that there as well. And obviously there's a pretty big difference in the immune issues of cancer Of autoimmune disease, of allergies, and of getting a cold or flu. So having some sort of viral infection or even Lyme disease, right?

So there are a lot of issues related to our immune system, but a lot of these, all of these principles I shared hold true with every one of those types of immune issues. You need to focus on getting rid of the toxicity, addressing the deficiencies, both from a nutritional standpoint and an emotional standpoint, right? Yeah.

So there are also studies showing if you have a lot of negative emotions, you need to start fostering being grateful. That's one of the greatest things you can do to boost your immune system is write down what you're grateful for. And every morning just say, you know, go on a short walk, even if it's just around your house a little bit. Just what are you grateful for?

Name 3 things every single morning does tremendous things for your immune system. And so start working on building those healthy emotions would be another thing you want to do. Hey, I want to hear your thoughts on this podcast and show. And so if you have any thoughts, let me know. By the way, I'm going to be doing a Q&A episode here in the near future on immunity.

So ask your questions in the comments section for what you want me to cover in future episodes of the podcast and of the Q&A. I want to say, hey, I'm so grateful for you watching this. Listen, if you're not subscribed, Make sure to subscribe. Did you know that the YouTube algorithm only shows a small amount of the videos I put out? They show up in your feed.

So if you're not subscribed, you may miss out on one of the videos I have coming up with people like Dave Asprey and Vonnie Hari and Mark Hyman and Tim Tebow and, and some other amazing people. So make sure to subscribe here so you don't miss out. And thanks for sharing this as well. Thanks for being on mission with me.

You know, my goal of this podcast is to help people get healthier in all areas of their life— body, mind, and spirit. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video.