How to Boost Your Immune System Naturally | Q&A with Dr. Josh Axe

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What are your top daily to-dos and don't-dos to build immunity? How can I boost my baby's immunity if she's under the age of 1? Breastfeed, okay? COVID affects the blood. Here are some of those things that I have found when I worked with some patients and clients that helped them overcome this— these long COVID symptoms. Something has happened in your past and you haven't let go of it.

That causes autoimmune disease. Do you hear that?

Welcome to the show.

I am Dr. Josh Axe. Hey, every week on the show, I cover the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and take your career, your spirituality, and relationships to the next level. Hey, I recently did an episode on the immune system, and I got so much feedback that I decided to do a question and answer session where I answer your most commonly asked questions.

There, we put a post up on Instagram and got some great questions. So excited to dive in. And I'm going to be talking about immunity For many things during pregnancy, for infants, for children, for adults, both flu and cold season and autoimmunity and allergies and asthma, all on today's episode. So, I'm going to dive right in and start answering your questions.

By the way, if you're watching on YouTube, feel free to ask additional questions that I'll try and cover in the future. And if you're not on Instagram, follow me on there because that's, that's where we actually get a lot of the questions. Where I can then answer here on the podcast. Okay, here's the first question.

What are your top daily to-dos and don't-dos to build immunity and raise white blood cell count? Okay, so if you want to raise your white blood cell count— by the way, white blood cells are your body's defenders. They're going to go and gobble up and take care of infections. It could be viruses, Parasites, bacteria, mold, but white blood cells help you do that.

And it really is important that your system is robust and strong and it's able to produce plenty of white blood cells. So, here are ways to naturally raise your white blood cells according to medical research. The first is spend at least 20+ minutes a day outside in the winter, and then other times of the year, an hour plus outside.

So, the more time you spend outside, the better your immune system is. I think a lot of times there's this misconception that, well, hey, during the winter, I just shouldn't spend any time outside. Now, I do want to preframe this and say my wife grew up in Northern Minnesota and I've got a lot of Canadian friends. And if it's -40 out, don't spend time outside, okay?

But if you are in, like, I'm in Nashville, Tennessee, and let's say it's a brisk 25 degrees out, Go on a walk. Still get outside. Now, if it's raining, if it's raining or it's sleet and the— or the winds are blowing 40 miles per hour, then that's not good either. If there's way too much wind and way too much dampness and you're out for hours, that can be hard on the body.

But if it's at all a nice day, spend as much time outside as possible. And if it's in the 20s or teens, hey, bundle up, but still get outside, even if it's just for a 20-minute walk. At breakfast and at lunch. So, that's key. So, spend— and listen, if it's spring, if it's fall, if it's summer, then— and the weather is nice, then you want to spend hours outside.

So, really, the more time you spend outside, the healthier it is for your body. And so, one practice I love is doing a spiritual walk in the morning where I will maybe pray and I'll listen to the Bible on audio, or I'll meditate while I walk. But I'll do that for 20 minutes right when I wake up, right before or after breakfast.

Wow.

And then, I'll do that right around lunch. And so, I'll eat lunch, I'll go for a brisk walk, maybe I'll do some calls, something like that during that time as well. So, I think the more that you can walk and be outside, that actually helps build your white blood cell count.

One, of course, is vitamin D, but also what it does for your eyes, your circadian rhythms, it starts resetting hormones in your body that also help strengthen your organ systems, which will indirectly increase your white blood cell count. So, that's answer number 1. to how do you build your immunity and increase white blood cell count.

Here's the other thing is diet-wise, certain foods will help white blood cells, and they tend to be foods that are white or light yellow. So ginger, garlic, right? But what is the color of those? They're both light yellow. Chicken bone broth, that's light yellow. Miso soup. Okay, so miso that comes from chickpeas, that's light yellow.

So the more you can get a lot of these light yellow foods in your diet that are immune boosting— galangal is another one. That will really help. Also, getting plenty of protein, that's been shown to help you create white blood cells. So, especially wild-caught fish, chicken, and red meat. So, wild-caught fish, chicken, red meat, cooked vegetables.

You wanna do less raw to support your immune system. You wanna do a lot of cooked vegetables, like in soups, or steamed vegetables would be fantastic. It could be carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, spinach, but steam them, and then you could eat them with something like hummus or just a little bit of salt and oil. Um, uh, specific— specifically olive oil or coconut oil.

Healthy fats like olives and olive oil. I mentioned coconut there as well, and a little bit of avocado, and then some fruit and rice. That's the ideal diet for improving white blood cell count. Again, it's meat, it's vegetables, it's a, it's a moderate amount of fat, very small amount of fruit like blueberries or pears, and then getting some, a little bit of rice cooked That's ideal.

That's an ideal immune system diet. So, like a chicken bone broth soup, perfect. Next here would be take vitamin— take zinc, vitamin D, and a B complex. In clinical studies, those were shown to be the best for white blood cell count. Now, vitamin C may also be beneficial as well, but zinc and vitamin D are the top 2.

And I wanna encourage you, when you take vitamin D, it's good to take that in a combo formula where it also has vitamin K in it. I think there's some benefits there as well. And one of the things I encourage a lot of people to do, if you're like, well, that's a lot of things to take, it's zinc and it's vitamin D and it's an B complex.

Well, there's a lot of companies that sell immune system multivitamins, and I'm just going to share the one I personally take. It's by Ancient Nutrition, and that's a company that I co-founded with Jordan Rubin.

But they have a really amazing multi that Jordan Rubin specifically formulated that I know I take, my wife Chelsea takes, and it has extra levels of zinc and vitamin D in it and certain B vitamins. So it's an immune multi. Um, there's this, and there's a few brands that sell them. So again, I just don't want to be biased here.

So whatever you want to take, there, there are— now make sure it's a food-based brand that has really high quality. But again, I take the immune multi by Ancient Nutrition because it has extra doses of those. But that's a good way to get a lot of those in. Another thing would be take herbs. I love astragalus. I think astragalus is one of the best herbs for raising white blood cell count.

In fact, in clinical studies, astragalus and echinacea, another herb, have been shown to do that. Also, ginger, garlic, and medicinal mushrooms like turkey tail have been shown to increase your white blood cell count. So, those would be the top sort of herbals and remedies: astragalus, echinacea, ginger, garlic, and mushrooms. Alright, next question here. Do cold showers help boost immunity?

Yeah, they, they actually do. You know, I was reading a study, this was a, a, a Dutch study done, and they did it on nearly 3,000 people. And what they found was, is now here's how this would work. In the study, they went in and, um, and you started off with a warm shower, but then they turned the shower temperature down for 30 seconds, 60, or 90 seconds.

And they did that for, uh, it was, they did, of course they did it for the amount of time I just said, 30, 60, or 90 seconds. And then they, they, they might've just got out or they might've turned it back up for a minute and then got outta the shower. Well, this is amazing. This study, and by the way, this wasn't a small study, it was 3,000 people. So this is quite a few.

They found that those people who took those cold showers, okay, and by the way, it's not a cold shower the whole time, it's just turning it down for about 1 minute, getting it cold. Those people reduced their risk of cold and flu by 30%. So, they had 30% less likely to take time off for sickness than those in the control group. That's pretty amazing.

A 30% reduction in getting sick or sick time off work because you just, for 1 minute in the shower a day when you were taking your shower, you turned it cold. And by the way, I, I've actually found too that those people that do that, it does something else to them.

One, it makes their body more resilient and it helps them increase white blood cells, strengthens immunity, but I also think it strengthens their mindset. I think it makes you a more resilient person to say, you know what, listen, it might sound silly.

Hey, I'm turning it down for 1 minute, for 60 seconds and standing, you know, in cold water in the shower, but it makes you a more resilient person in life. So, I wanna encourage you, it seems like such a small thing, but sometimes doing those small things can make a big difference in your health and in your life. So, start doing cold showers, just 60 seconds a day. Next question here.

How can my pregnant daughter build her immunity safely? Do you have any homemade cough remedies as well? So, so this is always a challenge, you know, when you're in pregnancy because there's very, very few herbs or supplements and things you can take, but there are some things you can take and some things you could do. Uh, one thing I would say is if it's not cold and miserable out, right?

So again, if it's raining, if it's super windy, but if it's generally nice out, Spend time outside. Going back to that thing I— that question I answered earlier, spend time outside, especially walking when you're pregnant and getting some sunshine. That's first.

The next is a couple herbs that are approved in just normal doses, like in a tea, or if you're doing a, you know, quarter teaspoon in a meal, is ginger and cinnamon. Ginger— ginger especially in studies has been shown to decrease cold and flu symptoms and strengthen your immune system.

So drinking ginger tea, waking up first thing in the morning doing— and by the way, you could also do a chai tea because a chai has ginger and cinnamon in it, but doing a more organic, natural with nothing added chai tea, ginger tea, that would be really, really good for pregnancy.

The other thing was eat foods that are really going to nourish and strengthen the immune system, like chicken vegetable soup. Okay? So, you're doing organic chicken, lots of vegetables like carrots and celery, garlic, onion, rice. You could put a little bit of miso in there, a little bit of ginger in there, and doing that soup regularly.

Okay.

Is fantastic. Okay, so soups in general and doing meat and vegetables, that's going to help strengthen the immune system, and it's very, very good for pregnancy doing those types of soups. And then in addition, doing some vitamin D and zinc, some vitamin C, just taking some extra vitamins and minerals can also help build immunity during pregnancy.

And I think also just making sure your rhythm is good, being able to take some time, relax, connect with friends, laughter. So, being able to improve your mood and have more joy, that also can help build your immune system.

And so, I think being able to be around people that are encouraging, that are loving, scheduling time with family, trying to build that sort of harmony and peace, that's also going to help strengthen the immune system during pregnancy. Next question. My baby keeps catching viruses and colds. How can I boost my baby's immunity if she's under the age of 1?

Everything on the market seems to be age 2+. Well, because we're not talking face-to-face, I don't know your exact situation, but I will tell you by far the most beneficial thing that you can do as a mom if you're breastfeeding is, uh, is breastfeed. Okay?

So, so between that age of 0 and 1 and even beyond, really up to 18 months and beyond, um, breast milk is an, is, is the most profound and incredible immune booster on the planet for kids. Now, it's normal for kids to get sick, right? That their noses should be running. That's just normal. Their immune system is being strengthened at this time. But I will say breast milk is key.

And I want to give you 2 scenarios here. One is you are able to breastfeed. Okay? If you're able to breastfeed, and I'm assuming, by the way, that this is a mom asking, it could be a dad as well. And so this could be on behalf of your spouse or your Your, your, you know, your, your significant other there. Um, breast milk is the best. It has colostrum, it's high in B vitamins and fat sets.

I mean, things, there's actually things in breast milk we don't even know, we're not even able to measure that boost the immune system. That's the reality. There are things we haven't even discovered yet, probably, that actually are there nourishing the immune system. So it's amazing. So what I would say is, as the mom there, uh, making sure their diet is very good.

Okay, so the mom is eating a lot of vegetables, a lot of fruits, staying away from allergens like wheat and dairy products. Like, when we had Arwen, Chelsea, um, noticed that, you know, Arwen's body would react if she ate certain things. And so Chelsea really went on a diet. Here's what it was: it was meat, vegetables, and rice. And it was bland, just in salt. Meat, vegetables, right, in salt.

Rice and salt. And that's what she did really consistently. She might also do a little bit of ginger tea. Okay, she did that. And then, and then we noticed, uh, Arwen's just, you know, really, really, really was thriving on that diet. Her digestive system, her immune system. So I would say as the mom, that's the most important thing. I think maybe getting some probiotics.

So, and by the way, anything the mom gets that's healthy can be passed on to the child. So I think the mom taking very good care of Eating very healthy, taking the right vitamins and supplements like zinc and vitamin D, um, colostrum, you know, the elderberry, um, bone broth and collagen. Like, getting those things in the diet, I think, is tremendously beneficial.

Now, let's say there's a scenario where, uh, there, there, there's a, there's some, for some reason where you can't breastfeed. That's not the ideal. The ideal is what I just shared. But let's say you can't. Okay. If you're in that scenario, then I would say making sure the food that they're eating, you know, infant formula, 99% of it is just terrible. It's terrible.

So I would say really putting your child on a diet of meat and cooked vegetables and fruit and rice. Meat, vegetables, fruit, rice, maybe sweet potato, maybe. Yeah. But, but that's, that's really the majority of it. So making sure they're not eating packaged foods with additives, all this stuff. All of those things are gonna affect the baby's immune system.

So there are no specific supplements really. You can do a little bit of probiotic powder. Uh, but, but outside of that, I think that that's, those are the big things. Okay. I think that, and the, here's the other thing with a baby, getting them some sunshine.

So when Arwen was 0 to 1, like I would bring her outside or, uh, and I would, I would hold her and I would flip her around and get about 10 minutes on each side of her body of direct sunlight, even in the winter. And if I would go outside and it wasn't too cold, I would hold her.

And then if not, I would stand in the window or I would sit in the window and I would hold her and I would turn her around, making sure she's getting sunlight. So that's the other thing you wanna do is make sure you're getting sunlight.

And of course, love and care, you know, that sort of, sort of virtuous, um, you know, nourishing home is very, very important for child's immunity as well, that they're safe, protected, that they're being held. Uh, all of those things help. But by the way, it's hard.

I want to just kind of empathize here with you for a minute because I know when Arwen, when she was like a month old, we remember, Chelsea and I, it just being so hard when she just was not feeling well, right? It's so hard as a parent. You would take on and bear that, you know, that suffering for them. And so I know that's a— it can be incredibly difficult. Next question here.

What are the top things that help children's immune systems, especially asthmatic children during the winter? Well, depending on age, let's say you get over 2 years old or let's say between the ages of 6 and 18, I would say that getting them some herbs in their diet, turmeric, ginger, rosemary, and garlic have all been shown to strengthen the immune system.

Now, if your kids are too small to take a capsule, which they could do turmeric, they could do ginger, they could do rosemary, they could do garlic in capsule, but even if not, if you're making a chicken soup, throw a bunch of garlic in there. Throw a little bit of rosemary in there when you're making chicken. If you're making beef, sprinkle in just a little bit of turmeric.

So adding some of those herbals to their diet will help strengthen their immune system. The other thing that I love that we give our daughter right now is we give her collagen and bone broth protein. Okay? We really believe that bone broth— I mean, you probably know this, but chicken bone broth has been consumed for thousands of years.

It was recommended by ancient physicians to help nourish the immune system. Right. Whenever we were sick as a kid, I remember when I was sick, my mom gave me 2 things, chicken noodle soup, which by the way, the noodles were terrible. She had good intentions.

And the other thing was, well, I would get like 7-Up, but the reality is my mom used to gimme ginger ale, which by the way, the ancient Chinese remedy when you are sick or you have a child that's sick is to give them ginger tea and chicken bone broth soup. Okay? And it's mostly broth with maybe a little bit of vegetables and a little bit of chicken.

But that's that sort of ancient recipe, and sometimes a little bit of rice. But, but again, somehow over time it morphed to 7-Up and chicken noodle soup with MSG. But if you, you know, if you're a parent who knows what you're doing, like I know you do, then you want to go and your children are sick or not well, you want to give them a lot of chicken soup. It's very, very good for them.

Getting a lot of the herbs like ginger, its cousin turmeric, a little bit of rosemary, garlic. And then also, if you want to give them a shake, put a scoop of bone broth protein, put a scoop of collagen in there. Those are going to help, uh, help their, their, their overall health. In addition to that, I would say, um, eliminate common food sensitivities like dairy and wheat.

You know, look at their diet. Less snacks. I see a lot of kids with these issues, they're just snackers. They're always eating something out of a package. And if your child throws a fit and says they want the food, well, you know what, they cannot eat for a couple meals and they'll eventually start to eat.

Sometimes as a parent, you have to do that hard thing of saying, you know what, I know you may not like this diet, but you can't continue to do the conventional dairy. You can't do the wheat. I love you too much.

And so, and, and, and, and by the way, that could be seen as controversial, but I would, I'll just tell you what I would do is if, if, if Arwen just said, hey, I will only eat junk food, then, then I would be okay with her not eating a meal or two.

Now we would do everything we can to get vegetables and fruits and those things in her diet, but eventually, by the way, I've done this plenty of times. I, I, I worked as a functional medicine doctor working with A lot of children on the autistic spectrum. And this was a battle that parents went through to get their kids to eat healthy.

But eventually— and, and by the way, there, there's an element of negotiation here. Hey, you want chicken nuggets? Well, you can't have this brand that has wheat and, and all, and gluten and all these things that we know are continually causing neuro and, and digestive inflammation. But we are gonna find a brand maybe that's a lot healthier.

So even though it's not the perfect meal, at least it's a step better. So, that's what you want to continue to do is migrate your kids towards something better, less snacks, less conventional dairy, less wheat, less GMO corn, less all the junk food, and more real food, meat, vegetables, fruit, whole grains like rice. Next question. What is the role of oral hygiene in overall immunity and health?

Well, according to clinical studies, Oral hygiene is most tied to heart health. There are several studies that show, both in animals, by the way, and in humans, that if you have poor dental health, it increases your risk of heart disease. So, there's a really close connection.

And I think part of that is due to if you have gingivitis or some sort of these low-grade infections that are happening within your mouth, the first thing affected is your blood and your heart. I mean, these systems are very they're very close together. Overall, I wanna share another, just a quick example of this too.

I had a family recently that I was just giving some advice to, some, some health advice, and they had a daughter who was getting, um, she, she had an infected tooth and they didn't realize it. It's gone on. They noticed her immunity was really low for a long time.

Well, they ended up, and listen, they, this wasn't the first thing they wanted to do, but they ended up extracting one of the teeth and boom, all of a sudden the girl's immunity for the next couple years just got, it just got to be great. So they were sharing this with me and we actually had a dog. Once.

And so this is obviously not a human example, but we had a dog once who we didn't know had an infected tooth, uh, and for a year he just was— just didn't seem like himself. And he was probably like 7 years old. And then we got that tooth extracted and, and got rid of that infection, and boom. I mean, we— Chelsea and I joked around.

Our saying was, you know, he's, he's, you know, he's hopping around like a, like a young spring chicken because he was 8 to, you know, 13 years old then. And he was like a puppy. I mean, it was amazing what happened. So, let me say this, these chronic infections, they can be very low-grade that happen in our mouths, okay? They are definitely tied to our overall immunity.

So, making sure you have great dental health. Now, listen, dental health, brushing your teeth is foundational. It's one of the things that should and must be done. In addition, flossing and/or oil pulling. Can make a really big difference. Okay. Oil pulling, you're going to put coconut oil in your mouth and swish it around for 5 minutes.

So you can do it while you're in the shower and then spit that out in the garbage. But that— those have been both shown to help eliminate a lot of the bad bacteria, both flossing and oil pulling. And then here's the other big thing. You know, there's a— one of my favorite dentists of all time is a guy named Weston A. Price. I'm sorry, Royal Lee. Okay.

Well, there's a couple of these guys who who, who, who examined, um, tribes in Africa. And it's Weston Price, but also Royal Lee. And Royal Lee went and he studied this African tribe and he found that there was almost— their teeth looked almost perfect. Now they were having other issues, but their teeth were just— looked brilliant.

And, um, and he found it was because their diet— they were eating a lot of high— they were eating a high-fat diet. They were getting like, you know, things like, um, full-fat dairy and coconut and, uh, and eating animal fat. So they were getting a lot of good fats in their diet, and that alone was important. So when you look at the studies on oral health and, uh, and immunity.

Vitamin A, D, K, and E— getting those fat-soluble vitamins was really important. And also eating a mineral-rich diet with a lot of trace minerals. You know, our soil today has less minerals than it has because of all of our, uh, all of our, our agriculture practice to do monocrops. Monocrops mean you plant them one year, you have to replant them every year, such as wheat or corn.

Or soy products versus if you're eating like an apple tree, well, you're not continually having to deplete the soil. Apples just grow naturally every year, or blueberries or certain foods. And so you're— it's better for the soil. So they tend to have more nutrients if, if they let the land rest every 7 years. Okay.

So all that being said, you know, a lot of people are deficient in minerals as well, like magnesium and iron and selenium and even You know, manganese. So, so making sure that your diet is organic, and if you can go to a local farmer's market, you know, they have these good practices, or do regenerative agriculture, there's a lot of benefits.

So your food should have more— be more nutrient dense if you're really conscious of this. But also taking a multi-mineral supplement, or a supplement that has minerals in it, would also benefit the teeth. So fat-soluble vitamins and minerals, and if you get a good quality food-based multivitamin, that would be helpful.

I mentioned earlier the, the Immune Multi by Ancient Nutrition is a good one, or just their general men's or women's Multi. And I, I, I'm, I'm, I can only speak to those because those are the ones I take, those, and I helped formulate a couple of those products. Um, what do you recommend for lingering coughs and colds?

If, if you have a cough and cold that's just holding on, one thing I recommend that, listen, let's say it's been a month and you still have it. If you can find an acupuncturist and they can do cupping on you, that can really help break up a lot of phlegm and get things moving. So if you're a person and it's just chronic, just, it's in your chest.

Acupuncture cupping, having an acupuncturist who knows how to do cupping can really, really help move things and break it up. So that's my favorite, probably natural treatment practice. Now, in addition, zinc and vitamin D are good. Echinacea and astragalus together really help strengthen the lungs. There's also a mushroom that's really helpful called cordyceps.

So I would say echinacea, astragalus, cordyceps mushrooms are very good. And as I mentioned, doing a lot of warm soups with like ginger in them. That's also going to help break up that mucus and phlegm, help somebody heal more quickly from a cough as well. And then in terms of a beverage, I like ginger tea with a little bit of lemon and honey. It's real simple.

Ginger, lemon, honey as a tea can also— has been shown to help break up those lingering coughs. Next question. We had COVID, uh, we had— I think he's saying our family had COVID 2 years ago, and ever since then We catch every cold that goes around. What can we do?

One thing I want to mention about this and why I think maybe more people are getting it historically is, is that this was a— if it was— listen, if it was in fact, as most experts believe, a lab leak, this was a, this was a new sort of virus that was introduced to us. And sometimes it takes a year or two for your body and your immune system to adapt.

Now, the first round, I think maybe more people caught it because it was new. I mean, nobody's system had dealt with it. It was more severe. Now we see the incredible physiology of humans being better able to adapt to this type of virus. Now viruses are intelligent, so they adapt and change as well.

All that being said, one of the things that I found is I did research and I've, and I've also looked at the, again, the research, talked to other medical experts, and what I've seen is COVID affects the blood. Remember that it affects the blood.

And so even when you go on WebMD and even some of these more conventional sites, you're going to see it says it causes blood clotting, which of course can also increase issues like myocarditis, which there's been a huge spike in, 20 to 30% according to studies.

So remember, if you want to, if you're still having COVID issues, a lot of people think, well, it's an issue related to my, uh, some area of your immune system. A lot of times people don't understand there's so many organs that are acting, but your blood is particularly important and your cellular mitochondria that we're doing things to heal and help those heal.

Here are some of those things that I have found when I worked with some patients and clients. That helped them overcome this, these long COVID symptoms, or got their immune systems back strong again. There's a product called NMN, okay? It is an NAD precursor, and that I believe can be helpful, okay? That really helps strengthen your ATP and mitochondria. Good for the blood. I like that supplement.

Beetroot juice. Beet juice helps increase nitric oxide, helps with that blood clotting, helps with move the blood. I like that as well. Turmeric is another one. I really like galangal, which is turmeric's cousin, quercetin, and bromelain. Quercetin helps with those histamine reactions, spike protein that you maybe have heard of, and then bromelain, spike protein as well, some of those benefits.

But all of these have a similar benefit in that they're good for the blood and they're good for the immune system. And so these are things that I think— NMM, beet juice, turmeric, galangal, quercetin, bromelain— that have benefits. And if I had to add one other to that list, I would say zinc. Is another one that you should consider that I think would really help.

You know, another thing you might consider is getting a micronutrient test. It's a blood test where they take between 2 and 4 vials, very small, and, um, and basically test your blood to see what nutrients you're deficient in. And there might be something you're incredibly deficient in that's actually still causing these issues, because maybe that virus just depleted your body at that time.

But I would say the big thing is get your blood moving, get your blood healthy. And from a dietary standpoint, Again, eating beets, getting red meat, getting lots of green vegetables that are cooked in your diet can all help move and help strengthen your blood, which in turn can help your immune system.

One of the last questions here is, what are your top strategies for reversing autoimmune disease? Well, I think the thing that we have to look at when it's autoimmune disease is recognizing where it begins, and it really is with the gut. Almost every single time. And so there's a condition called leaky gut, and basically your gut acts like a net, has little holes in it or gaps.

They're called gap junctions in the scientific literature, and those can start to get too big. Okay? Those can open up and then things start getting in your bloodstream that shouldn't get in there. Could be heavy metals, undigested food particles, certain proteins like gluten and casein, bacteria and viruses.

They get into your bloodstream and then your body starts attack— all your white blood cells go And natural killer cells. Everything goes there to start to try and get rid of these organisms, these compounds that should not be in your blood.

And then over time, what happens is that chronic inflammatory reaction, your body can start saying, okay, we're gonna go on overdrive here, and we're not only going to attack this protein, we're going to attack anything that resembles that protein. And that's where your body can actually start attacking its own body parts. You can start attacking its own thyroid, causing Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

It can start attacking the joint spaces, causing rheumatoid arthritis. So, you know, of course there's lupus, there's sometimes MS and fibromyalgia fall in that category, not always. All that being said, what you have to do is you gotta heal and seal that gut lining. And so in order to do that, you have to remove the things that are causing the chronic inflammation in the gut.

You need to remove the gluten and casein and inflammatory foods and fast, remove all that stuff. And then you want to only consume things that heal the gut. That's going to be foods rich in collagen like bone broth. It's going to be meat. It's going to be cooked vegetables.

It's going to be easily digested fruit that you may tolerate well, probably blueberries, applesauce, pears, those sort of foods. In addition, doing, you know, a little bit of rice cooked for a long period of time called congee. It's that ancient Chinese recipe where you put rice in with a little bit of broth, Cook it until it's mush and eat that. Very good for reversing autoimmunity as well.

So, that's really the diet that you should follow and only that until your gut's healed. And then supplement-wise, I really like, again, bone broth protein and collagen. I like zinc for healing that gut lining. That's a necessary nutrient. L-glutamine is necessary. Astragalus is probably my favorite herbal. I mentioned licorice, but astragalus is probably— those are probably my top 2.

Ginger is good too. So, so, so there are a lot of things, but generally speaking, those— one other thing I wanna mention, there is an emotional component to autoimmune disease. Think about what's happening physiologically. Your body's attacking itself. Your body's attacking itself. And according to Chinese medicine, if you go back, this is connected to something called the metal element.

It's really your immune system is your lungs and your colon. Your colon is where all of 90+% of your bacteria, your good probiotics live. So your colon is a massive part of your immune system.

Well, certain emotions affect the way your gut works and function and heals, and the emotion of grief, and that's where you're looking at the, something has happened in your past and you haven't let go of it. That causes autoimmune disease. Do you hear that? This is huge. Something happened in your past. Maybe it was physical abuse. Maybe it was an emotional trauma. Maybe that you have a regret.

You just did something and you messed up and you still have guilt and shame from it. You're still living with shame. If you have any of those issues that have happened in the past and you have not emotionally, mentally, and spiritually resolved them, it actually weakens your immune system, decreases your overall digestive and lung function, and impacts your immune system negatively.

So what you want to be able to do is you need to write down what are the things that have happened in the past that still bother me today? What are those things? And whether it's by yourself or with a therapist or with a close friend or a church group, whatever it is, you need to work through those things. Forgive, let go of, and move on and start focusing on and meditating on something I've done.

If I had something in the past, and I have had before, where it was bothering me still, I went back and I either forgave the person. Sometimes, it's forgiving yourself. And I would go on also and say, you know what? God uses all things for good.

If I wouldn't have been in that situation where my mom had cancer, where I messed up or did this thing, I, I would not have learned from it and been able to help other people now. And saying, I'm gonna now focus on the future and I'm gonna focus on using this for good. You have to change your perspective.

But again, living in the past, living with grief that is often tied to depressive symptoms, lack of motivation, and unforgiveness, all those sort of things have happened. If you can't let go of those and move on, that actually feeds autoimmune disease. One other thing from a mindset and belief standpoint affects autoimmune disease, which is your body attacking itself.

Is if you have thoughts where you're attacking yourself. Here's some self-talk: I'm just not smart enough. Oh, I'm not worthy. Oh, I'm not good enough. Oh, I messed up. Oh, I could never do that. Oh, why did you do that? You're so dumb. Those sort of negative self-talk actually shuts down and weakens. By the way, this is thousands of years old, what I'm sharing with you.

I mean, this is thousands of years old of ancient Chinese and Middle Eastern medicine I'm sharing with you right now. And so many people today, physicians have taken the mindset and the emotions out of our health, but it's the mind-body connection. When you have that mindset where you're attacking yourself, it weakens your immune system.

So that's also important for healing autoimmunity is write down what it, what, what are the things I say negatively? Okay. That's not serving you. Write down what I should believe and then go and prove it to yourself and start reading books that are uplifting and helping you have more a positive mindset. Getting rid of those limiting beliefs and that negative self-talk is crucial to healing.

Hey, if I didn't get to your question, I would love to answer it. Hey, feel free to ask your questions below. Also want to say thanks so much for tuning in. You know, each and every week I'm releasing 3 episodes a week. On the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, and just take your life to the next level. Hey, make sure to subscribe, like, and share this.

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