One thing that has gotten a lot of attention since the outbreak of Covid-19, is the health of our immune system. The immune system plays a role in protecting the body from all disease illness. By taking good care of your immune system, your chances of getting any chronic or autoimmune disease or a viral or bacterial infection will drop.
More importantly, if one does become ill, with a strong, healthy immune system, the body is more equipped to fight back. This can mean anything from experiencing being less symptomatic to the body being able to heal itself entirely. But there is another factor that people tend to overlook.
What illness are we treating and how are we doing so?
We know that the pathology of each disease is unique. Heart disease, diabetes, ulcerative colitis, and kidney disease all have individual characteristics. As such, most physicians, for the last 85 years or so, treat each illness and disease according to its unique character. This approach is known as the local treatment of disease. While this does leads to the treatment of symptoms and management of the disease, it unfortunately does not really cure anything.
Dr. Dean Ornish likes to say, “it’s really all one disease.” Dr. Ornish emphasizes that when lifestyle medicine is used to treat illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, ulcerative colitis, and kidney disease, it is the same treatment for almost every situation.
Those who eats a rich amount of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, lentils, seeds, and some nuts, are helping themselves prevent, and even reverse, most of the common diseases that western society has become accustomed to. Taking steps to keep the immune system healthy, also helps every system in the body keep us in a state of good health.
Boosting immunity and general health
Below is a wonderful chart from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine on the main points of keeping good immune health. These steps will also help you maintain overall good health. Keeping your immune system healthy will “add hours to your day, days to your year and years to your life.”
Leave A Comment