If you have read the
news lately, you may have seen the latest research from the
University of Virginia's scientists' and presented at a
conference of a joint meeting between the American Society for
Microbiology and the Infectious Diseases Society of
America1 that confirm that the most likely place to
"catch" a cold from your own home is the remote control and
the refrigerator handle. Other hotspots: doorknobs, bathroom
faucets, phones, salt and pepper shakers, and dishwasher
handles were prime areas that retained germs long after the
infected person handled such items. Researchers found that
cold sufferers leave viruses there that can hang around for
two days or longer.
What researchers
didn't know was how often people
caught colds from these types of surfaces versus touching or
shaking hands with someone that was contaminated. They found
that more than 50 percent of the people who touched these
surfaces contaminated with cold viruses subsequently came down
with the virus afterwards.
Doctors
and scientists have long advised of the importance of
frequently washing hands and the use of hand sanitizers to
help avoid spreading germs. Clearly, this extends to keeping
surface areas such as those mentioned above clean and wiped
down to help germs from spreading.
However, no
matter how diligent one may be in keeping exposed areas clean,
it is almost impossible to create and live in a completely
sanitized world. Everyone needs, at least occasionally,
to go to public areas such as grocery stores, banks, gas
stations, etc and risk being exposed to viruses - sometimes
quite frequently.
So how does one protect themselves short of
extraordinary sanitation measures? Doctors will tell you that
the single best line of defense are the common sense things
like maintaining a healthy lifestyle of proper diet and
nutrition, sleep and exercise is your best line of
defense. And
because we are who we are, even the best intentioned person
can often fall short of those health goals in today's busy
world. Adding nutritional supplements like zinc and beta
carotene is a logical addition to help keep the immune system
running at its very best.
It is now been
widely recognized in multiple studies that an essential trace
element is zinc. Zinc is active in a variety of cellular
functions, including signal transduction, transcription and
replication2 (Vallee & Falchuk, 1993)
and strongly influences the immune system affecting both
nonspecific and acquired immunity3,4 (Fraker et
al, 2000).
Research has begun to clarify the molecular mechanisms
underlying the action of zinc on the immune function. It is
clear that this trace element has a broad impact on key
immunity mediators, such as enzymes, thymic peptides
(hormone-like substances secreted by the thymus and playing
a key role in regulation of T Cell immunity) and cytokines
(a small
protein released by cells that has a specific effect on the
interactions between cells, on communications between cells or
on the behavior of cells. The cytokines includes the
interleukins, lymphokines and cell signal molecules, such as
tumor necrosis factor and the interferons, which trigger
inflammation and respond to infections.), explaining the critical
importance of zinc’s status on the regulation of lymphoid cell
activation, increase in its production and apoptosis (this
means a form of cell death in
which a programmed sequence of events leads to the elimination
of cells without releasing harmful substances into the
surrounding area).
Ongoing and future studies regarding the immunological
status of zinc deficiency ‘at risk’ groups could lead to
developing public health programs that give nutritional doses
of zinc supplements to children and the elderly, who are most
susceptible, to prevent attacks and changes of the immune
system and improve resistance to infections.5
Giving sufficient zinc
supplementation to more susceptible and at-risk individuals
could prevent harming the immune system and substantially
improve their chances of resisting
infections.
Products such
as A-Z
Immune Booster contains clinical supplemental amounts of
Zinc and Beta-Carotene, along with other important immune
system boosters such as blueberry powder, elderberry
extract, and honeysuckle. These all work together to create a
powerful combination to help the immune system perform at its
very best!
References::
1. Microbiology meeting:
http://www.icaacidsa2008.org
2. Vallee BL & Falchuk KH
(1993): The biochemical basis of zinc physiology. Physiol.
Rev. 73, 79– 118.
3. Fraker PJ, King L, Garvy B &
Medina C (1993): Immunopathology of zinc deficiency: a role
for apoptosis. In Human Nutrition: a Comprehensive Treatise,
ed. D Klurfeld, pp 267 – 283. New York: Plenum Press.
4.
Fraker PJ, King LE, Laakko T & Vollmer TL (2000): The
dynamic link between the integrity of the immune system and
zinc status. J. Nutr. 130, 1399 – 1406.
5. European
Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2002) 56, Suppl 3, S20 –
S23.
