IMMUNITY & IMMUNE SUPPRESSION

IMMUNITY & IMMUNE SUPPRESSION

Parable:

A king brought in 3 blind men and an elephant, but the king didn’t tell the blind men that an elephant was there.

He asked the blind men to touch the object (elephant), and tell him what do they “see”.

One blind man touched the tail of the elephant and said he was touching a brush.

Another blind man touched a leg of the elephant, and said he was touching an oak tree.

And another blind man touched the trunk and said he was touching some kind of hose.

The point of the parable is to illustrate that without a full view, in this case a full view of the elephant, each person had a blinded view of reality and built their narratives on that view.

I would argue that we are looking at a blinded view of reality when it comes to understanding our immune systems and threats to our health.

In this case the elephant in the room is the Immune System.

What is the Immune System?

Is it so frail that a virus can destroy it?

A. THE IMMUNE SYSTEM

The simple explanation of how the immune system and vaccines work, given by well-meaning doctors, most of which are not taught nutrition and its physiology, is that the virus or bacteria will destroy your body, and the vaccine will block it by triggering the immune system to build antibodies to it.

However, physiology shows us that the immune system is a complex system made of multiple sub-systems containing:

1. Innate immune system (the immune system you are born with)

2. The acquired/adaptive immune system (the immune system that catalogs and “remembers” every pathogen you’ve been exposed to and has created antibodies for them)

3. The lymphatic system (a re-circulating system and “waste disposal” of the body, engaged through movement & exercise)

4. The gut biome and it’s trillions of beneficial flora

5. The virome, 380 Trillion viruses and 60 Trillion bacteria

6. The gut/brain axis

Our immune systems are much more complex than what we understood in 1962 when the Vaccine Act was passed by John Kennedy. But, even with more knowledge, our belief & approach is the same as it was then:

A virus comes in and starts attacking our immune system & cells.

B. HOW IT REALLY WORKS

The reality is that in a normal condition, which is what most of us are in, a pathogen comes in, the body recognizes it and tries to arrest and kill it through the “innate” immune system that we’re born with. If your body didn’t block and destroy the pathogen there, then over the next 72 hours the "adaptive" immune system will create antibodies in the thymus gland. The truth is, we are presented many times a day with these pathogenic challenges, and the body is brilliantly designed to resolve them. We refer to this as “resilience”.

However, if our immune systems are weak from underlying disease, age, bad diets, high sugar diets, the body still tries to protect itself. It will use whatever immune capacity it has remaining and over-react to the danger. That over-reaction will not only try to attack the virus particles by trying to explode the cell wall and break it up, it will also try to find any bits and pieces of the virus particles. If it finds them in other parts of your body, it will attack them too, often including surrounding healthy tissue. This is the description of how an auto-immune disorder works.

It’s the over-reaction of the body, whether caused by genetics, epigenetics, nutritional deficiencies from fake food, too much sugar, some underlying health condition, or age that has compromised your immune system.

Why is age a factor? As we age, our thyroids don’t produce enough vitamin A, which acts like a hormone and literally builds “walls” around our cells to protect them from invaders. Additionally, if you’re not getting enough vitamin D from the sun, or fish fat, your body is not able to create “cathelicidins” which are like little bullets that blow holes in viruses and destroys them.

Basically, the body knows full well how to protect itself. It just needs you to give it the tools to do it with.

I’ve always thought of it like this:

The enemy is invading your area. They have planes, bombs, ground troops & guns. What do you do? You call out your troops, the army, navy, air force – whatever you have to fight the enemy. But you also have to give your troops proper weapons, and protect them while they do their job. But in western medicine what do we do? We send out soldiers that are sick (compromised immune function). Or we send out troops with no weapons (nutritional deficiencies). Or worse yet, we carpet-bomb everything with anti (“against”) biotics (“life”), taking out the enemy and our own troops as well. Then we stand back and ask “did we get it all?” - waiting to see if the illness comes back.

That scenario describes behavior from a narrative built on not having the whole picture, much like the blind men who arrived at incorrect conclusions about what they were touching, because they couldn’t see the whole elephant in the room.

C. THE ANSWER

Q: How can we change this scenario, and make sure our immune systems are strong and we don’t inadvertently suppress our immune system or kill off our own fighter cells? How can we support our bodies to do what they are brilliantly designed to do, better than any doctor or surgeon on the planet?

A: By giving our bodies the only tools and genuine repair parts it recognizes and knows how to use – namely FOOD. The body only understands and can fully utilize WHOLE FOOD to rebuild and repair itself, which includes meats and organs from animals that have been fed whole food that is appropriate for them.

EXAMPLES:

A. Corn-fed cows vs grass-fed cows – Corn is grain. Cows are not grain-eaters they are grass-eaters.

Corn stresses them, upsetting their bowel flora, and distending their livers. The deadly form of E.coli grows best in the guts of corn-fed cows.

B. Chickens are birds and are carnivores not vegans. Left to themselves, they will eat bugs and worms (meat/protein), not just vegetarian feed and corn.

We simply have to get an abundance of proper nutrition every day to give our bodies the tools it needs to keep our immune systems strong.

That’s the goal. Your body is brilliantly designed to do that IF you give it the tools it needs.

D. THE TOOLS & WEAPONS

• Raw vegetables every day of many different colors – think a big colorful salad – one a day, every day with oil and raw apple-cider vinegar-based dressing

• Foods containing vitamins A, D, K, and E. These are fat-soluble vitamins found in fatty foods.

Remember when the establishment told us to stay away from fat and cholesterol and the government food pyramid was based on whole grains? Even now, the government’s “My Plate” recommendations do not have a space on the plate for fat. That was incredibly wrong information resulting in obesity, heart disease, and high cholesterol, the very things they told us we would avoid.

In my practice, I have women in their 70’s who did exactly what their doctors told them to do 30-40 years ago: Stay slim, stay away from fat and cholesterol, eat “heart-healthy”, low-fat/non-fat foods, and take 1200 mg of calcium every day to avoid getting heart disease and osteoporosis.

The result? These women now have atherosclerosis, a precursor to heart disease, and osteoporosis, the very diseases doctors promised they would not get.

The science? We cannot absorb minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, etc without fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K2 available. Fat soluble vitamins are found in fatty foods like fatty fish, real whole butter, whole milk, all whole dairy products, eggs, sunflower oil, olive oil, nuts & nut butters, and fatty grass-fed meats. Fat does not make us fat.

• Stay away from sugar. Sugar makes us fat and raises cholesterol due to the damage it does to arterial endothelial cells causing systemic inflammation. Sugar also suppresses the immune system by increasing candida and pathogenic yeast and fungus in our bodies. Sugar also affects our brain chemistry, causing anxiety, hormonal swings, and sleep disorders, among other things.

• Eat raw, fermented foods such as raw sauerkraut found in the refrigerator at the grocery store, not on the grocery shelf. In Olympia, Oly Kraut is perfect! Bubbies Pickles and Bubbies Sauerkraut is great, kombucha, yogurt from local farms, not commercial yogurts, are great.

• Eat animal products from animals that were properly raised and harvested. These would be grass-fed beef, lamb, bison, pastured/free-range chicken, pastured eggs, raw cheeses, real butter, whole – not low-fat or non-fat – dairy products. Raw milk products are best or slow/vat-pasteurized milk products. These foods come from local farms in the Thurston areas. Avoid “ultra-pasteurized” dairy products.

• Filtered water or water from artesian wells. The point here is do not drink unfiltered tap water. It’s full of chemicals and in some cases, heavy metals and prescription drugs which cannot be neutralized. You can purchase a whole-house water filter or just water filters for the kitchen faucet and the shower head. That will get most of the toxins out. And then exercise and eat healthy as described above. Your immune system will be able to manage the lowered toxin load, if you do what is outlined here.

• Exercise! Even if all you do is a long brisk walk 4 days a week, then do that. Exercise moves lymph, and makes you sweat. Other detoxifying activities are:

o Dry brushing

o Epsom salt baths

o Infra-red saunas

o Massage

TempleFit

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