What are you doing to optimize YOUR health and BUILD your immune system?
Focusing on social distancing, overly using anti-bacterials and wearing PPE for our rest of our lives is not going to be realistic NOR does it do ANYTHING to build our own gut health and immunity.
We should be taking OWNERSHIP for our own health, well-being and immunity.
We should be building up our resiliency to protect ourselves from the day we are infected with CV-19 virus- as with any pathogen or virus!
WE are responsible for our own health. NOT the government, not the mayor and not the WHO.
So, what are you going to do to take care of the WHOLE you from the inside out to optimize your health and to build your immune system?
Ideally, I believe we should run functional lab tests to test our strength of our gut health since 80% of our immune system resides in our gut.
What about your microbiome diversity with keystone strains?
What about your gut membrane…do you have inflammation and a “leaky gut”?
What about your digestion and absorption of key immune boosting nutrients from foods filled with anti-oxidants, fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) and melatonin?
Did you know that a large percentage of your melatonin is actually made in your gut health?
As a health detective, FND Practitioner, we investigate the WHOLE you to collect clues to your imbalances and then create a plan to restore your health and vitality back to optimal levels.
One clue on your gut function is your melatonin levels. Melatonin is not only made in your pineal gland and related to our sleep/wake cycle circadian rhythm but also to our gut health.
When we run a DUTCH Complete lab test and measure your melatonin levels, if it is low then we collect a clue and point fingers to gut dysfunction.
Melatonin is produced in the gut as well as the brain, and evidence suggests that intestinal melatonin may operate on a different cyclical rhythm than the pineal melatonin generated in the brain.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sleep-newzzz/201601/unlocking-the-sleep-gut-connection
Test and NOT guess about your immune health.
Distribution, function and physiological role of melatonin in the lower gut
1. Melatonin is a hormone with endocrine, paracrine and autocrine actions. It is involved in the regulation of multiple functions, including the control of the gastrointestinal (GI) system under physiological and pathophysiological conditions.
2. Since the gut contains at least 400 times more melatonin than the pineal gland, a review of the functional importance of melatonin in the gut seems useful, especially in the context of recent clinical trials.
3. Melatonin exerts its physiological effects through specific membrane receptors, named melatonin-1 receptor (MT1), MT2 and MT3. These receptors can be found in the gut and their involvement in the regulation of GI motility, inflammation and pain has been reported in numerous basic and clinical studies.
4. We furthermore aim to evaluate whether melatonin may be useful in future treatment of symptoms or diseases involving the lower gut.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198018/
Let me know if you want to chat more on a call but here is some new info I gathered on Vitamin D (see previous blog post) and now MELATONIN.
Another interesting article on immune building nutrients and hormones as Vitamin D… this one is on MELATONIN!
What are you doing to boost your immune system today?
Did you know…
- Aging is associated with a decline in immune function (immunosenescence), a situation known to correlate with increased incidence of cancer, infectious and degenerative diseases.
- Innate, cellular and humoral immunity all exhibit increased deterioration with age.
- A decrease in functional competence of individual natural killer (NK) cells is found with advancing age.
- Macrophages and granulocytes show functional decline in aging as evidenced by their diminished phagocytic activity and impairment of superoxide generation.
- There is also marked shift in cytokine profile as age advances, e.g., CD3+ and CD4+ cells decline in number whereas CD8+ cells increase in elderly individuals.
- A decline in organ specific antibodies occurs causing reduced humoral responsiveness.
- Circulating melatonin decreases with age and in recent years much interest has been focused on its immunomodulatory effect.
- Melatonin stimulates the production of progenitor cells for granulocytes-macrophages.
- It also stimulates the production of NK cells and CD4+ cells and inhibits CD8+ cells.
- The production and release of various cytokines from NK cells and T-helper lymphocytes also are enhanced by melatonin. .
- Melatonin presumably regulates immune function by acting on the immune-opioid network, by affecting G protein-cAMP signal pathway and by regulating intracellular glutathione levels.
- Melatonin has the potential therapeutic value to enhance immune function in aged individuals and in patients in an immunocompromised state.
Are you supplementing with Melatonin in your self-care health optimizing and immune building protocol?
Learn more on blog posts and podcasts… www.debbiepotts.net plus daily info over on my LOW CARB ATHLETE health building Facebook page.
Catch up with me tomorrow as I go down another rabbit hole!
The Health Detective for the Health Optimizers!
Debbie