Are You Ready for Allergy Season?

Are you ready for allergy season?

If you suffer from seasonal allergies, then this is for you! Many people suffer from seasonal allergies, especially those who live in the NW, but you don’t have to!!! There are many things you can do to help your body stand up to those allergies and make it through allergy season without itchy watery eyes and a runny nose. Not only does your immune system play a large role in allergies, but so do your adrenal glands- your stress glands. If your adrenal glands aren’t happy, they become more sensitive and reactive and signal your immune system to create an allergic response. Your immune system then reacts with those typical allergic symptoms that we all know- runny nose, watery itchy eyes, itchy skin, and scratchy throat. Taking care of both of these is essential if you want to make it through allergy season tissue (and medication) free.

Keep your immune system strong!

To keep your immune system healthy and strong, make sure you are getting proper nutrition, adequate exercise and enough sleep. You have to treat your body well for it to be able to do its job! If you’re not feeding it well or giving it what it needs, it is likely to slack on the job and that is not what you need heading into (or in the middle of) allergy season! This will also help you make it through cold and flu season with less illness!

·         Nutrition to support your immune system

·         Vitamin A – enhances immunity

·         Food sources: Cod liver oil, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, carrots, butternut squash, spinach, kale, collard greens, butter, eggs, cantaloupe

·         Vitamin C – antioxidant that stimulates the immune system

·         Food sources: Red Bell pepper, Broccoli, Tomatoes, oranges, strawberries, Grapefruit

·         Vitamin D- enhances immunity

·         Food sources: Salmon, Sardines, Mackerel, Egg yolk

·         Zinc – required for proper immune function

·         Food sources: Oysters, Crab, Beef, Pork, Chicken/turkey (dark meat), Nuts- cashews, almonds, Beans, Chickpeas

·         Avoid Sugar- sugar inhibits the proper immune response and feeds bacteria and viruses

·         Exercise for your immune system

·         Moderate exercise boosts your immune system to help keep you healthy

·         Exercise can also help decrease stress

·         High stress can decrease your immune system

·         Exercise helps overall circulation through your body which can help boost your immune system’s response

·         Obesity can compromise immune response and lead to increased susceptibility to illness

·         Sleep for your immune system

·         Getting enough sleeps ensures that your body gets enough time to rest and regenerate

·         Adequate sleep prevents your adrenals glands from getting extra stressed out trying to keep you energized on little sleep

·         Sleep deprivation suppresses your immune system so if you’re not getting enough zzz’s at night, your immune system isn’t able to do its job!

Adrenal Glands- Your “Stress Glands”

Your adrenal glands play a large role in keeping your immune system strong and healthy. Not only does keeping your adrenal glands healthy ensure that your immune system is working properly but healthy adrenal glands help decrease allergies by regulating cortisol and histamine. Keeping your adrenal glands happy and healthy is essential to keeping your body allergy free!

Adrenal Gland support:

·         R&R– we all need some rest and relaxation in our lives. Make sure to allow yourself some R & R time to give your body, mind and adrenal glands a break from our hectic schedules

·         Sleep & adequate rest to give your adrenal glands a break from all the stress of our daily lives

·         Over-scheduling yourself in your day to day life can stress out your adrenal glands causing poor cortisol production. Your adrenal glands then have to work extra to get adequate cortisol levels and fight inflammation, including pro-inflammatory histamine that your body is producing from interacting with allergens.

·         Exercise:

·         Know your limits- do NOT over-exercise or over exert yourself

·         While moderate exercise can help aid in stress relief and boost your immune system, overly intensive exercise can actually increase the stress on your body leading to a decreased immune system and poor adrenal function

·         Nutrition:

·         No caffeine after 2pm

·         Caffeine late in the day can negatively affect our cortisol levels and contribute to poorer sleep (which leads to poor immune function)

·         Eat healthy fats- fish, eggs, butter, olive oil

·         Avoid sugar – sugary foods, starches and refined carbohydrates

·         Avoid food sensitivities. Many people have food sensitivities but continue to eat the foods anyway. The most common are wheat/gluten, dairy, corn and soy. When your body is exposed to foods it is sensitive to, it has to work harder to process them which creates more stress on your body. Avoiding these foods can help decrease the overall stress load on your adrenals.

·         Vitamin C (see above)

·         B vitamins- B3, B6, B12, folate. Stress causes your body to use up B-vitamins more quickly than it otherwise would so it’s important to replenish these vitamins for adrenal health.

·         Found in animal products such as eggs, salmon, turkey and chicken

·         Omega 3 fatty acids- such as fish oil

·         Supplements specifically designed for Adrenal gland support (such as Adrenal dessicated, Drenamin, and Drenatrophin PMG by standard process and Adrenal cortex and Cortrex by Thorne Research).

Don’t forget about your liver! Your liver’s job is to help your body detoxify and a happy liver is a liver that knows how to detox. If your liver is not functioning properly, allergies are more likely to be worse. Your liver not only plays a role in detox but in stabilizing your blood sugar and hormone production. Help your liver function optimally with diet and supplements to help you survive allergy season.

·         Diet: Don’t make your liver work harder than is has to!

·         Eat healthy fats to support healthy cholesterol levels (as well as support hormone production). Healthy fats include avocado, avocado oil, olive oil, fish and fish oil.

·         Avoid excess carbohydrates and sugar. Your liver helps control your blood sugar so if it is constantly being given sugar to process, its energy is diverted away from where you really need it- detox!

·         Avoid gluten (and other food sensitivities). Eating gluten and other foods that are stressful on your body creates more work for your liver. By eliminating these extra stressors, your liver can function more efficiently.

·         Limit alcohol intake. Most of us know that the alcohol we drink has to be processed by our liver but don’t realize that drinking excess alcohol makes the liver work harder than it should have to, diverting attention away from its other jobs.

·         Supplements: Your liver needs the proper nutrients to detoxify. The nutrients and herbs below can help provide the support your liver needs.

·         Berberine – helps support a healthy liver

·         Milk Thistle – contains antioxidants to help protect and strengthen liver cells

·         Curcumin- acts as an anti-inflammatory with anti-oxidant activity to help maintain the body’s normal inflammatory response

·         Glutathione- an important antioxidant that supports both phases of liver detoxification

Supplements specific for Allergies:

·         Local honey. Because the bees pollinate local plants and flowers, many of which are causing your allergies, exposing your body to them by eating local honey can help your immune system become less reactive to them when you interact with them outside. Your body has already been exposed to the allergens and is able to mount a proper immune response (aka no response) instead of an allergic one.

·         Omega 3 Fatty Acids- fish oil (1-3g/day). Healthy fats feed our adrenal glands and fish oil acts as a natural anti-inflammatory.

·         Quercitin

·         Bromelain

·         Nettles (Urtica dioica)

·         Specific allergy supplements (such as Allerplex and Antronex by Standard Process)

*Caution: Always check with your physician before beginning any new supplements or dietary modifications.

References:

·         Standard Process.com

·         Thorne research

·         com

·         Linus Pauling institute

·         University of Maryland Medical Center

·         http://abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/11/02/3054621.htm

·         http://webmd.com/vitamins-and-supplements/lifestyle-guide-11/allergies-allergy

·         http://pamf.org/flu/healthytips.html

·         Boston, Gabriella. “How Pros stay healthy in cold and flu season.”