Knowing how to strengthen our body's capacity to fight off sickness is a crucial topic, especially now that we're in the middle of a global pandemic and viruses are everywhere. In addition, knowing what to do and what not to do to boost or support our body's immune system is critical in avoiding minor to severe health conditions. So, to improve your knowledge on how you can strengthen your body against ailment, it is important to know how the immune system works.

The Immune System: The Body’s First Line of Defense

When it comes to protecting the body from sickness, the immune system is on the front line. But how exactly does it fight off illness? Anything that causes the immune system to activate is called an "antigen." Antigens can be microbes that range from viruses, bacteria, and toxins. The first time the immune system comes into contact with an antigen, the system stores information about it and how to fight it off.

Once the immune system recognizes the antigen and learns how to fight and prevent it from causing severe damage, it will do just that every time it comes into contact with a particular microbe.

The thing is, some germs and viruses tend to be intelligent and sneaky that they learn how to adapt and change so that they can surpass our immune systems "security."

Often, when a virus develops, vaccines that target specific antigens are administered to an individual to teach their immune system how to fight that virus, germ, or toxin. This is why it is important to strengthen the immune system.

Vitamins are incredibly crucial in the process of boosting or strengthening one's immune system. Therefore, increasing the intake of vitamins of a wide range is one of the main ways to strengthen the immune system.

So, how could vitamin intake be increased?

Eating healthy foods and taking vitamin supplements regularly is one step to improving one’s health.

Having a healthy and balanced diet is beneficial to our immune system and our body as a whole. With the help of vitamins from your diet or from the supplements that you take, your immune systems could be so much more efficient. But the benefit of vitamins is not focused on the immune system alone. Other body systems also benefit from the goal of living a healthier life.

Here are some vitamins and where they can be sourced from:

• #1 - Vitamin A

Vitamin A is an intense infection fighter that helps the immune system against sickness. Vitamin A is usually found in seafood. However, Vitamin A is also present in carrots, sweet potatoes, and cantaloupe! Including these foods into our healthy, balanced everyday diet would be a good choice if we want to build a stronger immune system to fight against sickness.

• #2 - Vitamin C

Vitamin C is known as the king of all vitamins as it makes it easier for the body to absorb all other vitamins. Vitamin C is found in many sources including spinach, kale, bell peppers, and fruits such as strawberries!

• #3 - Vitamin D

Vitamin D is a potent nutrient. However, the food sources for this vitamin are scarce. The limited list includes salmon, sardines, mackerel, and tuna, basically joint seafood. So, to avoid vitamin D deficiencies, taking regular supplements for the nutrient will be beneficial.

• #4 - Vitamin E

 Vitamin E is a known powerful antioxidant that is part of about 200 biochemical reactions in the body, which make the vitamin crucial to the functioning of the immune system. To get vitamin E, include hazelnuts, almonds, and sunflower seeds into your daily diet.

• #5 - Vitamin B6

Vitamin B6 is also a powerful antioxidant. It is also vital to support the countless biochemical reactions in the body to boost the immune system against sickness.

The most common food sources of vitamin B6 include both meat and vegetable products such as (but not limited to) chicken, salmon, and peas.

What to Remember

The five vitamins mentioned in this post are only a few among the very important factors that the body need in order to improve its capacity to fight off sickness. The resources that were noted in this post are all natural and organic.

However, because of the many adjustments in the environment, the rich capacity of natural resources to provide enough vitamins that the body needs have particularly been lacking for many years now. This is why it became the initiative of health advocates to find ways to cope up with the said lack of vitamin resources. Through creating competent sources of vitamins through natural health supplements, creators of vitamins tend to bridge the gap between natural sources and the lack of time people have in terms of preparing or buying good food resources because of their busy lifestyles.