Welcome to the huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford school of medicine.
Today. We are discussing colds and flus we will talk about what a cold really is and what a flu really
is in terms of how they impact your brain and body and of
course, we will discuss how to avoid getting
colds and flus. There are indeed some
excellent science supported.
Techniques to avoid getting colds and flus, but of course, it is impossible to completely avoid ever getting a cold or flu in your lifetime. So we also discuss how to more quickly get over a cold or flu
should you happen to catch one?
So during today's discussion, I'll talk about the immune system. I'll give you
some mechanistic understanding
of how your immune system works
and I promise to make that discussion accessible to everybody regardless of whether or not you have a background in biology
and with that understanding of how your immune system works. You will be in a
in a much better position to understand which tools that is which protocols to implement should you be exposed to a cold or flu or if you are trying to get over a cold or flu more
quickly than you would
otherwise you'll learn about some potent behavioral tools for bolstering your immune system and we will also discuss various compounds that you might consider taking to enhance the function of your immune system to ward off or treat colds and flus. I will also be dispelling a number of common myths about treatments for the common cold.
And for the flu, there are oh
so many ideas out there about what one could take or do in order to avoid getting the cold or flu or more
quickly get relief from a cold or
flu however, many of those are pure myth. There's just no science to support them and indeed there's some science that
counters those ideas, but the good
news is there are indeed science supported behavioral protocols and compounds that one could consider in order to avoid and treat colds and flus before we begin. I'd like to emphasize
Sighs that this podcast is separate from my
teaching and research roles at Stanford it is
however part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to Consumer information
about science and science related tools to the general public
in keeping with that theme. I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Juve Juve makes medical grade red light therapy devices now if there's one thing I've consistently emphasize on this podcast is the incredible role that light can
have on our biology
and of course, I'm always telling people that they should get sunlight.
In their eyes as soon as possible after waking on as many days of their life as possible for sake of
setting circadian rhythm daytime mood focus and alertness and improve sleep.
Now in addition to sun light red light and near-infrared light has been shown to have positive effects on improving numerous aspects of cellular and organ
Health including
faster Muscle Recovery improved skin health and wound healing even
improvements in acne or that is removal of
acne reducing pain and inflammation improving mitochondrial function and
Even improving Vision itself what sets you apart and why it's my preferred red light therapy device is that it has clinically proven wavelengths meaning it uses specific wavelengths of red light and near-infrared light in combination that trigger the optimal seller adaptations personally. I use the handheld Juve everyday the handheld
Juve is about the size of a thick piece of
toast and I also own a Juve panel that allows for full body exposure and I use that one approximately five times per week for about 10 to 15 minutes per session if you'd like to try
Juve you can go to juvie
spelled j 0o v v.com huberman. Again. That's Juve.com huberman for this month only January 2020 for juvies offering exclusive discounts to huberman lab listeners with up to 500 dollars
off select Jew products. Again, that's Jus spell
Jo o
VV.com huberman to get up to 500 dollars off select. You've products
today's episode is also brought To Us by Helix sleep Helix sleep makes mattresses and pillows.
That are tailored to your unique sleep needs now sleep is the foundation of
mental health physical health and performance when we are
sleeping well and enough mental health physical health and performance all stand to be at their best. One of the key things to getting a great night's sleep is to make sure that your mattress is tailored to your unique sleep needs Helix sleep has a brief 2-minute quiz that if you go to their
website, you take that quiz and answer questions such as do you tend to sleep on your back your side of your stomach. Do you tend to run hot or
cold in the middle of the night? Maybe you don't know the
answers to those questions?
And that's fine at
the end of that two minute quiz, they will match you to a mattress that's ideal for your sleep
needs. I sleep on the dusk the usk mattress. And when I
started sleeping on a desk mattress about two years ago my sleep immediately improved. So if you're interested in upgrading your
mattress go to Helix sleep.com / huberman take their two minutes sleep quiz, and they'll match you to a customized mattress for you and you'll get up to 350 dollars off any mattress order and to free pillows again, if interested go to Helix sleep.com huberman for up to 300.
And $50 off and to free pillows.
Today's episode is also brought To Us by rokka rokka makes eyeglasses and
sunglasses that are the absolute highest quality. I've
spent a lifetime working on the
biology the visual system and
I can tell you that your visual system has to contend with an enormous number of
challenges in order for you to be able to see clearly
Roka understands those
challenges and has designed their eyeglasses and
sunglasses accordingly so that you always see with Crystal Clarity Roka eyeglasses and sunglasses are designed with a new technology called float fit, which allows
To fit perfectly and not move around even when you're active. In fact whenever I'm wearing my Roca eye glasses or sunglasses. I usually
forget that I'm wearing them. I happen to wear Roca eyeglasses at night when I drive or if I'm
reading at night and I wear Oka sunglasses during the daytime if it's very bright, especially if I'm driving into sunlight if you'd
like to try Roca eye glasses or
sunglasses. You can go to Roca.com.
That's our okay
a.com and enter the code huberman for
20% off your first order
again. That's our okay a.com and
enter the code huberman at
Check
out. Okay, let's talk about the common cold. First off. No, unfortunately today I cannot tell you the cure
for the common cold because indeed there isn't one
one interesting question. However is why don't we have a cure for the common cold? And the reason is that the cold virus as its referred to is actually a bunch of different viruses. Some colds are caused by one what's called serotypes of the virus other colds are caused by a different serotypes of the virus.
Over 160 different types of what people call the cold virus now cold viruses fall under an umbrella of a
general category of viruses called rhinoviruses. You can remember that easily because rhino sounds like Rhino horn the rhinoceros horn, which is of course in the center of the Rhinos face, which is where your nose is
and the cold almost always causes
some degree of nasal symptoms in humans. It's
either runny nose or sneezing or stuffed up nose or
sometimes unfortunately, all three
now.
The reason we don't have a cure for the common cold is that all of those different serotypes of the cold virus mean that the virus itself has a different shape
on its outside and as a
consequence, even if you've been exposed to a cold and you've
developed antibodies against that cold virus the next coal
that comes along very likely has a different shape and therefore your body's antibodies to the
cold virus at combat. It successfully before
can't latch onto and defeat that next different stereotype of the cold virus now a little bit later. I'll talk
Talk about the immune system and how those different antibodies are
generated. But for the time being understanding that there are a lot of different types of cold viruses explains. First of all why we don't have a cure for the common cold, but also why you can get multiple colds
within a given year or even within a given season because even if you develop antibodies against one stereotype of the cold virus a different serotypes can come along and you can get sick again with that new stereotype of the cold virus. So how do you catch a
cold now one of the problems with the cold virus being called?
Old the cold virus and the fact that indeed there are more cold viruses
present and transmitted between humans in the cold winter months of the
year is that people generally assume that it is
the cold temperatures outside that actually give you a cold virus and that is simply not true.
However, what you heard as a kid if
your mom most likely but maybe your dad said, hey don't go outside without a
sweater or jacket on you're going to catch a cold or you going to catch cold, you know has propagated.
This this myth that the cold temperatures themselves are the cause of catching a cold virus and that's simply not true. The virus that we call the cold virus
is spread by breathing or by sneezing or by people sneezing
or coughing or breathing onto their hands and then touching surfaces and then other people touching those surfaces and then touching most
likely their eyes in order to self. In
fact now we're going to get into the details
of how
far the virus can spread with a sneeze how long you can survive on the hands
Etc. But for the time being no this the cold virus is a pretty stable virus in that it can survive on surfaces non-human or human surfaces meaning skin or on a table or on a glass or on a door handle for up to 24 hours.
So for all you hypochondriacs out there, I probably just gave you a little spike in cortisol and for Yunnan hypochondriacs. I hope what I just said.
due to the fact that just avoiding people who are sneezing and coughing is not sufficient to
avoid getting colds and flus
However, the fact that a cold virus
is Alive and Well on a given surface, let's say on a door
handle does not mean that if you touch that door handle that you will necessarily
be infected with that cold virus and that's because your skin actually provides an excellent barrier against most viruses and bacteria your
skin also includes a lot of antiviral
substances on it, even if you haven't
Put any of that, you know alcohol stuff for the hand sanitizer stuff on your
skin is a very important barrier
component of your immune system. We're going to talk about that a little bit later,
but if somebody has a cold and they happened to
perhaps, you know, wipe their
nose or sneeze into a tissue hopefully into a tissue and then discard that tissue the cold virus particles are extremely small how small well most of us are familiar with thinking about centimeters or inches if you think about a millimeter being 1/100 of a centimeter
Well, you can take a millimeter and you can divide that up into a bunch of little slices also such that you get the Micron. The Micron is 1/1000 of a
centimeter and if you want to get a sense of how thick or thin that is the
side of a credit card, the little thin side of a credit card
is about 200 microns thick.
So if you set your credit card flat on a table and then you look at it from the side that tiny tiny thin little Edge, that's about 200 microns. The cold virus is made up of
Particles that are probably in the range of about 5
microns or so. So it's extremely small. I mean the
cold virus therefore with a good sneeze or even a light sneeze can
spread really far.
Now the good news is those particles are relatively heavy. They don't tend to missed
about in the air for very long.
They tend to fall down onto
the ground or onto surfaces. But as I mentioned before they can survive for a very long time on those surfaces.
So should you touch your hand to a door handle or table or shake the hand of somebody that has cold virus on their hands?
It's either because they
themselves have a cold or they
contacted somebody else cold virus and it somehow landed on their hands just because the other person sneeze all these scenarios are very realistic
that cold virus will not infect you unless it can get inside of your body and one of the primary
entry points of it getting inside your body is via the Eyes
by wiping that cold
virus on your eyes.
Now you may think okay. I'm
just not going to touch my eyes,
but a little bit later we're going to talk about a study that shows that
Almost always indeed almost always when you meet somebody new you touch your eyes and the frequency of people touching
their face. That is the region of the
face around the eyes and their eyes throughout the day is extremely high. So this is one of the
primary routes by which the cold virus is transmitted from one person to the next but of course,
there's also the route that we're all familiar with which is
the person that is sneezing or
coughing or blowing their nose into tissues and then throwing
them in the trash and not washing their hands after
Each and every time they do that,
so an important aspect of today's discussion that we will get into once
I also present you what a flu is and how it differs from the
cold is that we're going to need to talk about what stage of
infection people are actually contagious with the cold or flu and
there's actually a lot of Mythology about this.
In fact, there's a lot of just lying about this people will be
coughing or sneezing and they'll say oh yeah, I'm not contagious any longer or people make up these things like oh, you know if you had the flu for two days, then you're no longer contagious.
Or that you can't be contagious until you have symptoms. So we're going to go
through all the aspects of contagion and how coughing or sneezing or how long you've had a cold or flu actually relates to whether or not you're contagious in a little bit. But for the time being know that the cold virus is very
very small. It can be transmitted through the air. It can be transmitted via contact from skin to skin contact and it can survive on surfaces for up to 24 hours and when you touch those surfaces or a person with the cold virus
most often the way it's going to get into your
body and infect you such that you get a cold is by
touching your eye region,
although touching other regions of your body
can also pass the cold virus into you for instance the mouth and lips, but that's actually far less common. So we'll get into that in just a little bit now different serotypes that is different types of cold
virus tend to create a different array of overall symptoms such that, you know one called might be a really quote unquote bad cold others are more mild some tend to induce
more runny nose others more stuffy head and a little bit of fever or in some cases.
A lot of fever one thing that's important to understand is that if people are going to be infected by the cold virus, they tend to develop symptoms
one to two days after they were exposed to the virus.
Now the good news is if you are exposed to the cold virus
that doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to catch that cold virus that is if your immune
system can fight off that cold even if you've never been exposed to that stereotype before then you won't actually
have that cold and you won't transmit it. So put differently it
is possible to avoid
Avoid getting a cold virus even if you've never been exposed to that
stereotype of cold virus and you happen to come into contact with somebody who has that Sarah type of cold virus or you touch a surface of some object door handle etcetera that
has particular Sarah type of the cold virus on it and God forbid you then wipe your eyes that doesn't necessarily mean
that you're going to get sick and a good portion of today's episode is going to focus on tools that are
supported by science that allow you to bolster your immune system and greatly increase.
Probability that even if you're exposed to a
novel Sarah type of the cold virus that is one that's new to you that your body's never seen before that. You won't get sick.
Another thing to understand about the cold virus is that you're generally most
contagious to other people when you feel at your worst that is when you're coughing and sneezing and you got that stuffy head watery eyes and so on but you can
also be contagious to other people when
you are starting to feel better that
said most of the data point to the fact that about five to six days after you hit your
Peak of worst
symptoms where I guess we should say your nadir the dip of or symptoms
because it's such an awful state to be in you are probably exiting the phase in which you're contagious.
Now. I want to be very clear that does
not mean that if you've had a cold for five or six days that you are no longer contagious if you continue to experience sneezing and
coughing watery eyes in the evening. You're feeling much worse
first thing in the morning, you're feeling especially groggy at cetera. Well, then you are still contagious another way to frame this is
Those people that continue to show up at the gym and
show up at work. They tell you yeah, I got this cold, but I've had it for a few days. I'm no longer
contagious and they're wiping their eyes and they're blowing their
nose. Frankly. They don't know what they're talking about. They are basically
a walking talking breathing sneezing coughing cold virus Vector a vector is a route for passage of a virus.
So please if you are sneezing, if you are coughing if you are
still experiencing the symptoms of
Of a cold stay home stay away from
other people as much as possible. And I realize that some people simply cannot avoid going to work or
cannot avoid interacting with other family members or other people. They have the cold virus but this
mythology that if we've had a cold for a few days and we're starting to feel better, but we're
still exhibiting symptoms that were not contagious. That is pure myth. It's simply not grounded. In fact now there's nothing that can be done about that
first day or two after which were exposed to a cold
virus where we are not experiencing symptoms.
And it's quite possible to pass the cold virus on to other
people, but I think
that every workplace every home environment every gym every society would benefit greatly if people who were sick with the cold did not
expose other people to that cold virus as much as possible and indeed. This is a serious issue. It's not just about a few sniffles and watery
eyes. There's an enormous
financial and mental health cost and physical health
costs to people getting the cold and it's not just about people who are immune compromised or elderly people. What weird
Really referring to as the cold today can
be mild. It can be moderate. It can also be very severe and it can exacerbate other health issues that people have and we'll talk about that a little bit later and how to offset some of those health issues.
Okay. So now let's talk about the flu virus. The flu virus is
as I mention a virus
and just like with the cold there are different
serotypes of the flu virus. There are also different General categories of flu virus. So you've got your a type flu viruses your b-type flu viruses and your seat.
Type flu
viruses and by the way, I'm saying flu viruses, but of course, I'm
referring to influenza, but it's just kind of commonplace nowadays to refer to influenza as the
flu similar to cold viruses the different types of flu viruses exist based on the different types of proteins
that they express on their surface. In
fact in the news over the last few years. There have been a number of different flu virus strains that have been described according to their surface protein characteristics things like the eighth.
One n one virus
what is H1N1
H1N1 describes the different types of proteins that are
expressed on the surface of that particular flu virus
now the most common type of flu viruses are in that a category of flus this is the type of flu that caused the Spanish flu now the Spanish Flu which by the way did not originate in Spain
people think it probably originated in New York perhaps elsewhere, but certainly not in Spain
Killed anywhere from 17 to
50 million people depending on which literature you read that's an enormous number of people and it
occurred in four different waves of infection that occurred between the years
1918 and 1920. The
Spanish Flu was a type A H1N1
virus and actually it's worth noting that
this winter season there have been some
cases of H1N1 already reported in the United States and elsewhere. Now, of
course, the goal is always to contain the
propagation of
Flu viruses and
that is done through a number of different approaches the best and most reliable approach of
course is to not come into contact with somebody that is carrying the H1N1 or any other type
of flu virus.
However, based on the way that the flu
virus infects the body the way that the symptoms emerge and the ways that
viruses propagate that can't always be avoided
one thing to know and I consider this a fortunate aspect
of flu virus biology.
Is that the flu virus unlike the cold virus?
Us can only exist on surfaces for about
two hours
after about two hours it tends to die off. So the flu virus is most typically passed by human human contact or coming into contact that is walking into a
cloud of somebody's sneeze that contains flu virus or somebody's cough that contains flu virus
and yes, it is possible that shaking someone's hand could actually introduce flu
virus to your hand. And then if you wipe your eyes, or I'll talk about a few other portals of entry for the flu virus and cold virus in a few minutes.
Can get into your body and infect you and yes, you can pick up the flu
virus from surfaces.
However, that is far less common than the flu virus passing from human human contact.
Now, there aren't as many different types of flu virus as there are types of cold virus and that's why there have been attempts at making flu vaccines or so-called
flu shots. I
think most people are familiar with the signs and
advertisements online and in the workplace and school saying, you know, get your flu shot this season the reason that
flu shots can exist at all is because there are a limited
enough types of flu virus present in a given year that specific
vaccines that is flu shots can be generated against that particular strain of the flu virus. So
how effective is the flu shot and I want to be very specific here when we say the flu shot singular it sort of implies that there's one flu shot that can combat
all the different types of flu. And as you just learned that is not the case,
so we probably should be saying the flu shots, but just for sake of Simplicity when I say the
Shot I mean the flu shot that's given in a given flu season that is directed at specific strains of the flu because researchers have determined that that particular strain of flu or strains of flu are the ones that are most abundant for that particular flu season Studies have shown that getting the flu shot reduces one's risk of Contracting the particular flu that is most abundant That season by about 40 to 60 percent. But of course the flu shot is completely ineffective at combating.
Any other forms of the
flu virus and of course colds or other types of upper respiratory infections
Studies have also shown that taking the flu shot can reduce the severity of one symptoms if they in fact get the flu anyway now personally, I don't typically get the flu shot. And the reason for that is that I don't tend to go into environments where I am particularly susceptible to getting the flu. I don't work in a hospital or clinic. I don't tend to interact with large numbers of people on a daily basis. So for me, I've opted not to get the flu shot now that
I mean that I've never contracted the flu as I mentioned earlier. I tend to get sick with a cold or flu about once every 18 to 24 months and the severity of that colder flew as range from you know, at one point a very high fever in one case, but typically a moderate fever and the usual symptoms of malaise that we've been discussing and I've managed to get over those without having taken the flu shot pretty easily. Now, of course, we also don't know that those were actually flus despite the distinct differences between the symptoms of cold and flu.
Lou most people don't really know whether or not they have a cold or flu. So this is another thing to think about when considering whether or not to get the flu shot ultimately because at least to my knowledge most workplaces do not mandate that people get the flu shot. I could be wrong about certain workplaces. But my experience is that most workplaces do not mandate that people get the flu shot when you take the flu shot. You're really hedging a bet you're hedging a bad against the
fact that you will be or not be
exposed to that particular strain of flu virus. That's most abundant that
He's an or strains of flu virus that are most abundant That
season and that the flu shot that you're taking is directed at
those particular strains. So
again in my case, I don't tend to take the flu shot. But of course you need to make the decision that's right for you. For instance. If you have family members that are immune compromised or you work in a school or you think that you are exposed to a lot of flus or you're concerned about transmitting flew to any one individual or group of individuals. Those are all things that need to be taken into consideration. And of course speak to your physician.
Physician I will also say this which is that I mentioned that I've tended to catch colds or flus at a rate of about once every 18 to 24 months. And when I say a cold or flu, I mean a
serious one one that keeps me in bed where I have a fever and I'm sweating what I
have done and I continue to do is because I pay pretty close attention to how well I'm sleeping or different life events my different workouts etcetera and I put those into my calendar and I have a
shorthand to do that. So it only takes about 30 seconds each day. Okay did this work out? It was kind of level 7 out of 10 intensity.
Got good sleep last night or poor
sleep. And I know what good and poor sleep is for me. I mean that's about the level that I'm charting
these things. I have been able to go back and look
at the events preceding when I've come down with a cold or flu again. I don't know whether it was a cold or flu. But
before I got sick and I have seen for instance like I've ever done to hard
workouts in a day something I never do any longer. I've tended to get sick after that if I pretended to do
hard workouts and then expose myself to cold temperatures
while
Eiling especially traveling overseas that tended to precede those colds or flus which again for me are very seldom. So it's a limited data set. This is entirely anak data meaning related to my own history of getting colds and flus,
but it's something that I actually recommend people do which is, you know to pay attention to when you first started getting symptoms pay attention to when you got over a given
what you think is a cold or
flu and then to look at what was happening in the days before and that day. I don't think it's possible to do
hyper precise forensics
on
Cold or flu right? I mean you could have gone into the gas station put your credit card in the machine to you know, grab a drink out of the refrigerator and picked up a
cold or flu from the handle of the refrigerator or from the credit card machine or even from the gas pump. You simply don't know.
However, if you look at the pattern of
behavior travel sleep exercise sorts of interactions, you were having prior to getting a bad cold or flu
chances are you're going to learn something interesting and be able to
avoid getting a serious colder flew at least to some extent go.
Going forward and I've done that I think fairly successfully because I can tell you that the frequency or colds or flus that I've come down with has indeed been dropping from year to year. So whereas a decade ago, I tend to get colds or flus probably about once a year and in some cases even twice a year. Although that was pretty rare that really expanded to about once every
18 months. And then in the
last five years, I think I've gotten sick two times pretty badly with a cold or flu and then once with a kind of mild cold or flu so I tell you all that.
As an example of how you can start to
think about how your immune system interacts with different types of behaviors different types of situations such that you can learn something about your immune system. And what's going to best protect you against getting colds and flus going forward, which of
course is a great thing to do because we all think that we can get out there be around people that are coughing and sneezing we can go to the gym when it's crowded in Winter. Oh that person over there is you know coughing, but I'm going to
just, you know, stay a few feet away. No big deal
and while I don't want to turn anyone into
hypochondriacs, that's how you get infected.
How you get a cold or flu and at the same time? I don't think anyone should you know get to the point where they're afraid to go into a gym or afraid to go to the workplace, but I will say once again if you're sick with a cold or flu if you are coughing sneezing
blowing your nose runny eyes and you're walking into work or the gym or on to public transportation and you're
telling people I'm not contagious you're
lying. I'd like to take a brief moment and thank one of our sponsors and that's a G1 a G1 is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that also contains adaptogens.
I started taking a G1 way back in
2012. The reason I
started taking it and the reason I still take it every day is that it ensures that I meet all of my quotas for vitamins and minerals and it ensures that I get enough Prebiotic and probiotic to support gut health now gut health is something that over the last 10 years we realized is not just important for the health of our gut but also for our immune system and for the production of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators things like dopamine and serotonin in other words God health is critical.
For proper brain functioning now, of course, I strive to consume healthy Whole Foods for the majority of my nutritional intake every single day. But there are a number of things in a G1 including specific micronutrients that are hard to get from Whole Foods or at least in sufficient quantities. So ag-1 allows me to get the vitamins and minerals that I need probiotics prebiotics the adaptogens and critical micronutrients. So anytime somebody asks me if they were to take Just One supplement what that supplement should be I tell them a G1 because ag1
So many different systems within the body that are involved in mental health physical health and performance to try a G1 go to drink AG one.com hubermann and you'll get a year supply of vitamin D3 k 2 and 5 free travel packs of a G1 again. That's drink AG one.com hubermann. Now the Diabolical thing about the flu virus is that just like the Diabolical thing about the cold virus.
You start shedding virus that is you are contagious
about 24 hours
prior.
To the onset of first symptoms for you. So that means that you can be a flu
viral Vector, even when
you aren't having symptoms. That's just the unfortunate aspect of these viruses are very clever. They don't have brains but these viruses have adapted to propagate from host to host a host. They have a drive to continue to stay alive and to infect more hosts. So even though they don't have a brain they have a sort of let's call it viral intelligence
and as I've said several times now if you are still
The
symptoms of the cold or flu you are
contagious. However with respect to the flu, you are most contagious during the three days when you feel the absolute worst when your fever is at its worst, we'll talk about how to deal with fever a little bit later
when you are coughing and sneezing headache
all of that when that is at its peak that is when you are most contagious. So
again, I realized that people can't always avoid contact with other people you live under the same
roof caretakers interacting with
the person that has the cold or flu and I do want to remind you something I said earlier which is just because you come into
contact with a cold or flu does not necessarily mean that you will come down with that is be infected by a cold or
flu whether or not you come down with a cold or flu is of course
dependent on whether or not you come into contact with it. You can't catch a cold or flu that you've never come into contact with just like you can't get eaten by a shark. If you never go in the ocean, however, the probability of coming down with a cold or flu of it getting past.
Your immune system barriers and infecting you is going to be strongly
dictated by the different
aspects of your immune system for which there are three major aspects, which we'll talk about next and of course the things that you do to bolster those three aspects of your immune system. Okay, let's talk about your
immune system and I have to confess that even though I've spent well over three decades being a
student of and researcher of the nervous system. The
immune system is oh so cool and I say that because it hasn't
Incredible elegance and logic to
it. It basically consists
of three major lines of Defense. There's a physical barrier or rather a set of physical barriers that exist between
the organs of your body and the outside world and you're probably immediately thinking skin
and yes indeed. It includes your skin, but also some interesting
things like the mucosal lining of your nose and mouth and even some of the liquids that are on the surface of your eyes will talk about those in a moment. Then there's a second line of defense, which
is for any
Or bacteria or fungus for that matter. But today we're talking about viruses cold and flu
viruses any viruses that get past the physical barrier of your
skin and the mucosal lining of particular regions of your body.
Well, then you have What's called the innate immune system the innate immune system is this very generalized response system its General in the sense that it deploys a basic set of neurochemicals that are not specific to the particular virus. That's made it into your body. So not only is it not specific to a particular cell
So type of the cold or a different type of flu virus but it's not even discriminating between cold or flu virus this thing. We call the innate immune system is a generalized response system to go and
combat viruses so it could be a cold. It could be a fluid could be a bacteria. It
could be a fungus. It could even be a physical object and your innate immune system responds by saying, okay. Let's go deal with this now the third component of your immune system, which is
What's called the Adaptive immune system and I alluded to this aspect of your immune system a little bit earlier
the Adaptive immune.
System is the aspect of your immune system that recognizes because the innate immune
system told it that something has infected the body at some level at some organ or set of organs and there's an emergency and the
Adaptive immune system goes in and
in a very targeted way figures out what sorts of proteins it needs to produce that is antibodies to combat that
specific Sarah type of virus.
Okay. So the immune system has a physical barrier component and it's not just skin.
In some other things as well, you've got your innate immune system, which is
this generalized response system. And then there's the Adaptive immune
system. Let's talk about the physical barrier component first and this is actually a good opportunity for us to just take a brief step back and realize that any time we're talking about our physiology. There's going to be a mechanical set of features and there's going to be a chemical set of features. So right now we're talking about the immune system and the mechanical feature or the physical
feature of the immune system.
Is this barrier between the organs of our body?
And the outside world and the most obvious of those is the skin you are contained in this bag of stuff that we
call skin the skin isn't just for putting clothing on and for adorning with jewelry or tattoos, if that's your thing watches etcetera. Your skin is a living organ in and of itself. I think we're most accustomed to think about the heart and the lungs and the liver and the Brain as
organs of the body, but the skin is an organ of the body as well as a bunch
of different layers of
cells from the outside to the inside actually the
skin cells themselves.
Ourselves are made in the deeper layers of the skin and
they migrated out towards the surface of the skin and at the surface of the skin on top
of those cells and made by those cells are different types
of chemicals that actually serve as antibacterial and antiviral agents meaning if a
cold virus or flu virus or other type of virus lands on the skin, it can neutralize and kill that virus. So your skin is a very important physical barrier
against viruses such as the cold or flu virus getting into your body and infecting other cells and tissues now,
Skin is not contiguous. Meaning there are holes in it. So let's think about those holes for a
second as we go from
head to foot. It's pretty obvious that
your eyes have these two openings. And those are
openings in your
skin. Right as you open your eyelids beneath. There are your
corneas the shiny part of your eyes and then a little bit further back at the back inner lining of
your eyeball. You have a very thin 3 cell layer thick piece of tissue that we call the neural
retina and I say this because
The neural retina is
actually a piece of your brain. So you have two pieces of
brain that line the back of your eyes and that's the light
sensing tissue in the back of your eyes. Now. I say this because what this means is
that it's a very short distance between the opening of your skin that we call
your eyelids and your brain. Now most of the brain of course is contained in the cranial Vault within what most people call the
skull but your brain isn't far away from those openings that we call your eyelids.
So as a consequence on the surface of your eyes those corneas the shiny part of your eyes on the outside.
There are a bunch of different
chemical features. There are tears that are made by your
lacrimal glands, but they're also a lot of antibacterial agents that actively kill off
stuff that could potentially infect your body could make it into your body maybe even into your brain if you've ever
woken up in the morning and you have some crust on your
eyes and you know, look at that crust that
kind of yellowy stuff sometimes yellow. I know this is kind of gross that's
actually dead bacteria that your eyes have successfully defeated during your night sleep. So when you wipe those
away, you're taking the
casualties of a
A war that you won during your night sleep and you're whisking those away.
Now as we descend a little bit further down the face there, of course the nostril openings and the nostril openings tend
to be kind of sticky right there. Moistu key and warm. You don't have to put your fingers up them right now. You just know they're moist sticky and warm get your fingers out of your nose, please
the mucosal lining of your nose is actually a very important
substance that is sticky in order to trap viruses
such as colds and flu viruses and then chemical components within the
mucosal lining can neutralize them.
The best case scenario there are of course scenarios in which the cold or flu virus takes residence in your
mucosal lining and it could make its way back into your
sinus passages and can then infect other cells and tissues of your body because the virus replicates and spreads throughout the body
and then going a little bit further down. I
realize this is obvious you have your mouth and what's really interesting is that your mouth also has mucosal lining which is sticky and has chemical components to neutralize incoming viruses, but
we know that the type of mucus
And the type of bacteria that live in your
nose and mouth that by the way are very healthy for you and
encourage healthy immune system
function that is act as ways to neutralize viruses within your nose and mouth are very different.
So your nose and your mouth may seem similar at the level of okay. Well
it's warm and sticky in there there's mucus, but they are very very different tissues. In fact, if you think about your mouth, it's this incredible structure that not only lets you eat and breathe in and out through although I suggest most people be nasal breathers for most of the time of their
Day and night if you can of course, sometimes you have to mouth breathe, but keep this in mind that you have this
big opening in the front of your face and bacteria are getting in there all day long viruses are getting in there all day long and in most cases you are successfully combating
those viruses and bacteria
because the mucosal lining of your mouth
and your nose for that matter and
the microbiota those little micro organisms that have taken residence in
your nose and mouth are helping to contribute to fight off.
If bacteria and viruses provided the microbiota, there are diverse and are of the type you want which we'll talk a little bit more about later
and then descending further down the body. Of course. There are other
openings Into Your Skin Barrier namely the urethra of the penis or vagina and of course the vaginal Canal
so the genitals of course have their own mucosal
lining and as you can imagine
it is distinct in terms of its physical makeup and its chemical makeup from the mucosal.
being of your nasal passages and mouth
and then of course, we have the rectum and anus which is the outflow
pathway of your intestines which are post Digestive and their to you have a mucosal lining for
which yes certain types of viruses and bacteria can in fact that area but what we know is that the primary entry sites the most common ways in which colds and flus get into your body the way they breach that physical barrier that we call
your skin is through your eyes your nose or your mouth and there are a
lot of
Data, some of which conflict and frankly there need to be more data in order to really resolve this but it seems like the primary entry site for viruses to get into
the body tends to be the eyes were the mouth and we can get into some of the reasons why that would be so but if
you think back to our conversation about the way that colds and flus exist in the world
either as aerosols
or on surfaces of objects or on surfaces of skin. Well then what I'm about to tell you next will make it 0 so obvious
why the eyes and the mouth
The primary sites of entry for colds and flus and if you keep that in mind, there's a good chance. You can
avoid a lot of colds or flus that you would otherwise catch. Okay. So before I talk about the important roles of the innate and the Adaptive immune system in
keeping colds and flus at Bay.
I'll tell you that you have a problem
and that problem is that you tend to
touch your eyes very often. In fact you tend to touch
your eyes most often after you shook somebody else's hand. Now why am
My picking on you. Well, in fact, I'm not I'm
picking on all of you and I'm picking on myself included because there have been several studies now primarily from know I'm sobel's Lab at the Weitzman Institute showing that when people
encounter another person and they shake their hand they either
touch their eyes or touch another region of their face very close to the eyes
or that they touch their hand to their mouth.
Now, there are a bunch of theories as to why people do this. There's the idea that people are actually
Sniffing their own hand and in particular sniffing their own hand more often after they Shake someone else's hand as a way to detect what chemo signals exist on the other person not necessarily conscious smelling of the other person smell but rather some sort of unconscious mechanism by which we take the chemicals of the person we come into contact with and we bring them to our nose or eyes or in some cases are upper lip and that our olfactory system. That is the neurons that exist just behind the back of our nose.
Our processing that information and getting all sorts of important information about how stressed the other person is their hormones whether or not we recognize them the fact that they are different from us. That's right. We are also smelling ourselves all day long. No one's lab has shown this that people are
kind of walking around in their own odor
Cloud. We tend to touch our armpits. We tend to touch
different aspects of our body. Yes and
smell ourselves multiple times throughout the day. This is
all being done unconsciously.
Suppose some people are doing it consciously and that there's a lot
of information about our physiology and health and when we do this after shaking somebody's hand that there's a lot of information
about the other person's physiology and health that our nervous system our olfactory system and deep parts of our brain that are involved in primitive type behaviors, but also some pretty sophisticated
behaviors are taking into account now. No, I'm sober was a guest on the huberman Lab podcast. I encourage you to check out that episode if you have time. It's a fascinating Voyage into the
olfactory system and not just
Conscious smelling or sniffing of things that we go. Oh that smells good or that smells bad or that
person, you know somebody I want to mate with or hang out with or avoid
it's also unconscious processing
of so-called chemo signals chemical
signals, but the reason I bring up these studies now in the context of colds and flus and
how to avoid getting colds and flus
is as a reminder that we are pretty much wired to contact our own face with our own hands at the level of our
eyes nose and upper lip
And around the eyes very shortly after we touch
somebody else's skin and if you are
mindful of it, you can actually avoid bringing colds or flus to your face now in doing so are you're going to short-circuit a bunch of other important biological processes involved in
understanding what's going on in your environment? Because you're not bringing in those smells
I suppose that's possible. But with respect to avoiding colds and flus that seems like a pretty good trade off to me. So the point I'm trying to make here is that in order for you to catch her?
Cold or flu that cold or flu virus the little particles of cold and flu virus need to make it into your body and the primary entry sites
are eyes nose mouth
and the primary actions by which
we bring colds and flu viruses to our eyes nose mouth are
by touching other people or by touching other surfaces that have cold or flu virus just to remind you cold virus can exist up to 24 hours on a given surface flu virus tends to die
off after about two hours on a given surface.
And we're bringing that to our face. We are literally bringing the virus to ourselves. So a little bit more conscious awareness about that fact means that you can probably avoid colds and flus to
some extent how much well,
it's unclear. It's unclear because as you recall, some people have and are passing along cold or flu virus prior to any symptoms. And of course, it's possible that you can walk into an aerosol cloud of cold
or flu virus, even if a person isn't there and you don't come into contact with them, but some conscious awareness.
Us of these routes of passage for the cold or flu virus. I do believe can reduce the probability that you will catch a cold or flu and of course, I'm not encouraging people to never touch touch is an important part of social
connection and social bonding. But if you start to think about these portals of entry for the cold and flu virus into your body, well, then you you know, perhaps might think twice before, you know, hugging someone kissing them on the cheek during a time in which you're trying to actively avoid
getting the cold or flu now, I
feel a little bit funny about sharing this information because again, I don't
Want to
encourage people to always be at arm's distance, you know, you know fake
fist-bumping, you know, keeping a gap between them again touch is an important component of social connection,
but since today's topic is
colds and flus and how to avoid getting colds and flus just like you can't get eaten by a shark. If you don't go in the ocean. There's a much lower probability that you're going to get a cold or flu if you're not touching a lot of
hands and bringing those hands to your eyes nose or mouth.
I suppose one way around the sort of do I hug? Do I shake hands thing?
NG is to just be conscious of the fact that when you shake
somebody's hand that you're very likely to touch your eyes or face within the next 30 seconds or so
and maybe you end up being
that person who put some hand sanitizer on your hands. Sometimes that can feel awkward to do that right in front of somebody, you know, it's kind of sending a signal like hey, I don't want you to infect me, but guess what? You don't want them to infect you.
Okay, let's imagine that a cold or flu
virus makes it into your system it breaches the physical barrier of your skin and mucosal lining
you have in mind all the different ways that could happen and
The
different ways that could be prevented but we are starting at a point here a hypothetical point. Whereby that colder flu virus has a made it into your body
your immune system has an absolutely exquisitely sophisticated way of knowing you
versus other meaning
cells within your body that are of you and cells of your body that are from other organisms or
viruses from the outside world and when
viruses such as a cold or flu virus are
detected in your
Body, your
body might not even recognize that it's a cold or flu virus at might not even recognize that it's a virus at all. It just knows that this thing that's in me is of other
it's not me. I've never seen it before this is not me. These are not my cells. These are not the chemicals that I'm producing
and your immune system is amazing in that way and when it occurs your innate immune system launches a response, what is that response? Well, first of all, the response is very rapid, right?
Their flu makes it into your body and your innate immune system immediately or near immediately launches an
attack on that Invader or Invaders because as soon as the virus gets into your body, it's going to start replicating as quickly as it can what happens
white blood cells
that your body produces will go to the sites
where those viruses are. And the by the way those viruses are basically getting into cells of your body and then hijacking.
The genetic Machinery of those cells in order to replicate within those cells and then exit those cells and then go infect more cells. That's how these viruses work your body's making white blood cells things like neutrophils natural killer cells macrophages. These are what we call effector cells that act as a kind of ambulance system and go to the sites that those viruses exist and the cells that they've infected and start trying to physically barrier them in and also use specific.
Chemical mechanisms to neutralize and kill those viruses again anytime you're thinking about biology think mechanical features and chemical features of a response. Now a key component of the innate immune system is What's
called the complement system not compliment like, oh you look very nice today, but complement. Okay the complement system
which exists in the plasma within your blood. These are chemicals in your bloodstream that go and Mark specific cells that have been infected or viruses with a signal a chemical signal that
Ali looks
like an eat me signal to
these other cell types of your immune system such that those natural killer cells go through the body and go looking for the cells that have this eat me signal on them and try and destroy those particular cells. The other thing that your innate immune system does is that the cells that have been infected and that are undergoing damage remember they have cold or flu virus within them and they're hijacking the cellular Machinery of those cells and using it to produce their own virus more of the virus.
And as a consequence, the genetic Machinery
of those cells is not able to do a bunch of other things that it normally can do or at least not as well. Well those cells that are really hurting
release a help me signal
and then in response to that help me signal your immune system releases what are called cytokines things like interleukin-1 interleukin 6 tumor necrosis Factor Alpha just fancy nerd speak names for different types of molecules that go to the site of infection and try to help or a
assist to
remove that infection and they
also try to assist the repair of the
cells that have been infected by those viruses.
Now one of the mechanical or physical consequences
of these chemical
signals, like interleukin-1 interleukin 6 tnf-alpha again, those are all cytokines being drawn to a particular cell or region of cells that have been
infected is
that it creates some physical swelling of the
area. It impacts the vasculature the veins and capillaries that feed that area and
Sponsor that they put more blood there so you get some swelling or you'll get in some cases the release of
histamines, right? We think of antihistamine
drugs. Well histamines are an aspect of your immune system. They move around in your body in these really cool
cells called mast cells and AST mast
cells and when the histamines are released that area becomes kind of hot and swelling it's what we call Ed Emma and that whole area is marked as really a site just like a crash site on the side of the roads. Like hey, we've got eat me signals to get the debris in the bad stuff out of here.
I get those viruses out of here. We've got help me
signals to try and help the injured cells just like you were trying to help people at our
car crash and there's a bunch of swelling. So there's additional blood flow. Sometimes there's some other physical features
as well. Now
the important thing to know is that the innate immune system is
very fast and it is agnostic
to the type of infection. In fact, it doesn't even matter if it's a bacterial physical fungal or
viral infection, but it certainly isn't paying attention to the exact Cerro type of cold virus or whether or not it's an H1 influence or another type of influenza.
So the way to think about the innate immune system is that it is a very fast and
nonspecific response to a viral or other type of Invader.
Now, that's all a bunch of
biology. But if you think about it, let's imagine a
scenario where you go to a party hang out the party. You don't see anyone coughing or sneezing but maybe one person there has a cold virus or they have a flu virus and they aren't even aware of it. They're
not going to come down with symptoms for another day or so you talk to that person you shake hands maybe touch your eyes. Maybe you don't
but you're exposed to that.
Cold or flu virus
you go home.
Go sleep. You wake up the next morning and feel fine. And then sometime in the next afternoon, you start to feel a little
tickle in your throat. And you start to
feel just a little bit of fatigue or malaise. Do you have that cold or flu? Well,
possibly? Okay, we don't know for sure. But
assuming that that cold or flu virus did indeed make it into your system. Then your innate immune system is starting to
create a set of responses that we talked about a moment
ago.
But it also tends to impact things that the level of your brain
such that you can feel like, you know, I don't feel quite right. I feel like I'm a little bit I don't feel
great and there are a lot of reasons why you would feel that way. We'll talk
about those reasons a little bit later,
but does that mean that you're necessarily coming down with a cold or flu? Well, technically? Yes, your innate immune system is deployed to fight this foreign viral Invader, but whether or not you actually get a full-blown cold or flu or put differently.
How severe that cold or flu infection is depends on whether or not your innate immune system can fight off that cold or flu at the outset and indeed. There are many cases. We believe where you get exposed to a colder fluid makes it into your body, but your innate immune system is sufficient to beat it to fight it back. This is one of the reasons why it's so
important that if you're starting to feel a bit under the weather and you
think you're coming down with a cold or flu that you do certain things in order to make sure that your innate immune system is both ready.
D and that it can launch a full-scale attack on that cold or
flu virus we're going to
talk about how to do that a little bit later. I'm not trying to withhold it's just it's important to understand that just because the virus makes it into your body doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get a full-blown cold or flu and in fact that innate immune system. Sometimes is sufficient to prevent that colder flew from replicating enough that you get the
full-blown set of symptoms and that's kind of an
ideal scenario. So we're definitely going to talk today
about what to do
if you start to feel
Little bit of malaise what to do if you discover that. Oh, you know that person. I was hanging out with it the party the night before they're really sick with a cold or flu because there are things you can do to increase the probability that your innate immune system can handle the battle
sufficiently such that you never have to get to the next component of the immune response, which is the Adaptive immune response.
I'd like to take a quick break and thank our sponsor inside tracker inside tracker is a personalized nutrition platform that analyzes data from your blood and DNA to help you.
Better understand your
body and help you reach your health goals.
I've long been a believer in getting regular blood work done for the simple reason that many of the
factors that impact your immediate and long-term
Health can only be analyzed from a quality blood test. Now major problem with a lot of blood tests
out there. However,
is that you get information
back about metabolic factors lipids and hormones and so forth, but you don't know what to do with that
information with inside tracker. They make it very
easy because they have a personalized platform that
allows you to see the levels of all
those things metabolic factors lipids.
Moans Etc but it gives you specific directives that you can follow that relate to
nutrition behavioral
modification supplements, etcetera that can help you bring those numbers into the ranges that are optimal for you. If you'd like to try inside tracker, you can go to inside tracker.com
huberman to get
20% off any of
inside trackers plans again, that's inside tracker.com hubermann.
Okay. So the third layer of your immune system is your adaptive immune system, and this
is an amazing aspect of you.
Okay, the
stuff we talked about up until now the physical barrier the innate immune system. So so cool. But the Adaptive immune system is really a mind blower the most important thing to understand about your adaptive immune system. Is that as the
name suggests its job is to create antibodies
specific
to the very Intruder that made it into you and infected yourselves the
very specifics Arrow type of cold virus the very specific type of
influenza.
Such that you defeat that virus.
But then in an amazing way your adaptive immune system also maintains a memory of
that battle
and keeps within
your body believe it or not
within a population of stem cells, which are cells that can give rise to more cells such that if you ever encounter that same Sarah type of cold virus or same strain of influenza again
that your antibodies can immediately neutralize that
Older flu
virus the Adaptive immune system has the ability to make proteins
that have a particular shape on their
surface that matches the shape of the thing that your immune system is trying to kill now, the Adaptive immune system has two basic phases in the first phase the Adaptive immune system makes these things called immunoglobulins ig's and the
immunoglobulins come in different forms. There's IGG. There's
IGM there are other types of ig's as
well.
For sake of today's discussion know
that the initial wave of antibodies that the Adaptive immune system makes our of the IGM
variety and the IGM antibodies can
travel to and latch onto the surface of the cold or flu virus and it matches it pretty well. It's not perfect but it matches it pretty well think about for instance a particular stereotype of cold virus or the H1N1 flu virus having, you know a very particular Contour on its surface the IG.
M approximates that Contour such that it's better at fighting that cold or flu virus then is the innate
immune system but it's
not a perfect fit. However, the Adaptive immune system doesn't
stop with the production of those I GM's
the Adaptive immune system takes that information about how precise or imprecise that fit is between the IGM
antibody and the surface of that particular cold or flu
virus and then in an amazing way send signals back to the stem cell populations.
In the bone marrow and other tissues and then more antibodies come out of the IGG variety and IGG proteins are very specific to the shape of that particular cold virus or flu virus such that the ig's then can Define two and neutralize those viral particles. Okay. So when we talk about the immune
system, we're talking about a physical barrier that if it is
breached a cold or flu virus
Its residents and starts to replicate the innate immune system launches a generalized
attack on that cold or flu virus and
then the Adaptive immune system kicks in usually a couple days later first with the production of antibodies that are pretty specific to the particular virus
that happened to make it into the body and infect cells,
but then there's a second wave of
production of antibodies and those antibodies are incredibly specific for that particular cold or flu
virus and as I mentioned earlier the Adaptive immune system.
Item, then acquires a memory of the specific fit between a given antibody that it made and the viral Invader and the successful battle that those antibodies waged on that Viral Invader and that memory is maintained
such that if the next week or the
next season you encounter the exact same Sarah type of cold virus or same type of flu virus. Well, then you already have antibodies ready to be deployed. Sometimes the antibodies continue to circulate in your system.
Sometimes you need to generate more of them and the immune system. Is that amazing? It can actually send a message back to that stem cell population in the bone marrow or elsewhere. Say Hey, listen this virus that we beat a few weeks or months or years back its
back. We need more antibodies and boom your adaptive immune system turns those antibodies out and kills the
virus now as a final point about the immune system. I've been talking a lot today about cells traveling to and
killing viruses and sending signals eat me help me
etcetera. It's important to understand that.
That while cells can migrate through the body a lot of what we're talking about here is the movement of
proteins through the vascular through the blood system of the body,
but there's another system that's very important for all of this that's collaborating
with the vascular system. And that's the lymphatic system and we don't have time to go
into a whole lecture about the lymphatic system but suffice to say the lymphatic system can pull stuff from the blood such as viruses, but also cells that have been beaten up or cells.
Have been eaten and are
contained within other cells such as macrophages and it can do some filtering of those different cell types and it can produce its own useful chemicals that then can be reintroduced to the bloodstream in order
to help combat the infection. Now this
becomes very important when later we talked about how specific forms intensities and durations of exercise can increase
the ability for your innate immune system to combat infections so that your adaptive immune system. Perhaps doesn't even have to get involved in the battle because you're an eight.
System handled it
their data to show the exercise of sufficient intensity and duration but not
excessive intensity and duration
can recruit the lymphatic system and recruit or increase the activity of the innate immune system, even in the
absence of an infection such that if you go to
that party and you encounter that person with a cold or flu you can defeat that cold or flu
virus at the outset and never have to deal with making antibodies to that cold or flu virus at all.
Okay. So now you have a fairly sophisticated
biological understanding of what
Those are what flus are and the way that your immune system works to fight off viruses, like colds and flus. So with that in mind I think now is the appropriate time to start talking about what the scientific peer-reviewed research says about how to allow your immune system to function at its best such that you can combat colds and flus meaning if you are exposed to a cold or flu that is if it breaches that physical barrier of your
skin and the
mucosal lining of your nose your mouth or it gets into your eyes that you stand the greatest.
Best chance of defeating that colder flew at the level of your
innate immune system such that your adaptive immune
system never even has to
respond to it by creating all those specific antibodies
now fortunately, there are a lot of different things we can do to improve the function of our immune system. In fact, I feel like any time the winter months roll around we start to see the same list of things surface online and in the press and I don't want to diminish these things they are in fact the Bedrock of maintaining and
enhancing the function of your innate immune system. So what are those
well,
These will be pretty obvious things like getting enough
quality sleep each
night. We know for instance that if you're sleep deprived, so especially if you stay up all night, but certainly even if you only get 50% or 75% of your sleep requirement that your innate immune system is going to suffer. It's not going to be as effective at
combating lose or colds
in addition to that. We know that exercise of specific type and specific duration and specific intensity.
Can serve to bolster the innate immune system and we'll talk about the specific exercise protocols
that can best achieve that
we also here and it's absolutely true that we need adequate nutrition. If we are in a caloric deficit for instance, if we're trying to diet through the
winter months, which many people try to do
that can place our innate immune system in a bit of a
compromise state that
said things like intermittent fasting or even longer duration fast have been implicated and here I really want to underscore implicated in brief.
Improvement in the function of the innate immune system however, extended fast or not eating enough calories to maintain body weight for many many days in a row can actually compromise the
function of the innate immune system. I'll go into this a bit deeper in a moment.
And then of course we hear about stress that we're all supposed to regulate our levels of stress not get too
stressed and here I
have to put an asterisk
next to those statements because yes indeed
chronic stress meaning stress that continues
day after day after day
or even
Short periods of stress that impede our ability to sleep at night can indeed reduce the functioning of our innate immune system. However, it's also clear that short bouts of stress provided that they don't inhibit our ability to sleep that night can actually enhance the
function of the immune system. And this is
something that I don't think is talked about enough, you know, we hear so often that quote
unquote cortisol is bad. It's a stress hormone. Listen cortisol is fantastic provided that it is elevated early.
In the day and not late in the day or evening also
cortisol does have thresholds Beyond which if it's too
high can be bad for us,
but it's also the case that if cortisol levels are too low that's bad for us and it's especially bad
for the functioning of our immune
system because glucocorticoids of which cortisol is have an important role in activating those natural killer cells
of the innate immune system. They are one of the
primary signals by which those interleukins like interleukin-1 and interleukin 6 are
Lloyd in our body and so very often will hear stress increases
inflammation and indeed interleukin-1. Interleukin
6 are pro-inflammatory. You might think. Oh my goodness. I don't
want that. I want cortisol. I don't want these interleukins elevated,
but guess what? The inflammation response is also an important component of that innate immune system that allows us to
combat infections. So in
trying to keep our innate immune system tuned
up, I realize that's not a biological statement tuned up but
keep our immune system functioning at its best we
Aunt inflammation available as a tool
to combat infection we
want cortisol available as a way to
activate that inflammation and other aspects of our
immune system. We just don't want so much cortisol and so much
inflammation that we can't sleep and that our gut microbiome suffers
and that brings me to the other component that's important
for the basic functioning of your innate immune system so that you can be at your
strongest when you inevitably encounter those cold and flu
viruses. Why do I say inevitably
look view exist in
The world that is if you live on planet Earth you are going to be bombarded with different viruses and bacteria and funguses and all this stuff throughout your days. And yes in those winter months because people are
spending more time indoors and they're touching
each other and surfaces more breathing on each other more sneezing on each other more and so on and so forth. There is more
propagation of colds and flus. So if we
take a step back and we ask how can I
have my immune system as
strong and
ready as possible to combat cold and flu viruses we get to those Basics. It's
make sure you're getting enough
quality sleep each night. How much is enough?
However much you need in order to not feel sleepy during the day except maybe the requirement for a short nap of anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes. Not everyone
requires that but that's perfectly normal to have an afternoon dip in energy that can be restored with a short nap or non sleep deep rest will provide links to non-slip deep breast and other tools in the show not captions that you know are zero cost tools to allow you to recover your energy some people just simply take
Nap and that sort of thing if you want tools for improving your sleep and making sure that you're getting enough quality sleep each night.
We will also provide a link to our zero cost sleep toolkit
that details that in PDF form and just list out the things that you can do or take if that's your choice and so on and so forth and
of course we've done episodes on quality nutrition and what that means we've done episodes
on stress and how to combat stress
and we've done episodes on the so-called gut microbiome, but right now I just want to mention that the gut microbiome
Um, which
are the
trillions of little micro bacteria the interact heavily with the immune system and help support the immune system. You want to keep the gut microbiome
healthy. So you'll notice that we include some tools related to the gut microbiome here in a
moment. And and this is very important. Keep in mind that the microbiome doesn't just exist in the gut. So often these days we hear about the gut microbiome and I'm
oh so happy that the gut microbiome is getting the attention that it deserves in the context of mental health physical health and performance,
but we can't forget that the microbiome.
Exist on the surface of the eyes
and in the nasal passages and indeed the microbiome that specific to the nasal passages as I mentioned before is very different from the
microbiome that exist within the mouth
and the microbiome that exist within the mucosa of the nasal passages seems to be the most effective at combating any viruses that we encounter especially cold and flu viruses.
So while ideally you would never encounter a cold or flu virus, we
know that if the cold or flu viruses go in through the nasal
Passages you stand the greatest chance of combating that particular cold or flu. So what does that mean? This is where I get to make a strong push
for being a nasal
breather certainly in sleep. You want to be a nasal breather, but also throughout the day unless you're speaking or unless
you're exercising hard enough that you need to breathe through your mouth or unless you're eating
being a nasal breather is known to provide the right milieu the right environment to keep that nasal microbiome at its
Theists and to promote the diversity of
microbiota in the nasal passages that can best protect you against colds and flus
and there are a growing number of studies that point to this fact. I'll provide a link to one that I like very much which is entitled alterations in oral nasopharyngeal microbiota and
salivary proteins in mouth-breathing children.
This is but one study pointing to the fact that being a nasal breather is a good thing
mouth-breathing children and mouth-breathing
adults meaning children and adults that default to mouth breathing.
Othing tend to get more infections of the
upper respiratory tract including colds and flus
consciously focusing on nasal. Breathing is one of the best things that we can all do to combat any colds or flus that we might encounter. So earlier we talked about trying to avoid touching
your eyes at least without washing your hands first where sanitizing your hands first after you meet somebody keeping in mind that most people do that unconsciously
here. We are also saying when you enter a room you're hanging out with people
Waiting for public transportation or you're at work or walking down the hallway, unless you are exercising hard unless you are talking try to focus on being a nasal breathing. There are a bunch of other reasons to be a nasal breather as well. But this is one of the primary ones and I'll provide a link to another reference which is the book
Jaws by my colleagues at
Stanford which talks about nasal breathing in the importance of nasal breathing, but also the degree to which children and adults open themselves up to increase levels of
Viral infections as well as bacterial infections, but viral infections in particular when they rely
on mouth-breathing and
the incredible benefits of doing this very simple zero-cost thing of whenever you can consciously remember to breathing through your nose as
opposed to breathing through your mouth
and just as an additional point about nasal breathing because I can't
resist telling you those. I just think it's so cool such an interesting adaptation.
When we breathe through our nose, we heat the air in a way that's very different from the way we heat the air
when we mouth breathe and
by heating the air that's coming into the nasal passages. It shifts the probability that cold or flu viruses will successfully embed in the mucosal
lining and infect the underlying cells and get into the other cells and tissues of our body. So this
whole thing about nasal breathing is important and effective at the level of temperature regulation of the milieu with
The nose and therefore the viruses that end up in the nose as well as the mucosal lining
the chemicals made by the mucosal lining. And again, the nose is
a very different place than the mouth. In
fact, I'll provide a link to yet another paper which is entitled human nasal microbiota. It's a really interesting paper. It's actually an interview with a scientist who's
expert in the nasal
microbiome talking about how this structure within our nose really is the primary defense site by which we
Troy potentially incoming
viruses. So if
it sounds overly simple
just breathe through your nose. It is very simple, but it's also very effective.
Now. It's also clearly the case that keeping your gut
microbiome is advantageous for keeping your innate immune system at its most robust level of functioning and I should mention that your gut microbiome isn't just about your stomach, you know, we hear the word gut and we think stomach but it's actually
the entire
length of your digestive tract from your mouth out.
Other end and different microbiota exist at different locations along that tract of mucosa
and there are a couple things that one can do in order to make sure that the gut microbiome is best
supported along that entire length. The first one is
that and this was covered on the episode that we did with my colleague Justin Sonnenberg who
is a world expert in the gut microbiome. And that is to consume anywhere from two to
four servings of low-sugar
fermented foods per day. So things like sauerkraut
Out things like kimchi things like kefir things like kombucha.
It can be a little bit of work to figure out which
of these you like and which ones you're willing to consume on a regular basis, but it's very
clear that the brine, you know, that kind
of salty
solution around the sauerkraut. And by the way, when I say
sauerkraut what we're talking about here is the type that has to be refrigerated it contains what are called live cultures as opposed to the sauerkraut that can exist in the non-refrigerated portion of the store or pickles.
Also have that Brine and that have to be
kept in the refrigerator even before they're opened and of course things like yogurt which have active live cultures. Those are the sorts of things that are going to best support the diversity of microbiota along the
entire length of the gut microbiome such that your gut microbiome can do its job in supporting your nervous system, but here especially in the context of today's discussion your immune system. Now
the low sugar
moment of low sugar fermented foods is important because what we know is that if you're consuming yogurts with a lot of sugar or you're consuming kombucha with high levels of sugar or you're consuming pickles or
sauerkraut that have a lot of sugar in them. You're probably going to start to create some other issues related to the
sugar what you're really looking for these low sugar fermented foods and they can be a
little bit tricky to seek out in the store, but they're usually there and once you identify the
ones that you like you should really aim to get two to four servings of those per day. You can also consume a Prebiotic or probiotic in the form of caps.
Form things like a G1 athletic greens also contain Prebiotic probiotic, but it's very clear that consuming two to four servings of low-sugar fermented foods per day is among the best
ways to promote health of the gut microbiome and that the gut microbiome is so so important for keeping the innate immune system thriving such that it can combat the colds or flus that are trying to bombard your system. Now,
there's another tool that you can use to enhance your gut microbiome. I have
to warn you this one might make a few of you.
Cringe a little bit but this is one
that I actually started doing about four months ago. It's
an interesting one. It kind of dates back to some older quote unquote traditional medicine practices, but it makes really good logical sense to be
fair. I'm not aware of any randomized control trial exploring the use of this
protocol, but it's so simple and completely cost-free and it stands so strongly on the logic of how the gut and oral microbiome work that frankly I started doing it and you know, whether or not it's placebo
effect or not. I don't know
but I
Feel better and it's so easy to do and it stands to potentially improve the function of your gut
microbiome enough
that I figured I would at least share it with you and then you can decide
so what this protocol essentially consists of is before you go to sleep at night or in the morning you pour yourself a little bit of water, whatever
water you happen to consume just clean clear water and then
you take a sip of that water when you wake up in the morning and you swish it around in your mouth
and then you swallow it.
For those of you that are like, oh
gross let's think about this. Is it really gross to
swish a little bit of water around in your mouth and then swallow that water when you first wake up prior to brushing your teeth, of course.
Well, it might seem gross to you. But throughout the night when you're sleeping, especially if
you are a nasal breather while you sleep
the environment within your mouth is such that your breeding a lot of
bacteria. You are creating all those little micro bacteria that
Essentially can inhabit your digestive tract and provide at least some of the substrate for the microbiota in your digestive tract to thrive. And if that seems gross to you keep in mind, that's what having a healthy gut microbiome really is all about. So the protocol is very simple. It's zero cost. You take a swig of water swish around and swallow it oddly. It doesn't taste bad. In fact, it'll just taste like swallowing and in fact, it tastes like swallowing a little bit of water. It's not as if it tastes like
like bad breath or something like that.
It's a very simple protocol that again no randomized control trials, but really stands on the logic of how
the oral microbiome in the gut microbiome interact and because what we're talking about here is supporting the function of your gut microbiome such that it supports the function of your innate immune system such that you can avoid colds and flus these
to me. It seems like a pretty low bar.
Yes. Okay, so to bolster your innate immune system you want to get that quality sleep as often as you possibly can.
You want to support the gut microbiome in the ways that we just described what about
exercise? We hear it all the time exercise is so good for
us. It enhances the immune system and on and on and listen, I'm a huge believer in exercise. I personally like to do three bouts of cardiovascular exercise per
week one long one medium
one short and I do three bouts of resistance training each
week all of that and specifically what I do is available to you as a zero cross protocol and the form of a PDF. We have a link to that in the show. No,
Ins I also have a whole episode about
foundational Fitness and so on and so on the
discussion we're going to have now is about what general forms of exercise actually do
support the innate immune system. And and
this is really important what forms of exercise actually deplete your innate immune
system. This isn't talked about enough. I think
there are certain intensities and durations of exercise that make us more vulnerable
to colds and flus. So we're
going to discuss that before we
do that. I want to just briefly touch into
Something that I hear a lot, which is the question if I'm feeling a little bit
rundown should I exercise or not? And to be honest, there isn't a straightforward answer to that question.
It's impossible for me or for you to know whether or not you were indeed exposed to a cold or flu and you're starting to
come bat it at the level of your innate immune system or whether or not you're just feeling a little bit sluggish.
However, what we do know is that if you are feeling malaise at the level of the
body like your body is feeling different.
It's feeling heavier. You're feeling tired. You feeling tired at a time
of day. That doesn't make sense. Given your usual
patterns of being tired. You're feeling tired in a way. That doesn't make sense given how much sleep you got the night before right? I mean here what we're talking about is ruling out any possible, you know life stress or you were up too late or you drink caffeine at the wrong time or something like that. What we know is that you're if you're feeling that General malaise across your whole body.
It is fairly likely that you're coming down with something
and that your best response to that would be
To go home. Take a hot shower bath. I'll explain why you would want to do that in a few minutes and then get into bed early and even if you can't fall asleep to just be as still and as relaxed as
possible. We know that if you push into
bouts of intense activity or even just push yourself to engage in activity when you're feeling run down at that sort
of whole body level, maybe a little tickle in your throat. You are going to
compromise the function of your innate immune system and it's very likely that you're going to get more sick than you would otherwise
so
Here's my suggestion. If you're starting to feel rundown at the level of whole body
malaise, or you just don't feel
right. You're best off taking a
hot shower or bath and getting into bed or just getting into bed and trying to rest and get as much sleep. Probably even a little bit of extra sleep. And here's why that whole body malaise that extra fatigue that's not easily explained by other factors in your life
have to do with the fact that when your mate immune system is activated meaning it's already combating a cold or flu interleukin.
And interleukin 6
have a way of interacting with a particular brain area called the dorsal raphe nucleus, which is chock-a-block full of neurons that
release serotonin
and serotonin from the dorsal raphe nucleus acts on specific regions of your hypothalamus areas, like the
preoptic region for those of you that want to know and other areas of the hypothalamus that generate a state of sleepiness.
In addition when we are getting sick our sleep patterns
change. We feel like we need to sleep
more but we don't feel as
rested from that sleep.
And that has to do with the ways
that serotonin interacts with some of the components of the brain circuitry involved in sleep that controls slow wave or deep
sleep and this is the whole discussion on to itself actually covered a lot of the mechanistic aspects of this business of immune induced sleepiness and malaise associated with feeling sick and an episode about interactions between the neural and immune system that I will also provide a link to in the show no captions, but
suffice to say if you're feeling that whole body malaise and especially if you also have a little bit of a throat tickle you just not feeling right
for you.
You're not accustomed to feeling that way at that time of day or night. Well, then I encourage you to get rest because chances are you're already combating an
infection. However, if you are out and about a lot during the winter months or you're interacting with a lot of people
by virtue of work or public transportation or whatever the gym Etc your school teacher, maybe your kids are coming home with colds and flus
and you're not yet feeling that malaise. You're not feeling any throat tickle. You're not getting that kind of
And a burning or tickle within your nasal passages when you breathe, you know, we're all familiar with these things the watering of the eyes that kind of precedes that getting the full-blown cold or flu.
Well, if you're not experiencing that stuff and you want to keep your innate immune system strong and able to combat off colds
and flus then we know that exercise can be
an excellent way to increase the
output of that innate immune system
what I mean by that is the appropriate intensity and duration of exercise can act as a stressor that promotes.
A bit of inflammation. Yes, the release of cytokines and a bit of activation of the innate immune system including the production of more white blood cells natural killer cells such that you're sort of prompting the innate immune system to almost think that there's something to battle such that if you ever encounter
an infection, you can defeat it right off the bat.
So we're going to get granular here about what we mean by proper
intensity and duration of exercise.
There's a wonderful review that was published in 2019 in the Journal of
and health science entitled The compelling link between physical
activity and the body's defense system
and there's a lot to this review article, but I'll just highlight a few of the critical features that are going to directly relate to protocols that I think
all of you are going to be interested in first of all,
we know that exercise that's of 60 Minutes in duration or less and that is intense but not all out effort. Okay here, we're not talking about percentage of single
repetition Max wait.
We're not talking about
70 to 85 percent of one's vo2max. What we're talking about is you subjectively gauging what is a 10/10 effort like you could not do anymore. You could not
contribute any more effort to that exercise bout and that's true whether or not we're talking about resistance training exercise or cardiovascular exercise, like running or rowing or things of that
sort. What we know is that if you do that sort of exercise for about 60 minutes or less
You promote the exchange of components between the blood and the
lymphatic system that
increase the circulation of those cells and chemicals within the innate immune system such that not just during exercise. But for many many hours afterwards, maybe even as much as 24 hours afterwards your innate immune system level of Baseline activity is ramped up
allowing you to better combat infections such as colds and flus.
Okay. So this is an incentive for getting regular exercise.
Is of 60 Minutes
or Less per day making it of sufficient intensity for your innate immune system to deploy more of those chemicals and for your lymphatic and blood circulation to
increase their exchange of materials enough that your innate immune system is bolstered. However,
it is absolutely not the case
that more is better. In
fact, it's probably the case that less is better. Here's what we know for sure and this review covers sort of the extreme of these
examples.
But
for instance people that do
bouts of walking each day for about 60 Minutes brisk walking
experience
increased T-cell function. So that's an immune cell that goes out in combat cold and flu viruses and natural killer cell activity. So those increase increase macrophage function, you are now familiar
with these cells. If you don't know exactly what they do. Just keep in mind that you heard about these in the context
of what the innate immune system does to go out and fight colds and
flus.
Cytokines increase but not dramatically. Okay. So this is a mild inflammation response stress hormones such as cortisol epinephrine
norepinephrine also called adrenaline and noradrenaline those are deployed as well.
So 60 minutes or less of this
moderate to high intensity exercise creates. This mild stress response and an increase in the function of the innate immune system. However,
people that run a marathon and as I recall a marathon is 26.2
miles.
Not mistaken,
they experience a very different
pattern of immune response to that long bout of
exercise. So here we're comparing one hour of exercise 23 hours. Is that what it takes to run a
marathon? I have some friends there marathoners. I'm guessing
about three maybe four hours if you're really slow but somewhere between
you know, I don't know two and a half and three hours if you're trained up and you're doing it and you're doing them
regularly. Well, here's the point people who just ran a marathon and people who have been trained.
Time for a marathon in are
approaching that Marathon are severely immune compromised the
levels of their T-cell function are way below Baseline meaning their innate immune system is not functioning nearly as well as it would if they were to not exercise at all. Their natural killer cell activity is also greatly diminished. These
are huge huge reductions in these cells that is in the function of the innate immune system
and their stress hormones and their inflammatory
molecules such as cytokines circulating in their blood are
Hi, now again, we're representing opposite ends of the spectrum here with one hour or
less of exercise daily versus 26.2 mile marathon exercise or half marathons as the case may be
and let me be very direct. I'm not discouraging people from running or training for marathons or half marathons. I
think that's great just understand what you're doing to your immune system when you do that and take the necessary precautions,
but I think most people listening to this are trying to think about ways that they can avoid getting
colds and flus
and certainly running
marathons is not going to
be the way to do that quite the contrary the way to do that is in addition to the other things. We've been talking
about to get regular exercise. Maybe not every single day. I'm actually a fan of taking one day per week
completely off from exercise. You should on that day. I'll do some sauna and cold if I have it available to me,
but the point is this
you don't have to exercise for an hour a day in order to get this Improvement in the innate immune response data show that you can get this Improvement in innate immune response
with as little as
Minutes per day and probably even as little as 12
minutes per day. However, if you're going to try and accomplish this increase in the innate immune system
function or output with a shorter bout of exercise such as 12 minutes, it better be 12 minutes of very
high intensity training. In fact, that's what lands on my for me. It's Friday, but it doesn't really matter which day the week. There's one day of the week where I do a very short bout of cardiovascular exercise, but I'm sprinting hard for anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute and then I'm taking a brief period of rest and then repeating that for a total of 12.
Minutes now
some people here only 12 minutes of exercise required and they default to 12 minutes
every single time. They train I don't think that's a good idea. I think that we can take the law of averages here and say the following I do believe everyone should do a combination of cardiovascular training and resistance training perhaps I think in general not on the same days,
but if you're going to do that and you want to maintain healthy immune system function
my suggestion when
I do is unless it's the long bout of cardiovascular training that I do one.
Weekend long for me means 60 to 90 minutes and sometimes longer if it's a hike which certainly doesn't require that much intensity.
I suggest
warming up for about five to ten minutes and then limiting your total workout duration
to about 50 minutes, maybe 60 minutes if that's what's required to complete what you need to do in order to keep with your exercise
goals, but to be very careful about
exceeding 75 minutes of exercise in any one single exercise bout and if you remember back to the beginning of the episode when I said that I track what I do on a day-to-day basis and I don't do it in a very detailed way,
but I do take note of when I've gotten a bad.
Flu or cold? I can tell you that in almost every single case where I've gotten a bad flu or cold. There are two things that have preceded that
bad flu or cold one is sleep deprivation.
Typically, it would be nights where I got two hours of sleep or less for more than
one night. Okay. The
second thing is anytime that I really pushed it with exercise
and went all out and I went
for 75 minutes and then I continue to 90 minutes and
then maybe later that day because somebody invited me on a run or something like
that. I also did that second run or that second work out of some kind could be running in the morning and weight training in the afternoon. Some people can do
that kind of training on a regular basis even and not get sick. I am not such a person. I've managed to maintain fairly consistent Fitness output meaning
the three cardiovascular in the three weight training sessions per week.
For more than several decades now and part of the reason I think I've been able to do that is because I don't ever push too hard for too
long with
Given work out. So this is really a
call for moderation in terms of the duration and
intensity of the exercise that you're doing,
but we're not talking about really being laid back. We're not talking about easy workouts. What we're talking about is an hour or
less of moderate intensity to high intensity exercise depending on the duration of that exercise
and keeping in mind that when you're doing that you are
activating that innate immune system. You're literally
creating an immune response. You're increasing inflammation your increasing
those cytokines your increasing stress hormones.
We have to start to think about exercise for what it is, which is a form of stress that induces adaptations. Dr. Andy Galpin talked a lot about this in the series that he did on exercise physiology. It's an excellent series that covers everything from strength and hypertrophy to speed to endurance nutrition supplementation. You can find all that at huberman lab.com very easily.
Exercise is a very potent tool. We know that we know that in the
context of changing Aesthetics, like body mass composition you increasing muscle reducing fat. We know that in the context of reducing resting heart rate reducing resting blood pressure.
We know that in the context of all these other health metrics here. We're talking about using
exercise as a very potent tool to increase the function of the innate immune system to keep you healthy not just through the winter
months, but around the year and
especially if you're getting
Less sleep, if you're interacting with kids or adults that are carrying
infections home from school or work on a regular basis, or maybe you even work in an environment like a hospital or a clinic where you're regularly interacting with patients that have these issues.
One thing that I often get asked is if I'm
sleep-deprived should I exercise and that's a little bit of a tricky one.
My initial response for many years was no no if you're sleep-deprived you're better off not exercising.
However, I now need to qualify that answer because there are data showing that if
Or sleep deprived and you
exercise especially if you exercise early in the day and it doesn't disrupt your sleep schedule. So it's
not making you go to sleep even later than next night that it actually can cause some
adjustments in the function of your immune system. And in the way that you regulate your blood sugar that offset
some of the negative effects of sleep deprivation that said you should
never ever compromise the amount of sleep you could get in order to get exercise such that you
run yourself down. So what I'm really saying here is if you get one bad night sleep should you
If your
work out and you feel like
you know, I'm not feeling sick and I should I work out or should
I go back to sleep? Probably going back to sleeps the better idea, but if you don't have the option to go back to
sleep for whatever reason you can't fall
back asleep. Then you would be wise to do about of exercise but I
would suggest reducing the intensity and duration of that exercise by about 25% maybe even 50% and that should allow you to offset any of the negative effects of sleep deprivation for that one night. Keep in mind exercise is not a replacement for sleep.
And then to allow you to get to sleep at the appropriate time later that night and back onto a regular schedule keeping your innate immune system tuned up and ready to combat any colds or flus
now one more point about exercise and here we're also going to dovetail in
an important point about nutrition
in the review that I mentioned a few moments ago. They cover some of the data from studies exploring the post exercise stress
response. So this is the post exercise-induced increase in things like
cortisol those natural.
Cells the production of white blood cells and so
on.
It's very clear that if you are in a state of chronic stress because you're
exercising a lot
and or because you're not sleeping enough or for whatever reason.
Maybe you have a lot of Life stress. It's very clear that ingesting carbohydrates after exercise
can help attenuate some of the
inflammation that exercise induces when we talk about carbohydrates. We're talking about rice oatmeal pasta those sorts
of things so complex carbohydrates.
And fruit post exercise has been shown to attenuate to reduce some of the markers of
inflammation by about 30 to 40 percent
when contrasted with water only intake,
especially if you're training fasted.
So for those of you like me that like to wake up in the morning and just drink fluids, you know
for me, it's water yerba mate
coffee. And by the way, I've said before that people should delay their caffeine intake 90 minutes. If and only if they're experiencing an afternoon crash,
but that if you
Are exercising first thing in the morning, it's
perfectly fine to ingest your caffeine right away. So that gives you increase in energy for that exercise that certainly what I do on days that I exercise, but if you
fast and then you're drinking caffeine and then you're exercising and that exercise goes longer than 60 Minutes certainly if it goes longer than 75 minutes you would do well to ingest
some complex carbohydrates. Maybe also some
fruit perhaps not immediately after exercise, but within the 45 minutes or so or hour or so after exercise so that you're not ramping up.
Those inflammatory molecules and leaving them ramped up for many hours
into the morning and throughout the day because of course this episode is not about exercise and nutrition but here we're
talking about the role that exercise and nutrition play in helping us
combat colds and flus by increasing the function of that innate immune system. And the
reasons why carbohydrates can
have this effect on cortisol etcetera is an interesting and important discussion into itself will leave it for another episode, but keep that in
mind also, I don't know about you but a nice bowl of
oatmeal some fruit and a protein drink or something.
After an hour or so of exercise in the morning when I haven't eaten anything since the night before taste really really good.
So continuing with the theme of things that we can
do at the level of behaviors
to improve the function of our innate immune system and combat colds
and flus, perhaps even prevent us from getting colds and flus at all, but certainly
help combat them if they've initially made their way into our system, but we haven't developed full-blown symptoms and we want to prevent those full-blown symptoms is the
use of deliberate Heat.
Exposure in particular sauna,
there's a nice study on this that was published very recently 2023. The title of the study is the effects of a single and series of Finnish sauna sessions
on the immune system responds and heat shock protein 70 levels in trained and untrained men. It's a very interesting study that
compared athletically trained and non
athletically trained men
as most of you probably know when you get into a hot sauna
heart rate increases, there's vasodilation. There's the increase in the release of heat shock proteins there.
The increase in things like dine orphan, which if it's sufficiently
hot are increased to levels that make us
feel kind of agitated and not so good. We have to actively calm ourselves in the sauna. So we're not talking about an easy cruise at 150 degrees Fahrenheit were talking about getting up into the 180 degree Fahrenheit or 210 °F range may be even higher if your heat adapted
and that the dine orphan makes you feel lousy in the short term, but that it up regulates a bunch of different
biological.
Mechanisms that give you kind
of low-level Euphoria and actually the capacity to experience more feelings of well-being from the endorphins that you make after you get out of the sauna. This is 0 so important to understand whether or not we're talking about exercise or
deliberate cold exposure to deliberate heat exposure what happens during the heat
exposure cold exposure exercise is more often than not just the trigger for the long-term adaptation that we're seeking just like
exercise increases your heart rate and blood pressure.
But then leads to reductions in resting
heart rate and blood pressure and so on and so forth. This study is interesting and there are a lot of different takeaways from this study because they compare these two different populations. I'll just
give you the top Contour of what the protocol entailed there were 10 sauna sessions each of those sauna sessions were three rounds of 15 minutes of sauna. So one session meant going into the sauna sauna was
of a given temperature, but I think for most people what's going to work in terms of what parallels this study is going to be somewhere.
We're between 176 and 210 °F depending on how heat adapted. You are always be safe. Don't do this. If you're pregnant don't do this. If you're a child Etc.
So they're doing three rounds of 15 minutes each separated by two minutes during that two minutes. They take a cool shower with a cool off in some way. They're not going into a
cold plunge, but the cooling off with a cool shower
and they're doing that three times. That's one
session.
They do 10 sessions. Those sauna sessions were spaced apart by at least a few days and the entire experiment meaning all ten sessions were completed within a three week period and then a bunch of things were measured like the amount of
white blood cells and immune
cells that were deployed
after the first session versus the third versus the eighth versus the 10th and so on
as well as the levels of
cortisol and inflammatory markers, there are a lot of different things measured in the study.
Here's what we know sauna baths as there.
Calling them resulted in a statistically
significant increase in cortisol concentration after the first and the 10th
sauna session. Okay. So every time you go
into the sauna you're
getting an increase in cortisol. We know
that because the heat is a stressor again. Don't think about heat as though you just kind of relaxing in the sonnet. So nice, you're getting a cortisol response cortisol
is a glucocorticoid stress hormone as it's sometimes called
which can be a good thing. If it sets in motion a number of other things such as the
increase in the
Activity of the innate immune system and indeed that is what they observed after and here I'm paraphrasing
after the first and tenth sauna baths. They witnessed an
increase in leukocyte count leukocytes are a particular type of cell of the innate immune system. However, only after the last on a session did this change reach statistical significance in the trained
group. So what they observed was that athletes who are trained are used to being in high heat conditions because of their athletic training,
People who are not trained in athletics are not used to that.
There are a lot of different ways to look at these data, but the simplest takeaway is that if you are already
very heated apted because you do saw an irregularly or you exercise
regularly. Well, then it's going to take a stronger stimulus or more sauna either longer or hotter or more frequent to get the sorts of increases in innate immune response as compared to someone who's never done
sauna who's not exercising regularly.
Early, and that just makes sense. If something isn't stressful to you, you're not going to get the stimulation of that innate immune response
and the overall takeaway from this study was that I do believe that if you're feeling run down a little bit or if you're just trying to keep colds and flus at Bay having some regular ish practice of getting into the
sauna for three rounds of 15 minutes separated by two minute cool off. You don't necessarily have to do a cold shower or cold Plunge in between although I don't see why you couldn't
Or wouldn't be could also just get out of the sauna and be in the cool air and then get back
in or perhaps you do something more akin to what's been shown in
other studies that explore the relationship between heat exposure and immune response which is to do
two rounds of 20 minutes or one round of 30 minutes in the Sun or whatever. You can do
safely and comfortably keep in mind safety is Key Don't harm yourself. I say that not to protect me but to protect you
that sauna is an effective way of
increasing the activity of the innate immune system.
It increases leukocyte levels.
Yes, it increases cortisol levels but in a way that promote the
activity of the innate immune system. However, and here we are
back to exactly the same thing. We said about exercise if you're already feeling really
run down feeling kind of heaviness in the body. You don't feel well starting to get some sniffles
don't get in a very hot sauna, but for sake of keeping colds and flus at Bay sure do three rounds of 15 minutes in the
sauna between 176°
And 10 degrees whatever you can safely tolerate take those two minute breaks in between maybe do a cold shower or coolest shower. Maybe just stand outside the sauna in between if you're feeling really
strong do a cold plunge for
a minute or two minutes in between you don't have to but you certainly could and then come back in and then repeat or just
do one 20 minute session or 30 minute session
all of which have been shown to promote the activity of the innate immune system. However, and I realized I said this before
but I feel like I need to say it again, especially For You hardcore exercisers or people that really
I feel like oh I can push through if you're already sick and you have the symptoms of a cold or flu you want to limit the
amount of stress to your body. You want to get into bed and sleep if you can't sleep you want to relax you do not want to exercise. You should not exercise. Not only do you stand to get other people lll buy going places where you exercise, but even if you exercise at home or in total isolation, you're going to prolong the duration of that illness because there are many many reasons. Why being
still slowing your
circulation and allow
Doing your innate and then in that case your adaptive immune system to kick in and combat those infections is going to get you back into a regular exercise and work regiment much much faster than would be the case if you were to push through. Okay, so now
we get to the portion of the discussion that I think probably many people are anticipating which is what can you
take to
reduce the probability of getting a cold or flu
or shorten the duration of a cold or flu and I actually put out a call on social media. I asked the question.
On Instagram and on X formerly called Twitter, you know, what
do you do for a cold or
flu and what are you curious about in terms of what one can take for cold or flu and I got thousands upon thousands of answers.
However, many of those
answers converged on some common things things like taking garlic. I heard for instance that some people are
chewing a raw clove of garlic every day during the winter. I heard about people who take fermented garlic some people swear by echinacea, some people swear by echinacea vitamin C and zinc.
Now there are far too many compounds that exist in the wellness and indeed in the
medical literature to cover all of them. So I'm going to highlight a few
that I think are especially interesting and that have been shown
in peer-reviewed science to be potentially useful
some of these
you've heard of before and some of them I think are going to be surprising or at least new to you
first. Let's consider what most people believe to be a very effective
way to hasten colds or flus that is to make them last shorter duration of
Time than they would otherwise maybe even prevent colds or flus the big one there is vitamin C. We hear all the time vitamin C antioxidant I grew up in an area where the Nobel
prize winning chemist Linus
Pauling who is a fanatic about vitamin C. He took many many grams of vitamin C each day used to tout the benefits of vitamin C. Here's the deal. There is some evidence and it's not great. Frankly
that points to the fact that taking
Six to
eight grams grams
so that 6000 to 8000 mg of vitamin C per day.
That is a lot of vitamin C
each day can
Perhaps delay the onset of a cold or shorten the duration of a cold. So here we're talking about very high doses and not a very
robust effect should mention that for most people who aren't accustomed to taking much vitamin C. If you were to take 6 to 8 grams of vitamin C in capsule
or powder or pill form chances are you're going to experience
some significant gastric
distress. Some people can build up to that level or take it with food in a way that doesn't cause that gastric
distress, but
Many
people experience gastric
distress. It's been a lot said about vitamin C and its other potential roles in our
physiology and I don't want to touch on those now because it may have some interesting roles in other aspects of our physiology
but have to say that in scouring the
literature on vitamin C.
I encountered a recent paper.
So this was published in 2023 and the
title of this paper is
retraction extra
dose of vitamin C based on a daily supplementation shortens the
cold a meta-analysis of nine randomized controlled trials
What is this paper that was recently published? Why is retraction the first word in the
title Well turns out that the meta-analysis of nine randomized controlled trials showing a small but significant Improvement in the outcomes for colds and flus or reduction in probability of getting colds and
flus that study was retracted and it was retracted on the
basis of multiple instances of an error in which the placebo groups had been double counted in.
Miles more than the to intervention arm. So there were some serious data
analysis flaws in that meta-analysis.
Now that is not to say that vitamin C is of zero benefit
for reducing the probability of colds and flus but
must say provided that you're getting sufficient amounts of vitamin C from your food
intake. Maybe you're also getting a little bit in your vitamin-mineral supplement or if you take a
foundational supplement like a G1 or something similar
almost certainly you're getting enough vitamin
C. It does not seem that.
That taking high doses of
vitamin C and I would Place 6 to 8 grams of vitamin C in the high dose range is going to be effective for
treating or
preventing colds and flus. So
more data may arrive in the near future but vitamin C is probably not a very good investment. If you're taking it solely for the purpose
of enhancing your immune system function and staving off colds and
flus. Now, what about vitamin D. We hear a lot these days about the importance of having sufficient vitamin D
levels and ideally everyone would get their vitamin D levels measured.
By regular blood tests. I do get my blood work done every six months. I find it be incredibly
informative tells me
what's going on below the hood in ways that I never could be aware of where I not to get that test. But I realized that there's a cost to those tests and not everyone can afford them.
I think most
Physicians would agree that supplementing with anywhere from 1000 to 2000 IU of vitamin D per day is probably safe for most people and will buffer that level of vitamin D in their system such that they're unlikely to be deficient and unlikely to far exceed. What safe in the
body.
However, there are people who need higher
levels of vitamin D supplementation in order to achieve sufficient amounts of vitamin D for their mental health and physical
health. I mean vitamin D is involved in a lot of different
processes in the brain and
body now, it is clear that people who are vitamin D deficient. So these are people whose vitamin D levels have been
measured oftentimes have diminished immune system function
and are more prone to acute
respiratory tract infections.
There's a very lengthy
A very interesting review entitled vitamin D
supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections
systematic review and
meta-analysis of individual participant data. This is a beast of a thing. I did read it all very very interesting many many studies
the exact takeaways from a larger view like this of 25 randomized control trials is a little bit tricky. I mean, they did conclude that vitamin D supplementation did reduce the risk of acute respiratory tract
infection among all the participants.
however, the degree
of
Prevention was small to
moderate in some cases.
They did point out. However that just because people with low levels of vitamin D tend to get colds and
flus more often than people that don't does not
necessarily mean that vitamin D deficiencies are the reason for that. For instance. We know that people that get
regular sunlight exposure and as everyone knows I'm
a big proponent of getting
sunlight in your eyes as early as possible in the day after waking up and if it's cloudy out to get
And more time outside if you can and if you can't get access to sunlight for whatever reason to perhaps invest in a 10,000 Lux light tablet, you can find these online at reasonable cost you $100 to $200 in some cases.
Getting sunlight sets in motion a huge number of different things including increasing the amount
of vitamin D in your system,
but a bunch of other things as well increases in cortisol increases
in dopamine increase in serotonin that Cascade toward and relate to improved immune system function. So what is the takeaway here? I think
that for most people supplementing with a thousand to two thousand international units of vitamin D is probably safe. However, if you need more vitamin D
Won't know that unless you take a vitamin D test that is you measure the amount of vitamin D in your bloodstream and some people in need need 5,000 to 10,000 IU of vitamin D per day, but you
don't want to
overdose yourself on vitamin D. That is if you already have a sufficiently high levels of vitamin D in your system, you're getting sufficient
sunlight. Well, then taking 10,000 or more
international units of vitamin D could possibly be detrimental.
I think it's fair to say based on the
meta analysis and review that I mentioned.
A moment ago the other papers that I was able to glean that
vitamin D itself is unlikely to be the sole protectant against colds and flus but it's probably a good thing to include in
your general kit of nutrition and supplementation tools. If your goal is to keep your innate immune system fighting off colds and flus
sufficiently other things that could perhaps support the innate immune system are going to be as I mentioned earlier the things that support the gut
microbiome. So those low sugar fermented foods, maybe a Prebiotic probiotic capsule maybe something like
Athletic greens ag1 although certainly you could achieve sufficient microbiome support from Foods. If you're careful and intentional about the foods that you select now the other compound or substance that we often hear about in the context of colds or flus is echinacea
echinacea is a compound that has been proposed to improve immune system function. Now when you go into the data and you explore what does taking echinacea tinctures or other forms of Echinacea
really do to avoid colds and flus the answer that comes back?
Back is not much if anything
now is taking echinacea dangerous. Probably not. However, it
has been shown in a few
studies that people that take echinacea regularly at high
doses
can potentially impede the
function of their innate immune system that is reductions in white blood cell count reductions in those natural killer cells. So my suggestion would be if you absolutely love echinacea for whatever reason you're convinced that it helps you that you reserve to taking it when you're starting to feel a little bit run down or perhaps just in the winter.
Month not months plural but month
when you're most prone to
those cold and flu infections, but then not taking it continuously throughout the year and certainly not for more than four weeks at a time. But again, if you're doing that just know that there aren't really any strong scientific data to support the use of Echinacea
by contrast. They're pretty darn good data that supports supplementing with
zinc as a way to combat colds and flus in particular
colds
now here the dosage is really matter.
It's been shown that
If you take less than
75 milligrams of zinc in supplement form to try and impact the probability of getting
or shortening a common cold. It's not going to work you need to take
100 milligrams or more and now
100 milligrams or more of zinc for some people is going to
cause some gastric distress.
If you take it on an
empty stomach, I've actually
made the mistake of taking I think it was
50 milligrams of zinc on an empty stomach and I felt really nauseous did not feel well. So
don't take think on an empty stomach and if you're trying to
Shorten a cold or
flu that you think you've already contracted or you're trying to keep a cold or flu at Bay because you were
around people with colds or flus or you're just worried about it taking 100 milligrams
of zinc perhaps divided up into two doses of 50 milligrams each
or maybe 100 mg all at once but making sure that you take that with at
least a moderately sized or full meal certainly could be advantageous. Keep in
mind that people that are older than 65 are perhaps the ones that need to supplement zinc the most also keep in mind that children meaning
People younger than 15 should probably not
supplement with too much think that can be problematic and certainly pregnant women should talk to their doctor before supplementing with zinc indeed anytime. You're going to take anything whether or not you're young old pregnant or not. You should consult your physician before you take anything to remove anything from your health protocols.
One of the more interesting aspects of supplementing with zinc that I was able to find in the literature is a three times faster recovery rate for people that already contracted
a cold
So in this study people weren't taking 100 mg. But the dosage came pretty close. They were taking 90 milligrams per day
of zinc acetate and they
experienced a three times faster recovery rate from that cold
compared to people who were not taking the zinc. Now, of course, there could be other factors as well. But the study was fairly convincing so given that zinc is fairly low cost given that it's generally safe for most people
and the fact that if you take it with food,
it doesn't cause any discomfort
supplementing was thinking
Level of anywhere from 90 to 100 milligrams per day. I'll
be no more than 120 per day
seems like a logical way to Stave off colds and flus and reduce the duration of a cold or flu. Should you contract
one now? I want to be very clear that I've
been talking about colds and flus kind of in in concert kind of treating them or less as the same
thing. Some of that is for sake of time and simplicity most all of the studies showing a benefit of zinc are studies showing the benefit
of zinc for the treatment or the hastening of
Colt not for flu, specifically, however,
I consulted with a few Physicians and one of whom is
expert in this area and he said I didn't see any reason why you wouldn't take his
think if you had a flu there's no reason to think that it would
introduce any kind of increased
risk, but again consult with your physician before taking a removing anything from your supplement regimen now, a lot of the compounds that were discussing our sort of conventional in the sense
that I think most people have probably heard of them already. Perhaps the most esoteric sounding one less far as echinacea, which we established.
Not very
helpful for colds or flus but we've been talking about vitamin C.
We've been talking about zinc vitamin D making sure you're getting your sunlight supporting your
microbiome and so on and so on one compound that I'm guessing most people
perhaps have not heard of but that is very interesting that in fact I've taken before and that I stock in my supplement cabinet in case I feel like I'm coming down with something is n-acetylcysteine or neck. What is nak nak is a precursor to glutathione. What is
glutathione glutathione is the master antioxidant. It's involved in reducing what are called reactive oxygen species, which build up in cells that are very metabolically active reactive oxygen species build up even more in cells that are under stress or a body that's
under stress. And it also has the property of reducing reactive nitrogen species reactive oxygen and reactive
nitrogen species significantly increase under conditions of infection and having sufficient levels of glutathione is a good thing.
Now n-acetylcysteine is used in certain clinics overseas and in the US as a
way to treat cystic fibrosis
because it's also a mucolytic and cystic fibrosis is the buildup of fluid in the lungs and a mucolytic substance is something that loosens up the mucus and allows it to flow more readily out of different cavities of the body including the lungs
the nasal passages and sinuses and
indeed last winter.
I did unfortunately get a cold I told you about once every 18 to 24 months I get a cold and it
was a pretty nasty one. I was feeling super congested at first. I thought it was an ear infection pretty
quickly. I realized I had a cold and I was feeling so congested. I wasn't sleeping well and it was suggested to me to take an acetylcysteine. I ended up doing that at a dosage of anywhere from 600 to 900 milligrams three
times per day. So is a 600 to 900 mg capsule depending on which brand I purchased a lot of different versions of this out there on the
market. I took it morning late morning and afternoon and indeed it is a
powerful mucolytic. The mucus just starts flowing.
Out of you better have an extra box of tissues handy and that greatly relieve the pressure in
my sinuses. And the reason I
liked using nak is because
I've actively avoided using decongestants. That one can purchase over-the-counter most decongestants are of The alpha-1 Agonist variety.
What's an alpha 1 Agonist. It causes vasoconstriction that vasoconstriction can be
beneficial in preventing some of the intense congestion
that one gets when you have a sinus infection or a cold or a
flu, but then when those
decongestants wear off one tends to get a rebound
increase in congestion and its really painful headache
Etc. In addition. Some over-the-counter decongestants can be
habit-forming not necessarily addictive but habit-forming and they don't seem to have any other positive health benefits. So I prefer not to take decongestants if I can avoid it. I had a very good experience with
neck and the use of neck and acetylcysteine as a
decongestant and
also as a way to prevent
getting colds and flus is
Not an entirely new idea. In fact, there's a paper dating back to 1997 entitled
attenuation of influenza-like symptoms, ology and Improvement of cell-mediated immunity
with long-term and acetylcysteine treatment. Now in this study, they looked at people were taking 600 milligrams of n-acetylcysteine twice per day for six months and what they observed is that the people who took an acetylcysteine at a significantly
lower probability of
Contracting influenza. Now,
this is but
One study there been a few other studies. And unfortunately, there isn't a large body of research looking at Knack as a
preventive for colds and flus but the data in this paper are interesting enough and I was compelled by them enough to seek out
a physician who I noticed. It was answering my prompts on social media about what do you use for colds and flus
and when I put that out there as I mentioned I got thousands of responses on both Twitter X and on Instagram and one particular physician who happens to have a YouTube account. His name is dr. Schultz. He's a medical
Doctor he works in an intensive care unit and he deals with a lot of
patients who have different strains of flu. In fact, he was the one that queued me to the fact that this year there seems to be a fair number of H1N1 flu
virus going around and remember the H1N1
flu virus while it's
not you know deadly to everyone it can be quite severe in some people. So we do want to be on the lookout for and trying to avoid getting H1N1 if we can.
I spoke to dr. Suelte. He was very generous with his knowledge about an acetylcysteine. He did acknowledge and I'll acknowledge again here that it would be great to get more
randomized control trial
data on n-acetylcysteine, but we did talk about this paper this 1997 paper
and he did mention that he and other clinicians that are forced to be in the hospital dealing with
patients all through the winter and all year long. They're getting bombarded with cold and flu exposure all the time that they meaning
he and some of his colleagues.
Deliberately take n-acetylcysteine as a
preventative to try and reduce the probability of getting colds and
flus and while we don't want to make too much of any one study or anecdotal
which is what we're describing when I tell you about a physician who told me this or what I did and experience that I think it is worth paraphrasing the study that I mentioned before
and they see prevented the symptomatic forms
caused by here. They're talking about the a
H1N1 influenza virus quite efficiently since
the large majority of infected subjects in the placebo
group 17.
9% developed
clinically apparent disease versus only 25% in the next group in other words Approximately 80% of people in the study who did not take an acetylcysteine got influenza.
Whereas only
25% of the people who were taking an acetylcysteine contracted
influenza. So that's a fairly dramatic difference and certainly the fact that n-acetylcysteine has been shown to
increase glutathione. That's its primary mechanism of action as far as We Know.
And the fact that increases in glutathione are generally healthy and good for us and the fact that an acetylcysteine is still available legally over the counter and the u.s. At least
currently it is there's some years back as you may have heard the FDA
called for removal of n-acetylcysteine from over-the-counter sales that I should point out was based on the fact that certain supplement companies were making claims about and acetylcysteine as a
treatment for hangover and making a bunch of other claims for which there was no real data, but
but either because the FDA was effective in getting those companies to cease those
claims and or because of advocacy groups, which
worked very hard to try and keep an acetylcysteine available for over-the-counter sales. As far as I know at least right up until prior to recording this episode and acetylcysteine is available for sale over at the counter.
So whether or not you decide to use an
acetylcysteine as a preventative and there again, the dosage is about 1200 mg per day divided into two different dosages of 600 milligrams each
or if you decide to take
Cereal
cysteine in the manner that I did which
was not as a preventative. But once I had a cold
couldn't fight it off parently got the cold decide to take 900 milligrams three times per day avoiding that intake close to sleep because it did disrupt my sleep. If I took it too close to sleep because of the way that the mucus would flow so readily would you know, essentially so I know it sounds gross but I felt like I was filling up the back of my throat so-called post nasal drip, but it felt like post-nasal waterfall
and I decided to restrict
my intake of n-acetylcysteine to earlier in the day only
and of course.
There's a third option which is that you opt to not
take n acetylcysteine until
more randomized control trials are
published. We're not taking acetylcysteine at all because you're of the sort that thinks okay with some sleep hot shower a good meal some chicken soup, maybe a little garlic. Who knows maybe you have some other
tools and techniques that you like like that
ginger tea lemon Etc. Maybe
that's all you need. And if that's all you need and that's all you
want in order to deal with a cold or flu be my guest. I certainly am not here to convince anyone that you have to
A certain supplement but I did feel like I would be remiss if I didn't cover what are generally referred to as the so-called
preventative and treatments for colds and flus
things like zinc vitamin D vitamin C. We now know that unfortunately vitamin C gets a you know, probably a d-minus or an F. At least that's the data stand now, but there are these other things like zinc and potentially and acetylcysteine that can be beneficial in
shortening the duration of colds or
flus and perhaps even helping us avoid getting colds or flus all
Heather
if you're learning from and are enjoying this podcast,
please subscribe to our YouTube channel,
that's a terrific zero cost way to support us in addition, please subscribe to the podcast on both Spotify and apple and on both Spotify and apple you can leave us up to a five star review, please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout
today's episode. That's the best way to support this podcast.
If you have questions for me or comments about the podcast or topics are guessed that you'd like me to consider for the huberman Lab podcast, please put those in the comment
section on YouTube I do.
Read all the comments
during today's episode and on many previous episodes of The huberman Lab podcast. We discussed supplements while
supplements are necessary for everybody many
people derive tremendous benefit from them for things like improving sleep for hormone support and for Focus to learn more about the supplements discussed on the human Lab podcast, please go to live momentous spell do u.s. So that's live
momentous.com hubermann. If you're not already
following me on social media. I'm huberman lab on all social media platforms. So that's Twitter now called X Instagram.
LinkedIn Facebook and threats and on all of those social media platforms. I discuss science and science related tools some of which overlaps with the content of the huberman Lab podcast much of which however is distinct from the content
on the huberman Lab podcast. So again, it's
huberman lab on all social media platforms. If you haven't already subscribe to the huberman Lab podcast neural network newsletter, the neural network newsletter is a zero cost monthly newsletter that provides podcast summaries and what we call toolkits those toolkits our brief PDFs that describe protocols for everything from
Exercise to deliberate cold exposure regulating dopamine optimizing sleep and on and on all the newsletters are available in full completely free
of cost
to sign up. You simply go to huberman lab.com go to the menu tab scroll down to newsletter and enter your email and I want to emphasize that
we do not share your email with anybody. I'd like to thank you for today's discussion about the
biology of colds and flus about the biology of the immune system and how to avoid and treat colds and flus and last but certainly not
least.
Thank you for your interest in science.
