Health: Fasting, Vitamins & Immunity
Knowledge is power. There has never been a better time to optimize your immune system. As an M.D. who specializes in wellness and true preventative medicine, I know well that the human body has an innate and incredible ability to heal itself. Improving our immunity is vital especially right now because it will allow our bodies to fight back when, not if, we’re exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19.
At my integrative and functional medical practice, The Anti-Aging & Longevity Center of Philadelphia, we routinely kick-start our clients’ journeys into a healthier life. Now more than ever, my patients seek strategies to make their bodies more resilient and resistant to infection. I’d like to describe two specific strategies: optimizing micronutrients and fasting.
Let’s talk about the importance of micronutrients. This is a topic that is rarely addressed at a yearly medical physical. I learned about the importance of vitamins and nutrients in medical school, but later I was surprised at how often vitamins and nutrients are not regularly addressed in traditional medical practices. Some physicians even say, “I don’t believe in vitamins.” This seems bizarre to me.
Vitamins are required for energy production, immune function, blood clotting, and other vital tasks. Minerals play an important role in bone health, growth, and fluid balance. The body requires just a small amount of these micronutrients, but when we’re deficient it virtually guarantees disease.
Micronutrients can easily be measured with a simple blood test that identifies optimal or deficient levels across 31 categories. There is no need to guess, since we have excellent testing that gives us these answers. Proper levels can be restored with supplement tablets or by introducing new foods to the diet. I’m a strong believer in “Let Food Be Thy Medicine,” so we usually start by analyzing a person’s diet. In other cases when the deficiency is severe or certain food restrictions are in place (such as being vegetarian or vegan), we might use targeted supplements to correct the imbalance. Correcting micronutrient deficiencies slows the aging process, prevents diseases, and repairs cellular dysfunction.
Three of the most important things we are checking in this time of COVID-19 are vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc.
Vitamin D plays a critical role in activating immune system defenses. It is anti-inflammatory and enhances the function of T cells and macrophages that fight against pathogens. Low levels of vitamin D have been associated with an increased likelihood of infection, disease and immune-related disorders.
Low levels of vitamin D also increase the risk of respiratory diseases such as asthma, COPD and common viral and bacterial infections. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to decreased lung function.
Vitamin D is often called the sunshine vitamin. It got this name because when your skin is exposed to sunlight, it makes vitamin D from cholesterol. The sun’s UV rays hit cholesterol in the skin cells, providing energy for vitamin D to be created. Some people stop taking vitamin D in the summer, but that’s not always a good idea. If you’re not in the sun all day, or if you’re really diligent about wearing sunblock, your vitamin D level can be low. Vitamin D levels can be easily measured with a simple lab test. For those of us on the East Coast, a good percentage of people living north of Richmond, Va. do need to supplement their vitamin D levels to some degree.
Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, plays an important role in maintaining a healthy immune system. It is essential for the growth and repair of body tissues. It helps to heal wounds, and maintains strong bones, skin, teeth, and cartilage. Vitamin C is an antioxidant, which means that it fights harmful free radicals in the body that lead to cancer, heart disease, and early aging.
It might not prevent you from catching a cold, but there is evidence that high doses of vitamin C (3,000-5,000 mg daily) might decrease the duration of cold symptoms by as much as 1½ days. If this seems cumbersome, one option are IV vitamin infusions that provide high doses of vitamin C to boost immunity. In less than an hour, the patient is protected and ready to go. We can also personalize these IV vitamin infusions to include other micronutrients or tailor them for purposes of hydration, heat exhaustion, detox, and anti-aging.
Zinc is another important nutrient that more recently has been recognized for its important role as an immunomodulator. Zinc gently “taps the brakes” on the immune response and prevents out-of-control inflammation that can be damaging and even deadly. There are a few different kinds of zinc; the most effective to bolster immunity is zinc picolinate.
Another strategy that can jump-start the immune system is fasting. When we’re eating, the body uses glucose as the primary energy source. But after 10-12 hours of fasting, the body runs out of glucose and shifts to an alternative energy source made by the liver called ketones. These ketones give you more than fuel; they regulate the expression and activity of many proteins that influence health and aging. We can tap into these benefits with one of two methods: intermittent fasting and prolonged fasting.
From an evolutionary standpoint, humans evolved in feast-or-famine environments. We survived by adapting and developing protective mechanisms that kept us alive in times of famine. Our human ancestors did not eat three regular meals a day. They were active and did not live sedentary lives behind a desk.
A study conducted at USC six years ago showed that a 72-hour fast can essentially reset the immune system. Additional benefits include decreased inflammation, better cardiovascular risk, lower blood pressure, and better endurance. The researchers found that prolonged fasting lowers white blood cell counts via a process called autophagy. This is essentially the body’s way of cleaning out damaged cells in order to regenerate newer, healthier cells. Once a person starts eating again, stem cells kick back into high gear to replace the cells that were removed when fasting occurred.
Earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine, two authors reviewed multiple strategies for fasting that have been tested in the six years since the USC study. They found that fasting for 12-18 hours intermittently has a lot of the same benefits as the prolonged 72-hour fast. Not to mention that it is much more practical and easy to do.
The benefits of intermittent fasting include improvements in insulin resistance, blood pressure, resting heart rate, decreasing levels of HDL and LDL, cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose and insulin resistance.
Intermittent fasting reduces markers of systemic inflammation and oxidative stress that are associated with heart disease. By reducing inflammation, fasting can improve symptoms of osteoarthritis and even rheumatoid arthritis. A 2018 Baltimore study showed that in patients with multiple sclerosis, intermittent fasting reduced symptoms of disease after just two months.
In this time of COVID-19, we can reduce the effect the virus has on our bodies by losing weight and removing inflammation that causes chronic disease. The biggest benefit of prolonged fasting is that it takes at least 24 hours before your cells start to perform autophagy. When the body switches from ketones back to glucose for energy, the cells stay switched on and the genes to perform autophagy are turned off. The well-fed state will not engage in autophagy.
Intermittent fasting can be accomplished with a 16:8 strategy. The idea is that patients fast for 16 hours every day and do all their eating during a 6-to-8-hour window. For example, if you finish dinner by 7pm, you can start eating at 11am the next day. Another option is to fast for 24 hours straight on two days every week, eating just 500-700 calories on those days, but eating normally on the other five.
Prolonged fasting is accomplished by consuming nothing but water for 48-72 hours. Again, the thought is that you tap into the benefits of autophagy once you cross the 24-hour threshold. This is obviously much more difficult and is not recommended for people with certain medical conditions. If you’re going to undertake a prolonged fast, it is wise to do so under medical supervision. A prolonged fast 3-4 times a year gives substantial immune benefits.
My most important piece of advice is this: “Don’t wait until you’re sick to start caring about your health.”
They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and this has become abundantly clear. Resolve today to start paying closer attention about what you put in (or avoid putting in) your body every day.
To hear more about the latest in anti-aging & healthy living, follow me on Instagram @dr.bonney and on Facebook at Anti-Aging & Longevity Center of Philadelphia.
