The 4 Best Vitamins To Boost Your Immune System
If you have been having the flu and other virus-related health problems, it’s possible your body needs vitamins to boost the immune system. Although the best way to up your vitamin intake is by having a healthy and balanced diet, sometimes our bodies need an extra boost.
On the other hand, the daily recommended values aren’t always possible every day or for every budget. To solve this, vitamins come in a variety of presentations that make it easier to reach those daily milestones.
In order to strengthen your defenses, you should be vigilant of reaching your daily intake for these five vitamins. If your diet isn’t cutting it, then it might be time to search for vitamin supplements. They’re relatively inexpensive and in the long term can save you a ton on medical bills! Keep reading to know what vitamins you should be taking to boost your immune system.
The Five Top Vitamins To Boost Your Immune System
Here you can find the 4 vitamins that boost your immune system. Not only should you take them when you’re sick, but also before getting ill. This way, your body will be strong and your defenses will avoid possible contagious diseases.
1. Vitamin A
Our first vitamin is essential to boost the immune system. It can be found in vegetables such as carrots, spinach, broccoli, and cabbage. Also, it’s in dairy products such as milk or butter and even fruits like melon, apricots, and mangoes.
What does Vitamin A do? It takes part in creating white blood cells and helps the body fight infections. This is key when a virus is present in the body. White blood cells will fight the virus and even eradicate it quickly in case of infection. If your white cells are off, the chances of infection will increase greatly.
2. Vitamin B
Vitamin B strengthens the immune system. Foods like avocados are very rich in it, while other foods like dairy products such as yogurt or milk, also have it. To add variety, eat vegetables like asparagus, as well as meat and fish, in order to have enough vitamin B in your diet.
This vitamin is key to the overall function of the body because it regulates the absorption of a lot of other components. For example, when either B12 or B9 are low, there’s usually a decrease in the number of antibodies. Thus, the body will be exposed to a large number of infections and the capability of quickly recovering from infections will diminish.
3. Vitamin C
Perhaps vitamin C is the one you are most familiar with because supermarkets promote orange juice as a source of vitamin C.
It’s widely known that vitamin C can be found in citruses like orange and lemon, as well as other fruits such as blackberries, guava, kiwi, and strawberries. Nevertheless, Vitamin C can also be found (and in astounding quantities) in other veggies such as parsley and red pepper. Try mixing up your sources to eat different foods in every meal!
What does vitamin C do? Consuming this vitamin increases the production of interferon, a protein which helps protect the cells from any viral infection. Lots research groups have studied the importance of vitamin C intake, and it is still considered one of the best vitamins to promote a strong immune system.
4. Vitamin E
Our last immune system boosting vitamin is found in walnuts, almonds, and peanuts. It is also found in sunflower seeds, spinach, and broccoli. The best oils to cook with and to put in salads are sunflower oil, wheat germ oil, and soybean oil.
Vitamin E helps the immune system because of its antioxidant properties. It fights free radicals and helps our cells to regenerate and work seamlessly.
The importance of vitamins for our health
We tend to underestimate the importance that vitamins have in our health. The biggest danger here is eating always the same thing and forgetting about variety in our diets. This greatly limits our vitamin intake, thus leaving us defenseless against virus and infections.
In order to be protected against the flu and other infections, the key is having a strong and resistant immune system. For most people, this means keeping an eye on variety and having a diet high in all of the aforementioned foods. Do you already take vitamins to boost your immune system?
From now on, try to include foods into your diet that have vitamins A, B, C, and E. You will start noticing you’re less likely to bet infected. As time goes by, you will see that you don’t get sick that often!
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Hon, S. L. (2014). Vitamin A. In Encyclopedia of Toxicology: Third Edition. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-386454-3.00797-1
- Martín-Belloso, O., Odriozola-Serrano, I., & Soliva-Fortuny, R. (2012). Vitamin c. In Handbook of Analysis of Active Compounds in Functional Foods. https://doi.org/10.1201/b11653
- Gregory, J. F. (2017). Vitamins. In Fennema’s Food Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781315372914