Microblog: Gut Health – Sugar Is an Immune Killer
As soon you eat refined sugar, it reduces how white blood cells perform. In fact, obese people have fewer white blood cells with a reduced ability to fight infection.⠀
💡White blood cells are your immune system (80% in your gut!)⠀
🦸🏻♀️You can think of the immune system as several lines of defense. Our first line of defense is innate immunity.⠀
🛡They protect us from invading pathogens. Studies show that a high sugar diet abnormally impacts the innate immune system, including increased inflammation.⠀
⚠️There is a connection (not just correlation) between Type 2 Diabetes and the innate immune response not functioning properly. I’ll link to the study in my stories.⠀
🍬Too much sugar depresses your immune system.⠀
🤒Try not to have sugar when you have a fever. You want your immune system to fight the good fight inside you (the fever is the sign they’re at work). But if you bring in sugar, you’re basically handicapping them. Ironic that most fever medicines add sugar.⠀
🐣Your adrenals produce hormones that help regulate your immune system, metabolism and stress response.⠀
💉Your adrenals produce cortisol, a steroid hormone. Cortisol is released during stress but also released to manage blood sugar levels.⠀
💰But it comes at a cost.⠀
⚠️Cortisol is expensive to make. Remember our bodies prioritize survival before everything and when our sugar levels are high in the blood, a cortisol “steal” of nutrients occurs.⠀
🤧Cortisol is made with cholesterol and uses up a lot of the B-vitamins. If you don’t have enough B vitamins, the other bodily functions suffer.⠀
❓Guess what suffers?⠀
⚔️The vitamin Bs help prevent infections and support overall cell health.⠀
🥗Maybe this is why studies show that vegans get sick often. Most don’t get enough cholesterol and B-vitamins.⠀
🐄Guess what foods are rich in both?⠀
⬇️Lower sugar intake and less cortisol is needed. The same goes with stress.⠀
🥩If you’re stressed or consume sugar, eat more foods rich in cholesterol and B-vitamins. Your body will thank you for it.⠀
🧂Oh and take extra salt. Adrenals also love hoarding salt.
