Sharing is caring – a delightful virtue when it comes to little humans; but when it is a plaguing cold or a nasty tummy bug, it can be nothing short of a family catastrophe! Whilst these kinds of experiences can help children build a robust immune system, evidence indicates that recurrent bouts of infection may be associated with a reduced presence of beneficial bacteria in the gut.

The bacteria (and the trillions of other microorganisms) in the gut, are known collectively as the gut microbiome, the health of which is essential for immune resilience and resistance to infection. These beneficial organisms directly interact with the immune system (a large proportion of which is also housed in the gut), helping to boost the overall immune response against pathogens. In other words, a healthy microbiome helps to build immune function, whilst a compromised microbiome reduces immune resilience.

Cultivating the Microbiome

Babies inherit their microbiome initially from vaginal flora at birth, in addition to skin -to- skin contact via breastmilk. This exposes infants to a wide range of bacterial species and specific carbohydrates (from breastmilk) that feed these bacteria, helping to establish a healthy gut microbiome.

Babies inherit their microbiome initially from vaginal flora at birth, in addition to skin -to- skin contact via breastmilk. This exposes infants to a wide range of bacterial species and specific carbohydrates (from breastmilk) that feed these bacteria, helping to establish a healthy gut microbiome.

That said, not all babies share these microbiome-building experiences. For example, caesarean section, premature birth, limited amounts of breastmilk, and antibiotic use can all impact the diversity of the gut microbiome. This can have a flow-on effect, leading to reduced immune resilience and a greater chance of developing recurrent infections in childhood.

This is perhaps most obvious when kids face one of the greatest immune challenges, where there is no shortage of germ-sharing… daycare (or school). Additionally, kids that experience recurrent ear, chest and/or gut infections also tend to require a greater number of antibiotics;  leading to a vicious cycle of poor microbiome health and impaired immune function. Fortunately, research reveals that probiotics may be the key to microbiome recovery; helping to improve digestive health and subsequent immune function.

Probiotics to the Rescue!

Probiotics are live bacteria, which offer beneficial effects on the microbiome and help to support childhood health in several ways including:

1. Increasing the quantity and diversity of bacterial species in the gut;
2. Enhancing immune activity; and

While several probiotics species have been shown to boost immunity, it is important to choose the specific probiotic strain for the condition you are looking to treat.

Probiotics species have been shown to boost immunity.

Less illness means more time for childhood

While the occasional cold or flu is a normal part of growing up, recurrent infections can be a sign that the immune system requires a little extra support. As discussed, resilience against infection draws greatly on the health of the microbiome, with probiotics offering a solution to help boost immunity and resistance to infection. To ensure you choose the right probiotic seek the advice of a qualified health care Practitioner who can prescribe the right probiotic for your child’s needs.

Before antibiotics were discovered in the 1900s, bacterial infections were a feared enemy of modern society. Antibiotics changed everything – saving millions of lives and offering an effective tool to battle deadly infections. Fast forward to now, and antibiotics, while still incredibly useful, are sadly claiming the lives of our beneficial gut bacteria which has been linked to uncomfortable side effects such as antibiotic-associated diarrhoea (AAD).

Of course, losing a bit of gut bacteria to save you from a nasty infection is a no-brainer; however, the loss of beneficial bacteria from multiple courses of antibiotics can cost you so much more over a lifetime. In fact, losses of good bacteria have been linked to a greater risk of chronic diseases, such as digestive disorders, cardiovascular disease and even mental health symptoms; this is why protecting your gut bacteria is a top priority for good health.

The most important thing when taking antibiotics is managing loss of good bacteria during and after every treatment. This means having strategies to help protect your inner health, so that you can deal with AAD, and other issues linked to a loss of good bacteria. This comes down to two things: protecting your bacteria when you need to take antibiotics, and, reducing your need for antibiotics.

The most important thing when taking antibiotics is managing loss of good bacteria during and after every treatment.

Probiotic Protection to Reduce Diarrhoea

A combination of specific probiotic strains (types) can reduce AAD while also helping recover your gut microbiome after antibiotics. Using Ultra Flora Intensive Care, a scientifically formulated probiotic, can assist in rebuilding beneficial gut flora (bacteria), and provide some of the most researched bacterial strains that reduce AAD, including Lactobacillus rhamnosus (LGG^®) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (boulardii). In a nutshell, Ultra Flora Intensive Care can help you restore healthy gut bacteria after antibiotic use, and this can maintain healthy gut function.

It’s important to note that antibiotics can affect your gut bacteria for up to two weeks after you stop taking them. Ensuring you take your probiotic from the start of your antibiotic course until a minimum of two weeks after you finish will give your gut bugs the support they need.

To date, these specific strains have been the most successful in preventing AAD. So, to ensure you are getting the right bang for your hard-earned buck, see a natural health Practitioner to access these strains.

It’s important to note that antibiotics can affect your gut bacteria for up to two weeks after you stop taking them.

Support Your Immune System to Reduce Your Need for Antibiotics

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has advised us to limit the use of antibiotics to the most essential situations. This is because using them too frequently or inappropriately can help infectious bacteria develop resistance to their antibacterial mechanisms, eclipsing their utility. For this reason, limiting your chances of needing antibiotics in the first place does the world a huge favour.

Bolstering your immunity against infection is the smartest way to reduce your need for antibiotics and curb your risk of related side effects. Here are our best tips on how to do this:

• Wash your hands frequently with soap and water;
• Cough or sneeze into a tissue (or into your elbow if you don’t have tissues), and use alcohol-based hand sanitiser;
• Try to avoid touching your face, and wash your hands before and after if you do;
• Improve your health with nutrition, better sleep and stress management to avoid getting sick in the first place, and,
• Have a handy natural ‘First Aid’ kit equipped with remedies to limit the severity of an infection, so you can recover quickly and get back to doing what you love.

Let Your Bugs Bounce Back!

Thanks to modern medicine, we’ve been afforded the freedom to thrive without bacterial infections cutting our lives short. However, with this comes the responsibility of ensuring that antibiotic therapy is used wisely, by being mindful and modest in how often we use antibiotics. When you do need them, it is important to support your gut bacteria with probiotics in order to prevent side effects such as AAD. Chat to a natural health Practitioner to learn more about taking care of your gut health for good health, today.

In Resisting Colds and Flu Part One, we learned about the immune system and how seeing a Practitioner can help you strengthen it in time for illness. In order to prevent illness, your immune cells are constantly on the lookout for infectious bacteria and viruses, ready to mount defensive attacks against them.

However, to help your army of immune cells protect you from infection, you need to create the right conditions for them to effectively defend you. In other words, just as unfavourable conditions (e.g. harsh weather) affect a soldier’s efforts in battle, the following conditions make it more difficult for your immune soldiers to defend your body:

• Poor gut health;
• Low nutrient levels;
• Poor sleep quality;
• Chronic stress; and
• Not enough exercise.

Read on to learn more about how these five areas can make or break your ability to triumph over illness this winter.

1. Engage your Gut Bacteria

It might surprise you to learn that the gut is the key to your immune health. Within your gut, your resident bacteria (and other microscopic organisms), known as your microbiome, directly interact with your immune army, (a large proportion of which is housed in the gut). This affects your overall immune response against infection.

Put simply, a healthy microbiome full of beneficial bacteria helps to build immune function, whilst a compromised microbiome can hinder your immune army’s response against infection.

Unfortunately, many things can reduce your levels of good bacteria. A common example is antibiotics, which is often what you are prescribed when infection keeps getting the better of you. Repeat courses of antibiotics may cause a loss of beneficial bacteria every time you get sick, making you more susceptible to future infections.

Put simply, a healthy microbiome full of beneficial bacteria helps to build immune function, whilst a compromised microbiome can hinder your immune army’s response against infection.

If this pattern sounds familiar to you, consider seeking out the care of a natural healthcare Practitioner who can assess and address the health of your gut bacteria. Your Practitioner can also prescribe specific probiotic strains (types) that have been shown to boost immunity and reduce the risk of catching a cold, such as Lactobacillus rhamnosus (LGG®), Lactobacillus plantarum (HEAL 9), Lactobacillus paracasei (8700:2).

2. Stock up on Nutritional Ammunition

Your immune system’s ability to protect you also depends upon on your nutritional health. Several nutrients, including zinc and vitamin C, are involved in keeping your immune cells in good shape, as they help your body to create them on a daily basis. As such, without enough of these nutrients to create your immune army, your chance of getting sick is higher.

If you’re usually on the losing end of colds and flu, and haven’t considered topping up your nutritional stores, there’s a fair chance that supplementing zinc and vitamin C can increase your resistance to infection and support faster recovery, buying back your time and health over winter.

To discover which specific nutrients you may be lacking, and what supplements you need to help boost your levels, speak to your Naturopath or health Practitioner.

If you’re usually on the losing end of colds and flu and haven’t considered topping up your nutritional stores, there’s a fair chance that supplementing zinc and vitamin C can increase your resistance to infection and support faster recovery, buying back your time and health over winter.

3. Maximise Your Sleep Quality

You’ve probably experienced the difference between a restful and sleepless night, and you know which  you would prefer, right? Your immune system feels the same, especially when it’s faced with the threat of illness. Put simply, sleep is the body’s time to rest and regenerate itself, so it can create enough immune cells to defend you from illness.

4. Keep an Eye on Your Stress

High and prolonged levels of stress take a toll on the immune system, weakening your defences and making you more susceptible to sickness. Managing stress helps more than just immune function; it also improves the overall health of your body. This is why having a few stress-busting strategies built into your daily routine can fortify your health and keep infection from taking hold.

5. Stay Fighting Fit with Exercise

Exercise helps you to build strong muscles and allows you to extend the limits of what you’re physically capable of. Similarly, exercise also strengthens your immune system, making it more powerful and effective in its response to nasty infections. Even just 30 minutes of walking has been shown to boost the quantity of immune cells in the body, which is why regular exercise is a key weapon in beating back illness.

Winter is Coming

To prepare your immune army for cold and flu season, see a health Practitioner to equip yourself with the best strategy to shut down infection before it becomes a battle. By taking professional advice on board and focusing on these five areas (for at least four weeks before winter hits), you will be setting yourself up to triumph against illness, so you can spend more time appreciating the magic of winter.

In Resisting Colds and Flu Part Two, we learned five key factors that put you at risk of infection, and how to overcome them. Although prevention is better than cure, it’s important to stock up on remedies that can reduce your symptoms and help you get better quickly if you do fall sick. Create your very own cold and flu ‘first aid’ kit, using our top six natural remedies, so you can knock infections on the head and stay well this winter.

Start with Herbal Heavyweights

When it comes to reducing fever, cough, sore throat and thick phlegm, Andrographis packs a punch. In a review of 33 clinical trials, it was shown to speed up recovery and shorten the duration of cold symptoms. Andro NK, a potent herbal formula containing Andrographis, stimulates your immune defences, which can help lessen the severity of the common cold.

Call for Nutritional Back-Up

The combination of zinc and vitamin C has been shown to reduce the duration and severity of common cold symptoms due to its immune-supporting actions. As such, providing the body with a high-strength blend such as Meta Zinc with Vitamin C can help reload your body with the ingredients it needs to defend you.

‘Shrooms to the Rescue

Medicinal mushrooms such as reishi, cordyceps, coriolus and shiitake have been used in traditional Chinese medicine over many centuries to help:

• Manage mild upper respiratory tract infections (reishi and coriolus);
• Relieve mucus congestion (reishi and cordyceps);
• Support the immune system (shiitake); and,
• Enhance energy and stamina and reduce fatigue (cordyceps).

Super Mushroom Complex blends these four mushrooms together, helping to support your immune response.

Load Your Freezer with Soup

Soups make for excellent emergency meals if you start to feel sick. Set aside a day where you can prepare bases, using either chicken frames or vegetable peels with plenty of garlic, thyme and oregano, as these herbs are rich with antibacterial compounds which can help your immune system. Strain and freeze your soup bases. Then, when you need them, defrost and add fresh vegetables. Your future self will thank you!

Stock Up on Tea to Help Replace Your Fallen Fluids

If you do get sick, one way to improve your recovery time is by topping up any fluids you’ve lost to fever or sweats with herbal tea. Herbs such as thyme, peppermint, liquorice and ginger steeped with a teaspoon of honey can help to decongest your nose and soothe your throat; giving you relief when symptoms arise.

Invest in Eucalyptus Oil

Eucalyptus essential oil is fantastic for keeping airways clear and open, particularly when you’re feeling congested in your sinuses or chest. Using eucalyptus oil-containing chest rubs, or adding a few drops to an oil diffuser before bed, can help with symptom relief, making it easier to breathe when you’re feeling stuffy.

Prep Yourself Before you Wreck Yourself

To help you come out on top this cold and flu season, speak to a Practitioner about sourcing the best quality supplements to help you beat cold and flu symptoms. Gather everything you need for your ‘First Aid’ kit to keep you and your household protected with access to emergency relief before winter arrives, so you can thrive throughout these cooler months.

Evading this season’s colds, coughs and flu can feel like an uphill battle through a treacherous warzone. As you forge through uncharted territory, you remain constantly vulnerable to an enemy ambush closing in on you. The same can be said of your body during winter, when it must regularly defend against viruses and bacteria. Poor battle tactics, such as inadequate immune defences, can increase the chance of viruses and bacteria leading to an infection. Fortunately, arming yourself with tools that enhance your immune response can turn the tables on the enemy and mount a counterattack that could win the war, allowing you to conquer any bugs that may come your way.

The Nitty Gritty of the Warzone

Your immune system has evolved to identify and destroy pathogens, viruses and bacteria, before they win the war. It does so by drawing on two lines of immune defence.

The innate immune response is activated when a pathogen you are exposed to invades your body, immediately setting into motion the production and release of immune cells that hunt down and destroy the attacker. Conversely, the adaptive immune response plays a slow and measured strategy, using other types of specialised immune cells (known as B cells and T cells) to learn about the threat and adjust it’s defences accordingly for a targeted approach.

When these two lines of defence are in peak form, your immune system does a solid job of protecting you against pathogenic threats. However, an inadequate immune response increases the likelihood of pathogens overcoming your immune defences, leading to infection. In these instances, enhancing your immune system’s function using natural medicines can help build resistance against viral and bacterial pathogens and prevent the onset of infection.

Your Tactical Advantage

Arm yourself with an immune-enhancing artillery this winter by consulting a natural healthcare Practitioner. Skilled at identifying the weaknesses in your defence, your Practitioner can advise you of the best battle plan for your needs. A Practitioner can also recommend supplements to enhance your body’s immune response, providing you with an added edge when fending off viral and bacterial foes.

However, should a formidable opponent sneak past your defences, leading to a cold, cough or flu, your Practitioner can prescribe additional immune-boosting strategies to help you recover faster. The best options for you will depend on the type of infection that’s slipped past your guard, which is why it is important to get expert help. However, the strategies found here are a good place to start.