Wisdom of Healing

With cold and flu season with us again, it’s time to do all we can to keep ourselves and our family members strong and healthy. Eating nourishing whole foods is well known to improve our health, but there are many myths and misunderstandings regarding how we might eat so as to maintain and improve immune system strength. How’s your health this winter?

There’s been frequent mention in health and women’s magazines recently about adding more raw foods, fruits and vegetables, to the diet. While someone living in the heat of the tropics with descendants from a similar region may eat these foods yearround, it may be much less beneficial, and possibly harmful, for those of us in the far northern (and for southern hemisphere residents, far southern) climates.

In autumn and winter, we ideally want to consume fewer fruits and salads that we eat during spring and summer months. These foods tend to be cooling and ‘thin the blood’. When it gets colder, we should move into eating more long slow cooked foods like soups, stews, crock pot meals and baked dishes (lasagna, veggies, etc; not sweets). These warming foods help to stimulate and protect immune health.

When I mention reducing fruits (and fruit juices), I hear a lot of concern from people, especially when there are children in the equation. Fruits are good for us, right? The answer might actually be ‘not so much in the winter months’.

If we refer back to how our ancestors ate in the cooler months, we’d find that northern folk ate local fruits when they were in season and harvested fully ripe. A portion of each crop was canned or prepared into jams or sauces. A few types of hard fruit, things like apples and pears, were able to be stored whole for a few months in a cool, dry place.

So, when I suggest reducing fruits during cold weather, I am saying that, as much as is prudent in our busy lives, we should eat hard fruits like apples very occasionally rather than daily for a few months each year.

We may also want to monitor the amount of sugar and flour that we consume and reduce it if necessary. The case against sugar has been told for decades now. Most people are familiar with it. For optimal immune health through the winter months, we may do well to reduce flour as well, cutting down on the servings of pasta, breads, pastries and cereals. Replace these with whole grains, including rice, millet, buckwheat, quinoa and teff. Sprouted grain and sourdough breads are fine, on occassion.

Using spices to strengthen the immune system to fight and prevent colds is found in ancient writings from around the world. Try cooking with fresh (or dried) organic ginger, turmeric, oregano, thyme, sage, cinnamon, garlic and cardamom. You can add these delicious spices to your soups and stews, or you may want to make them into teas and sip them often.

My most favorite herb for helping the body with relief of cold and flu symptoms and the length of duration is Elder. Elder flower seems to support everything sinus related. It’s truly one of the most underrated, very miraculous herbs I know. I have yet to witness a person who suffers with sinus congestion, allergies, headache, post nasal drip, etc that did not find significant (and often long-term) relief from the use of a high quality elder flower product.

Traditional uses of Elder flower for sinus related discomfort include taking a very small amount of tincture or syrup every time symptoms began to return. This may have been every five or fifteen minutes at first, but as time went on, folks would find that the length of time before symptoms would return became longer and longer, until they needed only a maintenance usage of a half teaspoon or so in the morning and at night. Elder flower is also supportive of the nervous system, helping us feel calmer, peaceful and more relaxed.

Elderberry has a wealth of research behind it for supporting immune health. One study out of Norway showed that Elderberry helped reduce symptoms and shorten the duration of cold type illnesses by a whopping four days!

Elderberry syrup or tincture is tart and delicious! Elderberry was traditionally taken in half teaspoons morning and night for prevention. If someone was exposed to a number of folks who were ill, and they wanted to increase protection, they may have chosen to take a teaspoonful every hour or two. And when one felt they were coming down with a cold or was experiencing full-blown symptoms, they may have taken a half to one teaspoon of syrup or tincture as often as every fifteen or thirty minutes until they were feeling significantly better, (often in one to four hours). They would have also had attention to drinking plenty of fluids and getting lots of rest, of course.

Elderberry has also been shown in a study from the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition to support healthy cholesterol and triglyceride levels! Such a bonus for supporting immune health!

Elderberries and Elder flower are both very rich in vitamins C and A, several powerful flavonoids, minerals and fatty acids, providing us with significant anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. My most favorite Elder product is one that’s been on the European market for nearly a century and in the US for decades. It is distributed in the US by Flora, and is called Sambu. It’s ‘little sister’ Sambu Guard is also a wonderful, widely available Elder syrup. These delicious syrups contain both Elder flower and berries. If you prefer not to take it directly from the spoon, try mixing it into a bit of seltzer or naturally carbonated mineral water for a sensationally healthy Elder soda!

Thyme and Oregano are also powerful supplements or essential oils that we may choose to use when the common cold is running rampant through our communities. There are tinctures or herbs in capsules (please choose organic, of course, for best results). Gaia Herbs and New Chapter each provide some of the most potent Oregano capsules anywhere on the market.

Thyme oil is beneficial for prevention and to strengthen the immune system. Thyme is shown to possess the following therapeutic properties relating to the common cold: antiseptic, antispasmodic, bactericidal and expectorant. Thyme oil has been used for centuries to protect the sinuses and to fortify the lungs. Thyme has been shown to helps with coughs, asthma, laryngitis, sinusitis, catarrh, whooping cough, sore throats and tonsillitis.

Oregano possesses potent antiviral, antibacterial and antifungal abilities, able of to provide fast relief from cold and flu symptoms including runny nose, congestion, chills, sore throat, ear aches, cough, fever, fatigue, stuffiness and muscle aches. Several studies have shown the effectiveness of oregano oil to reduce the symptoms and shorten the duration of the common cold without side effects.

If you are not a fan of taking supplements orally or already take enough, you may want to try using Oregano or Thyme essential oil topically, either for prevention or when you feel cold symptoms coming on. Before going to bed, place a few drops of essential oil onto the ball of your right foot. Rub briskly in small circular motions for about one minute. Repeat on your left foot. If you’ve chosen a high quality essential oil, you will likely taste oregano on your palate within a few minutes. For superior quality essential oils, look for Oshadhi. It is truly the top of the line.

You may also drop the oil into the palm of your hand and rub both hands together as rapidly as you can. Put your hands loosely around your nose and breathe deeply. Exhale completely, and repeat three to six times.

Probiotics, those beneficial bacteria found in a healthy gut, support immune system health. Because the digestive tract is now considered to make up as much as 65-70% on the immune system, it makes sense that probiotics would be capable of immune system enhancement and protection. As I’ve previously stated, most probiotics on the US market are of very poor quality, and provide little benefit. For optimal results, we want to use strong healthy little microorganisms that will easily settle into our gut and reproduce. This means they should be contained in their own growth media. There are just a few products produced in this way. Look for any probiotic products from Natren, New Chapter or Bio K Plus. These are the best choices for optimum immune (and digestive) protection.

There are some very powerful mushroom extract products to support prevention of the common cold. There are about a dozen mushrooms that research has shown to be active for immune health. There are more than a dozen shown to fight viruses and several for lungs and respiratory health. To get all of these in one product, look for New Chapter’s Mycomedicinals line. Their product called Host Defense contains 16 mushrooms grown and processed by Paul Stamets, who has some of the most promising products in this category, with lots of research to back them. My other favorite mushroom product, also from the Mycomedicinals line, is called Lifeshield Throat Defense, a tasty spray directing the mushroom extracts directly into the throat.

If you tend to get swollen glands just before or with the common cold, there are great, safe herbs for moving the lymphatic system. Where the circulatory system has the heart to pump the blood, the lymphatic system has no physical pump. The human body has always relied on movement and daily activity to keep the lymph moving through the body, picking up and disposing of the potential pathogens that the immune system had captured. With such a sedentary society, lymph struggles to circulate properly.

My three favorite herbs for moving the lymph are Red root, Calendula and Cleavers. As little as three drops of tincture taken three times daily is considered enough for prevention and is traditionally believed safe in usages of up to a dropperful every hour or two for a few hours when we’re under the weather. Look for Herb Pharm or Gaia Herbs for very high quality certified organically grown herbal tinctures.

Note: You’ll rarely find me suggesting Echinacea or Goldenseal for cold or flu, as so many folks do. One reason for this is that they have been dreadfully over-harvested in the wild, and are both on the United Plant Savers ‘At Risk” list. If you are still relying on these two amazing herbs for your family’s cold and flu needs, please look at the dozens of other fine, effective herbal immune remedies. If you do choose to continue to purchase Echinacea and Goldenseal, be sure to buy a certified organic product, so that you won’t be supporting the wildcrafting of our precious wild stands of these species.

There are dozens of other great suggestions for prevention of cold and flu in my post: Immune Strength During the Changing Seasons, posted on October 12, 2006.

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