PODCAST: Can You Boost Your Immunity Naturally?

ZACH MOORE: Welcome to On Health with Houston Methodist. I'm Zach Moore. I'm a photographer and editor here, and I'm also a longtime podcaster.

KATIE MCCALLUM: I’m Katie McCallum, former researcher, turned health writer, mostly writing for our blog.

ZACH: Katie, how healthy do you think your immune system is?

[Sighs]

KATIE: You know, I -- me and my sister both jokingly call ourselves lemons every now and then in terms of, like, I feel like I get sick way easier than most people, and I feel like I’m sick more often than most people.

ZACH: Okay.

KATIE: So, I would put my immune system at a solid, like, five, maybe four.

ZACH: Alright, so middle of the road it sounds like.

KATIE: Yeah. Where are you ranking yours?

ZACH: Maybe seven and a half, eight.

KATIE: Okay, okay.

ZACH: I don’t feel like I get sick that often.

KATIE: Yeah.

ZACH: I do seem to get sick like around the same times of year, kinda, seasonal changes.

KATIE: Well, there’re seasonal respiratory viruses, so.

ZACH: Allergy related. I know if I start not getting enough sleep and I start getting worn down…

KATIE: Mmm.

ZACH: That’s what the trigger is for me always.

KATIE: Yeah.

ZACH: Of course, things happen. You’re gonna get sick every now and then. But I don’t feel like I disproportionally get sick or anything like that.

KATIE: Yeah. I definitely do. And I feel like I’m, kinda, pretty healthy. At least these days. I know in my 20s I probably wasn’t, but, I have a recent example. Twice this year so far, I’ve gone on trips and come back from trips where I was with someone on the trip who did the exact same thing as me, you know, we were on the same flight, we both -- like, for instance, I was in Vegas in August for a conference. You know, prime time to get sick, right? You’re on a plane packed with people, I’m in a conference center packed with people, it’s Vegas, there’s lots of people everywhere.

ZACH: They call it the con crud.

KATIE: What?

ZACH: It’s a technical term. No, if you go to conventions…

KATIE: Oh.

ZACH: Sickness spreads around, so they call it the con crud.

KATIE: I’d never heard this.

ZACH: Yeah.

KATIE: Okay. I fell victim to the con crud whereas my colleague, our coworker, was totally fine. I got Covid, she did not. Now, this was during that, kind of, like, part of the end of the summer where Covid was higher, you know, levels were up and I was like, “I’m probably gonna come back from this conference sick.” Because, again, I always get sick.

ZACH: Yeah.

KATIE: And it happened also earlier this year. I went on a trip; we went to a basketball game in a very busy arena. I came back from the trip with some kind of virus. The flu or something. And the person I was traveling with, totally fine.

ZACH: What have you done? You’ve noticed this pattern in your life it sounds like.

KATIE: Mhm.

ZACH: Have you tried to prevent it or -- and have your attempts failed, or have you -- where are you on that?

KATIE: That’s why I’m trying to do this podcast…

[laughter]

To get my answer.

ZACH: That’s why we’re doing this podcast.

KATIE: I’m trying to do this podcast to get my answer. No, I mean, I’ve tried, like, you know those, like, vitamin C packets that you can, like, as soon as you start feeling that tickle in your throat, you’re like, “Ooh.” Especially in college, I was like, “Let me go chug some of these vitamin C packets.  I mean, nothing has ever helped me. I just -- that’s why I jokingly call myself a lemon. I just think I get sick more often than other people. I will say, I don’t think I get more sick when I do get sick than other people. I think I just get sick easier.

ZACH: I follow you.

KATIE: So, it’s not like -- I’ve had Covid at least twice, and both times it was not that bad. Well, I mean, it wasn’t great. It was like a bad flu.

ZACH: I had it once and it was absolutely awful, but.

KATIE: Yeah, I mean like, I wasn’t -- yeah, it wasn’t great, but I also -- No concerns about having to go, like, to the hospital or anything. So, like, I don’t get super sick when I’m sick, I just feel like I am more prone to illness.

ZACH: Yeah, ‘cause that would be like compromised immune system. No matter what illness you get, like, it’s gonna hit you harder than most people. That’s not you, you just have -- the frequency is higher.

KATIE: Yeah. And we wanna figure out why.

ZACH: Yeah.

KATIE: This episode is all about me. I’m just kidding, it’s not.

[Laughter]

I think a lot of people wonder how to boost your immune system. Nobody wants to be sick. And I think there is a ton of stuff out there that claims to improve your immunity or boost your immunity. I think a lot of the question is, what actually works? You know, especially for a person who, you know, maybe just thinks they’re healthy but feels like they’re getting sick more than often. Or this person who just never wants to get sick because they hate being sick. What can we do to keep our immune system healthy?

ZACH: All right. And who did we talk to about that, Katie?

KATIE: We talked to Doctor Cesar Arias. He is an Infectious Disease physician here at Houston Methodist, and we go through all the supplements that maybe claim that they can help you boost your immunity, we talk about how complex the immune system is and how that might tell us something about whether these supplements work and a lot more.

[Sound effect plays to signal beginning of interview]

KATIE: Thanks for being with us today, Dr. Arias. It’s great to have you here.

DOCTOR CESAR ARIAS: Thank you for inviting me.

KATIE: Chief of Infectious Diseases, so it sounds like you are the perfect person for us to be talking to about our immune system and how we can boost immunity.

DR. ARIAS: Well, I hope so. At least from the other side of the infectious disease spectrum, we deal with the consequences.

KATIE: Right, gotcha. You know, I think I wanna kick off this episode with something I saw recently. In my social media feed I got an ad, it was advertising a greens powder, I’ll just say that. And the text on the ad was, “Better immunity is just a scoop away.” Implying that a scoop of this greens powder is, like, what I need to boost my immune system. Can you start by talking to us and our listeners about why that’s probably a pretty simplified way of talking about your immune system?

DR. ARIAS: Yeah. I mean, that’s not the only product. I think you’ll probably find a vast amount and number of products that claim that boosting the immune system. The immune system is one of the most complex activities in our body. And in reality, the training of the immune system is an evolutionary training we as humans have had since we’ve been in this earth. And it’s mainly developed based on the exposure to the surroundings. Both outside of us but also inside of us. I mean, what is boosting the immune system is absolutely unclear.  Most of these products have not undergone rigorous testing to see exactly what they do. Most of these claim that, you know, you get less colds or less viral infections, etcetera. But we know that is not true, and there is no evidence for that. A healthy immune system comes through you being healthy. That means eating right, sleeping well, having a healthy style of living, exercise, and maintaining a good interaction with what we call our microbiome, your own microbiome, which is influenced by many factors.

KATIE: Gotcha. So, I think you’re -- you, kind of, have led into my next question. So, just to take that a step further, you know, when we say what does a healthy immune system, you know, quote, unquote “Look like?” I think a lot of people might assume that it’s like, “Well, if I’m boosting my immune system or,” you know, like, to your point, what does that mean? But, “If I am boosting my immune system or trying to, that means, like, I’m not gonna get sick. So, you know, during flu season, I’m less likely to get the flu and stuff like that.” So, what does a healthy immune system actually look like? Like, what does it mean to have a healthy immune system?

DR. ARIAS: A vaccinated person, I would say that is a good example of a healthy immune system. So, there is a reason we vaccinate. So, that means you get vaccinated, you get a boost in your immunity against a particular pathogen, and if you do that, that is actually an indication that you are responding, your immune system is responding. For example, if you do this, the same vaccination in a patient who is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, the response is not gonna be the same because that immune system of that person is totally down because all of the chemotherapy and all of that. I come back to my previous comments that a healthy immune system means a healthy life. That your organism is healthy in terms of what you eat, how you behave, what kind of toxins you put in your body, and how you sleep, and how much you exercise. That is a healthy style of living that is gonna be hand to hand with a healthy immune system.

KATIE: Gotcha. And, I mean, would you say it’s fair to say that even if you’re doing all that, like, you might still get sick but perhaps it’ll be less sick than if you had a horrible diet, a horrible -- you know, you’re not really taking care of your body very well. Is there a correlation there at all?

DR. ARIAS: So absolutely. Let’s put the example in Covid. Everybody who is reasonably healthy probably got Covid one way or another.

KATIE: It found everyone, I think, eventually.

DR. ARIAS: Correct. But certain people got it really bad. Because in some ways, the immune system reacted a lot. For example, in a viral infection, the inflammation gets out of control. How that is regulated is very difficult to predict but depends on many factors. So, people with diabetes, people with obesity, people for certain conditions are more predisposed to go in that route than maybe a healthier person. But it’s difficult to predict. So, I saw very healthy people, marathon runners, getting eventually to the ICU during the Covid pandemic. So, it’s very unclear to predict because we -- each individual is -- we’re very unique on how our immune system is gonna respond to particular challenges.

KATIE: Gotcha.

DR. ARIAS: So yeah. I don’t think there is a one size fits all.

KATIE: Yeah. Yeah, I guess it gets back to what you mentioned. It’s such a complex, you know, system in our bodies. I wanna touch on one thing you said ‘cause I wanted to ask this and I think you’re already, kind of, alluding to it. Sometimes I wonder, like, I have some friends that never get sick. Like, literally almost never get sick. And then I, kinda, feel like -- I call myself a lemon sometimes ‘cause like, I feel like I’m just -- I get sick easily. But I also, like, kind of feel like I’m pretty healthy. So, are there any -- do we know any other factors of why there are just some people who, like, rarely get sick and some just get sick more often? Or is it too complex to talk about? Anything else there?

DR. ARIAS: No. One very important part of the science of immunology and infectious diseases is to try to find genetic predisposition to certain diseases. That’s something that we do not understand very well yet. There is definitely certain people that has certain mutation and particular genes that seem to predispose that particular individual to certain diseases. Either bacterial, fungal, viral, etcetera, right? The details of all of that and how that is is sometimes very difficult because in order to really pinpoint the particular mutation, you will need thousands of millions of people to do, sort of, a genetic study that gives enough power to do that. But definitely, there is certain genetic predisposition to certain infectious diseases. And it’s unclear what particular virus or bugs you will be predisposed, you know. I always say to people getting sick is not bad because, I mean, you are developed some sort of immunity to it. Of course, you don’t wanna be in the hospital. But, you know, we’ve seen with Covid, for example, with the variants that people have multiple episodes for days with the flu. And this is the natural way to living in this earth and having new pathogens emerging, you know, around us.

KATIE: I know we talked about this at the top, but I wanted to dig in on a couple of the supplements that I think people think of most when they think of, you know, boosting your immune system. Vitamin C, whether it’s through, maybe like a packet of vitamin C or just like, “I’m gonna try to get more vitamin C in my diet.” Is there any evidence whatsoever that vitamin C, kinda, helps stave off illness?

DR. ARIAS: Yeah. I mean, there has been plenty of studies trying to pinpoint that particular role of vitamin C, which has some role, metabolic role that is very well identified. To be honest, the jury is still out there if this supplementation really helps. The problem with that is that you have a healthy diet, you consume enough fruits, and a balanced diet. You probably have enough of the vitamin requirements that is needed to maintain a good immune system. Doing extra is sometimes difficult to assess if that extra actually helps anything. And that’s where, you know, it is difficult to measure the studies. Definitely, if you don’t have it, definitely there is a problem, and you develop conditions. But if you have enough, is more better? I’m not quite sure.

KATIE: Along that same line, are there any other vitamins and minerals that aren’t talked about enough when we think about a healthy diet and making sure people are getting enough of the vitamins and minerals or -- I guess what I’m asking is, if I’m eating a healthy diet, are there any vitamins and minerals that I do need to perhaps be thinking about or supplementing with to, sorta, support my immune system or are they all covered with a healthy diet?

DR. ARIAS: It depends what diet you said. There’s more and more evidence now that maybe plant-based diets are possibly healthier for you. And I want to emphasize a point is -- well, we call it the microbiome. So, all the bugs that reside in your gastrointestinal tract in your gut are very important drivers of your immunity since you are born. And that microbiome is determined by what you eat.

KATIE: Hmm. You are what you eat.

DR. ARIAS: That’s exactly what I was gonna say. You took the words out of me. It’s exactly correct.

KATIE: Okay.

DR. ARIAS: So, our western diet, if you look at it, is high calorie, high processed food that I think has a major influence in how we respond to -- our immune system responds, and how eventually leads to disease, cardiovascular, cancer, etcetera. So, the evidence now is that you eat healthier. It doesn’t have to be completely vegan, but definitely lower consumption of animal protein and particularly red meat, more fruits, more fibers, more vegetable. That definitely tend to be associated with a healthier microbiome, a healthier gut, and that influences how you respond specifically. Vegan, for example, individuals, because they’re certain vitamins come from animal protein, sometimes they need to take some supplements, particularly vitamin B supplements and some folic acid. But some other grains may have that, so it’s not necessarily a complete requirement but eventually that will happen. So, this is exactly what I was talking about that you are what you eat and the kind of things you eat is reflected in your overall healthiness including your immune system health.

[Music to signal a brief interjection in the interview]

ZACH: As Dr. Arias has mentioned, a healthy diet isn’t all that’s needed to support your immune system. Sleep and exercise matter too. According to the CDC, only about a quarter of adults get enough exercise every week. And somewhere between 30 to 50% of adults aren’t getting enough sleep. Aim to get around 150 minutes of exercise per week, which shakes out to about 20 minutes per day. If finding time to work out is a challenge for you, try breaking your activity into short bursts throughout the day. Even five minutes of movement here and there adds up. As for sleep, aim to get seven to nine hours of it per night. This isn’t always realistic, but striving to maintain a consistent bedtime can make a huge difference in the long run. If you’re prone to late nights, gradually shift your routine back by 15 minutes until you reach your goal.

[Music to signal end of interjection]

KATIE: After the break, we dive deeper into our microbiomes, the complexity of the immune system and more.

[Music]

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[Sound effect signals return to the interview]

KATIE: I think the one area I have, kind of, struggled up until recently with my lifestyle is probably my diet. I would exercise a lot, but then I would, kind of, eat just not great. And it was never a big deal. As I’m getting older, it’s becoming more of a big deal. But then also, as you’re talking about it, I guess my question is, how quick can you turn around your microbiome in the sense of all during my 20s, I was eating, like, hot fries and, like, sodas and fast food? Now in my 30s, I’m kinda trying the Mediterranean diet style more. You know, does it take a couple of years maybe to turn things around and start, kinda, benefiting my immunity, or do we know anything there?

DR. ARIAS: It’s difficult to predict because there’s so many factors. I mean, the sooner you start, the better. If you have sustained bad diet, maybe some of the damage that’s happened in your arteries is probably not fully reversable. But the way in which you heal those problems may be favored if your diet improves.

KATIE: Gotcha.

DR. ARIAS: A big proponent of a healthy diet to maintain your healthiness as a holistic term. And the sooner you start, the better. When you are young, yeah, you can basically you do many things. But then you pay the price when you get older.

KATIE: Yeah.

DR. ARIAS: So, the whole idea is how we get older in a healthier manner with less utilization of the health system, you know, how can we help our planet at the same time and maintain a very active style of living?

KATIE: Yeah, I think that’s -- something that, like, clicked for me, probably, like mid 30s especially or maybe early 30s was like, man, I’m just -- I think I’m healthy in some ways, and I, kinda, was but in other ways, I was dramatically, kind of, unhealthy and sort of ignoring it. But yeah, to your point, I was not ever thinking about maybe some of these smaller impacts like well, now I might get more sick than usual or, you know. Those things, it’s interesting.

DR. ARIAS: Eating a healthy diet for example a salad, a very healthy salad, it’s probably more expensive than your favorite hamburger.

KATIE: Yeah. No, that’s definitely true.

DR. ARIAS: With your favorite meal that comes with a big can of Coke, an amount that is not necessary, and then your big French fries. Which are delicious. I’m not saying they are not. The nutritional value of that is questionable.

KATIE: Yeah. Not doing our body any favors there. Does the immune system play any role on things like sleep or energy levels and things like that? I ask because, again, getting back to some of these supplements I see, they often try to, like, put everything all in one bottle. It’s like, “Oh, this helps boost your immunity and sleep and energy.” Is there a connection there or are they just, kind of --

DR. ARIAS: Yeah, it’s difficult to ascertain those claims. I mean, in very simple terms, our immune system is derived in two big pockets. One that we call innate immunity. So, it’s sort of the first line of defense. So, imagine the -- our immune system is like an army, right? And the first army are, you know, just -- the innate immunity is just soldiers that go and trying to deal with anything that is thrown to that army. So, that’s innate. And the other, we call adaptive immunity is when -- so, we know now the enemy much better, we are gonna develop a special immunity or special weapons through that enemy through antibodies, etcetera. So, these two systems are regulated in different manners, and there are very complex interactions between them, right? So, when you get vaccinated for example, that goes eventually to your adapted immunity to produce those weapons I call antibodies. Against a particular organism, so when you encounter next time, you have these weapons to try to get rid of that agent. But at the same time, our immune system also remembers that and produces another response. So, it’s a very complex and very fascinating interaction between them. So, if you don’t sleep well, if you don’t eat well, if you ingest beverage in high amounts, that sort of healthy interaction of the immune system is going to be affected.

KATIE: Okay.

DR. ARIAS: And again, this is hand to hand with what is healthy, what is a healthy living. You are under periods of stress, you don’t sleep, you seem to be much more predisposed to catch common colds. And that’s a reflection that, you know, your body’s telling you, you need to take it easy, you know, you just need to, you know, change your style of living to be able to be healthier.

KATIE: Yeah. It’s interesting ‘cause, I mean, as you’re describing it, it’s so complex, the system. But then the ways to support it are pretty simple, you know? I mean, I say simple in that they’re simple to list and easy to talk about, but I know they’re some of the harder things to do. You already mentioned eating a healthy diet is really tough. Here in America, it’s cheaper to not eat healthy. So, I think that’s an interesting contrast there. You have this very complex system. But a simple way in reality to, kind of, quote unquote, “Boost it” or support it, or just maintain it in a healthy way.

DR. ARIAS: There are other parts of the immune system that we don’t think about as part of the immune system that are also important. For example, our skin.

KATIE: Hmm.

DR. ARIAS: Our skin is like the first barrier against bad bugs, right? And the skin is very full of immune soldiers, you know, monitoring. And there’s plenty of bacteria there that help that adaptation on the skin. Your skin not working well, or you have cracks, or something, that is the portal of entry for many infections for example. So, that’s -- all our mucosas are also very important. So, talking about healthy living. Smoking for example. When you smoke, not only you are inhaling toxins that eventually are going to be bad for your lung, but also destroying all these little cilia, which is little brushes that the immune system has or the [indiscernible] has to repel particles that get into the system to cut them out and all of that. Those are also important part of the immune system that we don’t really think about.

KATIE: Yeah, I had never considered the smoking affecting, like, like you mentioned, the cilia and stuff. Well, what about drinking as far as, like, your mouth mucosa, does alcohol, sort of, damage your mouth mucosa and make it easier to get sick?

DR. ARIAS: Depends how much you drink.

KATIE: Okay.

DR. ARIAS: But there’s more and more evidence now that even a small amount of alcohol may have deleterious effects in your whole system. Probably not your mucosa but your GI tract and that kind of --

KATIE: And the microbiome, maybe.

DR. ARIAS: That is going to affect your microbiome, exactly right. You see. So, that’s definitely. I mean, I love wine so I’m not, you know -- try to drink as little as possible, but I will always enjoy a glass of wine, and I think that’s part of your mental health that also is gonna be good.

KATIE: Yeah, no. I got you there. You mentioned, kind of, like, mucosa and things like that. It makes me think of another really bad habit. And perhaps why I get sick more than a lot of people. I bite my nails. So, I mean, is that -- I guess when you’re talking about skin and sort of it being such a good barrier, and then I know during Covid, the message was like, “Don’t touch your eyes, don’t put your hands in your mouth” kind of thing, the biting the nails is probably a pretty big -- would you say that’s a pretty big reason why people might get sick?

DR. ARIAS: It’s hard to think about that that will actually have any impact. We human beings…

KATIE: Yeah.

DR. ARIAS: Tend to pick our body everywhere and put things in our mouths. That’s something -- part of being human, right? I would say you pick your nails, you probably have more anxiety than most people. You probably need to think about why you’re doing that instead of what you’re bringing to your mouth. But yeah, the more --

KATIE: This is good. Thank you. I probably needed to hear that, yeah.

DR. ARIAS: The more your hands stay in contact with your mouth, everything that is in your hands eventually is gonna get in your mouth. So, you know. And God knows where your hands are or have been, and that’s probably gonna end up in your mouth. So, there’s definitely a correlation. But, you know, we do that all the time. And it’s very difficult to just, you know, the kids do that all the time. It’s part of the process.

KATIE: Yeah, I would tell my mom when I was younger, I was like, building my immune system ‘cause I was just, like, exposing myself to all sorts of stuff.

DR. ARIAS: But, you know, we are in an epidemic or in a pandemic, trying not to do that is a good way to prevent, you know, direct inoculation of particular pathogen in your airway.

KATIE: Yeah. I think another interesting thing that you’ve said, being sick really isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Obviously, if you end up in the hospital, like, it’s not ideal, that’s not good. But just -- your routine, kind of, like flu, Covid, just cold. You know, it’s not necessarily something that we need to go buy a supplement for so we can avoid forever. We’re probably, you know, there’s probably fallacy throughout that whole kinda concept. So, I think these conversations are really helpful.

DR. ARIAS: So, I mean, about this, Covid 19 actually has taught a lot about how we react ‘cause there have been a lot of studies on this. And one of the studies that is fascinating is that when you get a new infection and you are also vaccinated, you develop what is called this hybrid immunity.

KATIE: Mhm.

DR. ARIAS: So, natural immunity plus the vaccination immunity, and that seems to be highly protective.

KATIE: Okay.

DR. ARIAS: So, at the end of the day, that combination seems to boost your immune system in a way that you seem to have much more protection for the next infection.

KATIE: Okay, gotcha. Does it boost specifically for that pathogen or does it, kinda, just generally boost your immune system?

DR. ARIAS: It’s only been studied specifically with a pathogen, you know. That generally sections are very difficult to study.

KATIE: Gotcha, gotcha. Okay. Well, is there anything else that you want to leave our listeners with as far as, you know, understanding their immune system, how to keep it healthy, how to support it? I think we really talked about the importance of just a healthy lifestyle, healthy diet. Anything else you wanna leave people with?

DR. ARIAS: Yeah. I would say be very careful when you take supplements. Most of the supplements actually do not undergo rigorous testing or clinical trials. There is a pathway of these labeling that do not require specific approvals. And it’s very difficult to know what is in those supplements. And there’s plenty of examples where those supplements have caused really bad disease. So, I’m not saying don’t do it, but if you do it, make sure you know what you are consuming.

KATIE: Yeah, yeah, understood, understood. And so, you know, the scoop of greens powder that’s gonna boost my immunity, you know. Also, like, we don’t necessarily know what’s in there and it could be. Okay, great. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Dr. Arias. This was a really interesting conversation.  I appreciate your time.

DR. ARIAS: Thank you very much for inviting me.

[Sound effect signaling end of interview]

ZACH: So, Katie, other than learning that you shouldn’t be biting your nails, what else did you take away from our conversation with Dr. Arias?

KATIE: Hmm, yeah. Tiny jab. How long you been waiting to say that one?

ZACH: I guess since I heard that you bite your nails all the time.

KATIE: Yeah. We talked about this in the beginning about how I feel like I’m a lemon. And I think I was, kind of, looking for some sort of rationale as to like why me, when in reality, it made me, kind of, actually think about how healthy I am. And I’m maybe not quite as healthy as I want to say that I am.

ZACH: That’s the conclusion you’ve come to now, yeah.

KATIE: I think he mentioned that, like, genetics kinda plays a role, but they don’t even really understand what role.

ZACH: See, that was interesting to me. We know enough that we know that yes, you can be predisposed to certain things, but we can’t tell you what those things are, and we can’t tell you why you are that way, we just know it’s a thing. So, I mean, hopefully as we cont -- look, medicine and -- it’s a journey, right? Medical knowledge is a journey. You know, hopefully the longer we go, the more answers we’ll get. But I thought it was interesting, like, okay, there’s a disconnect there to me anyway that well, if you know that these cause these things, shouldn’t we be able to identify them better? But we’re just not right now. It’s one of those mysteries.

KATIE: Yeah. And even if we don’t know though, I think for me, it made me, sort of, be like okay, well I have no control over that part that’s either like a lack of knowledge or something. So, even more priority needs to be placed where it should be placed, which is diet, sleep, exercise. As he said it, the toxins you put in your body which, you know --

ZACH: That’ll call you out right there.

KATIE: I think we all know the most obvious example of that one. I liked what he said because it was very succinct and simple, but he said that a healthy immune system is a healthy life. And I think it, sort of, pushes back against all these supplements and things. Like, we talked about the greens powders that say, like you know, “A boost in immunity is just a scoop away.” Well, no it’s not. And also, what’s actually just, you know, a way to support your immunity is things you can do without even paying for a supplement essentially.

ZACH: Well, as with most things, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And you say, “Oh, well I can just eat whatever I want and not wash my hands as long as I eat this scoop of whatever.” And that’s just, I mean, obviously that’s not the case. And, you know, he did mention the Mediterranean diet, which yet again, we have experts mentioning the Mediterranean diet so take that to the bank. But I also like how he made it clear that look, you don’t have to be all vegan, or all this, or all that. As long as you start to shift in a certain way with your diet, it adds up, right, little changes here and there. Exercise as well.

KATIE: Yeah. And in fact, he even said if you’re vegan, you might need to take some supplements ‘cause you might not be getting enough of the vitamins and minerals that are important for a healthy immune system.

ZACH: Mhm.

KATIE: Everyone else eating a, you know, quote unquote “healthy diet” which, you know, as we have talked about extensively on this podcast, the Mediterranean diet’s an example, you probably have everything you need to support your immune system. And so, you know, that vitamin C packet, you know, there’s nothing to say that getting more vitamin C than you need helps you, you know, not get sick. You already have enough and that’s enough. That’s the point.

ZACH: Yeah. And unfortunately, as he points out, you know, in our western culture here, right? It’s a lot cheaper to eat unhealthy than it is to eat healthy. So, we get kinda caught in this cycle where it’s like, oh well, I’ve been eating unhealthy and then I -- then that might mess up, you know, your immune system as far as, you know, you’re not as healthy as you need to be, you’re not getting the nutrients you need out of your food, so that does weaken your immune system. So, you go seek out these other things that you wouldn’t have needed if you were eating properly, so.

KATIE: And they may not even work anyways, so --

ZACH: Right? Also true.

KATIE: If you have a bad diet and you’re relying on all these things to help you fix that problem, it’s probably not -- you’re probably doing yourself a disservice in a number of ways. I enjoyed, kinda, some of the -- when we delved into the microbiome. You know, we didn’t go too far into it, and probably it could be a really cool, like, future episode, I think.

ZACH: Well, this is, kinda, your history, right?

KATIE: A little bit. So, it’s funny the microbiome stuff was -- I mean, it’s really taken off since. It was kinda new, I say new, quote unquote “new” when I was like -- when I was in research and stuff. It wasn’t new. But for the -- in the field of science, it was quote unquote “new.” So, a lot’s changed and shifted, and I think there’s all sorts of ways that your microbiome affects your body. Not just your immune system. There’s all these different ways. But I think diet’s biggest role being on your microbiome is interesting to think about, and you know, alcohol can really affect your microbiome, and perhaps that’s why, you know, your immunity might not be, sort of, as strong as you want it to be and stuff like that. I don’t know, when you talk about how complex the immune system is, and then you talk about how your microbiome is playing a role, and that’s a whole system that’s, kind of, like not you, technically. Those are, you know, bacteria in your gut sort of thing. Like, it just goes to show how none of this is easy.

ZACH: No.

KATIE: It’s not one thing.

ZACH: No, I mean, we have an ecosystem in our body, which is -- you know, we don’t think about, but --

KATIE: We’re home to trillions of microbes. But yeah. And then, the fact that that plays a role in immunity, I think it just -- it just further cements this idea that it’s more complex than, you know, taking a pill or a scoop of power in your water and thinking you’re never gonna get sick. Which also, I liked that he pointed out that, like, the point is not to never get sick, we’re still gonna get sick. A healthy immune system can still be a person who gets sick. You know, it’s just a natural part of life.

ZACH: Yeah. And a lot of times, you are building immunity through being sick.

KATIE: Mhm. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

ZACH: Well, that’s gonna do it for this episode of On Health with Houston Methodist. Be sure to share, like, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We drop episodes Tuesday mornings, so until next time, stay tuned and stay healthy.