Welcome to the Flu Season!

Consider the recent alarmist statement made by Prof John Oxford, a virologist at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, in the UK. He claims that Britain is facing one of its worst winter flu outbreaks in years, and that older people will be hit harder than they have been in recent years.

'Scaremongering'? Swine flu all over again? Or fact?

We have mentioned previously how the swine flu paranoia was just a multi media frenzy to drive our money into Big Pharma’s pockets.

Similarly, although the flu season may be upon us with the dryer winter air helping germs to move more freely, it doesn’t mean a flu vaccination is critical. On the contrary. Once you realise the potential harm they can do, you may want to avoid them like the plague!

Flu Vaccine Perils

1. All vaccines are immune suppressive: they suppress your immune system, which may not return to normal for weeks to months. This could increase your risk of contracting the flu or another infectious disease.
2. Flu vaccinations are notoriously ineffective in reducing illness and mortality from the flu.
3. After the largest flu-vaccination campaign in Canadian history, a Canadian-led study concluded that vaccinating nursing home workers had no effect on confirmed influenza cases among the homes' elderly residents.
4. Only about 20% of flu-like illnesses are actually caused by influenza type A or B, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The other 80% are caused by more than 200 other bugs that can make you feel just as sick -- respiratory syncytial virus, bocavirus, coronavirus, and rhinovirus, to name a few. The flu shot will do virtually nothing to prevent those latter viruses that cause 80% of flu-like symptoms.

Only a healthy immune system can do that!

Indeed, if you do get flu and have a good immune response, you will probably recover quickly without serious complications, as well as obtain natural immunity to that strain of influenza and to similar ones. Vaccines bypass your natural first-line defence (your lgA immune system), so provide only temporary, typically inferior immunity compared to that your body would receive from naturally contracting and recovering from a disease.

It also appears that you can actually be exposed to the flu virus and not get sick. A new study by University of Michigan researchers may help put to rest the myth that you have to avoid the flu virus in order to avoid getting sick. When they infected 17 healthy people with the flu, only half of them got sick. The other half? They felt perfectly fine.

The difference is largely attributed to the health of the immune system and levels of free radical scavenging antioxidants.

To boost your immune system your best bet is to focus on your general health. So...

Boost Your Immune System by:

• Eating plenty of raw, preferably organic fruits and veggies. Juicing is a great way to add dense nutrients.
• Cutting out refined simple sugars and carbs which suppress the immune system. Excessive sugar increases insulin levels, which is one of the fastest ways to get sick and to age prematurely.
• Optimizing Your Vitamin D levels through exposure to sunshine to boost the body's T cells which seek and destroy invading bacteria and viruses.
• Exercising regularly. Exercise improves the circulation of immune cells which neutralize pathogens throughout your body.
• Relaxing! Stress especially prolonged, suppresses immunity.
• Sensible hygiene using ordinary soap and water not anti bacterial soaps with dubious healthy benefits.

For further immune and health protection, consider a good supplement protocol such as our Total Balance and Omega 3 Fish Oil. I would also add our new Kiwi-Klenz product to this protocol. This also has excellent immune enhancing properties.

On a side note, I should mention that our Chairman Warren Matthews tends to find all these references to recommendations for the over 65’s to have the flu jab rather amusing. He will be 65 next birthday, never gets a cold or flu, does a LOT of long distance travel and as such is exposed to the bugs in an aeroplane. His position is that if you take care of the basics of diet, exercise and supplementation you just shouldn’t get sick. He refuses to take medication or vaccines of any sort and I know he gets upset when he hears ‘experts’ such as Dr Oxford advocating that everyone should be vaccinated.

Anyway, the ‘flu season’ doesn’t have to be a ‘blue season’. Your lifestyle is one of the greatest predictors of whether you ‘get’ and suffer from the flu.