Immunity, My Cup of Tea
Disclaimer: I write this blog as a lay person, and not as someone with deep background in medicine or as a health specialist.
It’s a given that we all get sick for various reasons. One of those reasons is our self-immune system happened to be weak at the time when outside organisms got into our body and wrecked havoc. The little itty-bitty soldier bodies inside our bodies fought valiantly to defend us but in the end they lost and got overwhelmed. Our job is to help strengthen those itty-bitty soldiers to keep us free from illnesses & to help keep our health in top shape.
I cannot stress this enough - we have to take care of our bodies and watch what we put in it. Junk in, junk out, to quote a famous management motto. To say our body is a vessel that we should take care of is a cliche but it is a simple fact of life.
One of my beloved niece has 3 kids who all have some forms of allergies. My advice to her is to give them green or black teas everyday, specially flavored with either a small amount of brown sugar or honey or some fruit juice. To kids, I’m sure teas taste awful on their own but with a bit of imagination and creativity you can make the teas taste a lot more acceptable to kids. Shun the commercial teas, like Lipton or C2. Not only are they expensive & bad for the environment becoz of the plastic containers they are bottled in, but they also contain a lot of sugar. Letting your kids know the benefits of drinking teas will help sink that in to their psyche so later on drinking tea becomes second nature to them. I read a book that says THE HEALTHIEST BEVERAGE, bar none, that we can ever put in our body is tea, whether green or black (there are white teas, BTW, but I haven’t tried any yet) which come in either teabags or loose leaf tea blocks. Teas strengthen our immune system becoz they contain flavonoids and/or polyphenols, a form of antioxidant, and an amino acid called L-theanine, a molecule that help our immune system fight off all sorts of ailments. This molecule occurred in large quantities in tea beverages. But in green teas, the concentration of L-theanine is two to five-fold higher than in black teas. The only real difference between black and green tea is the processing. They both come from the same bush but black tea undergoes more processing..which means green tea lose fewer nutrients due to processing and are therefore healthier.
Today there are thousands of teas being made in the world out there that we, Filipinos, are not even aware of. We, Filipinos, haven’t yet scratched the surface of the wonderful world of teas. When I was in Hongkong, I was overwhelmed by the sheer varieties of teas that they sell in the markets there. I saw and tasted so many different teas. I wanted to try all of them but there wasn’t enough time even though I was there for a couple of months. There are teas made from meat, believe it or not (beef & chicken as examples, & they reek like smelly unwashed feet), both land & sea plants, flowers, veggies, roots, tree barks, yeasts, mushrooms, snakes even….ad infinitum. There are other exotic teas and I’m sure if the Chinese, Indonesians, Indians & other Asian people, famous for their tea-making skills, can make teas out of rats & bats, they would have already or perhaps they have. There are teas that gave me a certain "high" when I drank them and I felt almost euphoric. I don’t recall what tea that was, I don’t suppose that was the lotus tea (remember your Greek mythology?). We, in the Philippines, have our own regional teas such as cornsilk tea, pito-pito, bitter mellon tea, banaba tea, etc. Each tea has unique properties that make them more disease-specific. In other words, different teas have different benefits. For example, camomile tea is supposed to help you sleep or relax, while rosemary tea is supposedly a memory booster. I must warn you, your mileage will vary. There are people who may not get the desired results that they want (for example, sleep better or develop better memory) from sipping certain types of teas, but you still get the immune system & other good benefits. For example, people who drink camomile tea (5 cups a day) experience some form of pain relief and increased levels of glycine, which can ease muscle spasms. A few cups of tea a day will keep the doctor away.
Watch out for the caffeine they contain though. Teas contain almost the same amount of caffeine as what you get from coffee. But don’t worry about drinking them before bedtime - teas won’t keep you awake. That’s becoz L-theanine not only fights off ailments, but it also counteracts the effects of caffeine. L-theanine actually makes you very relaxed without being sleepy and drowsy. There are teas that have less caffeine & are more alkaline than others. You want the more alkaline teas. If your body’s pH is more alkaline, bad microorganisms do not thrive as well or simply, it kills them. So you want foods and drinks that are alkaliny, more than acidic, when you are sick. I have heard of the Okinawa corral calcium pills that lowers our body pH and they are touted as curing all sorts of diseases including the big C (cancer). True or not, they probably stop viruses and other harmful bacteria from ever infecting us in a hardcore way. For my part, I take calcium pills bonded with magnesium and zinc. I read somewhere that taking calcium on its own without the other two nutrients is not actually that good for us specially if you have a problem with metabolizing calcium (you might develop kidney stones) or if your body doesn’t really need calcium all that much becoz of your diet. Sorry to digress. But you did get my point.
Another advice I gave to my niece is to give her kids a good all-around multi-vitamin and mineral pills everyday, the ones for kids. Remember, adult dosage is higher than those for kids.
As for us, adults, there are things we can do to keep healthy. One is to walk at least one hour continuously a day or have some form of a regular exercise each day. Hey, you can do that in a mall and do stay away from escalators and elevators. Burn off those fat! Gardening is a great activity that you can do to lose weight. Been there, done that and I can definitely say it is very effective. Get on all fours and dig here and there, and plant something. Not only will you lose calories but gardening will also give you a sense of accomplishment and you can see the payoff after a short period of time only - a beautiful garden. Your family will love you for that too, as an added bonus.
Herbs would be one of those plants you can grow that are healthy. You can eat them raw too. If you want you can grow them on pots if you do live in an apartment which does not have a garden. Using lots of herbs & spices in our diet is also a good healthy practice. Today, I just read about the result of a study which concluded that researchers isolated a compound in turmeric that stimulates a specific response against Alzheimer’s symptoms. Turmeric is a yellow spice that gives Indian curry powder its distinctive color. Americans, Europeans, Indians & other Asians use it a lot. Other research has also shown that curcumin, an antioxidant found in turmeric, can help prevent tumors from forming in the lab & in rats. Some studies have also suggested that people who eat a lot of curry may be less prone to cancer and Alzheimer’s. The point is herbs and spices benefit us all, so don’t forget to include them in your diet. If that is not your cup of tea, for you and your family, I don’t know what is.
October 29th, 2008 at 5:24 am
Well written article.