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Can Garlic Boost Your Immunity?

A healthy and efficiently functioning immune system is necessary to protect us from germs, bacteria and virus, in fact anything alien which aims to attack our bodies. A healthy immune system will quickly identify any harmful foreign agents in the body and sound the alarm for attack until the threat is eradicated. If our immune system is sluggish, then harmful agents will multiply at a faster rate than the body can kill them off and they will eventually overrun our systems resulting in disease, infection and ill health.

Put in this way it all sounds rather alarming but it is reassuring to know that we can bolster and arm our immune system to optimum fighting capacity by eating certain types of food. Let us look at a list of foods including garlic that can boost your immunity.

Garlic and Other Foods that Boost Immunity

Although it isn’t understood exactly how some of the following foods boost the body’s immunity, it is none the less accepted, through the findings of repeated studies, that positive benefits result.

Garlic – one of the top natural antibiotic foods which has a very ancient tradition for use in medical conditions. Many ancient texts from all over the world cite garlic for its disease fighting properties. The advent of pharmaceutically developed antibiotics regulated garlic’s use and it become just one more classified as a folk remedy. Garlic is a powerful germ and bacteria inhibitor while simultaneously boosting the body’s natural immunity. Interestingly, garlic has become more popular again in recent times due to its efficacy in treating the increased occurrence of ‘super-bugs’, those thought to have evolved from overuse of anti-biotic drugs. Many studies show that garlic can boost your immunity more effectively than prescribed drugs.

Garlic is rich in selenium, a substance known for its powerful antibiotic properties. Although there is as yet no conclusive evidence, there are promising signs that garlic may actually have the ability to inhibit the growth of cancer cells within the body.

Garlic supplements are available in odour free capsule form for those who wish to avoid the antisocial ‘garlic breath’. So yes, garlic can boost your immunity. Now let’s look at some other foods that can boost immunity and help your body fight against diseases.

Fruit and vegetables – vitamin C is a natural immunity booster found most readily in many fresh fruit and vegetables or fruit juices.

Mushrooms – the oriental varieties of Shiitake and Maitake have properties known to boost immunity although quite how this works isn’t completely understood.

Herbs – echinacea, licorice, ginseng, sage and elderberry all have the ability to bolster the efficiency of the immune system.

Foods high in beta-carotene – this substance which is found in many brightly coloured fruit and vegetables is known to stimulate increased production of the body’s infection fighting cells. Foods which are high in beta-carotenes include carrots, broccoli, apricots and melon.

Selenium rich foods – selenium is an essential nutrient for humans and is found in many foods such as tuna, brown rice, shrimp, lobster, whole grains, sunflower seeds and garlic, as previously mentioned.

Zinc – this mineral will allow the body to manufacture a higher number of infection fighting white blood cells which will aggressively attack infection. Zinc can be found present in many plants but levels are sometimes dictated by the zinc content of the soil in which they were grown. Food sources for zinc are sesame seed, poppy seed, pumpkin seed, alfalfa, wheat, beans, nuts, celery and blackcurrant.

Vitamin E – this vitamin aids the body in increased production of infection fighting cells. Sources of vitamin E include seeds and seed oil, nuts and their oils, broccoli, sweet potatoes, spinach, collard and papayas.

Tea – both green and black tea have been indicated as beneficial in studies as natural immune system boosters.

Omega 3 fatty acids – another food source which will stimulate killer cell production and found in healthy fish such as tuna, mackerel and salmon and also in flax oil.

As there is a vast range of food types which boost immunity there will probably be something for people of all tastes to include in their diet. Studies continue to fully understand all of the benefits that these foods provide and quite how they work to boost the body’s natural immunity so efficiently.

This article on how eating garlic can increase your body’s immune power has been written by expert author ‘Deneice Arthurton’.