Sugar and Immunity

Since I haven't been feeling all that well lately, I decided to delve into some research about what a low carb diet can do to for your immunity.

Funny thing is, there is none. There is a lot of anectodal evidence about people who have gone low carb and stopped getting colds, or infections, etc, but the medical field has deemed it unnecessary to study up on. Check out peoplespharmacy.com, or lowcarbfriends.com and check out some of their reports. They aren't primary literature, but way more accessible than the technical language filled stuff I was going to sift through.

Briefly, when following a low carb diet, we are forced to eat a higher fat diet. Low carb=high fat, and low fat =high carb. Anyone that tells you different should be scissor kicked. So, if we're on low carb, we get a lot of fat and most of that tends to be good fat. The reason being, it's hard to force down 3 packs of bacon a day, but we can snack on some almonds, or peanut butter, or cook in olive oil quite readily. The higher levels of fat tend to show an increase in metabolism, by which I mean an increas in turnover of cells, and repair of cells. Also, we see an increase in production of prostaglandins (involved in the immune cascade), and a SLOW DOWN of CANCER CELL GROWTH, and ANAEROBIC BACTERIA GROWTH. Wow. There's more to this mechanism, IGF-1, insulin, etc, but that's the gist. We can slow down the growth of most bacteria that we get infections from, or viruses (rhinovirus (cold), to the point where our own immune system can handle them.

Ironically, while writing this post, I've realized that I've taken in a bit too many carbs over the past week or so, and maybe that has something to do with me being sick...