Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive

by Philipp Dettmer

The most important thing you need to do to have a healthy immune system is to eat a diet that provides you with all the vitamins and nutrients your body needs. The reason is, simply, your immune system constantly makes many billions of new cells. And all these newborn cells need resources to function properly. Malnutrition is strongly associated with a weak immune system. If you are starving, you are more susceptible to infections and diseases because your body has to make hard decisions and the immune system suffers from that. But if you eat at least somewhat of a balanced diet with some fruits and vegetables, you will get all the micro and macronutrients for your immune system to work just fine. Interestingly, even in developed countries there is micronutrient malnutrition, especially among elderly people. Which just means that someone has a deficiency of essential nutrients and vitamins—usually because they don’t eat enough or have too little variety in their diets. So only eating pizza is not healthy but this should already have been clear. In all likelihood if you eat sort of OK, your immune system works just as it should.