By Zane Boronowski
The Best Offense is a Good Defense
Help for your immune system
The arrival of spring signals you to prepare for warmer mornings, early gardening and mid-school holidays. Unfortunately, it may also mean seasonal flus, allergies and other signs that your immune system is not functioning at its peak.
How can you help your immune system?
Various factors stress your immune system. Smoking, not eating balanced healthful meals, drinking alcohol, not exercising, sleeping poorly, and having anxiety all affect how your body fights invaders and recovers from illness. You come in contact with harmful bacteria, viruses and other toxins on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Fortifying your immune system by making healthy choices will reduce your susceptibility to infection and diseases while increasing your body’s ability to protect itself. To optimize immune function, avoid sugar (which has been proven to decrease the immune system), caffeine and saturated fat, and ensure that you get all of the nutrients that your body needs in fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean meat. Drink plenty of water to clear out toxins. Get daily exercise to reduce stress and increase strength, get adequate rest so that your body has time to heal, repair and defend itself, and take supplements which reinforce and boost immunity.
In spring, supplements become an important component of health. Supporting your diet with vitamins and antioxidants such as vitamin C and beta-carotene, and immune boosters including pinecone extract, can positively impact the response and performance of your immune system.
Though you may not be familiar with it, pinecone extract is proving to be an effective herbal remedy to support your body’s defenses. Pinecones have a long history of medicinal use dating back to the Greek physician Dioscorides in 514 AD. The Japanese discovered the medicinal benefits of pinecone extract 500 years ago, and its extract is still used in Japan for illnesses ranging from the common cold to cancer (Sakagami et al, 1991). Over 20 years of research and over 35 peer-reviewed scientific studies in the US reveal the pinecone’s strong antibacterial, antiviral and anti-tumour properties.
How do its substances heal?
It has been demonstrated that pinecone extract boosts the actual development of immune system cells. (Bradley et al, 2003) The active component of pinecone extract called PPC (polyphenylpropenoid-polysaccharide complex) is capable of stimulating immature dendritic cells to become mature dendritic cells. This is important because dendritic cells are the most potent antigen cells of the immune system. Their antigen abilities are central to the body’s immune responses against bacterial- and viral-infected cells and cancer cells. Dendritic cells stimulate killer T-cells (super fighters that protect the immune system) that are then able to respond to foreign invaders that the immune system has not yet encountered. When dendritic cells recognize a foreign invader they also send troops called macrophages, white blood cells that surround and “swallow up” microorganisms, to eradicate the problem in addition to removing dead cells. Pinecone extract’s PPC component has been shown to increase production of these macrophages and stimulate killer T-cells as a result of its very unique ability to make dendritic cells grow to maturity faster.
Uses of pinecone extract
Pinecone extract’s PPC is a powerful flu and cold fighter. This is due to the fact that clearance of flu viruses from the body requires stimulation of an immune response, and activation of the immune system to respond to flu viruses involves the dendritic cells. The cells mature and then travel to the lymph nodes where they interact with and activate lymphocytes which are needed to destroy the invading viruses. The active ingredient may actually affect the viruses themselves and interfere with how they attach or get into healthy cells. Boosting the immune system so that it can respond more quickly and persistently to an attack by cold and flu viruses will help shorten the respiratory illness.
Pinecone extract may also affect HIV. Its effect on HIV infected cells was shown in a laboratory study by Dr. Satoh (Satoh et al,1999). It reported that pinecone extract’s PPC stops HIV induced effects on cells, which is a result of its antiviral abilities. It was also stated in the study that pretreatment of mice with PPC by injection protects them from a lethal infection with E. coli bacteria.
There have been several cancer studies performed using pinecone extract. In one study, Dr. Mark Jaroszeski at the University of South Florida investigated the potential benefits of PPC when used in conjunction with electrochemotherapy (applying electrical pulses to living cells which allows chemotherapy drugs to enter the cells more efficiently for treating tumours) which is used in the US and Europe. The study tested electrochemotherapy plus PPC in animals with melanoma, a particularly aggressive type of cancer. Treatment success was defined as the complete absence of the tumour at the end of 50 days. Remarkably, 50 to 64 percent of the animals that received oral PPC plus electrochemotherapy had a complete absence of their tumour versus 31 percent for animals that received electrochemotherapy alone. It was concluded that treatment with PPC, therefore, caused a doubling of the number of animals that were tumour free.
It's important to note that pinecone extract (and its PPC component) is otherwise safe and nontoxic to cells, and is effective at low doses.
Zane Boronowski
Zane Boronowski is a certified nutritionist.
