Immune system

The hippest thing to hit Switzerland next year, according to the magazine our grocery store sends us every week, will be switchel, a drink that has already taken New York by storm and, in all likelihood, fallen out of favor there by now, replaced by the latest fad.  Does anyone still remember the cronut?

Switchel is a mix of apple vinegar, lemon juice, ginger and maple syrup.  Claims to hipness are one thing.  Switzerland doesn’t do it very well.  It’s a profoundly unhip country and isn’t much bothered by it.  Maple syrup is quite another.  I don’t think one can buy this here.  Maybe the three people pretending to be hipsters are going to find a way.

Switchel is good for you claimed the magazine.  It’s supposed to kick your metabolism into gear – not a bad idea after Christmas – and give your immune system a boost.  I perked up when I read this last piece of information.  The immune system is my best hope of ridding my body of the cancerous cells that chemotherapy misses.  What would be wrong with giving it a boost?

It’s easier said than done.  The immune system is exactly that – a system, and simple adjustments are unlikely to have unambiguously positive outcomes.  Turn a screw here and another one might go into reverse somewhere else as a response.  Increase the number of a certain type of immune cells might have adverse consequences, much like blood doping in cycling increases the risk of a stroke.  The immune system isn’t a simple bucket where one can add good things one by one until it’s full and at its full power.  If that were the case, no one would get sick anymore.

Reality is messier, unfortunately.  A blog post on the Harvard Medical School website has a good summary of the few systemically positive things for the immune system.  They are:

• A diet high in fruits and vegetables.
• No smoking and little alcohol.
• Regular exercise.
• A healthy weight as a result of the three points above.
• Dodging infections.
• Sufficient sleep.
• Avoiding stress.

This is a boring list.  My immune system gets at least six of these benefits.  Sufficient sleep might be the only missing ingredient, though maybe the few hours I sleep are sufficient.  During chemotherapy sessions my body tells me otherwise and I sleep much more.  (I don’t quite understand the benefit of dodging infections.  Doesn’t the immune system learn from infections and get stronger?  Aren’t adults healthier the more they were exposed to germs as children?)

I would like to do my immune system good beyond what’s on the list, but there are no silver bullets.  Maybe there’s something to the mushrooms I wrote about earlier.  I think I saw them in the forest the other day.  They’re claimed to strengthen the immune system, a benefit purportedly shared by methadone, but there are no clear mechanisms of action.  I remain skeptical.  What can I do besides exercising and eating well?  Following short-lived fads is not going to cut it.