7 Foods That Weaken The Immune System [Avoid These!]

If you want to stay healthy, you have to avoid certain foods. Here’s a list of foods that weaken your immune system and therefore should be avoided.

Your immune system is the driving force behind your health. You want to keep it as strong as possible so you know it’s working to the best of its ability.

That’s why you need to know what foods you’re eating that might be wearing it down.

Some things are best in moderation, and that’s especially true for these seven types of foods. The more you consume them, the more they can weaken your immune system, making your body susceptible to illness.

These are the things you should limit in your diet to keep your immune system strong.

1. Alcohol

Drinking an excessive amount of alcohol will definitely do a number on your immune system. Even binge drinking once has the possibility to mess with how your body works.

It slows down your immune responses, giving diseases a fighting chance.

When you consume a lot of alcohol, it reduces the function of disease-fighting cells, making them sluggish. It also impairs the production of T and B cells, both of which help keep your body healthy.

In other words, that sick feeling you get when you drink a lot may not just be in your head.

On top of the direct effects it has on your immune system, alcohol messes with your hormones and disrupts your sleep cycle. Both of these things can weaken your immune system as well.

It’s best to drink alcohol in moderation and space your drinks with water to stay hydrated.

In fact, a glass of wine every day can even boost your immune system!

2. Caffeine

Just like with alcohol, the trouble with caffeine comes along when you start drinking too much of it.

Not only can consuming a lot of caffeine make it difficult for you to get a good night’s sleep, which weakens your immune system, but it also interferes with your body’s ability to fight off infection.

Removing bad cells is an important job that your immune system can’t do as well when you’re filling up on energy drinks.

Excessive amounts of caffeine trigger your body to release cortisol, the stress hormone. High levels of stress on your system can make it less effective at fighting disease.

You should watch how much caffeine you’re drinking and where you’re getting it from because it makes a difference.

Coffee and tea both contain a lot of antioxidants that can do wonders for your health. But even with these drinks, you should limit your caffeine intake to 400mg a day to avoid overwhelming your immune system.

It’s also a good idea to stop drinking caffeine at least six hours before bed. Otherwise, the caffeine in your body may affect the quality of your sleep.

3. Soda

Where your immune system is concerned, soda might be one of the worst things you can drink.

You’ve already seen how caffeine can negatively impact your immune system. But soda is also generally high in sugar, acid, and artificial ingredients that aren’t doing your health any favors.

We’ll get to why sugar is bad for your immune system in the next section. First, we need to tackle why diet soda isn’t any better for you than regular soda.

Sure, diet soda doesn’t have any sugar or calories, but that doesn’t automatically make it a healthy choice.

Diet sodas are generally chock-full of artificial sweeteners to make up for the lack of real sugar. Things like aspartame and sucralose are just as bad for your immune system as sugar.

Artificial sweeteners mess with the microbiome in your gut, reducing the number of good bacteria that is produced. This can have long-term effects on how your body responds to bad bacteria.

If you want to be as health-conscious as possible, it’s best to skip the soda altogether.

4. Foods High in Sugar

It’s probably no surprise that sugar has negative effects on your health. But how exactly does it affect your immune system?

Sugar is a delicious snack for the bad bacteria in your gut but not so much for the good bacteria. It actually suppresses the good bacteria and makes it harder for your microbiome to stay balanced.

It also competes for space in your cells with vitamin C, kicking it to the curb.

A lack of vitamin C can lead to a 40% decrease in the function of your immune system. This shift can last for hours after you eat your sugary snack.

Sugar can lead to an increase in inflammation throughout your body, hindering your immune system from doing its job as well as it can.

It’s hard for most of us to give up sugar completely. Just be mindful of how much you’re eating and balance it out with things that are good for you!

5. Refined Oils

When oil is refined, it’s stripped of all of its natural nutrients and has its chemical structure completely changed.

Cooking your food in refined oils can lead to the production of free radicals in your system, which causes damage to your tissue and lead to inflammation. An excess of inflammation messes with how well your immune system functions.

Do your best to stay away from refined oils in your meals.

Instead, stick to cooking with extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil. These oils are still in their natural state and retain all of the nutrients that make them far healthier for you.

6. Refined Grains

Refined grains such as flour are capable of wreaking havoc on your body, even if you don’t have a sensitivity to them.

Grains trigger your body to create a protein called zonulin. This protein breaks down the lining of your gut, allowing food particles, toxins, and other nasty things to get into your bloodstream.

The good bacteria present in your gut are no match for how destructive refined grains can be.

Go for whole grains to boost your immune system with the antioxidants and vitamins that refined grains lack.

7. MSG

While MSG can make food taste better, it can be incredibly harmful to your immune system.

MSG has shown to cause changes to your thymus and spleen, both of which create lymphocytes. Lymphocytes help keep you healthy by taking out invaders in your body.

They are definitely the good guys.

When you eat a lot of MSG, it causes stress on your thymus and spleen, which results in them producing fewer lymphocytes. The ones they do create have a greater chance of not working as well as they should.

However, the damage MSG does to your thymus and spleen can be repaired over time if you cut it out of your diet.

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In Summary

There are plenty of foods you could eat that taste great and are incredibly good for you. And then there are the ones like the seven listed above that do damage to your immune system.

You don’t have to go to your kitchen right now and throw away every shred of the foods listed above. Just be mindful of them.

Remember:

Moderation is key.

Do your fair share of cutting back and you can keep your immune system as strong as possible.

Author Bio:

Adam Marshall is a freelance writer who specializes in all things apartment organization, real estate, and college advice. He currently works with Grove at Waco to help them with their online marketing.