The Battle for Your Health

There’s a war going on in your house. Well, at least within your body. Your immune system is much like the armed forces. Without it, your body could be invaded on a regular basis and taken over or even destroyed by enemy invaders.

I’ve learned more than I want to know about immune systems thanks to the unwelcomed invasion of Alopecia Areata in my youngest son’s body. Since that time, I’ve been building up the defense systems of everyone in the house. The result? We’re still hosting Alopecia, but beyond that we rarely get sick. I have an opportunity to reflect on this each fall when we go to our “well” check ups and the doctor comments on how he/she hasn’t seen this child since the last “well” visit. 

Just recently I watched as an enemy invader germ tried to take down each of my kids in succession. Happily, it failed. Each child complained briefly of a slightly sore throat and general tiredness which lasted a day or so. I loaded them up with vitamin C and gave Tylenol to the biggest complainers, even allowing one of them to spend a day at home “resting” (actually watching nonstop TV and eating). Their immune systems were victorious. None of them ever sported a fever.

Their strong fortified systems fended off the worst of it and it’s a distant memory already. I remember the day when a passing virus would have leveled my children, spiking their fevers and requiring a desperate run to the pediatrician’s office where we would be told it just has to run its course. The “course” would include a few days of really sick, followed by a cold that would hang around for a week or longer. Their immune systems made short work of this latest virus.

 Beyond following an organic diet, here’s my advice for beefing up your and your child’s immune system: 

1. Eat real food. Fruits, veggies, whole grains. If you don’t recognize everything in the ingredients list – don’t eat it or feed it to your kids. Avoid excessive sugar. Cut out the food dyes and artificial sweeteners. Give your body the right ingredients to defend itself. When you load it up with artificial ingredients, it is weakened simply by the effort of trying to process things not meant to be eaten by people. That weakened state leaves it vulnerable, while whole food fortifies it with plenty of good nutrition.
2. Drink lots (and lots and lots) of water. Offer water with every meal. Encourage water drinking all day long. I try to drink a glass when I get up and one before each meal. Water helps keep your system running smoothly, flushing out toxins and giving you energy. Dehydrated people (most people are) are tired and not equipped to fight off enemy germs.
3. Get enough sleep. This is the hardest one for our family. My kids are teenagers (or almost) and their bodies are adopting nocturnal leanings that make it hard for them to go to sleep early. Sadly, the school district doesn’t seem to be concerned with these teenage tendencies and requires them to be on a school bus by 7am. I don’t have any answers for this one. I’ve been trying to let the natural consequences of gong to bed at midnight and being forced out of bed by a parental unit at 6am do the teaching, but it is a slow process. One child (the girl child of course!) has begun to figure this out.
4. Exercise! I swear by this. I know for a fact that a good run can knock out the first wave of a cold or virus much quicker than any medicine I can take. Get your kids moving somehow, some way. If they aren’t in sports, find another way. I used to let my youngest trade 30 minutes on the treadmill for 30 minutes of TV time. I know it’s bribery, but hopefully it’s also a lesson. Model exercise and invite your kids to join you.
5. Find some alone time. Stress has a big impact on your immune system. Stressed out people get sick. Find ways to counter that in your kids by making sure they get time to do their own thing. They don’t need constant stimulation. One of my kids makes music, another takes walks and writes, and the third spends solitary time with his legos. I know that when they aren’t getting these opportunities their stress level goes up. Try to create spaces in your kids days for quiet time. Sometimes this requires a little manipulation. My kids computers automatically shut down for several hours each day, effectively forcing them to find something else to do. Nine times out of ten it leads to quality down time. 

These days you can’t walk down the grocery aisle without being blasted by products claiming to boost your immune system. I’m here to tell you that there is no processed food or multi-vitamin that can even compete with the five things listed above. In fact, I’d wager to guess that most “immune boosting” products cancel themselves out by containing artificial ingredients, preservatives, and dyes. 

If you’re a vitamin taker, consider adding Vitamin D to the line up. Research continues to reveal that most of us are deficient in it, especially in the darker months. 

As winter approaches, take the time to access and reinforce your kids’ defense systems. Who knows what’s coming down the pike this year in terms of colds and flus. Be prepared.

One a Day

It has been said that the United States has some of the most expensive urine in the world. Huh? I know, not really appropriate topic for the dinner table. But since we’re not eating, I felt it might get your attention.


In the US, we spend about 23 billion dollars a year on vitamins (rough estimate from several internet sources, it might not be exact, but basically we spend A LOT of money on vitamins). Vitamins are a bit of a catchall for health. We take them “just in case”, kind of like insurance. This money we’re spending might never help us, but then again, it just might. How could we ever know? Truly, the doctor never says, “wow, your bones look great. It must be because you’ve been taking calcium for the last 20 years!”

Vitamins seem like a safe bet. Your body soaks up what you need and eliminates the rest. That strikes me as just a bit wasteful. So I vacillate between taking my vitamins and not taking them. My kids are a different story. Because we eat very little processed food, they miss out on all the “fortified” this and that, so on my worst days I get pretty paranoid and find myself surfing drugstore.com searching for a better vitamin. Until I think about all the veggies and fruit I cram in to their diets, and then I chill out again. But then I read the news and start to worry….my mind pings back and forth on this one.

According to the Mayo Clinic, and a few other sites, clearly I am not alone. No one seems to know for sure. Most say that kids probably get all they need from their diets and the fortified foods available in today’s supermarket. But then they cover their buts by saying a multi vitamin is probably a good idea. An awful lot of “probably” in that prescription. It comes down to this - basically they can’t hurt as long as you select a vitamin with no more than 100% of the RDA and you follow the label instructions.

As a mother I know there is plenty of guilt coming my way down the road when my spawn become parents themselves and realize just how many ways I messed them up. So vitamins seem like a safe gamble and at least I can’t be held accountable if they realize down the road that the diet I served them was missing some crucial vitamin or mineral. What? I gave you a multi-vitamin for that!

There are two supplemental vitamins I give to my kids. I’ve read enough to be convinced that these two are missing from pretty much everyone’s diet, at least in sufficient amounts. The first is Vitamin D. Research comes out almost daily on the need for more Vitamin D. I give it to my kids and take it myself, and occasionally sneak it in to my husband’s coffee.

Omega-3’s are the other vitamin I’m prepared to take a stand on. Most of us don’t get enough unless we eat fatty fish, flaxseed, and nuts daily. I’ve started leaving nuts out on the counter and on the premium shelving in the fridge, in the hopes that my kids will nibble on more nuts – brazil nuts, cashews, walnuts, almonds, pistachios. They’re all stuffed with good nutrients that can protect our health. Omega 3’s are not only good for your heart, their brain food and I’m all about feeding those young minds.

Enough about what I think, what do the experts say? The American Academy of Pediatrics says that children do not need a multi-vitamin when there have been no signs of vitamin deficiency. Still, they haven’t examined my child. How could they know? I’ll give them their point about all the fortified foods these days, but my kids aren’t eating much packaged foods. Except Cheeze-its. Still haven’t managed to get them off cheezeits. I should check if cheeze-its are fortified, because that might save me a lot of money on vitamins. (Addie and I are going to test a “homemade cheezit” recipe this weekend – I’ll let you know how that goes)

What’s a mother to do? Well, this mother gives her children a multi-vitamin that has no artificial colors or sweeteners, a chewable Omega 3 supplement, and 400 IU of Vitamin D (but only during the colder months, October – April). I do believe the big guns, and our septic tank is most likely laced with vitamins, but I’m hedging my bets.

A note on choosing a vitamin. Look for a children’s vitamin that does not contain iron in the form of ferrous sulfate. Many kid’s vitamins are the “gummy” form and this can make them seem like candy. Kids can overdose on ferrous sulfate making them sick, even killing them. So while kids do need the iron (unless they’re big meat and bean eaters), look for carbonyl iron, to be safe.

Another thing to watch in children’s vitamins is the sweetener. Many vitamins, such as Flintstones and Centrum, have the warning PHENYLKETONURICS: CONTAINS PHENYLALANINE, which is a sure sign that they contain aspartame (nutrasweet). Artificial sweeteners and artificial colors kind of counter act the whole point of vitamins. Find a vitamin that doesn’t contain either. It’s a unique child (with a four-star parent) who willingly swallows tasteless vitamins. This makes sugar a necessary evil in children’s vitamins. Look for vitamins with 1 gram of sugar or less. Some have more than others – read the label.

When it comes to vitamins, like so much else about parenting, there’s no clear answer. You do the best you can, with what you know. That’s anyone can ask.

Here Comes the Sun..... (and Vitamin D!)

It’s sunny today and I spent some time outside working on my latest project – a Quarter Horse-Thoroughbred gelding named True who is 4 years old and “unbroken”. It’s been a lot of years since I’ve “broken” a horse. Broken is a horrible term, I’ve always hated it. Hopefully, I won’t be breaking True, I’ll be making him, but we shall see, huh? Anyway, 30 minutes spent teaching him the finer points of paying attention to me and respecting my personal space accomplishes two things. One, True is a tiny bit closer to allowing me to put a saddle on his back and two, I got my Vitamin D for the day.

Vitamin D has been all over the news lately. “New” scientific breakthroughs have revealed that there is much more at stake in our daily intake of Vitamin D. Are we getting enough? What happens if you are deficient? How do you get enough? What happens if you get too much?

Here’s the quick and dirty – Americans (probably most first-world nations) are spending more and more time inside. We are no longer farmers, but computer watchers. Most people’s work doesn’t allow them a whole lot of time outside their cubicle or classroom or factory. And when we are home we tend to spend a good part of our free time in front of computers, TV’s, and video games. Our yards are smaller and in some cases, not safe. When we do go outside, we are covered up with technically advanced clothing that blocks UVB rays and slathered in sunscreen (which prohibits our body from absorbing the sunshine necessary to make Vitamin D). Consequently, we aren’t getting our Vitamin D on a daily basis. And this includes kids. Huge numbers of people are Vitamin D deficient.

Let me back up, first of all what do we know about Vitamin D. You probably remember that milk is fortified with Vitamin D and it’s necessary to build strong bones. This process was developed years ago to prevent kids from getting rickets. A deficiency in Vitamin D can cause rickets in children and osteoporosis in adults. Vitamin D isn’t technically a vitamin because it’s produced in the human body. And it’s not found in any natural source except fish and egg yolks, and even then it requires the body to make it in to vitamin D. The body can also use sunshine to create vitamin D. It then stores the extra Vitamin D in the fat cells to use for, literally, a rainy day.

But how much do we need? The first government recommended allowances said 200IU of Vitamin D daily. In 1997, it was up to 400 for kids and 600 for adults. New research is indicating that we need even more, perhaps 800 or 1000. This research is also showing that Vitamin D is more essential than at first thought. Scientists believe that Vitamin D is critical to the brain, prostate, breast, colon, heart, lung, muscles and our immune cells. Much of this research has been around, but is only getting attention of late. The auto-immune “community” has been touting its benefits for years. Many people who suffer from Alopecia Areata (the autoimmune condition my youngest son has) buy “happy lights” to get more UVB light. Vitamin D is powerful, helping normal cells grow, but also helping abnormal ones (cancer cells come to mind) die. It has been proven to destroy infectious agents, such as TB.
People with low levels of Vitamin D are at a 30-50% increased risk of developing Hodgkin’s lymphoma, as well as prostate, ovarian, and breast cancer. They are at a higher risk for diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, schizophrenia, depression, and muscle weakness.

Does this news make you want to grab your beach towel? It should. Being a person of incredibly fair skin, I am also aware of the dangers of too much sun. I have the freckles to prove it. I’m fairly sure that Vitamin D is not one of my deficiencies. Actually, all you need to get your vitamin D is 5-10 minutes of direct sunlight between the hours of 10am and 3pm. So maybe your plan could be to put the sunscreen on after you’ve set up your chair and had your snack.

Here’s an interesting tidbit I found in my research this morning. If you live above 37 degrees north of the equator (draw a line from Philadelphia to San Francisco) or 37 degrees south of the equator, it’s not quite as easy to get your Vitamin D from the sunshine during the winter. The research didn’t say if you just need more time or if there isn’t enough sunshine altogether. That said, you can get Vitamin D from supplements and fortified products like milk and orange juice. Some doctors, who worry about skin cancers, recommend you do that, but be aware that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. While you can’t overdose on Vitamin D from the sun, you can from supplements resulting in grogginess, constipation, and even death. But you’d have to really work to get that much vitamin D in to you. Experts at Harvard say up to 2000IU a day is safe.

Vitamin D aside, I know that sunshine is a real pick-me-up for me and for my kids. Sometimes it’s tempting to stay inside, especially when it’s really hot, but 10 minutes won’t kill anyone, and it just might save your life.