Supporting Your Immune System
We all have our go to immune supports that we start taking religiously whenever we start
feeling under the weather – that vitamin C, that elderberry, that zinc. But when it comes to supporting your immune system, it might not be that simple.
A better immune system can make all the difference in your quality of life – more energy, less downtime, feeling your optimal all the time. More time to do what is important to you.
Beyond just getting sick often, or taking a long time to recover, there can be more signs that your immune could use some support or balancing, including:
- Seasonal allergies or chronic sinusitis
- Food sensitivities
- Skin inflammation (eczema, acne, rosacea)
- Fatigue
- Digestive symptoms (bloating, flatulence, burping)
- Autoimmune conditions (Lupus, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis)
- Chronic joint pain
What do all of the above symptoms have in common? It all starts with your gut.
Your Gut: The Body’s Largest Immune Training Ground
Most people associate the immune system with the bloodstream or lymph nodes. While that’s true, the majority of your immune system, up to 70–80%, actually lives in your gut. The gastrointestinal tract isn’t just responsible for digesting food; it’s one of the body’s most active immune organs.
This means that to effectively support your immune system, your gut needs to be the starting point of any work that you do.
Inside the lining of your intestines sits a network of immune tissues called GALT (Gut-Associated Lymphoid Tissue). This is where your immune cells learn to distinguish between:
- Helpful bacteria
- Harmless substances like food
- Potential pathogens
The gut is also your body’s first major point of exposure to the outside world. Every day, your digestive tract encounters thousands of substances from food, microbes, environmental particles, and even potential pathogens. Because of this constant exposure, the gut must decide—moment by moment—what is safe, what needs to be tolerated, and what requires an immune response. This is why so much of the immune system is concentrated in the gut: it is the frontline training ground where immune cells learn how to react appropriately, stay tolerant to harmless substances, and stay vigilant against threats.
A diverse, balanced microbiome helps “train” your immune system to respond
appropriately—strongly when needed, but without unnecessary inflammation.
It’s important to note that inflammation is a necessary process in our body, it’s how our
immune system gets dispatched to deal with a perceived danger. The problem is when our body starts mounting chronic inflammatory responses.
When the gut barrier is healthy and the microbiome is balanced, the immune system functions smoothly. But when the gut becomes irritated, inflamed, or imbalanced, the immune system can become overactive, sluggish, or confused.
In supporting your immune system, your main goals should be to:
- Reduce chronic inflammation
- Strengthen the gut-immune connection
- Support a healthy and balanced stress response (this includes ensuring good sleeps)
- Enhance nutrient status
- Support healthy blood and lymphatic circulation
- Regulate the immune system
You might have to work on all these goals or only some of these goals.
How do you know where to start?
Seeing one of our two Naturopathic Doctors can be a good starting point as they’re able to recommend the necessary testing to properly assess if and how your immune system is
stressed and what goals need to be prioritized. Specialized testing might include allergy (environmental & food) testing, immunoglobulin testing, hormone testing, nutrient status
testing, and inflammatory marker testing. They can help guide your next steps, and which practitioner to see next. It doesn’t mean you need to see everyone all at once, but when it
comes to troubleshooting your body and support your body, order matters.
As an integrative clinic offering a number of healthcare services, we can support you through counselling, manual osteopathy, massage therapy, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, dietary support through our holistic nutritionist and dieticians.
Click on the below links to learn more about various treatment options to better support your immune system.
IV Therapy Vancouver | IV Therapy Downtown | IM Therapy
Allergy Testing Vancouver | Allergy Testing Downtown
Environmental Allergy Testing | Allergy Treatment – Dr. Joseph Cheng’s (ND) SLIT therapy
Osteopathy | Osteopath | Osteopathic Doctor | Osteopathic – great for improving blood and lymphatic circulation
Alexandra Colella | Inspirit Health Group | Vancouver | Yaletown – our body wrap specialist, read more about how body wraps can help support detoxification, decrease stress, and stimulate blood flow and lymphatic circulation
STRESS
NOTE: It’s not surprising that stress just has to be mentioned here. While, yes, stress affects everything, so it seems redundant to mention it, it’s important to note just how much stress can overwhelm your immune system. When the body is under chronic stress, it releases elevated levels of cortisol and adrenaline—hormones that are meant to help in short bursts but become harmful when they stay high for too long. Over time, these hormones suppress the activity of immune cells, reduce antibody production, weaken the gut barrier, and shift the microbiome toward a more inflammatory state. This leaves the immune system less responsive to viruses and bacteria while simultaneously increasing the risk of chronic inflammation, allergies, digestive issues, and slower recovery from illness. In short, unmanaged stress can both dampen your defenses and disrupt immune balance, making stress management an essential part of supporting overall health.
