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Sweets and all foods containing high amounts of sugar, such as sugary sodas, lift your spirits, give you a burst of energy and a sense of comfort in the short term. Therefore, we often "jam" with sweet stress or depression.
The pain-relieving and pain-relieving effect of sugar is based on the release of endorphins, morphine-like chemicals that our bodies naturally produce when we exercise or get excited about something.
Despite the fact that you feel good after eating sweets, sugar has a direct inhibitory effect on the immune system for several hours after eating it.
If you eat 100 grams of sugar (about the amount found in a liter bottle of sugary soda), your white blood cells (leukocytes) become 40% less effective at killing germs.
All sugars, including glucose, fructose and sucrose, significantly reduce the activity of neutrophils. Neutrophils, or neutrophilic white blood cells, play a very important role in protecting the body from bacterial and fungal infections.
Any sugar, be it glucose or fructose (honey), in no way helps you fight infections, but, on the contrary, only weakens your immunity.
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Thus, the traditional folk recipe for drinking milk with honey for a cold to strengthen immunity has no scientific basis and does not have any therapeutic effect, but rather only harms.
White blood cells need vitamin C to fight bacteria and viruses effectively. Sugar and vitamin C are similar in their chemical structure. When you eat sugar, it directly competes with vitamin C for space in your immune cells. It turns out that the more sugar in your blood, the less vitamin C your white blood cells will get.
Here it is necessary to give a clarification about vitamin C. We are not talking about the additional intake of artificial vitamin C (ascorbic acid), which is sold in pharmacies. An artificial vitamin can be dangerous because it's easy to overdose on it.
The vitamins found in vegetables and fruits are in a bound state, and no matter how many oranges, apples or currants you eat, you will never get an overdose. The body will take exactly as much as it needs, and utilize the rest.
In the case of artificial vitamins, the entire accepted dose enters the blood almost in full. This is the danger of taking artificial vitamin C.
Therefore, with a weakened immune system, with colds, flu and flu-like diseases, the most correct eating behavior would be to give up sugar and sweets and increase in your diet vitamin-rich vegetables, fruits and berries.
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Vegetables and fruits contain a large number of various dietary fibers that have a positive effect on the intestinal microflora, and, accordingly, on the immune system.
The best thing you can do to boost your immune system is to stop eating sugar and honey and increase your intake of high-quality, natural vitamin C found in plant-based foods like vegetables, fruits, and berries.
Eating more fresh fruits and vegetables is a great way to get immune support from the vitamin C and other nutrients found in fresh fruits.
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Quitting sugar will take a few weeks for your taste buds to get used to the changes in your diet.
Xylitol is a safe and healthy alternative to sugar. Read more about it in the article "Xylitol is the best sweetener".
In the long run, the more fresh fruits and vegetables you eat, and less sugar, the more energy and strength you will have, and the stronger your immune system will be.
Source: dolgo-jv.ru
