improving immunity

[ttcycle]

I'm training for the bike leg of the triathlon this coming summer with a longer term goal to do some time trials and road races.

The problem is that I have atrociously poor immunity. Get a cold once every couple of weeks which is detrimental to the overall training as once I've recovered I have to build up my training load and intensity again.

I've noticed a few factors that predict a cold:
1. lack of sleep
2. stress
3. Getting cold

Even when I take the above into account- I'm still getting sick - it's taking less time for me to recover from a cold but I still get lots of colds- I don't think I'm overtraining as I take care not to do this but my weakness is overall endurance and climbs. I know that prolonged training can lower general immunity but are there any suggestions as to improving this overall?

I eat a very healthy diet, have recovery/easy days and take a multivitamin supplement.

Any suggestions?!

PS as an afterthought do you guys know any London based fast runners who want to do the 10k run in the triathlon in 2009?

 

[BentMikey]

Don't use public transport, wash your hands regularly, keep alcohol gel at your desk, and get out of the habit of touching your eyes/mouth/nose. Oh, and hope like hell you don't have kids/partner who is a school teacher. More rest and sleep.

 

[ttcycle]

thanks for the sugestions!

no school teachers in this household -lol

 

[punkypossum]

Lots of Zinc!

 

[Danny]

Don't use public transport, wash your hands regularly, keep alcohol gel at your desk, and get out of the habit of touching your eyes/mouth/nose. Oh, and hope like hell you don't have kids/partner who is a school teacher. More rest and sleep.

Don't really agree with this. You are not going to improve your immunity by trying to put yourself into some sort of anti-septic cocoon. In fact you might do the opposite - there's quite a lot of evidence now that children who are brought up in household which are "too clean" become more vulnerable to certain conditions because they do not build up their natural immunity.

If you are falling ill that regularly I would personally suggest you consult your GP and ask if you can have a full check up.

You also mention stress and lack of sleep as being warning signs of a cold coming. Are you not sleeping because you are stressed? If so you really need to think about how you are managing stress, which is easier said than done I know, but again your GP should be able to help.

 

[Globalti]

All this stuff about immune systems is bollocks in my opinion. BM's advice above is correct - wash your hands frequently especially after coming in from outside where you will have picked up viruses from door handles etc. Wash your hands before sitting down at work whenever you've been out around the work place. Get out of the habit of rubbing your eyes and touching or picking your nose and you'll find you stop suffering frequent infections. My worst cold in recent years came fom a contact lens practitioner who just rinsed his fingers under a tap briefly before sticking them in my eyes.

The stuff about vitamin C is bollocks too - your body simply loses the ability to process vitamin c during a cold, it doesn't prevent colds. There is some evidence that zinc in small doses can strengthen resistance to infection. I take it and I believe it helps.

Whenever I feel that tickle at the back of my nose and throat I gargle with an antiseptic mouthwash, which seems to see it off. I probably get one bad cold a year and a few minor sniffles.

 

[Steve Austin]

Eat lots of dark green veg. Spinach, broccoli,kale and savoy cabbage. boosts your immune system.
Garlic, eat losts of it. also boosts your immune system.
In fact, eat lots of good healthy fruit and veg. its all good

 

[Danny]

All this stuff about immune systems is bollocks in my opinion. BM's advice above is correct - wash your hands frequently especially after coming in from outside where you will have picked up viruses from door handles etc. Wash your hands before sitting down at work whenever you've been out around the work place.

Do you have any scientific evidence to back up this advice? I do not believe that obsessive hand washing routines are going to do anything to stave off the common cold.

Most colds are transmitted through the air - that is someone with a cold coughs or sneezes, and you just breath in their germs. Some infections can obviously be transmitted by touch, but these are not generally the sort of common cold viruses the OP was referring to.

 

[Jonathan M]

Don't really agree with this. You are not going to improve your immunity by trying to put yourself into some sort of anti-septic cocoon. In fact you might do the opposite - there's quite a lot of evidence now that children who are brought up in household which are "too clean" become more vulnerable to certain conditions because they do not build up their natural immunity.

If you are falling ill that regularly I would personally suggest you consult your GP and ask if you can have a full check up.

You also mention stress and lack of sleep as being warning signs of a cold coming. Are you not sleeping because you are stressed? If so you really need to think about how you are managing stress, which is easier said than done I know, but again your GP should be able to help.

I agree with Danny on this subject, trying to prevent exposure to all sources of infection means your immune system won't build up immunity to day to day infections. Danny also makes reference to the "hygiene hypothesis", which is that to have a fully functional, normal response immunse system there has to be exposure to germs, viruses, bacteria etc. The hygiene hypothesis suggests that conditions with immune system involvement (type 1 diabetes, asthma etc) have increased considrably in modern society because modern society has become "cleaner".

Take pre-school & new school start kids, they get everything in the first couple of years, then settle down. It is part & parcel of building up an immune response.

I work with kids (some with acute illness, I'm a children's nurse), and don't generally suffer much in the way of illness, I got all that there was in the first few years of nursing years ago.

You say you are not overtrained, yet your precursors for getting ill are also some of the recognised precursors of overtraining. It may pay to reconsider this as a possibility first before blaming a poor immune system.

 

[wlc1]

My brother in law can run 10k in 32 mins ?

I'll ask him

 

[Twenty Inch]

What a load of macho bollocks in this thread. I'm surprised no-one has told you to toughen up and sweat it out yet.

Everyone has a different physiological make-up, with different vulnerabilities. For instance, I get lots of chest infections, my wife has problems with her gut. We both have different strategies for staying healthy.

People's vulnerabilities and resilience change as they age and as their circumstances. For instance, I never used to suffer migraines until I started in my new job. Whether I get them now because I'm 40, or because I work in that office, I'll never know. However I've had to deal with them.

So, back to the OP. BentMikey, Rigid, Punky, and Steve Austin are giving the medically and scientifically recognised advice. There are about 500 varieties of cold virus. You'd need 10 colds a year for 50 years to build up antibodies to each one. The best protection is to avoid picking them up in the first place.

I use the phrase "picking them up" deliberately. Cold virii will only survive a short time in open air but can survive for many hours on surfaces and in environments where air is recirculated. So washing hands, avoiding hand-mouth contact, avoiding public transport are EXACTLY the right things to do.

I'm surprised at Jonathan M's generalisations. The hygiene hypothesis (first noted in Germany, a society that knows a thing or two about obsessive-compulsive cleanliness) refers to auto-immune illnesses, such as asthma, not day-to-day infections. An important distinction. If his conflating of the two were correct, older people would never get ill, would they? With their 60 years' worth of immune system reinforcement. Also, being in public health, he must be aware of the hand-washing protocols now so visibly in force, and the advice given to health professionals about staying infection free. Yes, it's "wash your hands, and don't put things in your mouth".

In response to Danny G's direct question about scientific evidence, link below - first result on a google search

http://www.flemingforum.org.uk/slides/handwashing.pdf

GPs are unlikely to help unless you have a recognisable syndrome or illness. At the most, you'll be sent for blood tests and then told that the results are fine. His first response will probably be "Well, stop running then." You may get a more helpful response from a sports doctor, but that will probably have to be privately funded.

FWIW, when I was a (fat, slow) triathlete, I found echinacea helped. I know that it has mixed reviews and there is a lack of scientific evidence about its effectiveness, but it helped me. I'll give Danny and Jonathan their due - adequate sleep and recovery are important too.

(This has probably wound me up so much as I am in day 4 of a killer cold that started on Xmas day, left me feverish for 2 days, and has wiped out our travel plans and left us sitting indoors all week. I'm not normally this grumpy)

 

[ChrisKH]

My own personal maxim is to avoid enclosed spaces with other people (e.g. public transport), eat well and exercise regularly. Since I took up cycle commuting and no longer use the tube my cold & flu incidence rate has dropped by 50% at least. And I have two young varmints to catch things off as well.

 

[ttcycle]

thanks that would be great! let me know if he's interested.

 

[ttcycle]

The above reply- aimed at wlc1!

Jonathan M- have been really careful about increasing training loads gradually
the precursors to getting ill are stress in working life and am more adept at stress management these days. The lack of sleep is a symptom of busy life Danny G (ie getting to sleep later and not getting standard hours needed) not cause of stressful events in the day and also not due to increased training time ie physical stress on the body.

I measure my RHR in the morning so see this as an indicator of overtraining or coming down with a cold.

Twenty Inch - what you said re the GP- very true; they have no idea why I am getting sick so frequently as blood tests always come back normal and other measures are very healthy and I think they've drawn a line under it as my leg is not about to drop off anyday soon. Also sorry to hear about the cold- forced myself into work today off the bike and had to be sent home as once again I'm ill- can sympathise with nightmarish exps!

 

[Globalti]

Most colds are transmitted through the air - that is someone with a cold coughs or sneezes, and you just breath in their germs. Some infections can obviously be transmitted by touch, but these are not generally the sort of common cold viruses the OP was referring to.

With respect, this is bollocks. When you go out and touch door handles, money, items in shops, etc, you pick up millions of viruses. Most common cold viruses are picked up on the hands and transmitted into the upper respiratory tract when infected fingers touch eyes or nose. This gives the virus a direct route into the nice warm wet environment it loves and it multiplies by the millions. If somebody sneezes near you, the best advice (apparently) is to breathe through your mouth because your saliva and digestive juices stand a good chance of neutralising the virus.