Boost Your Body’s Immunity
During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have often heard that the most important thing in the fight against the virus is a healthy immune system. But what part can we have in ensuring that we have a healthy immune system? As part of a three part Zoom series on Immunity and Covid-19, Dr. Caleb Hongjae Kim presented great seminars on the topic for Westchester Adventist Church. The informative seminars covered topics such as “Vaccination and herd immunity”, “Maximum immunity, minimum inflammation” and “The Immunity-oriented diet.” You can hear the seminars with the following links.
Dr. Caleb Kim is a hospitalist at Advent Health Hospital in Hendersonville, North Carolina. As a Bible student, it has been his special interest to re-interpret modern-day epidemics from a Biblical viewpoint. He has delivered dozens of lectures on various plagues like Avian Flu, Mad Cow Disease, the Spanish Flu, and the Ebola outbreak. The current COVID-19 pandemic fueled him with greater zeal to do more research than the previous topics because it is the very disease that he is facing on a daily basis in his critically ill patients.
The day he was delivering his third lecture, he had just admitted a thirty year old female patient with acute respiratory distress syndrome, a consequence of Covid-19. She didn’t have any other underlying symptoms other than the fact that she was very overweight. Dr. Kim shared that what the patient was going through was an example of the importance of diet in maintaining a healthy immune system. Throughout the rest of the lecture, Dr. Kim explained ways in which we can reform our diet so that we can combat Covid-19 and other harmful pathogens.
It is increasingly becoming common knowledge that meat eating is harmful to your health. Dr. Caleb Kim explained that one of the primary reasons for this is that animal products contain arachidonic acid. Consuming arachidonic acid that is abundant in animal product creates inflammation in our bodies. It is unhealthy for the diet since we already have arachidonic acid in our own bodies. He mentioned that it is very important to avoid arachidonic acid when we are sick as it increases the inflammation in our bodies.
Besides meat, there are other foods that cause inflammation in our bodies. Rancid food, fried food, charred food, preservatives, alcohol, red meats, and sugary food are all inflammatory. According to WebMD, “Inflammation is a process by which your body's white blood cells and the things they make protect you from infection from outside invaders, such as bacteria and viruses.” The problem with inflammation is that when these protective measures are constantly activated, it causes damage to the body.
The reason why certain foods cause inflammation is because they produce free radicals in our bodies. “Free radicals are unstable atoms that can damage cells, causing illness and aging.” Medicalnewstoday.com. Dr. Kim explained that free radicals are “pocket pickers” and that they “steal” electrons from neighboring molecules which cause a lot of damage to our bodies. A spiritual takeaway from this process is that even in the natural world, that it is the work of the enemy to steal and take away from the rightful owner.
God has created the perfect solution for the negative effects of free radicals - antioxidants. Whereas free radicals are “pocket pickers” and steal the electrons, antioxidants have the opposite action of giving away extra electrons. Dr. Kim calls antioxidants “electron donors”. God has created a beautiful way to undo the harmful effects of inflammation by providing abundant sources of food full of antioxidants. Antioxidants can be likened to helpful hosts in our body that are constantly giving and helping nearby cells - just like our Heavenly Father acts for us.
So what foods are rich in antioxidants? Basically any fruit or vegetables, especially those with rich, vibrant colors in their skin and in their flesh have a lot of antioxidants. According to Dr. Nedley’s book, Proof Positive, these are the top ten vegetables with the most antioxidants according to weight: tomato, apple, banana, white grape, grapefruit, kiwi, purple grape, orange, plum, strawberries. And the following is the list of the top ten best vegetables for antioxidant action: corn, onion, bell pepper, beet, broccoli, alfalfa sprouts, brussel sprouts, spinach, kale, garlic. But Dr. Kim points out that you don’t have to memorize this list, you just have to remember to eat a lot of servings of fruit and vegetables every day.
Besides fruit and vegetables, there are other components in the diet that can support a healthy immune system. Your body needs vitamins and minerals to be healthy. Vitamin D is very essential to keep your whole body functions properly maintained. Dr. Kim calls Vitamin D, a morale booster for the cells, that Vitamin D helps the immune system to function well. If your body is sick, it works to neutralize the harmful effects of the viruses and bacteria. When Dr. Kim is treating patients with Covid-19 in the hospital, he makes sure to check Vitamin D levels and makes sure the patient has an abundant source of the vitamin.
The most abundant antioxidant in foods is Vitamin C. It is very easy to get Vitamin C from natural sources such as citrus fruit. But surprisingly, Vitamin C is not the most abundant in citrus fruit but actually in bell peppers and other vegetables.
Vitamin E incorporates itself into the cell membrane. When free radicals attack the cell membrane, Vitamin E will absorb the free radical attack. It has the effect of stopping the fire. Dr. Kim likens the work of Vitamin E as fire proofing your immune system. Nuts and seeds such as brazil nuts, chia seeds, almond, olive oil, and blueberries are full of Vitamin E.
Certain trace minerals are also important in keeping a healthy immune system. Zinc is one that is important in fighting viruses. Vegetarian sources of zinc are legumes - chickpeas, soybeans, lentils. Also nuts and seeds are a great source of zinc.
You may think that Dr. Kim must eat the perfect Adventist diet all the time, his refrigerator is filled with only fruit, vegetables and legumes. But Dr. Kim confessed that although he knows all this information about a proper diet, he sometimes eats foods that are not the healthiest. But when he occasionally eats something unhealthy, he compensates by eating a fruit or vegetable with a lot of antioxidants right after. This is helpful information as we can all probably confess to occasional lapse in a healthy diet. Also, the fact that even the people we look up to for health guidance fall into the same temptations as the rest of us was strangely encouraging.
This article is just a short summary of the many wonderful and helpful information presented by Dr. Caleb Kim. Please listen or watch the whole lecture series to be further educated and encouraged to maintain a healthy diet (You can watch the first session here). These Covid-19 times have emphasized the need for us to return back to the diet prescribed for us in the Garden of Eden. What a wonderful and gracious God to create such abundant and easily accessible sources of healthy food for us to maintain our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit.