The Common Cold

On this episode of The Nutrition Factor, Dr. Jimmy Steiger takes a closer look at the common cold, immune health, and the role nutrition and lifestyle may play in supporting the body’s natural defenses.

Drawing from decades of experience in naturopathic medicine and nutrition, Dr. Steiger discusses how factors such as stress, sleep, smoking, alcohol consumption, diet, and nutrient intake can influence overall wellness. He explores research surrounding vitamin D and seasonal illness, the role of vitamins C and E and other antioxidants, and concerns surrounding antibiotic overuse and antibiotic resistance.

Dr. Steiger also examines historical research comparing the U.S. healthcare system with other industrialized nations and shares his perspective on why nutrition, prevention, and healthy lifestyle choices deserve greater attention in healthcare.

Throughout the episode, he encourages listeners to take a proactive approach to their health by focusing on nutrition, healthy habits, adequate rest, and appropriate supplementation.

www.drjimmysteger.com

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Nutrition Factor. I'm your host, Dr. Jimmy Steiger, and on this week's edition, we're going to be talking about the common cold and how health care in this country, America, as we live in, could definitely be much better. There's a lot of patients that come to my clinic daily, weekly, every month. It's got what we call the traditional common cold. Very interesting because when I was young, I started studying medicine and human body anatomy very early on, because my grandfather was a medical doctor, actually the first medical doctor graduate from the University of Arkansas, and my uncle was an MD also. And after studying with these two physicians for many years, I realized that there was no cure, according to the medical industry, for any type of sickness, including the common cold. So I uh started studying natural medicine. My grandfather told me to I should be a naturopathic doctor because the medical industry was not set up for healing anyone. And the medicine back then he was around before big farm in the 1940s. And so I learned very quickly that medicine from a prescription synthetic form was not designed to heal human tissue. And so therefore I spent my entire life studying natural medicine at the highest level, and very thankful that I did so now. I've been in business now for 45 years and was studying for actually 15 years before that as a young child in the library almost non-stop with my grandfather and uncle studying the human body and learning firsthand why so many people were sick. I didn't know what that meant because at the age of six I didn't know what sickness or the common cold was because I had neither at that age. I've been very fortunate to never been sick one day of my life. And uh so that's very important to me to be able to say that and back it. So I'd like to start off by saying there is definitely a connection between stress alone and the susceptibility to common cold. So many people's lifestyles nowadays are so caught up into making money, uh staying up all night long trying to figure out another way to make another dollar, and with so many people doing night shift work, it's tremendously terrible on the human body. So for you people that work late at night, remember you need to try to get into bed by 10 o'clock at night so the liver can heal. The liver heals between 10 and 12. If you're not laying down asleep at night, your susceptibility to stress is higher. The liver cannot function correctly, it cannot filter correctly, and so therefore, the lifestyle of stand up late at night is definitely not healthy for the human body. And for those of you that are doing night shift work, I suggest you try to get to a daytime shift position. I know night shift workers usually make more money, but that's not good for the body. And uh most of the people who do night shift work don't live very long, especially after retirement. I take care of a lot of these patients around the world, and it's a sad situation when they retire for the most part. So lifestyle is uh very important in general, and it can have an effect on the immune system beyond your wildest imagination. Alcohol consumption, smoking, and even skipping breakfast, which I don't have any of my patients do, can make you more susceptible to colds and flu. Um and this goes according to the research that I've done and I'm gonna be laying out for you today on this show through the Economic and Social Research Council. And that's important because when you're looking at what these people are doing with research nowadays, it's getting better and better and better. So we're learning more as time goes on. But the Economic and Social Research Council research just released this back in 2002, and a research study performed at the School of Psychology at Cardiff University involved over 500 students at the university, and the subjects were asked to present themselves within 6 to 96 hours of contacting any type of upper respiratory infection, and more of the 188 subjects who caught colds were likely to be uh drinkers or smokers than those who stayed healthy. Stress also seems to increase the chance of illness tremendously, so I make sure I teach my people about stress when they come into our clinic, uh, not only about diet and supplements in general, but their entire lifestyle is extremely important. Umjects that who had more than one illness during this study that the university put on was less likely to eat breakfast and more likely to drink alcohol. And those who developed more than one illness also tended to have uh negative outlook on life. They were very stressful, they had stressful events in their life uh over uh the preceding year. Uh according to some of the authors, and one of them was uh Professor Smith, uh he demonstrated the effect of the upper respiratory infections on performance and overall mood of the patient or the individual. And they also showed that the health habits and behavior may be related to tendency to get more colds or the flu. And we know that there's more research that needs to be done on this, but the impact of minor illnesses in the industry and education is now needed, more so. And Professor Smith says clearly that the awareness of the effects of performing while ill should be also increased and possible countermeasures considered. So more research needs to be done on this. However, I can tell you clearly, as a naturopathic doctor who's been doing this my entire life, you can stop the common cold in its tracks very simply. You can prevent it, you can keep your body from ever happening or having this particular acute illness. Very simple, by changing your diet, beefing up your immune system where your white blood cell count is up and ready to go at all times. And uh that leads us into the next segment of this, which is where does the flu come in? The flu is a step higher. The flu is related to lack of vitamin D in most cases as well. And according to the research appearing in the British Journal, epidemiology and infections 2006 edition, uh, December 13th, there may be connection between the flu and uh strong showing of lack of vitamin D in the patient. And the article cites that um R. Edgar Hope Simpson, who noticed that the seasonal uh flu, or what we call influenza epidemics, and the possibility relation to solar radiation. So we have to look at that as well, and that was remembered way back in 2006, and it's only increased and gotten worse over time. But the researchers um propose that the seasonal connection between uh vitamin D and the flu may be uh strictly vitamin D. Uh I know that when I see patients have any type of sickness, especially this new COPD, it's been around now for the last 15-20 years, which is a illness in the lungs. Um person gets the flu during the winter season, uh, especially uh lacking vitamin D, and it's common in the winter due to the lack of solar radiation uh that people are not getting enough sun on the body. I always tell people to get enough sun, which converts uh to vitamin D in the body, and we need that natural organic vitamin D. Solar radiation triggers vitamin D and production in the skin. So ultraviolet radiation found in the sunlight reduces the incidence of viral infections in the human body. Cod liver oil, which is an amazing source of vitamin D, reduces the incidence of viral infections, and so treating or working with children with vitamin D reduces the incidence of respiratory uh infections, um, and this is extremely important. So, parents that are listening, make sure your children are getting good sources of vitamin D in the human body. And the activated vitamin D is a steroid hormone that has an effect on immunity in the entire body, and it starts early in life. It reduces inflammatory chemicals, which cause cytokines, and increases the effectiveness of certain white blood cells. It also stimulates the potent antimicrobial peptides, which are found in the white blood cells, and these are extremely important for aligning the cells uh inside the respiratory tract. So if you're liking vitamin D in the body, uh this is a very important issue. So try to get more vitamin D in the body along with ascorbic acid, vitamin C with bioflavonoids, which I'll talk to you about in a moment. So there's a lot of what we call super bugs out there nowadays. Uh and people wonder what uh what is a superbug? What is a bug? Well, a bug is simply a parasite, and there's over 144 different parasites out there. CDC says there's 111, but we know there's more than that. I test for parasites daily in my clinic, and clearly tell you there's a hundred more than 111 different ones, as um the medical industry says. So, where do these bugs come from? They come from all over. They can be on the ground, they can be in your food supply, they're on your animals. If you have animals in your home, you're gonna get parasites, so it's a big deal. According to the Journal of American Medical Association, it's called the JAMA, uh, June 19th edition, 2002. Uh, fewer doctors were prescribing antibiotics to children and teens less than in 1990, which is just 10 years earlier. And this attempt was to halt the rise in antibiotic-resistant infections. Overuse of antibiotics in the past has created antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. And uh, so what most people don't realize and know is antibiotics don't get rid of viruses anyway. So, if you're taking antibiotics or a virus and you're sick, just know that most of the time it's not going to work because you cannot get rid of viruses with an antibiotic. Doctors gave only 30 million prescriptions for antibiotics between 1999 and 2000 to children under the age of 15. Between 1989 and 1990, the same age group was given 45 million antibiotic prescriptions. This is according to the Centers for Disease Control, which is what we call the CDC, uh prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. The number of office visits was the same for the two periods of time. The authors of the JAMA article believes that the reduction in the number of antibiotic prescriptions was due to awareness that giving unnecessary antibiotics helped to create bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. The article's findings were formed from surveys conducted from 1989 to 1990, and then later went on from 1999 to 2000. The doctors reported on their use of antibiotics in as many as 13,600 office visits with patients under the age of 15. So, if we look at nutrition and lung disease, this is what I do. This is all I do is work with people, teach people how to be healthy, get them healthy, and keep them healthy for life. We all do this through natural means, and this is extremely important. So listen up. Research published in the reviews back in 2001 indicates that antioxidants like vitamin E and vitamin C can and will protect against the development of all forms of lung disease. Oxidation from root free radicals, uh, chemicals that have an electron that react easily can be like to damage done by the chemical bullets, what we call the chemical bullets, that spare the electron to the analogous to a bullet, shall we say. So antioxidant nutrients act like chemical bulletproof vests that protect the cell from oxidation, and antioxidants could also play a protective role in gene environment interactions in complex lung diseases like childhood asthma. I know as a coach, when I used to coach football and baseball and basketball many years ago, and I coached for over 22 years, had tons of kids come to me with asthma, and um I could get rid of asthma pretty quick in these children by educating the parents, which is what we did before all my years when I'd start with them. I would teach and educate the parents about nutrition and how they could help their child become better, healthier kids and better athletes. And we did that through educating them on nutrition and how to get milk and dairy out of their diet, which causes asthma, bronchitis, and later in life, uh COPD. So if you're important, if you're listening and you have children with asthma, if you eliminate milk and dairy alone, you'll probably, for the most part, straighten out your child's asthma, put them on a good nutrition program, good supplement protocol, increase your C and D if it's lacking, and we do that at our facilities. So if you need help, give us a call, email us, we can get you a test kit out, test you or your children for lack of these nutrients, and find out specifically what they need so you're not running out to the local store just buying garbage and loading your child up on things they don't need. The Arthur's did a review on the medical literature and found studies that indicated vitamin C supplementation improved the lung infection or the lung function of COPD as well, which is the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and emphysema and bronchitis as well. Consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables can improve asthma conditions in all children. And the researchers point out that fruits and vegetables contain many antioxidant components. Vitamin C is only one of those components, so it's really hard to identify a single constituent that is most beneficial, while the researchers point out the protective effects of antioxidants on short-term lung function, and they stop short of stating that long-term supplementation can slow the progression of lung disease. They do, however, recommend antioxidant supplementation to patients who have high levels of oxidative stress, like you smokers, and people who live where there is a lot of air pollution, et cetera, in the environment. I suggest to all my patients to use a product that I have and build called uh Provitamin, so multivitamin with all the vitamins and minerals you need on a daily basis, along with extra Pro C500. That's one of my products I build and manufacture, and it's not just the straight ascorbic acid. So be careful when you're buying ascorbic acid products, uh, people, because a lot of this comes from China. It's garbage. 90% of it being shipped over here is straight ascorbic acid, which is made from plastics, which are not good. So, in order to have a good quality ascorbic acid product, you need mixed bioflavonoids and rutin added to it. And if you don't have that in your supplement, you need to throw it away, especially vitamin C and bioflavonoids. Very important. Taking a vitamin C product, trying to take more than 100 to 500 milligrams at a time. Why? Because your body cannot absorb more than 500 milligrams of vitamin C at one sitting. 500 milligrams of vitamin C or ascorbic acid only lasts approximately five to six hours in the blood system. So the rest of it's wasted. You cannot assimilate it correctly, so you have to take it throughout the day. And later on in other podcasts, I will teach you how and when to take all these supplements so you'll have a better idea on how much to take and when, according to tests that we do on our patients. I also suggest to complement this with a complete wheat germ product three times a day with your meals. Wheat germ is a great source of vitamin E, and that's what you need. Raw organic vitamin E in your diet, which will help because it's part of the antioxidant group. This will help you tremendously improve your lung function along with C and D. Now, according to a report released in September 2006 by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, American Healthcare only scored 66 points out of a possible 100 in some of the tests and research it did, and it lagged far behind the rest of the industrialized world. American Healthcare received low grades on efficiency, access to care, and in total outcomes. The United States spends about 15% of its gross domestic product, which is called the GDP, on health care, compared to 10% of the GDP spent by most other industrialized nations, and insurance administrative costs in U.S. were more than three times the rate in countries with integrated payment systems. Nearly one-third of Americans under the age of 65 have trouble paying their medical bills. Unfortunately, the increased spending does not result in better care. The U.S. related 15th, they rated 15th out of 19 nations with regard to preventable deaths, and it is estimated that 115 per 100,000 people who would have survived it in a timely, appropriate medical care if it was administered properly. France scored the highest in the category with only 75 deaths per 100,000. The U.S. ranks last in infant mortality was seven deaths per 1,000 births, and the top three countries have 2.7 deaths per 1,000 births, less than half the number we have here in the U.S. We are at the bottom of the list in life expectancy. American children miss more school for illness than the children from other industrialized nations. Fewer than half of American adults receive the recommended screening test appropriate for their age and sex. Preventable hospital administrations for chronically ill patients, those with asthma and diabetes, so forth, were twice as high compared to the nations at the top of the list. The rate of readmission to the medical patients ranged from 14 to 22 percent, which is absolutely hideous in my opinion. So if you are continuously going to the doctor and trying to get well. Trying to get healthy. Ladies and gentlemen, you're barking up the wrong tree because the medical system cannot get you well. They can make you think you're getting well, but the prescriptions do not work because the frequency of the molecule is the wrong frequency to heal human tissue. Suboptimal vitamin intake linked to disease. According to an article appearing in the JAMA, once again, 2002, edition 127.9. Many of us may need to take vitamin supplements. So now the JAMA is starting to come around as of 2002 and clearly state that most Americans should consider taking a multivitamin. How about that? The article acknowledges that while extreme deficiency syndromes like pallagra and barbera are rare in our society, Western society, suboptimal intake of certain nutrients is a risk factor for disease. Yes, definitely. I could talk about that all night long. The article states that deficiencies of folic acid, which, ladies and gentlemen, please get this straight. You should be taking folate, not inorganic folic acid. You should be taking B6 and B12 also increase the risk of heart disease if you don't have these at optimal levels in your body. So once again, let's restate that. People that are more prone to heart disease are lacking folate, B6, and B12 in their daily diet. These deficiencies also increase the risk for breast and colon cancers. I see this all day long in my clinic. So they are correcting this. And also an increased risk of heart disease. Yes, the heart cannot function correctly without all the B vitamins in it, and most people have a tremendous deficiency of B1, B2, B3, B6, B12. All the B vitamins are necessary for proper function of the human body, and the heart and the lungs are no different. These deficiencies also increase the risk for uh common neural tube defects, which is birth defects in your children in the developing fetus. So extremely important you get these taken care of before you conceive. If you don't know before you conceive, find out. You can s give us a call, we can do testing on you and show you if you're at risk for this. Deficiencies of antioxidants like vitamins A, C, and E are linked to a large number of diseases, not just the lung and the heart. The article acknowledges that the diets of countless Americans are not getting enough of many of these nutrients and sees the wisdom of increased finally starting as of 2002, and you just heard it from the JAMA. And this is a magazine, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, who all medical doctors get comes across their desk once a week, and most of them never read it. I know I take care of a lot of medical doctors, RNs, and LPNs in my facility, and most of them never see read their weekly or monthly JAMA. If they see something interesting, they may, but if they were to pick this magazine up alone, they themselves would start to learn and get a little bit more on track with the knowledge of how supplementation can help their own patients. However, they don't go to school for that. And uh as of uh 10 years ago, uh studies clearly told us that out of the 121 medical schools in this country, only 19 offer one-quarter hour of nutrition as an elective. So do not have to take any type of nutrition classes, which is horrible. So that's one of the reasons I'm so busy. So many people come to me because their medical doctor is not helping them get well. So if you truly want to be healthy, get up to junk food, add a few more supplements to your diet, watch the difference in your health because feeling is believing, and seeing it on paper is extremely important for me as a nature path, a nutritionist to help people get well. We look at it on paper, we identify it, and we put them on the right submit program and get them healthy. So let's get healthy for life. That's what we're here for. Until next time, stay healthy and God bless. I'm Dr. Jimmy Steager. If you'd like what we're uh sending out to each week, make sure you hang in there with us and uh follow us. Go to our website, drjimmystiger.com. Give us a call if you'd like for us to help you out. We're worldwide. 251 660 1240. I'd love to help you. Take care. God bless, stay healthy.