How does your immune system work? Your immune system is made up of cells, tissues, and organs that help fight viruses, bacteria, and other germs that cause infections and other diseases. For example, your skin helps prevent germs from getting inside your body. Cells that line your digestive tract also help protect against harmful germs that cause diseases. White blood cells try to destroy substances they recognize as foreign to your body. Some white blood cells also recognize germs they have been exposed to before and develop antibodies to defend against them in the future.
What do we know about specific dietary supplement ingredients and immune function? Your immune system needs certain vitamins and minerals to work properly. These include vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc. Herbal supplements, probiotics, and other dietary supplement ingredients might also affect your immune system.
Eating a variety of nutritious foods can give you enough vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients for a healthy immune system. However, you might wonder whether taking certain dietary supplements can improve your body’s immune system and its ability to fight infections.
Vitamins and Minerals: Getting enough vitamins and minerals through the foods and beverages you consume is important for a healthy immune system. It’s especially important to get enough of vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, and K as well as folate, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, selenium, and zinc.
If your diet doesn’t include adequate amounts of certain vitamins and minerals, your immune system will not be able to function as well as it could, you might be more likely to get infections, and you might not recover as well. If your health care provider determines that you are not getting enough of a specific nutrient, vitamin and mineral supplements can help increase intakes to recommended amounts. In most cases, however, if you don’t have a deficiency, increasing your intake of vitamins and minerals through dietary supplements doesn’t help prevent infections or help you recover from them any faster.
Do dietary supplements interact with medications or other supplements? Yes, some supplements can interact or interfere with medicines you take.
Tell your doctor, pharmacist, and other health care providers about any dietary supplements and prescription or over-the-counter medicines you take. They can tell you if the dietary supplements might interact with your medicines or if the medicines might interfere with how your body absorbs, uses, or breaks down nutrients.
For additional information about dietary supplements and immune function, visit these helpful sites:
- For general information on dietary supplements and immune function
- Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) Health Professional Fact Sheet on Dietary Supplements for Immune Function and Infectious Diseases
- For more information on food sources of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients
- U.S. Department of Agriculture’s FoodData Central
- For more information on herbs and botanicals
- Herbs at a Glance, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
- For advice on buying dietary supplements
- For information about building a healthy dietary pattern
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) provides information that should not take the place of medical advice. We encourage you to talk to your health care providers (doctor, registered dietitian, pharmacist, etc.) about your interest in, questions about, or use of dietary supplements and what may be best for your overall health. Any mention in this publication of a specific brand name is not an endorsement of the product.
Source: Excerpted from an article at https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/ImmuneFunction-Consumer/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
