A HEALTHY IMMUNE SYSTEM: When the presence of food intolerances, allergies or other gastrointestinal diseases (gastroesophageal reflux, chronic inflammatory bowel diseases, malabsorption, etc.) or systemic (diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, gout, reduced liver or kidney function, etc.) require avoiding specific foods or whole categories of food, preventing a varied and balanced diet and getting all the micronutrients needed to support the activity of the immune system, the use of targeted supplements can help to avoid deficiencies.

An integration can also be useful after a flu, seasonal ailments of various kinds or an infectious disease of a certain importance, especially if it was necessary to take antibiotics that weakened the body and temporarily destabilized the intestinal flora to cure it. In the latter case, probiotics may also be useful to promote better and faster physical recovery, with proven beneficial effects on gastrointestinal balance and the immune system.

In all cases, but especially when having to take an integrator is an elderly person with specific pathologies or a child, the ideal is to ask first for the opinion of the doctor.

The vitamins for which evidence of useful action has been collected in terms of immune defenses are mainly C, A, E, D, B6, B9 (folic acid, whose integration is strongly recommended in pregnancy) and B12; among the microelements can be encountered also zinc, selenium, iron and copper.

Antioxidant principles such as vitamins C and E, selenium, copper and zinc counteract the harmful action of free radicals and other oxidizing compounds constantly produced by energy metabolism and more consistently during infections and inflammation. Furthermore, they modulate the reactivity of several key cells of the immune system and influence the production of pro-inflammatory substances such as cytokines and prostaglandins.  Furthermore, studies show that all these micronutrients, with the exception of vitamin C and iron, play a role in the production of antibodies.