Year round, you’re surrounded by a wide variety of environmental stressors and challenges to your immune and overall health – and wintertime seems to provide some of the greatest threats.
During the winter months and with many people following work-at-home routines, more time may be spent indoors. Being cramped up in close quarters with other people can expose you to allergens and other immune stressors.
And with a busy lifestyle, you may not always make as healthy food choices as you should. Eating overly processed fast foods to save time can wreak havoc on your already stressed immune system.
Fortunately, there are simple lifestyle steps you can take to help strengthen and protect your overall immune health. And familiarizing yourself with the basics on how your immune system functions is key to understanding why it’s so important to take action.
Why Your Immune System is Critical for Optimal Health
Your immune system is a complicated vast network of cells, organs, antibodies, immune proteins and other tissues that helps keep you healthy and strong while protecting your body from seasonal and everyday threats.
Once your immune system encounters one of these threats, it naturally generates what’s called an immune response.
As B lymphocyte cells spot these threats, called “antigens,” they begin to secrete antibodies. These antibodies are special proteins that lock on to and deal with specific antigens during your immune response. An incredible fact about your immune system is its ability to distinguish your own tissues from foreign invaders. It also recognizes dead and faulty cells and clears them away.
Without an immune system, your body would be vulnerable to these foreign bodies and external stressors that could adversely affect your health.
Thankfully, there are natural resources to help nurture your immune system. Healthy lifestyle choices, such as eating unprocessed whole foods, implementing daily exercise, getting optimal sleep and taking special care of your digestive tract, are key examples.
Some vitamins and minerals can also help support healthy immune function. When you need additional support to help promote your immune health, the following three essential nutrients can help.
Don’t Overlook Vitamin C in Your Immune Defense*
Surprising as it may be, vitamin C is often passed over for newer, trendier supplements. However, this potent vitamin continues to prove its worth, and the research touting its potential benefits only grows overtime.
Vitamin C plays an important role in helping to support your immune function, heart, vascular health and more.* Unfortunately, you cannot synthesize this essential micronutrient – it must come from your diet or supplementation.
As a powerful antioxidant, vitamin C protects proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) from damage by free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can lead to accelerated cellular aging.*
Vitamin C also stimulates the production of white blood cells, especially neutrophils, lymphocytes and phagocytes, and promotes your cells' normal functions.*
Simply put, as an essential contributor to your overall immune defense, vitamin C should not be overlooked.*
Vitamin D Helps Modulate Your Adaptive Immune System*
In addition to helping maintain healthy bones and teeth, vitamin D also plays an important role in helping your immune system function properly. This vitamin can have distinctive effects on both your innate and adaptive immune systems.*
Your innate immune system is your first line of defense and comes into play immediately or within hours of stressor detection. Once activated, vitamin D binds to innate system cells, helping to ward off the stressors.*
If a stressor manages to bypass the innate immune system, the second line of defense kicks in with your adaptive immune system. Your adaptive immune system involves your T regulatory helper and suppressor cells as well as natural killer cells.
Vitamin D helps support and modulate the adaptive immune system as it binds to the cells of the system.*
Many thousands of studies have demonstrated that vitamin D affects virtually every cell and tissue in your body, showing support especially for your immune system.* As a result, this essential vitamin should be included in your overall protection plan when your immune system is under stress.
This Special Mineral Plays a Key Role in Your Immune Health*
Second only to iron as the most common mineral found in your body, zinc is essential for the healthy functioning of all your cells, tissues, organs and bones as well as for protection against the effects of cellular aging.*
However, unlike iron, your body cannot store zinc. You must consume it daily to have adequate levels.
A healthy immune system can’t function without it. Yet, zinc deficiency is a widespread concern for people around the world, with nearly 1 in 3 individuals being at risk for a lack of this important mineral.
Even if you feel you’re getting enough zinc in your food, certain external and internal factors, such as age, a poor diet, pregnancy and gastrointestinal concerns, can keep you from absorbing and utilizing this important mineral.
Unfortunately, even mild to moderate zinc deficiencies can depress your immune function and impair your body’s response to invaders. Without enough zinc, your protective white blood cells can’t function optimally.*
Being proactive can make all the difference, especially during times when your immune system must meet challenges.
How This Super Immune-Supporting Antioxidant Works Synergistically with Vitamin C and Zinc*
Quercetin, a flavonol not naturally present in the human body, is the most abundant polyphenol in many fruits and vegetables. It can also be found in a flower from the Sophora japonica tree.
As a potent, versatile flavonol, quercetin offers an impressive array of potential health benefits, including support for your:
- Seasonal health.*
- Cells and tissues against free radical damage.*
- Metabolic health.*
- Normal inflammatory response.*
- Immune function.*
On its own, quercetin has been shown to be a powerful antioxidant – especially for athletes, who experience greater oxidative stress as a result of strenuous exercise.
Exercise or intense training naturally increases the production of free radicals and reactive oxygen species. This, in turn, can cause slower recovery and post-training discomfort.
In one study involving a group of triathletes, those who took 250 mg of quercetin phytosome twice daily experienced performance, endurance and post-recovery improvements over the control group that didn’t take any.
And when combined with specific nutrients, such as zinc and vitamin C, quercetin can also provide enhanced immune support.* With synergistic help from vitamin C, quercetin acts as a special kind of molecular facilitator, or “ionophore,” that helps shuttle zinc into your cells.
Alone, zinc, vitamins C and D, and quercetin are key contributors to your overall wellness. However, together, they work synergistically, creating a super-combination that provides more potentially effective immune support.*
These Potent Immune-Supporting Formulas Are Full of Beneficial Perks*
Now that you’re aware of these three essential nutrients and beneficial flavonol that are so important when your immune system is under occasional stress, what approach can you take?
Of course, you could complement your diet and healthy lifestyle with individual high-quality supplements. That approach would work. But what if you could take all of these essential helpers in single servings without capsules and even take them more than once a day?
Combining the antioxidant power of vitamins C and D, and zinc into an effervescent powder, bonus-packed Vitamin C-PAK®:
- Delivers all-day immune support in a convenient packet.*
- Easily dissolves for fast-acting absorption.*
- Contains a gentler, unique form of vitamin C to help enhance bioavailability.*
- Utilizes vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) that your body naturally makes from sunlight.
- Provides the benefits of zinc without the metallic taste.
- Comes lightly sweetened with organic stevia and contains zero grams of total sugars per serving.
- Is produced without gluten.
If you’re looking for an enhanced level of immune support with all the above bonuses plus the synergistic benefits of quercetin, Vitamin C-PAK® with Quercetin is the perfect alternative.*
In addition to the high-quality vitamins C and D, and zinc, Vitamin C-PAK with Quercetin is formulated with Quercetin Phytosome Complex from the Sophora japonica flower.
Offering up to 20 times the bioavailability of regular quercetin, this special quercetin complex incorporates phospholipids to protect the quercetin and aid in the formation of liposomes in your stomach.*
To help meet your daily immune support needs, you can easily mix Vitamin C-PAK and Vitamin C-PAK with Quercetin into 8 fl. oz. of water (or use more or less water for desired flavor/fizziness) for refreshing, orange flavor fizzy drinks.*
Plus, when you need extra support, either bonus-packed formula may be taken up to twice a day.
Triple-Combination Vitamin C Provides Enhanced Bioavailability
Traditional vitamin C has been typically plagued with reduced bioavailability and rapid bodily excretion, and oftentimes, digestive challenges.
Both Vitamin C-PAK supplements include a special, uniquely enhanced form of vitamin C that helps to overcome these delivery and retention challenges.
Produced from an exclusive mixture of ascorbic acid, lipid metabolites and bioflavonoids, our Vitamin C-PAK formulas utilize a proprietary bioavailable lipid-soluble vitamin C.*
This powerful triple-combination was developed about 20 years ago by a chemical engineer who was searching for a way to significantly boost vitamin C’s bioavailability while potentially prolonging blood and tissue retention of this vital micronutrient.*
The exclusive lipid-soluble vitamin C combination in Vitamin C-PAK and Vitamin C-PAK with Quercetin provide one of the most advanced bioavailable forms of the vitamin yet developed. Its enhanced absorption and retention potential without adverse side effects (like occasional stomach upset) have been observed in research studies.*
The key to these enhancements are its fatty acids that allow ascorbic acid to enter cells more quickly and effectively. These fatty acids act as ascorbic acid carriers to enhance vitamin C bioavailability, tissue distribution and cellular uptake.*
As part of the triple-combination elements, the citrus bioflavonoids in our Vitamin C-PAK powder formulas help provide a protective effect for the vitamin C against oxidizers in your body.*
One pair of researchers concluded that “vitamin C-lipid metabolites are excellent antioxidants and free radical scavengers and are more rapidly absorbed and lead to higher cellular vitamin C” than certain other forms of vitamin C.*
This proprietary vitamin C formula used in Vitamin C-PAK and Vitamin C-PAK with Quercetin is key in working with the vitamin D3, zinc and quercetin ingredients to help give your immune system the occasional help it may need.*
Take the Next Step to Help Protect Your Immune Health*
With their potent proprietary vitamin C formulas, along with high-quality vitamin D3, zinc and quercetin ingredients, our Vitamin C-PAK formulas provide you with the essential aid you’ll want to have readily available when your immune system is under stress.*
And now, there’s a more convenient option to help you get the immune-supporting players you need.
With all the benefits of an effervescent powder and a fantastic orange fizzy taste, Vitamin C-PAK® and Vitamin C-PAK® with Quercetin combine the essential helpers into single stick packs you can take up to twice a day – even while on the go.
Give your immune system the helping hand it may need, and order your Vitamin C-PAK and Vitamin C-PAK with Quercetin today.