Does IV Therapy Work for Boosting Immunity?
August 16, 2021
Eating a healthy and well-balanced diet can keep your entire body functioning the way that it should. However, you may not get enough essential nutrients from the foods that you eat. As provided by the Council for Responsible Nutrition, the supplement market is booming as 77 percent of Americans use some type of dietary supplement to try to get enough vital nutrients for overall health and well-being.
A long-used type of therapy is currently gaining popularity as a quick way to get necessary supplements into the body. This is called IV therapy. By passing the digestive tract, essential vitamin and mineral combinations gain access to your cells directly through the bloodstream, providing an often much-needed boost for increased immunity.
The Role of Nutrients in Boosting the Immune System
A healthy immune system is necessary to fight off foreign invasions that can result in illness. The proper vitamin-mineral combination helps to boost the immune system’s effectiveness, according to research including an article published in Home Health Care Management & Practice.
Vitamin deficiency can play a huge role in the proper functioning of the immune system. If you don’t get adequate nutrition, you may find that you get sick more frequently as your body isn’t capable of fighting off infections. When you’re sick, one of the last things you want to do is eat, which then leads to even fewer nutrients for your body to keep you well as you can read about in an article by Cambridge University Press.
Vitamins and Minerals that Are Essential for Immune System Health
The immune system is highly complex with several of the body’s other systems playing a role. Many nutrients are required to improve cell health and to increase protective barriers that keep invaders from gaining a foothold within the body as well as increasing the production of protective immunity cells.
Some nutrients have antioxidant properties. As shown in Journal of Dairy Science, these antioxidants have the ability to fight off free radicals that can destroy cells and increase inflammation. Although certain lifestyle choices and environmental conditions can increase free radicals within the body, these cell destroyers are created through the body’s normal metabolic processes. This makes it very important that you get enough antioxidant nutrients to keep your body in check.
These are some of the top nutrients your body needs for the immune system to function appropriately.
- Vitamin C isn’t produced by the body and is an essential immune booster
- Vitamin B complex increases the cells’ ability to fight against invaders
- Vitamin D helps the body to absorb other nutrients and keeps the immune system from attacking healthy cells
- Zinc lets the body produces new cells that affect immune function
- Glutathione is a powerful antioxidant full of amino acids that increases the body’s ability to produce immune system lymphocytes that fight invaders
Why Supplement?
Although your body can create some of the nutrients it needs from the foods that you eat, there are others that your body can’t produce and must be consumed. These are called essential nutrients. Equally as important, you may be deficient in some important nutrients that are vital for a properly functioning immune system.
If you fail to get the nutrients that your body needs, your immunity suffers. If you’re like many others, you might turn to supplements to fill in the gap. There are several reasons you might not be getting the nutrients your body needs.
Unhealthy Eating Habits
Perhaps you’re just used to eating certain foods. If you’ve eaten a specific way for most of your life, it can be hard to start eating healthily. Creating new, healthier habits takes time, and taking supplements can be a shortcut to getting what you need without sacrificing your preferred way of life.
Furthermore, so many foods that you eat may be highly processed. While these foods can be convenient, they’re also notorious for being low in nutritional value. Plus, according to the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, many processed foods are high in sugar, fat and preservatives that can actually weaken the immune system.
Restricted Diets
If you have health problems such as diabetes, you might not be able to eat certain foods that your body could really use for effective nutrition. Additionally, you may choose a specific diet if you’re vegan or vegetarian. In these cases, you could be missing essential vitamins and minerals by skipping out on certain food groups. Supplements can be an easy way to give your body what it needs.
Health Conditions
In addition to diet-restricting health conditions, you may experience disorders that involve the digestive tract. If your body can’t absorb the nutrition it needs, you might find that adding extra nutrients can help. Also, if your immune system is weakened by an autoimmune condition such as lupus, adding nutrients through supplements may be necessary.
What is IV Vitamin Infusion Therapy?
Intravenous therapy has been around for centuries though it increased in its use for delivering a vitamin and mineral combination for cancer patients in the 1970s to help them to keep up strength during chemotherapy and recovery.
Today, influencers and celebrities alike are touting the benefits of this treatment for boosting immunity, increasing energy, reducing recovery from illness or hangover, aging well, promoting brain function, enhancing beauty and more.
One of the most popular intravenous therapies is the Myers cocktail. Created by the late Dr. John Myers from John Hopkins Hospital in the 1960s, this infusion may help promote overall wellness, reduce inflammation, fight fatigue and provide relief from seasonal allergies, which are becoming more common as of late. It was finally developed by his colleague, Dr. Alan Gaby, by the turn of the century.
As a part of an active lifestyle, IV therapies are a great way to ensure you’re getting the vitamins you need so that your immune system can keep you safe from damaging toxins and bacterial or viral infections.
Benefits of Using an IV Vitamin Infusion
Supplements can be great, especially if you have a restricted diet or suffer from malabsorption from a health condition. Unfortunately, supplements take time to go through your body, and only a portion of these nutrients make their way into cells where they’re actually beneficial whether due to some medical condition you may have or the normal functioning of your digestive system.
With intravenous treatment, you can get essential nutrients delivered quickly to the body where they can be carried and distributed directly to the cells where they can begin to work.
Supplements Your Nutrient Intake
Like oral supplements, IV infusions provide your body with essential nutrients that may be missing from your diet. Because traditional supplements only release a portion of their nutrients, you can be sure you’re getting all that you need with IV vitamin therapy.
Bypasses the Digestive Tract
Unlike traditional supplements, the entire amount of the vitamin and mineral combination makes its way through your body without concern that a percentage won’t be absorbed due to normal gastrointestinal functioning or a health problem that affects your digestion.
Provides Faster Relief for Deficiencies
If you suffer from a vitamin or mineral deficiency, taking oral supplements can take time to get to your cells where they’re needed. With IV therapy, these nutrients can help much more rapidly. Rather than take oral supplements for weeks or even months before you see results, just a few IV infusions may be all that’s needed to get you on the road to better health.
Does Intravenous Therapy Boost Immunity?
If you’re not getting the vitamin and mineral combination that you need for your body to work its best, then adding these nutrients can definitely help to boost your immune system. Make sure that the combination of nutrients you’re going to receive are specifically chosen for their immune-boosting qualities for the best results.
Do You Need IV Therapy?
If you don’t get enough nutrients from your diet, suffer from a health condition that affects absorption or have an autoimmune disorder, an IV infusion might be the right choice for you to keep your immune system working in peak condition.
Similarly, there are other factors that could weaken your immune system, such as lack of sleep or exercise, being overweight or obese, exposure to environmental toxins, and even the natural process of aging, according to Harvard. In these cases, adding IV vitamin therapy could be a good alternative to taking traditional oral supplements.
At MD Infusions, we’ll discuss your concerns and examine your medical history to set up a plan of treatment to make sure you get the nutrients you’re lacking.
Whether you’re looking for improved immune function, ways of increasing energy, or basic wellness with a Myers cocktail, we can help. Schedule your IV vitamin infusion by using our convenient website contact form, or call us at (844) 463-8734 for more information or answers to any questions you might have about the therapies we offer.