Mom’s advice to eat your vegetables is right on. People who eat lots of vegetables are less likely to get sick. But one vegetable in particular should be on your eat-to-stay-healthy list, especially during cold and flu season: garlic. This culinary mainstay belongs to the same family of bulb-shaped plants as onions, chives, leeks, and scallions, but garlic is unique because it has lots of sulfur, which is what makes it stinky. It also contains a number of nutrients that have been shown to be good for your health — arginine, oligosaccharides, flavonoids, and selenium. Here’s what you need to know about garlic and immunity.
Eating garlic can boost the number of virus-fighting T-cells in your bloodstream — important because colds and the flu are caused by viruses. Nutrition scientists from the University of Florida reported in the journal Clinical Nutrition in 2012 that taking aged garlic extract reduced the severity of cold and flu symptoms and that the symptoms went away faster in those who took the garlic extract than among those who didn’t The scientists speculated that the garlic extract worked by boosting participants’ immune cell function.
Garlic as an aphrodisiac? Garlic has been cited for its ability to dilate blood vessels and improve circulation throughout your nether regions, said Judy Caplan, MS, RDN, a nutritionist based in Vienna, Va., and a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. And having regular sex can kick your immune system into high gear,
according to researchers at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. The researchers found that college students who have sex once or twice a week have more immunoglobulin A (IgA) in their system than those who don’t have sex. IgA, a type of protein, acts as an antibody. It binds to foreign invaders such as cold and flu viruses when they first enter your body and summons your immune system to destroy them.
