4 Ways to Stay Well This Winter

By Mia Owen

Use these tips to strengthen your defenses

Each year your personal ecosphere is invaded by 200 cold viruses and uncountable flu strains—and there’s just one of you to fight them off. Faced with those odds, the average adult gets knocked flat by two to five colds a year. Women are typically more likely than men to catch something because they have more contact with kids, whose bodies are little Petri dishes for germs. But by following the tips outlined here, you can fire up and fortify your immune defenses.


1. Take the right vitamins—at the right time
Read the label on your multivitamin or start taking one, making sure it contains 100 percent of the minimum daily requirements for the essential immune-enhancers: vitamins A, B6 and B12, C and zinc, says Elson Haas, M.D., a specialist in preventive medicine and coauthor of Staying Healthy With Nutrition: Complete Guide to Diet and Nutritional Medicine. Two good choices are Enzymatic Therapy’s Doctor’s Choice for Women and TwinLabs Daily One Caps found at Whole Foods or online at VitaminShoppe.com.

Vitamins and supplements don’t kill viruses, but they can strengthen your defenses, relieve symptoms, and will help you recover faster, says Neil Schachter, M.D., professor of pulmonary medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and author of The Good Doctor’s Guide to Colds & Flu. 


 
 


The old adage “feed a cold, starve a fever”? It’s true. When you have a cold, eat up: That boosts immune response, which destroys cold-causing viruses. Fasting, on the other hand, which often happens naturally when you run a fever, helps build levels of bacteria battlers. And in both cases, avoid dehydration.

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