To Strengthen Your Immune System

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This article is taken from Alternative Medicine Guide to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, and Environmental Illness

Beta-1,3-Glucan - Ever since the 1940s, scientists have been honing their knowledge of the remarkable abilities of Beta-1,3-D Glucan as an immunomodulator.  (An immunomodulator. is a substance that can tune, adjust, regulate, or focus - modulate - the activities of the immune system to reverse illnesses.)  It effectively stimulates and activates the immune system and works therapeutically in cases of infection, cancer, ulcers, radiation exposure, and trauma.

Beta-1,3-Glucan is a simple sugar derived from the cell wall of bakers yeast.  It is a purified isolate and does not contain any yeast proteins that would otherwise provoke allergic reactions in sensitive individuals.

The research supporting the claims for Beta-1,3-Glucan as an immune system activator has been building steadily in recent decades.  In 1996 alone, 144 scientific studies were published on the medical uses of Beta-1,3-Glucan.  One fact has consistently emerged from these studies:   Beta-1,3-Glucan produces its multiple broad-scale immune effects because it is a NONSPECIFIC IMMUNE STIMULATOR.    This means it causes a response capable of being directed at many conditions, perhaps all.

Research at Harvard University in the 1980s showed that the macrophage--a key immune system white blood cell that "eats" unwanted, foreign microbes--has a specific receptor for Beta-1,3-Glucan.  In nontechnical terms, we might say the yeast talks directly to the immune cell.  When the macrophage is activated by this contact, it starts a cascade of events turning the cells into an arsenal of defense.  The specificity of this macrophage receptor site may explain why Beta-1,3-Glucan is one of the most potent stimulators of the immune response.  There is evidence to show that Beta-1,3-Glucan is the most widely and most commonly observed macrophage activator in nature.

Myra D. Patchen, M.D., of the U.S. Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, suggests that beta-1,3  Glucan appears to work as a free radical scavenger.  It may even protect the macrophages from damage by radiation, toxins, heavy metals, invading microbes, and other poisons in the body.  Beta glucan's capabilities in resisting infections are well documented.

Evidence from animal studies demonstrates that beta-1,3-glucan can reduce the amount of conventional antibiotics required to treat infectious conditions such as peritonitis.  In mice infected with a bacteria to produce peritonitis, a combination of beta-1,3-glucan and a standard antibiotic increased their long-term survival by 56%.  Bacterial counts were noticeably down within eight hours of the injection and the numbers of key immune cells were markedly higher.

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