Best Dietary Supplements to Boost Your Immune System

As an athlete, you must take great care to preserve a strong immune system.

To boost your immune system, you must:

• follow a healthy and balanced diet,
• manage stress levels,
• use appropriate dietary supplements.

Endurance athletes use many different dietary supplements, but in this blog we look at the best dietary supplements to boost your immune system.

But first, let's quickly look at why the immune system is so important for an athlete.

Why is the immune system so important?

The immune system protects you from viruses, bacteria, and infections.

In other words, a strong immune system keeps you healthy, which allows you to train and progress efficiently. 

As an athlete, your immune system is under greater burden than normal people. The reason is that exercise, especially intense endurance exercise, quickly drains your glycogen stores and increases cortisol levels.

Cortisol is a stress hormone directly linked to increased stress levels. While cortisol is an essential hormone for the functioning of your body, chronically elevated levels of cortisol lead to chronic stress, which is one of the main factors that lead to a weakened immune system.

One of the ways to boost your immune system is to manage and reduce stress. Learn more about the best supplements to manage and reduce stress!

The immune system keeps you healthy and allows you to train efficiently.

Weakened immune system symptoms

If your immune system is weakened, everything starts to crumble.

• You increase chance of illness and injury.
• Illness and injuries prevent your from training.
• Not training consistently halts your progress.
• Lack of progress prevents you from realizing your athletic potential.

Boosting your athletic performance is like building a pyramid. It needs a strong base. That base is your immune system.

Obviously, a weakened immune system may impair more than just your athletic performance. As the main protector of your health, you should always treat your immune system with the respect it deserves.

And with that said, let's look at the best dietary supplements you can use to boost your immune system.

A weak immune system will prevent you from realizing your athletic potential.

Best supplements to boost the immune system

There are many aspects to boosting your immune system. You should definitely follow a healthy and balanced diet and learn how to manage and reduce stress.

But a crucial aspect is also using appropriate dietary supplements. Let's look at what works best.

Carbohydrates

We're like a broken record. No matter what aspect of sports nutrition we delve into, carbohydrates always seem to come out on top.

And for good reason.

Carbohydrates are the essential nutrient to provide your body with energy, which reduces stress levels, which boosts your immune system. A nice little chain of effects you should never forget.

Take care of proper fueling during exercise and proper muscle recovery after exercise.

And if you engage in a marathon or race, be sure to load up on those carbs!

The best carbohydrate-based dietary supplements to use during and after exercise are:

• Energy gels
• Isotonic sports drinks
• Recovery drinks

 

But in terms of the relation between carbohydrates and your immune system, keep in mind that it's not that simple. While carbohydrates represent energy, which your immune system needs to function, spikes in sugar can also be detrimental to your immune system.

In other words, use fast carbohydrates to fuel your athletic performance and not to indulge in front of a TV. But you weren't planning to do that anyway, were you?

Carbohydrates reduce stress levels and provide energy to your immune system during intense exercise.

Vitamin C

While carbohydrates sustain your immune system, vitamins build it up.

And of all the vitamins, vitamin C is the most important one.

In addition to boosting your immune system, vitamin C has several other benefits.

• Stimulates collagen production.
• Protects your cells from oxidative stress.
• Improves cardiovascular health.
• Increases tissue growth and regeneration.
• Preserves cartilage health.
• Increases iron absorption.

And if you're looking for the best source of vitamin C, go for Natural Vitamin C with Acerola and Rosehip!

Vitamin C is crucial to boost your immune system.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is another very important vitamin to boost your immune system.

In addition to boosting your immune system, vitamin D:

• preserves bone health,
• improve muscle function,
• increases cognitive abilities,
• improves your mood.

Since the best source of vitamin D is sunlight, vitamin D deficiency is very common during winter months, and a large part of the population, including athletes, suffers from vitamin D deficiency.

Getting vitamin D from food is not always easy. That's why it's a very good idea to use vitamin D supplements, especially during the winter.

Since vitamin D is fat soluble, you must intake it with a source of fat.

Vitamin D3+ with Coconut Oil already contains all the fat you need for maximum absorption and effect.

Supplementing vitamin D is especially important during the winter.

Zinc

The vitamins are crucial to boost your immune system, but minerals run the show. 

Of all the minerals, zinc is the most important one to boost your immune system.

But its benefits don't stop there. In addition to boosting your immune system, zinc also:

• protects you from oxidative stress,
• boosts your metabolism,
• preserves the strength of your bones,
• improves your eyesight,
• sustains cognitive functions.

The only problem with zinc is its generally poor absorption rate, which drastically reduces its effectiveness.

Chelated Zinc Bisglycinate 4Endurance Pro is designed to give you the highest absorption rates and provide the full effect of this crucial mineral.

Zinc is the most important mineral to boost your immune system with several other crucial benefits.

Immuno

Boosting your immune system with dietary supplements is nice, but what if you could get all you need from a single product?

That's where Immuno 4Endurance Pro comes in.

Immuno is designed to boost the immune system of athletes with its specially crafted formula. Immuno contains what you need for a strong immune system.

• Vitamin C
• Vitamin D
• Zinc bisglycinate
• Black elderberry extract
• Quercetin
• Spirulina

Due to quercetin, it may even help you improve your VO2 max, but if that's what you are looking for, check out our top supplements to increase VO2 max.

Immuno contains all you need to boost your immune system in a single product.

Conclusion

A strong immune system is vital to preserve your health and improve your athletic performance.

To preserve a strong immune system, you must follow a healthy and balanced diet, learn to manage stress, and consider using dietary supplements.

The most important supplements to boost your immune system are carbohydrates, vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc.

A great way to boost your immune system with a single product is using Immuno, which is designed specifically for endurance athletes.