Flu Fighter Carrot & Citrus Juice

We briefly interrupt the Paris recap posts to bring you something that might be necessary for these cold gray winter days: something to nip that horrible cold in the bud.

After spending a chilly Christmas in NY and a surprisingly equally chilly New Year’s in LA I woke up one morning with a throat that felt a little raspy. A quiet panic set in. Am I getting sick? I knew I should have worn a scarf on the plane. Urghhhh I can’t be sick. But in a couple hours the fear dissipated as I felt perfectly fine…Only to feel the same way late at night. It always seems that for whatever reason when you first start getting sick, its those early mornings and late nights where it feels the most acute. And it always seems that after that first morning where your throat maybe feels a wee bit raspy it inevitably snowballs into a full blown cold. Boo.

Flu Fighter Juice

But fear not there is something you can do! The first thing I do for sore throats is hot salt water gargles. When the epithelial cells in your throat become infected with viruses, the viruses reproduce in your cells and then bud out from the cells and go out to find new cells to infect (ew). Hot salt water can help wash away these budding viruses so that they do not infect more of your healthy cells. Viruses btw, are just like horrible little terrorist hijackers, once inside your cells they get your cell to start producing virus components that assemble inside the cell and then travel to the surface of your cell where they leave the cell and go out to hijack more cells. ISN’T SCIENCE COOL/GROSS/USUALLY BOTH.
 

I promise I will limit the amount of science I want to include in this post but basically when it comes to “flu fighters” there are a lot of myths and old wives tales that have no scientific proof and are likely to not do you any good. So instead of looking at natural type websites or Dr. Oz’s advice I prefer to look at Google Scholar. More specifically randomized double-blind placebo controlled studies. Yayyyyy so spontaneous and fun.

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Vitamin C is one example of a common supplement to help prevent or help heal colds and turns out science says this is mostly true! But an extra orange is not the solution, what has been proved to help flus are MEGADOSES of vitamin C. And I mean mega. In one study this was defined as “hourly doses of 1000 mg of Vitamin C for the first 6 hours and then 3 times daily thereafter”. Those are a lot of oranges man. But it did help reduce flu and cold symptoms by 85% compared to the placebo group, a pretty big difference 1. And luckily this can be done with vitamin C supplements or Emergen-C instead of crates and crates of oranges. So here I go with the more compact option, although the particular variety I’m using is Trader Joe’s Effervescent Orange Vitamin C Drink Mix which has 1,000 mg of Vitamin C and actually contains other electrolytes and minerals too as a bonus.

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The other major active component is lemon juice! Lemon juice not only adds to the whole vitamin C megadose thing we are going for, but it also lowers the pH of the juice (are you ready for more science) which is important because it interferes with how the influenza virus attaches to the epithelial cells in your throat. Basically influenza uses these little spikes called hemagglutinin to attach to specific markers called sialic acid on the cells that line your throat. Think of it as a lock and key situation. Once they are attached they are absorbed into the cell into these little compartments called lysosomes. The acidic pH inside the lysosome (below 6.0) then activates the hemagglutinin so it changes conformation and acts like a grappling hook attaching to the outer membrane of the lysosome and releasing all the contents of the the virus into your poor little now-infected cell. 2
 
But if you have some evil little influenza viruses hanging out on your throat that have not yet entered your cell and you drink something acidic with a pH below 6.0, well then you just changed all the hemagglutinin spikes on those babies into their second ‘grappling hook’ conformation and now they can no longer attach to the sialic acid receptors on your cells as the key no longer fits in the lock. BOOM.

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The other components are just for general wellness and for taste. Ginger is supposed to be good for upper respiratory infections although there is limited proof that it really does anything for that. But its OK because ginger is delicious. And this is carrot juice based because carrot juice just plain tastes amazing with citrus and helps to tone down some of the strong acidic taste of lots of lemon juice. You could add something like echinacea too but there is limited evidence it actually is beneficial for colds and the quality and type of echinacea plants used for these varies wildly (3)  so I decided to skip on it as it also comes with the added negative of smelling and tasting horrible.

RECIPE:

Flu Fighter Juice
Serves 1

INGREDIENTS:

• 3/4 cup of carrot juice (use a juicer or buy fresh carrot juice, I got mine from Trader Joe’s)
• juice of 3-4 lemons
• 1 packet of Emergen-C or other Vitamin C type fizzy supplement
• 1 tsp fresh grated ginger
• 1 tablespoon of honey or agave. or if you are really serious about fighting the flu, elderberry syrup

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a blender.
2. Blend until the honey/agave/syrup is incorporated.
3. Taste for sweetness and add more if necessary.

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The lemon here is also key on balancing any kind of strong vegetable-y taste from the carrot juice. I love you carrot juice. But on your own you come on a little strong.
 
Other things that may help you prevent or get over your cold? Vitamin D and elderberry syrup! People have wondered why we are more likely to get sick during the winter and it was proposed that being exposed to less sun results in less Vitamin D, an immune booster. And lo and behold some studies have shown that supplementation with Vitamin D does decrease your chances of getting the flu (4). The other solution of course is to take a mid-winter trip to somewhere sunny and tropical.
 
Elderberry syrup on the other hand contains a lectin that binds to sialic acid! As I mentioned before, sialic acid is the “lock” on your cell walls that the influenza viruses needs to attach to to get in the cell. So by drinking elderberry syrup the lectins in it will bind to the sialic acid on your cells so that the influenza can’t get to them 5. This is called competitive inhibition. The more you know.

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Although I have not yet vanquished my burgeoning cold I have been able to keep it in its infant phase so that I mostly just have a slightly irritated throat. You can currently find me drinking mega doses of vitamin C and holding my breath when my co-workers start coughing around me. Wish me luck and stay strong. Oh and sorry for ambushing you with science on a Monday morning. It was for your own good.

P.S. Obviously I am not a doctor or a nutritionist. I have a blog about food. My advice comes from personal experience, a degree in biology and reading scientific journals like a nerd.