Although those special proteins that assist in immunity called lysozymes act like superheroes, they do have their weaknesses. For one thing, lysozymes do not live forever, so your body works hard to replace them as they die off. Nevertheless, certain diet and lifestyle choices can affect that replacement process. And the adequacy of your immune and gut health lies in the balance.

Stress Kills…   on multiple levels

While individuals commonly hear the warning, 'stress kills', they may not understand exactly how stress kills. Like so many other chronic conditions, stress eats away at the body piece by piece. Thus, lysozyme maintenance can be easily challenged by stress. Stress can come from many places to attack lysozyme production such as:

• Air pollution
• Antibiotics
• Chronic infections
• Food sensitivities
• Leaky gut syndrome
• Low stomach acid
• Mental or emotional stress
• NSAID usage
• Nutritional deficiencies
• Smoking

Despite the source of stress, if lysozyme production becomes restricted, your risk of developing allergies, asthma, chronic pulmonary dysfunction, digestive disorders, and vaginal infections significantly increases.

Lysozyme production greatly benefits Gut Health

Overall, lysozymes improve your gut health three ways by:

• Preventing attachment and colonisation of harmful bacteria and other pathogens
• Destroying bacterial cell walls and triggering bacterial cell death
• Promoting immune cell activity to fight off other bacteria and viruses

What you can do…

Clearly, your immunity and gut health depend on you avoiding stress. However, you can also actively support lysozyme production through your diet. Excellent sources of lysozyme include:

• Raw, grass-fed, cow, goat, or sheep milk
• Fermented, raw, dairy products (kefir, yoghurt, cheese, Indian Iassi, African amasi)
• Uncooked eggs (especially egg whites)
• Undenatured, grass-fed, whey protein or raw whey liquid

You can also ‘Ask a Naturopath’ for more suggestions or information about supplemental lysozyme.