Using Your Nervous System to Enhance Your Immune System

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we are discussing the immune system, and we are also discussing the nervous system, which is the brain and spinal cord and the connections of the brain and spinal cord with all the organs of the body. We are also going to discuss how the nervous system can be used to activate and control the immune system. Now, about 10, 20 years ago, if somebody said that the mind could control the immune system, it'd probably get laughed out of most academic conferences, and certainly the work wouldn't be published in quality journals. But nowadays, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of quality peer-reviewed studies on how the mind and how the nervous system can control activation of the immune system. This is a wonderful growing body of research. And just to give you a hint of where we are headed with this, just this last week, there was a paper published in Nature, which is the Apex Journal for Scientific Publishing, premier journal, extremely stringent. A paper published in Nature from Chu Fu Ma's lab at Harvard Medical School explored how acupuncture can reduce inflammation in the body. And I will describe this study in a bit more detail later, but what they discovered was that by stimulating the body in particular ways at particular sites on the body, they were able to liberate certain cells and molecules that enhanced the function of the immune system and potentially can be used to combat different types of infection. And just to give you another little hint, they found that a particular type of organ tissue called fascia, some of you may have heard of fascia. Fascia surrounds our muscles, just to look at it, you might think it's a kind of useless tissue. It's sort of like a dense bag in which the muscles are contained. Well, it turns out that those dense bags are much smarter than we thought. They don't have a mind of their own, but by stimulating the fascia in a particular location on the body, there's a pathway leading out of that fascia directly to an organ called the adrenal medulla. I'll explain what all this means that could liberate particular chemicals that had a potent anti-inflammatory effect. So what we're basically saying is that the nervous system acts as a set of highways between the different tissues of your body, calling into action the immune system, liberating particular molecules that can reduce inflammation and lead to faster healing. And I will explain how all of that works, as well as some other non-acupuncture methods for activating and enhancing the function of the immune system. So today we're going to be talking all about healing with the mind in a completely non-mystical, non-abstract sense. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day is that it helps me cover all of my basic nutritional needs. It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have. In addition, it has probiotics, which are vital for microbiome health. I've done a couple of episodes now on the so-called gut microbiome and the ways in which the microbiome interacts with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood, and essentially with every biological system relevant to health throughout your brain and body. With Athletic Greens, I get the vitamins I need, the minerals I need, and the probiotics to support my microbiome. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman and claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year's supply of vitamin D3K2. There are a ton of data now showing that vitamin D3 is essential for various aspects of our brain and body health. Even if we're getting a lot of sunshine, many of us are still deficient in vitamin D3. And K2 is also important because it regulates things like cardiovascular function, calcium in the body and so on. Again, go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim the special offer of the five free travel packs and the year's supply of vitamin D3K2. Today's episode is also brought to us by Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the exact ratios of electrolytes are an element and those are sodium, magnesium and potassium, but it has no sugar. I've talked many times before on this podcast about the key role of hydration and electrolytes for nerve cell function, neuron function, as well as the function of all the cells and all the tissues and organ systems of the body. If we have sodium, magnesium and potassium present in the proper ratios, all of those cells function properly and all our bodily systems can be optimized. If the electrolytes are not present and if hydration is low, we simply can't think as well as we would otherwise. Our mood is off, hormone systems go off, our ability to get into physical action, to engage in endurance and strength and all sorts of other things is diminished. So with element, you can make sure that you're staying on top of your hydration and that you're getting the proper ratios of electrolytes. If you'd like to try element, you can go to drink element, that's lmnt.com/huberman, and you'll get a free element sample pack with your purchase. They're all delicious. So again, if you want to try element, you can go to element, lmnt.com/huberman.