Support Your Body's Defense System
Your immune system is like a muscle. It can be trained to grow stronger and healthier. Here's how.
In science, there's great interest in safe and natural substances that strengthen the immune system. The term for this effect is "trained immunity." Like muscle, the immune system requires repeated bouts of targeted stimulation to grow stronger, and continued stimulation to maintain optimal function. Biotest used trained immunity as its design goal when developing its Beta Glucan (Buy at Amazon) supplement.
Beta-1,3-glucan is a naturally occurring water-soluble fiber derived from Euglena gracilis algae that acts as an immunomodulatory agent. This means the body's pattern-recognition receptors identify beta glucan as "non-self," which activates healthy immune responses. Triggering these responses with beta glucan primes, strengthens, and supports immune function (1-17).
Bonus benefits:
- Beta glucan fuels the growth of good bacteria in the gut and supports the health of intestinal cells that act as a protective physical barrier (15, 16).
- It slows sugar absorption, helping maintain stable blood glucose levels.
- It binds to bile acids, promoting their excretion. This forces the body to use cholesterol to make more bile acids, reducing cholesterol blood levels.
- Beta glucan even improves skin health due to its ability to stimulate immune responses and promote healthy tissues.
There's nothing else like it. Beta glucan is a breakthrough for anyone wanting to maintain a strong, healthy immune system.
How Does It Do All That?
Beta glucans are polysaccharides that occur in the cell walls of certain cereal grains, bacteria, fungi, and algae. Once ingested, the immune system recognizes them as pathogen-associated molecular patterns or PAMPs. This means beta glucan activates both innate and acquired immunity, which is a good thing.
Innate immunity is what you're born with. It consists of cells like neutrophils, monocytes, natural killer (NK) cells, and a set of 30 complement blood proteins. Together, they attack invading pathogens.
Adaptive immunity, however, involves cells that require "training." Each infectious exposure "teaches" T-cells and B-cells to produce antibodies that attack specific infections. These cells "remember" the infection and produce long-lasting immunity to it.
It was initially thought that beta glucans only activated innate immunity, but the recent discovery that they also activate acquired immunity is really exciting. It means beta glucan has immunomodulatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant, and radioprotective properties.
And, since beta glucan is essentially insoluble fiber, scientists posit that it might also have cardioprotective effects through increased control of cholesterol, weight, and glycemic response.
The Best Offense is Defense
Beta glucan is NOT a pathogen of any kind. It merely tricks the immune system into thinking it's being threatened. It puts the immune system on healthy alert.
Let's say a virus has just invaded one of your cells. Almost immediately, the cell releases cytokines that alert other cells of the invasion. T-cells and natural killer cells come charging to the site of infection and destroy infected cells so the viruses or bacteria inside will also die.
While these T-cells are performing their duty, they're also instructing B-lymphocytes to form immunoglobulins (antibodies) constructed to attach to that specific invader, much like a key fits a lock. The antibodies then enlist complement proteins to punch holes in the cell wall of the invader. To remember the "lock" of this particular invader, memory T-cells are formed so that any future invasions by the same invader can be quickly squashed.
Ingesting beta glucan fortifies the whole system, increasing the odds of repelling a disease entirely or defeating it in less time than might otherwise be possible.
The Studies
There's been a ton of research on beta glucan. Here's what happened when patients were given beta-1,3-glucan over 90 days:
- 3.3 fewer sick days.
- 70% fewer upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) symptoms: runny nose, plugged nose, sneezing, sore throat, cough, hoarseness, head and chest congestion, feeling tired, headache, body aches, and fever.
- 10 fewer URTI symptom days, 45% fewer URTI symptom episodes, and 80% lower overall severity of URTI symptoms.
At least 17 other studies found that people using beta glucan had increased resistance against URTI. Another eight studies found that athletes who used beta glucan before intense exercise had a much smaller decline in immune system function than normally seen.
Other studies found that beta glucan even helped allergy sufferers, reduced outbreaks of herpes, and even lessened the pain in osteoarthritis sufferers.
Age didn't seem to be a factor in the efficacy of beta glucan. It worked in the old and the young, and with no side effects.
Can I Get Enough Beta Glucan from Food?
The short answer is no. Oats and some other foods contain beta glucan, but they have a mixture of different isomers. Beta-1,3-glucan is the one you want; it's much more potent.
Also, our gastrointestinal tracts aren't prepared to adequately digest some of the cell walls of natural grains like oats (or yeast) to give the gastrointestinal system access to beta glucan. In other words, they're not very bioavailable.
Algal Beta Glucan is Best
All of this is why algal beta-1,3-glucan, extracted from Euglena gracilis, is the preferred choice.
Algal beta-1-3-glucan has no chemical side branches or particulate matter. Its cell wall is much thinner than that of oat or yeast, making it easier to digest. Lastly, the concentration of beta-glucan in the cell walls of algae is over 95%, much higher than that found in yeast.
Each one-capsule serving of Biotest Beta Glucan (Buy at Amazon) contains 500 mg derived from Euglena gracilis algae.
References
- Moorlag S et al. "β-Glucan Induces Protective Trained Immunity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection: A Key Role for IL-1." Cell Reports 31, 107634, May 19, 2020. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107634.
- Del Cornò M et al. "Shaping the Innate Immune Response by Dietary Glucans: Any Role in the Control of Cancer?" Cancers 2020, 12, 15. DOI: 10.3390/cancers12010155.
- Borchani C et al. "Structural Characterization, Technological Functionality, and Physiological Aspects of Fungal B-D-glucans: A Review." Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr, 56(10:1746-52, PMIC 25830657, Jul 2016.
- Vetvicka V et al. "Glucans and Cancer: Comparison of Commercially Available B-glucans – Part IV." Anticancer Res, 38(3):1327-1333, Mar 2018.
- Davis JM et al. "Effects of oat beta-glucan on innate immunity and infection after exercise stress." Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2004, Aug;36(8):1321-7.
- Volman JJ et al. "Dietary modulation of immune function by β-glucans." Physiology & Behavior, Volume 94, Issue 2, 23 May 2008, Pages 276-284.
- Rondanelli M et al. "The biological activity of beta-glucans." Minerva Med. 2009 Jun;100(3):237-45.
- Vetvicka V et al. "β-Glucan Improves Conditions of Chronic Fatigue in Mice by Stimulation of Immunity." The Open Biochemistry Journal, 2-18-2020.
- Akramiene D et al. "Effects of ß-glucans on the immune system." Medicinia, 11 August 2007.
- Graugaum HJ et al. "A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled nutritional study using an insoluble yeast beta-glucan to improve the immune defense system." Dood Nutr Sci, 3(6):738-746, June 2012.
- Carlos AF et al. "β-Glucan successfully stimulated the immune system in different jawed vertebrate species". Comparative Immunology, Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Volume 62, February 2019, Pages 1-6.
- Garcia-Valtanen p et al. "Evaluation of trained immunity by β-1, 3 (D)-glucan on murine monocytes in vitro and duration of response in vivo." Immunology and Cell Biology (2017) 95, 601–610; DOI: 10.1038/icb.2017.13.
- Paris S et al. "β-Glucan-Induced Trained Immunity in Dogs." Front. Immunol. 09 October 2020. 11:566893. DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.566893.
- Byrne K et al. "Differential induction of innate memory in porcine monocytes by b-glucan or bacillus Calmette-Guerin." Innate Immunity. 0(0) 1–13. 2020. DOI: 10.1177/1753425920951607.
- Petit J et al. "Long-lived effects of administering b-glucans: Indications for trained immunity in fish." Developmental and Comparative Immunology 64 (2016) 93e102. 2016. DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dci.2016.03.003.
- Kwanghook K et al. "Algae-derived β-glucan enhanced gut health and immune responses of weaned pigs experimentally infected with a pathogenic E. coli." Animal Feed Science and Technology, Volume 248, February 2019.
- Abraham A et al. "A novel vaccine platform using glucan particles for induction of protective responses against Francisella tularensis and other pathogens." Clinical and Experimental Immunology, 198: 143–152. 2019. DOI: 10.1111/cei.13356.