How 'boosting' your immune system increases inflammation and 4 ways to support balance instead | Dr Giulia Enders
ZOE Science & Nutrition
Painkillers and balancing relief with immune function
Giulia says paracetamol or ibuprofen can be chosen pragmatically when sleep or function require symptom relief.
What if boosting your immune system is the wrong goal?
Today, Dr Giulia Enders explains how boosting immunity may increase inflammation and why your symptoms are often part of your body’s defence. Your immune system is not failing when you feel sick. It is trying to protect you. So what should you focus on instead?
That’s the idea at the very heart of Giulia’s new book, Organ Speak. Giulia is a gastroenterologist and author whose previous book, Gut, sold eight million copies and helped convince the world that gut health was worth taking seriously.
She explains how the immune system really works and why symptoms like a runny nose, cough, or fever come from your body, not the infection itself. You’ll learn how sugar may push the immune system toward inflammation, how stress can weaken it, and why sleep is key for producing immune cells. This episode also explores how exercise helps regulate your immune response. The core idea is simple: health is not about making your immune system stronger. It is about keeping it balanced.
By the end of this episode, you will have practical ways to support that balance and habits to help your immune system respond in the right way.
If the sneezing, runny nose, fever - all of it - are actually the whole point, how much energy should you spend in suppressing them?
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Timecodes
00:00 Intro
02:45 Why being sick feels like failure
04:30 The problem with only treating the gut
07:16 Why your body is not broken
10:25 When your immune system gets overprotective
13:28 The virus may not cause your symptoms
15:36 Should you stop cold symptoms?
16:40 When diarrhoea medicine can backfire
18:05 Should you take painkillers when sick?
18:52 Why immunity is not a war
20:46 The invisible microbe cloak protecting you
22:49 How your body clears bacteria from skin
24:10 Your microbiome is part of immunity
26:58 Is your immune system like AI?
28:00 Why boosting immunity can go wrong
30:36 Are immune supplements worth taking?
31:45 How stress weakens your gut barrier
34:25 The one-minute breathing reset
37:48 Why sleep builds immune cells
39:27 The most important half of sleep
44:16 Do naps help your immune system?
46:40 What to eat for immune balance
48:00 How exercise moves immune cells
49:10 Why exercise when sick can be risky
54:26 Strength vs cardio for immunity
56:00 The immune system takeaway everyone needs
📚Books by our ZOE Scientists
Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati
Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector
Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector
Free resources from ZOE
The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra
Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint
How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health
Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition
Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks
Mentioned in today's episode
Organ Speak: What it really means to listen to our bodies by Giulia Enders
Association of Stress-Related Disorders With Autoimmune Disease, JAMA (2018)
Sugar-sweetened soda consumption and risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, AJCN (2014)
Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.
Episode transcripts are available here.
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