SCI 120 Micronutrients and Immunity Discussion

Micronutrients and ImmunityIntroduction
There is a lot of information out there about nutrition and diet. Most of it deals
with weight loss, muscle gain, and boosting energy levels (see any Men’s Fitness or
Cosmopolitan cover ever). While many of those concepts deal with macronutrients
(carbohydrates, fats, and, proteins), there are a whole slew of micronutrients (think
vitamins and minerals) that your body cannot synthesize and needs to absorb from your
food. For this exercise we’re going to focus on micronutrients that are crucial for your
immune system.
You’re probably familiar with vitamin C; it is often referred to as the end-all be-all
for a healthy immune system. While it certainly helps, vitamin C isn’t the only player in
bolstering your immune system. There are several other micronutrients – vitamins A,
B6, B12, D, E, folate, iron, zinc, copper and selenium – that are essential for antibody
production. If you have watched the videos for this module, you know how important
those antibodies are. In this exercise we will be focusing on these 10 micronutrients.
Protocol
Part I – Tracking Your Diet
1. Go to cronometer.com and create an account. If you go straight to the website, the
account is free. You could also buy their app for $2.99 if you’d prefer.
2. Track what you eat for 4 days. These don’t have to be consecutive days, just five full
days. Input this information in your “Diary” (green arrow in image below) using the Add
Food (yellow arrow) function near the top of the page.
3. Using a Google Sheet, create a table with the following columns: Date, Vitamin A,
B6, B12, D, E, Folate, Iron, Zinc, Copper, and Selenium. Scroll down to the Vitamins
table (pink arrow) and enter the percent of recommended amount you consume of each
micronutrient for each day you tracked. Also in the Google Sheet, provide screen
shots of the Vitamins and Minerals tables from Cronometer Diary for each day.
The image below shows a single day’s-worth of data. Average your percentages for
each micronutrient. Then answer the questions below in the Google Sheet.
Part II – Analysis Questions (to be answered in the Google Sheet with your data)
1. Are there micronutrients in this set in which you are consistently deficient (below
100%)? If so, which ones?
2. Pick the micronutrient in which you are most deficient. What food or foods could you
incorporate into your diet that would help you attain that micronutrient? How much of
that food would you have to eat to get 100% of the recommended amount?
3. What micronutrient are you consistently getting the most of? Do some research and
figure out what specific process within antibody production your diet is helping the
most.