By Vaishnavi Shukla

Immunity is the ability of the body to resist infections or disease. There are many cells, tissues and organs of our body that play a role in maintaining immunity and keeping infections away. If the body’s immune system is strong, the body can fight back the harmful organisms or infections.

In cancer, throughout the diagnosis and treatment and even a little while after that, the immunity of the person is affected. Our immune system is not able to detect cancer cells as these cells are our own body cells (damaged). During treatment, normal body cells are also killed along with the cancer cells. It can take about one month to recover from the effects of cancer treatment and to re-build the immune system. Cancer weakens the immune system because it has a way of spreading into the organs that build it. 

It takes time for our body to build a whole new set of cells and till then, the immune power of the body is highly reduced. Thus, cancer patients are more prone to infections. Care must be taken to improve their immunity from the outside as well as the inside. 

The basic thing to do to avoid infections is to maintain food hygiene. EATING is important, but how and what you eat makes a lot of difference.

Remember these things:

• Wash fruits and vegetables properly with clean water.
• Drink only boiled cooled water.
• Maintain hygiene of the utensils used to cook food.
• Eat freshly prepared food and avoid eating leftovers.
• Eat fruits without the peel.
• Buy fresh fruits and vegetables from the market.
• Eat what is seasonal and easily available than something exotic. 
• Store foods properly.
• Keep cooked foods covered at all times.
• Eat more cooked foods than raw.
• Eat fruits with thick skin.
• Have small, frequent energy and nutrient dense meals.
• Avoid foods with strong odours. 
• Focus more on plant based diet than animal based one.
• Eat home cooked food at all times. 

This was about improving the immunity from the outside. However, the main approach is to improve the immunity from the inside. This includes what you actually eat. Apart from the many medications that the cancer patient is taking, food plays an important role in building up the strength of the body to fight the infections. That’s correct. EATING is important even though you don’t feel like. Food has the power to heal and choosing the right ones will help not only to fight back the infections, but also to improve the quality of life. 

What do you need?

What you need is a new plate with lots of different foods to choose from. To build immunity, certain foods have got the double power. The main role is played by antioxidants. These are substances which help to fight against free radicals and chemicals which are harmful to our body. Certain nutrients are full of these antioxidant properties. These nutrients include vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin A, zinc, selenium and copper. The foods are listed below and all are easily available and cost-friendly. 

Lemon	Cinnamon	Turmeric	Curry leaves
Garlic	Ghee	Almonds	Ginger
Saffron	Butter	Cloves	Flaxseed
Cumin seed	Mustard seed	Green chillies	Til seed
Walnut	Egg	Jowar	Bajra
Moong	Matki	Masoor dal	Rajma
Ragi	Soy	Amaranth	Coriander leaves
Onion	Tomato	Cabbage	Mint
Drumstick	Spinach	Brinjal	Carrot
Colocasia leaves	Methi leaves	Radish leaves	Peas
French beans	Cluster beans	Sweet potato	Ladies finger
Dill	Cauliflower	Parwar	Snakegourd
Muskmelon	Banana	Jackfruit	Musambi
Papaya	Apple	Orange	Pomegranate
Pineapple	Mango	Guava	Mushroom

Apart from diet, there are many other aspects of improving immunity. The first one is stress management. Research has proven that stress weakens the immune system. This can be cancer induced stress that the patient is undergoing. Another important factor that makes the immune system strong is physical activity. Though the cancer patient may experience fatigue and general body weakness, it is important that some kind of physical activity is practiced on a daily basis. Apart from these, it goes without saying that smoking and alcoholism should be stopped completely. 

How big or small the step you take is not important, the main thing is to take that step. Whether it is diet, stress or physical activity; do it even though it is difficult. Eat, sleep and walk. These are the three pillars for building the immune system that has been affected due to the disease.