Lymphatic System: The back bone of Immunity.

One thing that is happening inside the body, without we realizing, that our cells are fighting the invaders & pathogens all the time. We mostly give so much importance to what we eat, how much we sleep, how we breathe…. But, one very important thing in this entire process is our immune system, the disease fighting ability of our body……which is continuously working for us in the background. This is the system that determines how strong we are from within, to fight any inflammation (or infection) that can possibly happen to our body.

Now we have all understood the importance of immune system, as this has caught a lot of attention during this COVID19 scenario by lot of people. So, we all need to know the various components of immune system so as to work towards the taking care of it.

We all know about Circulatory system that regulates the blood flow inside our body. But there is also another parallel circulatory system existing within the body, which carry non-blood fluids called Lymphatic fluids. This circulatory system, also called as Lymphatic system consists of Lymph nodes, present all across our body (refer the diagram below), that are the centers where all the fighting happens between the invaders & our army of soldiers (i.e the WBC) & the fluid, called lymphatic fluid, that is circulating all along the body 24X7, carrying all the unwanted debris from our cells.

The entire Lymphatic system, along with organs like tonsils, thymus gland, spleen & appendix … work together to build our immunity.

But, there is one major difference between the Blood circulatory system (also called cardio vascular system), and the Lymphatic circulatory system. The Cardio vascular system is regulated by a pump, which is our Heart, that keeps pumping the blood to build the pressure and keep the blood flow intact all across the arteries. But the Lymphatic system, does not have a separate pump, which can give pressure for the fluid to go around the body. 

This is where our movement is so important. MOVEMENT IS MEDICINE. When we move and engage our muscles, they act like pump for the lymphatic fluid to flow all around the body. So all the movements….. Exercises we should do in our daily life, should actually engage most of our major muscles all across the body, to activate and engage all different pumps located at all the lymphatic nodes throughout our body, to enable the lymphatic fluid to flowing through.

Below are the major factors contributing to Lymphatic Stagnancy?

• Not exercising at all, or not engaging all the muscles of the body, is the major contributor of stagnancy. Hence, we shall look into this in more details below.
• Stress is another major contributor leads to structural misalignment in neck, pinching the lymph vessel.
• Intestinal problems, such as chronic constipation affects the inner lining of the colon lymphatic vessels.
• Dietary habits like eating mucous producing food like diary Milk, fatty food (made with hydrogenated oil) & highly processed industrial foods.
• Structural misalignment in the neck & shoulder area.
• Certain Allopathic Medications.
• Chronic condition of diabetes & arthritis.
• Surgeries (like Bariatric procedures) , where there is need to remove lymph nodes.
• Hormonal Imbalance.
• Infections.
• Very tight fitting Clothes such as exercise gears.

Most useful Exercises for Diabetes(T2) people.

Almost 90% of Diabetes people in India & worldwide, has this common belief that daily walking is the best exercise for them. Even Diabetes doctors around the world recommend their patients for a regular walk for a minimum of 45 minutes and practice some yogasanas & practice some Pranayama. While they are all good, have their own benefits, BUT , if you are talking of DIABETES REVERSAL with stoppage of medicine, stoppage of insulin, then it is just not be enough to walk , doing yogasana & Pranayama.

The reality is, sugar drops when you go against gravity. And therefore, the best exercise for diabetes people should be the Anti-gravity exercises. Let us take a deeper look at the importance of anti-gravity exercise for diabetics in particular.

To understand all this more clearly, one should know the difference between exercise and physical activity. There is always deep confusion between these two terms. Many people believe that if they are busy throughout the day and engage in a lot of physical movement, they do not need to exercise. We should know that physical activity includes all body movements that increase energy. All that you are doing day-to-day is not exercise because that is simple physical activity for which your body is programmed and used to.

Exercise is a planned structured physical activity with a certain goal and intention. For example, aerobic exercise, resistance training or combined aerobic and resistance training.

What is anti-gravity Exercises?

Anti-gravity is largely aerobic and slightly anaerobic exercise which involves repeated and continuous movement of large muscle groups. The main difference between walking versus going against gravity during stair climbing is the need for glucose increase at a faster pace hence blood glucose gets pulled into the muscle cells (at times even without the need for insulin).

When one goes against gravity, muscles want more glucose at that time, so they will start pulling glucose from the blood. During anti-gravity exercises, you are using major muscle groups and may result in a drop in your sugar levels by 30-50-80 points.

The basic premise of the anti-gravity is to open up the receptor locks, move the blood glucose into the cells and prevent this excess blood glucose from getting converted into fats.

The more your glucose will rise, the more insulin levels will rise. The more insulin, the more it will hold your fats and water and this will end up in obesity.

So you need to control sugar to control your insulin. If you are able to control insulin, you will be able to balance the fats, inflammation and water in the body.

You have to ensure that your blood sugar does not remain more than 180. You need to bring your PP sugars below 180 and fasting sugars below 140.

The best time to do anti-gravity is 1 hour 45 minutes after meals and it has to be done 3 times a day. Doing staircase 3 times a day for 5-10 minutes each is very important in the adjustment phase.

There are 3 options for doing anti-gravity exercises:

1. The easiest way is staircase climbing. You can start with 50 steps initially, slowly going to 100 steps and then go up to 300 steps. However, do not do stair climbing if you have knee pain or started having knee pain, if the pumping of your heart is 30-35% less or if your BP shoots up.

2. Nitric oxide dump: Those who have knee pain, they can opt for nitric oxide dump. It is a very powerful exercise in which we do free body squats, alternating arm raise, non-jumping jacks, shoulder presses with lighter dumbbells.

3. For those who are unable to do staircase climbing and nitric oxide dump, you can lie down and move your hands and legs in the air. Do it for 1-2 minutes. Initially do it without any weights, later may add ankle weights as strength & stamina increases?

Reversal of diabetes does not happen only with walking, one needs to do something more. Your strength should improve and to improve your strength, you need to work against gravity. Besides sugars coming down, anti-gravity has the following benefits too. Improve Lymphatic Fluid circulation & Lymphatic node function, hence Increases immune function and cardiac output.

In diabetes type 1 it increases cardio-respiratory fitness, decreases insulin resistance and improves lipid levels with endothelial function.

In diabetes type 2, it reduces sugars, HbA1c, triglycerides and insulin resistance, Improves muscle strength, Promotes fat / weight loss.