Foods that can help to prevent swine flu

Given that we cannot store this nutrient in our bodies, ensuring that some vitamin C-rich foods are on the menu each day is important. This can be anything from peppers and spinach to citrus fruits, berries or frozen peas. Even canned fruit provides some, as do orange and grapefruit juices.

Other internal immune system bug-beaters include “T-cells”. The mineral zinc is crucial for the formation of these antibodies, with even a mild deficiency being linked to more frequent colds and flu. The good thing is that impaired immune responses can be restored to normal by having sufficient zinc in your diet.

You can find zinc in beef, eggs and seafood, especially crab, oysters and sardines. Wholegrain foods and pumpkin seeds are pretty good too, although zinc from these is less easily absorbed than the zinc in animal protein.

With around 40 per cent of women in the UK getting less iron in their diets than the recommended daily amount, this is the other mineral that could do with some special attention. Iron deficiency, with or without anaemia, leads to a wide range of defects in immune-system function, some of which could lay you more open to the swine flu virus.

Iron can be found in similar foods to those mentioned above as being good for zinc. However, if you know that you are not getting these regularly, then a daily multivitamin and mineral supplement containing 100 per cent of the recommended amount (14.8mg) is a sound immune-system booster.