# How 'boosting' your immune system increases inflammation and 4 ways to support balance instead | Dr Giulia Enders

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/zoe-science-nutrition-5045246/how-boosting-your-immune-system-increases-inflammation-and-4-ways-to-support-balance-instead-dr-giulia-enders
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/zoe-science-nutrition-5045246/how-boosting-your-immune-system-increases-inflammation-and-4-ways-to-support-balance-instead-dr-giulia-enders.md
Podcast: [ZOE Science & Nutrition](https://stenobird.com/podcast/zoe-science-nutrition-5045246)
Published: 2026-05-07T11:06:00+00:00
Episode link: https://zoe.com?utm_medium=zoe_podcast&utm_source=audio&utm_campaign=BAU
Audio file: https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/ZOELIMITED7494058628.mp3?updated=1778047725
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/zoe-science-nutrition-5045246/episodes/how-boosting-your-immune-system-increases-inflammation-and-4-ways-to-support-balance-instead-dr-giulia-enders
Duration seconds: 3659

## Resource

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? 🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30 Get our brand-new app and Gut Health Test designed by world-leading gut health and nutrition scientists to build healthy eating habits 👉 Join ZOE Follow ZOE on Instagram. 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…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/zoe-science-nutrition-5045246/episodes/how-boosting-your-immune-system-increases-inflammation-and-4-ways-to-support-balance-instead-dr-giulia-enders/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/zoe-science-nutrition-5045246/how-boosting-your-immune-system-increases-inflammation-and-4-ways-to-support-balance-instead-dr-giulia-enders.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.