Making the other aspect of immunity – the adaptive immune system – generally more active could also be extremely unpleasant. For example, allergies occur when overzealous immune cells learn to treat innocuous foreign bodies, such as pollen, as though they are harmful. Each time they find the offending substance, they switch on the innate immune response too – cue lots of sneezing, itchy eyes and general fatigue. Again, this is probably not what the people championing these remedies have in mind. But let’s give those saying you can “boost” your immune system the benefit of the doubt and assume they mean that certain products can improve the immune response in a useful way – rather than literally “boost” it.Many multivitamins claim to provide “immune support” or to help “maintain healthy immune function”. But as BBC Future reported in 2016, vitamin supplements generally don’t work in already healthy people – and some may even be harmful.
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