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Elderberry: A Tonic Food for Cold and Flu Season

6 min read time Dec 30, 2024

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Well, it is that time of year again.

We have begun a new year and have the opportunity for a fresh start to make quality changes, ditch those bad habits, and live a healthier lifestyle.

Last year, in 2024, Z Natural Foods created some incredible products and educational material to support your healthy aging goals.

If you haven’t read our year-in-review article, which provides you with our top 7 tips to have a happy and healthy 2025 and beyond, please go here:

How to set your natural food and wellness goals for the new year

We hope that in the year 2100, as you ride your spaceship to work drinking a cup of our mushroom coffee with some vitality creamer, you will look back and remember that Z Natural Foods got you there.

And this year, we have big plans to deliver evermore high quality foods to support excellent health.

We start this new year with a five-part series about foods and herbs that support and nourish a healthy immune system response in their own unique ways.

We will discuss each food and herb's;

nourishing properties,
potential mechanisms of action, and
the best way to use them.

Top 5 Foods and Herbs to Support a Healthy Immune System Response

In part one of this series, we discuss Elderberry.

Before we begin, it is essential to understand a few critical points about the medicinal qualities of food and plants;

The part of the plant used is vital when determining the action we seek from that plant.
Many medicinal plants have parts that can be used as individual entities for acute and chronic illness stages, especially when combined with other supportive herbs.
When both parts are combined and used as a whole herb, the same herb can take on a tonic role.
Sometimes, determining whether a substance is used as a medicinal or tonic is as simple as selecting the dosage and frequency.

The Cold and Flu Hero: Elderberry

Elderberries are considered one of the most popular tonic foods during the cold and flu season.

When you walk into a health food store, you see an entire section dedicated to all the various forms (powder, capsules, tinctures, syrups, and gummies) of elderberry products and a wide array of formulations that include elderberry as a primary ingredient.

If You Travel, Elderberry Might Be Your Best Defense

Elderberry has an awe-inspiring history and impressive nourishment profile (for example, containing around 50 milligrams of Vitamin C, 10 grams of fiber, and a wide array of phytochemicals per cup), and robust studies justify its use.

For example….

A study on elderberry's effects on colds in air travelers found:

Slightly more colds in the placebo group (17 vs. 12), but not statistically significant.
Placebo group had significantly longer colds (117 vs. 57 days, p = 0.02).
Placebo group experienced worse symptoms (average score 583 vs. 247, p = 0.05).

These results suggest elderberry may reduce cold duration and severity in air travelers.

Therefore, this data suggests a significant reduction in cold duration and severity in air travelers within the elderberry group.

Elderberries are extraordinary because, based on their mechanisms of action as an antiviral and immune stimulant, they can be paired with a wide range of food or medicinal formulas. They are also considered valuable tools in both Eastern and Western herbalism.

A rich history as a valuable tonic food

While not explicitly known as a top tonic food or herb, elderberry, aka Jie Gu Mu, has a valuable place in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Well known for entering the lung, kidney, and bladder meridians, elderberry is most often used to do the following;

Clears heat: According to TCM, heat describes a set of internal conditions that may manifest with symptoms like canker sores, nosebleeds, high blood pressure, and anxiety. However, there are two types of heat: Empty and Full. Empty heat is brought on by a Yin deficiency characterized by dryness. Full heat is Yang and active by nature. The person may feel or look hot and may have a fever.

Dispels wind: TCM believes wind is the spearhead of all illnesses because it serves as a vehicle that carries other undesirable influences into the body. In TCM, a cough is associated with other forms of illness. Coughs are associated with the element of wind. An individual can have a cough due to wind-cold or wind-heat. Coughs can develop from a yin deficiency, which means the body has too much heat.

Resolves dampness: Dampness is described as a feeling of heaviness, fullness, and sluggishness.

Tonifies the lungs

Expels phlegm: TCM believes that phlegm results from body fluid not being transported adequately by vital energy and accumulating in certain parts of the body.

Releases the exterior: This refers to promoting sweating in order to expel pathogens from superficial levels of the body. Exterior in TCM refers to the location between the muscle and surface of the skin and where your defensive Qi resides. This is the first level of defense against external pathogens.

Reduces inflammation: According to TCM, inflammation is a pattern or syndrome of too much fire or heat.

Elderberries are considered cooling and drying in TCM. They support the release of dampness and heat to help restore the tissue to a healthier state.

Furthermore, many Western herbalists and doctors use herbs like boneset, Echinacea, Yarrow, Ginger, Andrographis, and Elderberry as critical components of their cold and flu wellness protocol.

These herbs are used to create various protocols and blends based on dosage, time frame, part of the plants used, and stage of the ailment to support one or more aspects of the healing process of various pathogens.

Scientists Reveal How Elderberry Defends Against the Flu

The following was stated in a review discussing Black Elderberry's constituents and molecular mechanisms of action;

It is widely accepted that elderberries’ curative capacity is due to high amounts of polyphenolic compounds, primarily flavonols, phenolic acids, and anthocyanins.
The presence of polyphenols, which assure plants' defense against pathogenic microorganisms, can also explain the ability of black elderberry to suppress the activity of viruses and bacteria in the body and food.

The researchers also also stated;

Elderberry's defense against influenza likely works by boosting the immune system:

Increasing production of inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-8, TNF)
Stimulating macrophages (immune cells)
Reducing oxidative stress
Lowering inflammation

These actions may help the body fight off the virus more effectively.

Elderberry and the Cytokine Storm?

Finally, the connection between Elderberry and the Cytokine Storm seems to have a great misunderstanding.

In recent years, elderberry has been criticized by reductionist thinkers, who accuse this excellent tonic of causing a cytokine storm.

A cytokine storm or hypercytokinemia is a severe immune reaction in which the body releases too many cytokines into the blood too quickly. Having a large amount of them released into the body can be harmful. A cytokine storm can occur due to an infection, autoimmune condition, or other disease.

For clarity, cytokines are communication substances released by white blood cells. Some examples of cytokines are interleukins, which propagate all immune cells, and interferons, which stimulate infected cells to produce proteins that interfere with viral replication.

Studies show why the connection between elderberry and cytokine storms is untrue.

A study released in 2001 showed that an extract of elderberries could help prevent viral infection by stimulating cytokines in HEALTHY individuals. Nowhere in this study did it refer to or speak of Elderberry's connection to a cytokine storm.

Let Elderberry Support Your Healthy Immune System

In conclusion, Elderberry is a very versatile plant medicine with many powerful and effective attributes when used as a simple or individual tonic based on its various mechanisms of action.

As mentioned earlier, many other incredible herbs can support and modulate elderberry’s primary action when combined with it.

Therefore, due to its ability to target hosts and downregulate the inflammation response, this potent food can be used daily to nourish the immune system or to specifically target an acute response.

Its polyphenolic density may support an internal environment that keeps us strong and healthy.

For more information about our Organic Freeze Dried Elderberry Powder, go here: Organic Freeze Dried Elderberry Powder

For more information about our entire Fruit Powder collection, go here: Fruit Powders Category

For more information about other excellent products in our Cold & Flu collection, go here: Cold & Flu Collection

To review our entire Freeze Dried Foods collection, go here: Freeze Dried Foods Collection

Here is a little bit about the author of this article.

Michael Stuchiner is a Master Herbalist and proud graduate of The School of Natural Healing and has worked in different areas of this field for over 25 years. He is a retired elite-level powerlifter who competed for 27 years. As an avid international traveler, he is passionate about the use of medicinal and tonic herbs, as well as foods traditionally found in local markets in the 35 countries he has visited. Michael brings you his years of experience as a Master Herbalist, traveler, and athlete through the hundreds of articles he has written and his YouTube channel (A Master Herbalist Perspective). He is considered a true educator in this field.