By Ben Smyth, Naturopath

As winter takes hold, you need to protect yourself from ills and chills by bolstering your immunity. There are a variety of sensible practices to check off to ensure you keep healthy and resilient.

Your immune system is continuously working hard to protect your body from invaders during winter with the prevalence of bugs in the environment. Your immune system itself faces the same challenges as other body systems, and it too needs protection from oxidative stress and free radical damage to do its job well.

Astaxanthin is a great all-round antioxidant which has beneficial effects on many systems of your body including your heart, eyes, joints, skin, and brain. Astaxanthin is becoming known as one of the most powerful antioxidants around, and with all its benefits, it is a great option for this time of the year to really boost the antioxidant activity within your body for immune protection.

Not all astaxanthin supplements are created equally, so make sure you know the source and the method of production. There are synthetically-made astaxanthin supplements on the market which are made from petrochemicals – these are often given to farmed fish to improve their colour.

Lighthouse Natural Astaxanthin 6mg is a high-strength, New Zealand-made, superior-quality astaxanthin supplement that is cultivated in Nelson. The algae are grown in a specialised photo-bioreactor system that allows precise control over the growing environment. This guarantees consistent, high-quality production of 100 percent astaxanthin and assures the highest grade possible. There is no exposure to contamination from the outside environment such as microbes and heavy metals.