Mucus: Understanding Your Ally in Battling Illness

Lifestyle choices can influence how well our body makes mucin, lowering our risk of disease and illness.

Nurturing the microbes that help our gut produce mucin can go a long way in boosting immunity. Shutterstock

Imagine trying to navigate your way across 150 football fields filled with waist-high gel to reach the end zone and score a touchdown.

That’s the analogy gastroenterologist Dr. Robynne Chutkan uses to describe the defenses a virus must overcome to infect us. The gel represents the mucus layer of the gut and lungs—5,000 times the diameter of a virus, she said.