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How to boost your immune system
Learn how to use the most powerful tool to fend off illness and stay healthy - it's free and it's the body's best defense against disease - your immune system! This extract is taken from The Immune Advantage - How To Boost Your Immune System by Ellen Mazo, Dr Keith Berndtson and the Editors of Prevention Health Books
Have you ever known a family that has one member who catches everything going around, while her siblings seldom have even a cold? This occurs despite the fact that they share bedrooms, eat the same food and go to the same school. Long after she's become an adult, this person still has many more illnesses than her brothers and sisters or anyone else. Why is it that some people are more susceptible to the germs that assault us every day?
We all cut our hands on sharp objects, kiss people who are harbouring a flu virus, and touch surfaces that are covered with microbes. Yet, only some of us will develop an infection, come down with the flu, or be devastated by a bout of whatever is going around.
To guard us against these hazards, our body has a complex and sophisticated defence organisation: the immune system. Like any defence force, it is made up of different parts (like battalions) that stimulate each other, and work together, although each one has its own special field of activity.
If they are functioning as they should, these defences protect us against the daily bombardment of infectious micro-organisms; attacks that we usually do not even notice because our immune systems are so automatic and effective.
Our defence systems
The body's first line of defence is the innate system - the protections we are born with. They include our skin, mucous membranes, inflammatory response and secretions that contain toxic chemicals to destroy invading micro organisms. Bacteria and viruses are the most common invaders of this system.
The adaptive immune system is the body's second line of defence. It responds to an invasion of microbes by transforming whole classes of white blood cells into fighting cells, armed to attack specific invading micro organisms. This part of the immune system adapts its response to a particular invader. The process is complex, so adaptive immunity usually takes more time - days or weeks - to get under way.
Have you ever known a family that has one member who catches everything going around, while her siblings seldom have even a cold? This occurs despite the fact that they share bedrooms, eat the same food and go to the same school. Long after she's become an adult, this person still has many more illnesses than her brothers and sisters or anyone else. Why is it that some people are more susceptible to the germs that assault us every day?
We all cut our hands on sharp objects, kiss people who are harbouring a flu virus, and touch surfaces that are covered with microbes. Yet, only some of us will develop an infection, come down with the flu, or be devastated by a bout of whatever is going around.
To guard us against these hazards, our body has a complex and sophisticated defence organisation: the immune system. Like any defence force, it is made up of different parts (like battalions) that stimulate each other, and work together, although each one has its own special field of activity.
If they are functioning as they should, these defences protect us against the daily bombardment of infectious micro-organisms; attacks that we usually do not even notice because our immune systems are so automatic and effective.
Our defence systems
The body's first line of defence is the innate system - the protections we are born with. They include our skin, mucous membranes, inflammatory response and secretions that contain toxic chemicals to destroy invading micro organisms. Bacteria and viruses are the most common invaders of this system.
The adaptive immune system is the body's second line of defence. It responds to an invasion of microbes by transforming whole classes of white blood cells into fighting cells, armed to attack specific invading micro organisms. This part of the immune system adapts its response to a particular invader. The process is complex, so adaptive immunity usually takes more time - days or weeks - to get under way.
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iVillage Ltd is a UK company registered in England & Wales (3837269) at 80-110 New Oxford Street, London WC1 1HB