Understanding the immune system has become a critical topic in these days of the Covid 19 Pandemic. You hear so many different statements, and I see people are insecure and have no idea how our immune system works. Now, I understand that someone who is not trained in medicine will know how our body functions and defends us against viruses, bacteria, fungi, and all kinds of infections. It is incredible to see how we are created, and every part fits together.
We have our soldiers and military defense in our bodies. Amazing!
I will describe to you how your little army is protecting you.
Eating well, living a healthy lifestyle is a must to keep our soldiers strong.
What is the Immune system?
The immune system is a network of biological processes that protects an organism against disease. ( Wikipedia)
The fantastic thing is that nearly all organisms have some immune system. Many species have two major subsystems of the immune system, the innate immune system and the adaptive immune system.
The first one includes the external barriers and is the defense against pathogens, where the skin, mucous membranes of the throat, and gut belong to. The immune system detects and responds to viruses, parasites, cancer cells, and objects like splinters.
The adaptive immune system responds; for example, if we contact a pathogen, we build antibodies against them. You see this happening with vaccination. This is the response of our body against the vaccination. By doing so, we build up immunity. Amazing defense system.
The immune system has different cells, like Killer T cells, Helper T cells, and Gamma delta T cells. The first one kills cells infected by pathogens or not working correctly.
Helper T cells control the immune response and direct other cells to kill pathogens. They are not cytotoxic active.
Gamma delta T cells possess a T cell receptor and are in a high amount present in the gut mucosa.
How does the Immune System work?
The immune system is built up by soldiers standing at the front to detect and fight the enemy and respond.
There are our soldiers, like the white blood cells( Leukocytes), including Phagocytes and Lymphocytes. Macrocytes, neutrophils, and dendritic cells belong to the phagocytes that identify and eliminate pathogens by attacking or swallowing up microorganisms.
Phagocytosis performed by the phagocytes is an essential task by submerging pathogens or particles. They eliminate the enemy by eating them.
Seeing such a process happening in the video above is fantastic to see phagocytes performing their tasks.
There are groups, like the macrophages and neutrophils, which travel through the blood hunting invaders.
Dendritic cells are positioned in the tissue to contact the external environment, located in the skin, nose, lungs, stomach, and gut.
Lymphocytes are the Natural killer cells that destroy cancer cells or virus-infected cells by attacking the host cells.
The first response that happens when a pathogen gets in is inflammation.
We get infected, and our body responds with inflammation, showing symptoms like redness, swelling, heat, and pain. Sometimes we develop fever, also a symptom by the body to get rid of the invaders.
If you have cut yourself in your finger, you get all these signs of redness, swelling, bleeding, and pain due to our immune system’s reaction to healing the wound and get rid of pathogens. It is primarily a local reaction, and the damage is covered and healed again within some days.
Foods to boost our immune system
Now you know we have our military defense system, which helps us to stay healthy. Our task is to feed our soldiers and keep them strong. If your defense system is weak, you will be weak. Every pathogen will be able to overcome you. You are prone to all kinds of chronic diseases and infections which have a difficult time healing.
Our immune system has so much to do that it will become weaker. Understanding the immune system means leading a healthy lifestyle with fresh, organic food, the proper diet, and moving our body. We need to eat lots of organic vegetables and fruits, seeds, healthy protein, and fats.
Healthy fats help our hormone levels balanced, supporting our cells to be alert for the right signals. Everything goes smoothly if you live a naturally healthy lifestyle.
By consuming lots of fresh juices and green powders, you help your immune system to recover every day; dead and damaged cells are quickly sorted out and replaced.
We need to consume healthy proteins to renew our cells. A healthy body has a healthy brain and a healthy defense system. But we need to finish the right food.
Walking daily for a half-hour will give you a boost. Your body needs oxygen for its cells. When you move, you breathe more deeply, your lymphatic system will flow and reach your cells.
Likewise, the oxygen and nutrients in your blood system will reach the cells and feed them, clearing out the rubbish. It is a natural miracle of how everything works together.
How do Autoimmune diseases start?
Autoimmune diseases are on the rise. So many people have chronic inflammation in their bodies. Our diet certainly doesn’t help. We move less! Many people are lonely, have financial distress because of having huge debts or have no jobs to support themselves.
Our environment is polluted! Our bodies have a stressful time getting rid of all the waste in our system, pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, plastics, etc. News is primarily negative and impact our minds.
This stress has such a toll on our immune system that it begins to react strangely attacking its tissue and organs till it has destroyed itself, and so the body.
How does this happen?
First, autoimmunity is the immune response of the body against its healthy tissue and cells. It can be everywhere in the body. This is called autoimmune disease. There has been a thesis that autoimmunity is a self-defense mechanism of our body to survive.
It does not lose the ability to distinguish between its cells and invaders.
It might be necessary to keep up the blood chemistry in homeostasis and allowing a rapid response in the early stages of an infection. The problem appears when the body doesn’t stop attacking its cells, and autoimmunity becomes chronic.
We know many diseases, like celiac disease, Inflammed bowel system, diabetes mellitus type 1, systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjogren’s syndrome, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Graves disease, Addison’s disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, etc.
They are often treated with steroids, but I know from my own experience and other’s testimonies that it is always better to change the lifestyle by adapting the diet and healing the body with fasting, and doing the colon cleansing body detox.
To approach the self-healing mechanism is the most critical step of the healing plan. Our bodies are strong! Very important is supporting the body with whole supplements after the colon is healed.
Final Thought
Understanding the immune system is vital for us. Without our immune system, we would be dead very soon. Every pathogen would have it easy to penetrate the body and make us ill. If we are healthy, our immune system works very well to delete invaders to stay healthy.
It is essential to eat a healthy diet, move our bodies, and keep stress in balance.
Please let us know what you think, and do you have experiences with an autoimmune disease? I would love to hear it.
To your health,
Sylvia
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Hi Sylvia,
Love the title of this article. I was so intrigued by it – “The Military”, but you are very correct to use this analogy as our immune system is really our very own soldiers always on guard to defend the body from attack.
If we don’t help these soldiers by providing them with the right armour – healthy diet eliminate stress and actively exercise, these soldiers really will not last long in any battle! 🙂
Yes, I have to think about world war 1st, when the Russian soldiers were so badly dressed that they suffered hunger and cold while trying to defeat the enemy. The Russian army had suffered such a loss due to the terrible equipment they had. If we don’t strengthen our inner military, we will suffer the loss of cells, tissue, or organs. It is a great analogy to remember. 🙂
It’s a real shame that we don’t teach our kids about our immune system in schools. And I mean, really teach. Teach them how to protect it, how to straighten it and why it’s so important. If more kids would know these things then next generations would be in much better shape to take on any pandemic. When are we going to teach kids things that are very important for life and for our very survival?
Thank you very much, Amelia! You are so right! This is so important, but it doesn’t earn the responsible people money. It is better to keep them all stupid, so Big Pharma and other business people can earn quite a good amount of money, which is the only thing that counts to them. I would love that our kids learn when a vegetable grows, in what season. Many mothers buy a plastic bag of already cut lettuce in the supermarket, tomatoes in the winter. It isn’t very good! Thank you so much for your great comment. You have me going on this.:)
Excellent article, Sylvia! As someone who takes both my and my disabled mother’s health very seriously, it’s crucial for us to understand our immune systems and work to build them up as much as possible. I have recently decided to become a vegan, and i am working hard to make sure that my mother and I eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, drink plenty of water, get plenty of exercise, eliminate stress factors, get plenty of rest, as well as take daily vitamins to boost our immune systems. We’re both noticing the difference-we have much more energy, we sleep much better at night, and we get sick much less often (when we do get sick, we get over our illnesses much quicker now). If we take care of our immune systems, our immune systems will take care of us! God bless you!
Hello, Thank you very much for your comment! You do it right! Lots of vegetables and fruits are very well chosen. You could try to juice vegetables and fruits together with flaxseed and green juice powders. You will feel such a difference. Maybe you would like to read my blogs about juicing and flaxseed.
https://yourworldinbalance.com/the-health-benefits-of-flaxseed/
https://yourworldinbalance.com/balance-your-world-healing-through-juicing/
That video you share about the immune cells eating bacteria was very nice. I can see how our immune cells attack bacteria as soon as they spot it. It’s so good to know our bodies have the capability to battle so many infections. I wonder why we need so many pills when it looks like our bodies could do away with most infections and disease? I understand that in some cases, we do need help from pills, but in far less cases than we think, no?
Thank you very much for your comment, Eric! You are absolutely right! It is more about making the pharmacy rich. People need to understand that they need to take responsibility for their own lifestyle. That is the most important. If people think they could eat everything and need some medication to get better, they will always be depending on this system. Of course, there are infections and inflammation where we need antibiotics, but not how we use them now.
Ever since this pandemic started I have started taking my health a lot more seriously. I’ve always said I would eat better, walk more or sleep at a better time for me. And I always postponed it. Now anymore. My health is too important.
Hi Nathaniel! Thank you for your comment! I am pleased to hear that you take responsibility for your health! Keep on doing it!:)