Immunity
by Dr Jenna
The immune system is a very complicated and adaptable system, to call it a system is really comparing it to the circulatory system or respiratory system but the immune system has many parts and functions. The immune systems function is easy - keep the bad out and the good in. This is a little harder to do in humans who do all sorts of things to override or undermine this system. We often do not appreciate how our body handles foreign substances, as the methods of getting rid of them can get in the way of our day to day lives, we really should appreciate all the effort it goes through to keep us healthy.
The immune system has a whole line of defence to keep things from getting into our system, our skin is one of those things it keeps things on the outside and is also covered with bacteria. Anyone who has had a child with school sores knows what happens when the skins barrier function gets breeched, our first line of defence is gone and infection ensues. If we do not treat this then it can become serious and even get into our blood stream. Our nose is also a big part of our defence with hairs and cells catching bugs or pathogens, we produce mucous to carry those bugs out and sneeze to ensure the process is affective. Our tonsils and adenoids are part of our defence system also catching bugs and holding them from getting further into our system.
The gut has its own immune defences, as we take things into the body through the gut, we have enzymes and acid in the stomach to kill bugs and digest pathogens. We also have bacteria in the gut that fight off bad bacteria. We produce mucous in the gut to pass the pathogens through with and our gut reacts to pathogens by creating diarrhea and vomiting to get rid of them quickly. The pH levels of our body helps to fight infections, I already mentioned the acid environment in the stomach but there is an acid environment in the bladder and which also prevents bugs from growing there. Our body also makes us urinate frequently to flush out any bugs from the bladder.
If all the cilia, mucous, acid and expectoration fail then the second line defence kicks in and this is when our body activates our white blood cells and lymph system. The white blood cells try and engulf the pathogen to remove it from the system and the lymph system also tries to carry the bad things out. Our body heats up and produces a fever to kill the bugs, as many of them cannot live in a hot environment, a fever can be a good thing up until a point. The immune system also produces antibodies against what it sees the antibodies help to fight the invader and is also around to fight the same invader if it dares to come back again. This is how immunisations work, by introducing a non-infectious dosage of a bug so our body will produce antibodies and the next time we see that bug we can fight it off. I haven’t even gotten into the cytokines, complement cells, killer cells and many other responses the body has to invasion.
The immune system is also responsible for autoimmune diseases and these come about because our body mistakes something that is part of the body as foreign. This can happen for a variety of reasons but there is no one reason that starts off autoimmune processes, they do tend to run in families but also can occur spontaneously. The most common and growing autoimmune disease is Hashimotos Thyroiditis, where the body attacks the thyroid gland eventually causing low thyroid, Rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus and Sjogren’s syndrome are other varieties of autoimmune disease. Type 1 diabetes is also an autoimmune disease were the body kills the cells that make insulin, cancer can also be seen as a problem in the immune system as the body does not kill the rouge cells that are over producing and eventually cause cancer. Modern medicine has treatments for many of these diseases but they usually involve turning off the over responsive immune system. Other modalities such as Chinese medicine, naturopathy, Bowen and kinesiology have ways of getting at the underlying problem and stopping the madness. Come to our immunity open day to see how these modalities could help you.
