Immune System

WHAT I DO IN YOUR BODY...

It can be difficult to find your IMMUNE SYSTEM, because the Immune System is not any one organ or set of tissues. This is your POLICE FORCE!

The immune system is all over the body, and since its function is to protect, many other organs can be considered to be "on loan" to the police force of the body.

You're much more likely to notice the immune system when it FAILS, rather than when it's doing its job. So what IS its job? The immune system is basically there to identify self from non-self, and then to act accordingly. In other words, some immune system cells float around identifying things, and making determinations such as this belongs - leave it alone; this doesn't - kill it.

When the immune system goes haywire, it starts attacking cells that are not bad guys, that DO belong. This is the picture of an AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE. Ailments such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus and AIDS are autoimmune diseases.

Usually what happens when this system fails is that it just gets overwhelmed by sheer numbers of bad guys. We don't help matters when we do things that overwork and compromise our immune systems.

What two things are the worst things we do to ourselves? STRESS and ANTIBIOTICS!

It's been shown that stress dramatically reduces the body's ability to fight disease. In a study done at West Point Military Academy, they proved that the stress of impending finals significantly compromised the immune systems of the cadets involved in the study.

You always have the bad guys with you, bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungus and normally your immune system does its job and you never knew anything happened. But let some stress creep in and BINGO, you're sick. That's why you get sick at Christmas, before the wedding, on vacation. And antibiotics? They kill EVERYTHING! Good guys along with the bad guys. A lot of those good guys you need, they help fight the bad guys. When you kill them off too, you lower your immunity. The main target of antibiotics is the friendly flora in the digestive tract. This allows yeast (Candida albicans) to proliferate. This yeast produces a toxin that weakens the immune system.

The Lymphatic system is part of the Immune system. It's also part of the Circulatory system. The lymph system is a series of vessels much like the blood vessels, but these vessels pick up and carry fluid and waste instead of blood. The fluid these vessels carry is also called "lymph" and it's main job is to store white blood cells, the cells that do most of the fighting.