This time of year, most people, especially parents are trying to figure out how they can optimize their and their family’s immune health. There are many recommendations that can help (see our posts in Immune Health), but most people don’t understand how the immune system functions and therefore, why the things we recommend provide the support that they do. This 4 part series will highlight what the immune system is/does, how it works, what happens if it doesn’t and how you can support optimal immune health.
One System, Two Parts
Most people think of the immune system as this amorphous entity that fights off the ‘bad guys’ that try and make us sick. This can be a useful way to think about it, but the fact is that the immune system really consists of just two parts: the innate system and the adaptive system. Simply put, the innate system is our general front line fighter – it is our first line of defense and it goes after anything and everything foreign that could harm us. Like many things that come out swinging, it doesn’t last long. If a threat outlasts the innate immune system, the adaptive immune system takes over.
The adaptive system gets its strength from previous exposures to infectious agents and offers long-term protection. It’s like the finely trained reinforcements – it ‘remembers’ the previous encounters with infective agents and is therefore ready to quickly make specific antibodies against them. This is why being exposed to various infectious agents over our lifetime can be very good for us; without that exposure, our immune systems cannot build our immunity and fend off the next round of colds/flus.
Since the innate immune system is our first line of defense, many of the ways to ‘boost’ the immune system target ways to assist with your innate immunity.
Being Innately Healthy
The first line of defense for the body is its protective barriers, such as the skin and mucosal membranes. Most infectious agents enter the body via the epithelial surfaces of either the upper respiratory, digestive or genito-urinary tract. This is why methods such as hand washing, covering your mouth when you sneeze/cough and not rubbing your eyes can be effective measures to stay healthy – all of them minimize the exposure your mucosal membranes receive from infectious agents. However, the main piece of the puzzle that is most often overlooked is the immune-importance of the gastrointestinal tract. What’s that you say – my GUT is important to my immune function??! It is, and it’s more important than you think – stay tuned!