how to improve immune system
Build a Healthy immune system
With all these colds and Covid-19 going around how are we supposed to keep our families, as well as ourselves, safe and healthy? To help prevent colds and disease we all need to have a healthy immune system. Unfortunately, there are many factors that weaken our body's defense system every day.
- Stress - Both physical and emotional stress can weaken your immune system.
- Exposure to toxins - Chemical, radiation, and smoke exposure damage your body's protection system.
- Poor diet - A lack of vitamins and minerals can interfere with your body being able to fight off illnesses and diseases. Eating a lot of sugar and chemicals are also weakening.
- Lack of sleep - When your body doesn't get the rest it needs it doesn't get time to rebuild and recharge.
- Aging - As you get older your body's ability to fight diseases gets weaker.
- Sugar and alcohol - An excess of sugar or alcohol can reduce your white blood cells' ability to kill germs.
All these factors play a role with altering the way your body is made to protect you. However, what can we do to strengthen it again? Are there ways to repair and strengthen it? Well, in addition to trying to negate the things that weaken our system, here are some other things you can do to help.
- Avoid excessive sugar - Try to limit your sugar and alcohol intake.
- Good Diet - Eat a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, low fat protein
- Water/Hydration - Drink plenty of water. Water can help get various toxins and waste out of your body.
- Exercise regularly - Moderate regular exercise helps with blood flow. This helps your body's process of expelling wastes from your body.
- Reduce toxic exposure - Always try to stay any from harmful chemicals and don't smoke.
- Adequate rest - Adults need around 8 hours a day (a minimum of 7) and kids need 10 hours a day.
- Good hygiene - Always have good hygiene. Wash your hands before you eat and keep your hands away from you face. Be especially cautious when coming in contact with sick people.
- Nutritional supplements for the immune system - Health supplements can greatly help your immune system. They can be especially useful in giving your immune system an extra boost when the flu or a cold is going around.
By keeping these things in mind, you and your family's immune systems will be strong and healthy. It will help your family prevent colds and other contagious diseases. It will also help your family stay healthy and happy.
The human immune system is composed of different cells and tissues that protect the body from viruses, bacteria, and a host of other harmful microorganisms. There are millions of microbes that threaten the health and well-being of humans. Disease-causing organisms can break through the body's first line of defense-the skin and the mucous membranes and cause potentially fatal illness. Nevertheless, if foreign organisms invade the body systems, immune processes kick in to neutralize them before they can cause any serious trouble.
Like other bodily functions, immune response can be compromised. There are problems that beset the immune system, which increases the person's chances of incurring illnesses. Some of the most common are allergies to various substances and food items. Other medical problems involving the human system are systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis.
How the immune system works
The immune response goes beyond immediate protection from harmful viruses and bacteria. It also offers long-lasting protection. Whenever the immune system encounters a foreign agent or microbe, it remembers so that the next time the microbe invades the body it will be dealt with immediately.
Immunity or resistance to pathogens is facilitated by highly specialized defense mechanisms. For instance, the white blood cells that are also known as lymphocytes are key agents in the defense against infection. Other agents of immunity, known as antibodies, are proteins that are programmed to neutralize the toxins produced by invading germs.
Factors that influence immune function
The functions of the immune system may be influenced by a person's habits and lifestyles. This is how changing certain habits can improve the ability of the body to deal with harmful infections. Some of the most important influences on the human body's immune response are amount of sleep, physical activity or exercise, and diet.
Sleep deprivation increases the likelihood of a person catching a disease such as for instance the common cold. People who do not get the recommended amount of sleep or suffer from insomnia and other sleep disorders are more prone to contracting infectious diseases. Studies reveal that sleep-deprived individuals produce lower than normal amounts of antibodies compared to the control group. In addition, lack of sleep induces the release of stress hormones. When there are high levels of stress hormones in the circulation, the body could easily succumb to inflammatory conditions.
With regard to exercise, immune function gets a boost when moderate exercise is performed daily. Maintaining an exercise regimen such as a 30-minute walk improves the body's ability to fight off infection. The level of endorphins in the brain is also increased with regular exercise, which in turn improves the immune response.
A person's diet, particularly the amount of carbohydrates may affect the ability of the cells of the body to attack bacteria. There are also certain foods that particularly improve the body's response, such as fresh garlic, vitamin-rich vegetables, berries, and citrus fruits. Mushrooms also have a positive effect on the immune system.
Lifestyle modifications can improve a person's chances of abetting infections and debilitating illnesses. Replacing bad health habits with good ones can ensure increased resistance to diseases.
Our bodies are incredibly intricate, complex systems, most especially when it comes to ways to improve immune system.
Scientists at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute have recently uncovered a danger receptor that might just kick-start the immune reaction in our bodies.
The receptor picks up signs of abnormal cell death that can be caused by a tumor or injury and then mobilizes the body's defenses.
Cell death is a natural body process where old cells make way for the new, keeping repair and growth going on so that tissues stay healthy.
Sometimes there's an abnormal type of cell death, called nercrosis that happens as part of an injury or tumor growth.
This makes some evolutionary sense as an injury puts your body at risk of infection - so an immune response is a natural, sensible precaution for the body to take.
Researchers believe that the body somehow is able to sense abnormal cell death and the immune system begins to react.
But until now, no one has located a receptor that detects abnormal cell death.
"After a 15-year hunt, we've identified the first 'danger receptor' - one which senses abnormal cell death and then triggers an immune response." says study leader Dr. Caetano Reis e Sousa who leads the Immunobiology Laboratory team as they try to understand how the immune system detects and responds to infection.
"The detection of 'danger' could explain some situations when a tumor triggers an immune reaction against itself."
The team discovered that the DNGR-1 receptor on an immune cell, known as a dendritic cell (a type of messenger that sounds the alert), is what gets the immune response (T cells) going after encountering an abnormal cell death.
Most often the targets of these immune responses are viruses or bacteria, but the UK researchers believe that tumors can also trigger this type of immune reaction. Tumors often have clusters of cells at their core that undergo nercrosis because they are fed by a very limited blood supply.
This might explain why some tumor killing medications do seem to work - they're able to set off some form of an immune response.
With this latest finding researchers are hoping to be able to develop cancer treatments that work with the power of the immune system to help shrink tumors.
Dr Lesley Walker, Cancer Research UK's director of cancer information, said: "The concept of using the body's immune system to fight cancer has been around for decades, but advances in recent years have made this field of research a very exciting one."
The work of the British team appears in the most recent issue of Nature.
Research continues in the area of vaccine development and immunotherapy, and there have been a very small number of people (mostly melanoma patients) who've been helped by vaccines.
Today there are two types of cancer vaccines - ones to prevent cancer and ones that treat the cancer. Dendritic cell vaccines are thought to treat cancer, though much more study is needed.
What's more, if modern medicine can learn more about how to improve immune system processes this could not only help in treating cancers, but with preventing rejection of transplanted organs.