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The Immune System. Protection from Infection. What is the Immune System ?.
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The Immune System Protection from Infection
What is the Immune System? The Immune System is a body system that is responsible for fighting foreign infections that are trying to harm your body. The immune system develops along with many other features, such as skeletal structure, and is not fully functional when a human is an infant. The immune system uses white blood cells to attack bacteria and other cells that the do not recognize as friendly. The immune system is important because without it, we would be more susceptible to disease and would die at younger ages.
What Makes Up the Immune System? • Lymph- The clear fluid that fills the space between body cells. • Lymphocytes (White Blood Cells)- Cells that provide immunity from infection. These cells kill unrecognized cells. • B-Cells- White blood cells that multiply when pathogen (disease) is encountered. These create antibodies that attack pathogen. These can also form memories that allow T-Cells to reactivate if the same pathogen is encountered. • T-Cells- Two types. Killer cells that release toxins to kill the infectious pathogen. The other type is the Helper that aids the activation of B-Cells and helps control the immune system.
What Flaws Does Our Immune System Have? Our immune system’s main weakness is its inability to fight viruses. Viruses are a form of disease that are not living and that reproduce inside living cells. Viruses may remain inactive inside cells until a trigger activates them. Another flaw of the immune system is the inability to fight certain diseases, such as cancer. Cancer cells force infected body cells to reproduce the cancer cells. Most of the time, vaccines and medicines attempting to eliminate the cancer are terminated by the immune system.
How Can We Assist Our Immune System? • Medicines- Medicines are chemical compounds that reduce and nullify symptoms of diseases to allow time for the body’s immune system to fight the infection. • Vaccines- Vaccines are used to fight infection by introducing the body’s immune system to the disease so that it may build a resistance to it. • Hygiene- One of the best ways to help the immune system is to thoroughly clean your hands, hair, and body before bacteria can even enter the body and prevent build-ups of pathogen.
Types of Vaccine • Live-Virus Vaccines- Pathogens that are grown in a laboratory that cannot cause infection but still trigger antibodies is introduced in a small amount to the immune system. • Killed-Virus Vaccines- Pathogens that are dead or inactive that trigger antibody production. • Toxoids- Mainly used for bacteria, toxoids suppress the toxicity of bacterias but still allow them to trigger antibodies.
HIV/AIDS HIV/AIDS, or human immunodeficiency virus infection/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, is an incurable disease that damages the body’s immune system, weakening it and leaving a person vulnerable to other diseases. Many of these diseases have no effect on a human with a normal immune system, such as certain tumors and other opportunistic infections. Because there is no cure, HIV/AIDS is surpassed only by cancer in terms of infectiousness and lethality. HIV/AIDS is primarily transmitted through unprotected sex, contaminated blood transfusion, hypodermic needles, and mother to child interactions (breast feeding).
Conclusion Our immune system is what gives us our health. It defends us from foreign organisms that would love to use our bodies as expendable carriers and facilitators of their grotesque existences. The immune system is strong, but it cannot do everything alone. A combination of human effort and the biological system allow the immune system to protect us from the most dangerous living things of all; microscopic life.
