Defence
There is a worrying lack of understanding about how our bodies actually work and that is in part down to the closed and technical language used by the medical profession. Many people talk about the immune system being under stress and not functioning properly but there are three inter related systems that have to be considered as a whole. They are the hormonal system, the immune system and the defence system. The first 2 are discussed elsewhere but here we want to focus on the defence system.
The bodies defence system consists of many interrelated elements from Macrophages, NK cells, T Cells but to try to explain what goes on using these terms does not serve the layman or woman well it just perpetuates the same old jargon based explanation that we don’t quite get.
So I want to explain our defence systems using a model that, while not strictly accurate, has helped many people understand the general principles.
Image that you are in a room (depicts your body) and there is an intruder (a virus, bacteria, pathogen etc.) in the room with you. The intruder is hostile towards you and is actively trying to take charge of the room. You are both armed with a shotgun and the intruder is taking the occasional pot-shot at you and misses sometimes and sometimes hits you. Your shotgun (a macrophage) contains cartridges that you can fire at will – these cartridges are essentially phytochemicals that the macrophage uses to kill the intruder.
The government’s advice to eat 5-9 servings of fresh fruit and vegetables daily is to ensure that your defence system is getting what it requires in terms of phytochemicals – unfortunately there are some issues with the food supply that mean that getting the right amount of phytochemicals is much harder than we or the government might imagine.
Neglect your defence system and you will take longer to recover from illness and infections and your hormonal and immune systems won’t work as intended.
Get the right phytochemicals and you stand a fighting chance.
