Читать книгу Pure Health - Henri Chenot - Страница 13

Looking after our health successfully is a complex task. To help us, we’re all equipped with a protector, the immune system, which is constantly battling against potential invaders, showing how incredibly important its role of defence is.

We will now go through the list of its troops and their roles. The first stronghold of the immune system is made up of the body’s visible barriers. The skin, which resists the entry of micro-organisms, also secretes anti-microbial substances. Tears and mucus contain an enzyme that’s capable of breaking down the cellular walls of bad bacteria. The saliva also contains antibacterial substances, and gastric acids provide a supplementary level of protection.

Certain bacteria, viruses and parasites succeed in getting beyond the first lines of the body’s defence. Once they have entered the body, they face the internal immune system, which is able to identify and attack them. Viral and bacterial infections are the most common causes of illness. They will usually follow their course until the defence system puts up its guard by ‘constructing’ a specific immunity against each different type of virus and bacteria to destroy them, allow recovery and reduce the time of convalescence.

The immune system is, however, subject to some deficiencies: stress or neglecting your diet can soon destabilise it, leaving the path free to a series of extremely undesirable chain reactions that can cause illness.

Each illness wears out our immunity a little bit more, forcing changes in our metabolism, when genetic mutations and finally abnormal cellular growth can occur, which can sometimes be malignant and lead to cancer. The process is usually quite slow, taking many years and going through different pathological stages before becoming a diagnosed illness.

To maintain an efficient immune system is therefore a high priority in order to minimise the frequency and seriousness of illness.