It would be safe to say that immunity has been on top of all google searches over the past year. And under the name “immune boosting”, which is both misleading and scientifically erroneous, were sold all sorts of products and services with no scientific backing and guess what, people bought it. Indeed, fear and desperation based on ignorance create golden marketing opportunities. All sorts of fancy yet ineffective, when not useless supplements occupied the front shelves in supermarkets and pharmacies.
Yet, one of the best ways to learn how something works is to understand how it’s built. How it came to be. That’s true not only if you play a guitar or repair motorcycle engines, but also if you study the biological systems that make life possible.
One never ceases hearing about “Our immune system” these days, but few, if any, ever explain how it works and why it so often fails when faced with COVID. So, let’s have a go at it for a change.
Of course, everyone knows that our immune system is there to defend us against aggression by bacteria, fungi, yeast, viruses and zillion other environmental hazards. But it also makes sure all of our cells behave while also helping the body to repair itself. It does all this, yes. Most of the time anyway, for sometimes it also utterly fails and that is due to the way it is constructed as well as the way it operates.
Our immune system has two main branches:
Think of the Innate System as the police force. It has at least seven different types of cells and also includes the “garbage disposal” specialists (janitors). Their job is to constantly patrol the body, disposing of anything somewhat amiss or which seems fishy. But the “police force” has one major handicap. It functions according to very strict rules and has no adaptability at all.
Something interesting is that in this system, the janitors act as informers and scouts. More or less like covered informers in a crime show. They show bits and pieces of all they dispose of to the rest of the “police force”, as if asking “have you guys ever seen this before?” If the answer is “Hey! Hang on! This has nothing to do here!”- an immediate response is mounted against the source of the problem, which may be pathogens that might cause infection, but may also be a few of our cells going a bit crazy. In both cases, the answer is swift and simple: Zap! Bang! Kill!
But sometimes, the problem is too large or too complex to be dealt with by the “police force” alone. In that case, the Adaptive Systems (let’s call them the “armed forces”) are called upon to act. Their army comprises of B cells, which are the missile and ballistics specialist (producing antibodies) as well as a large variety of T cells, some acting as generals giving the order to attack (T helpers), and others as generals giving the order to stop attacking (T suppressors), with yet others being death commandos (Natural killers).
But here too, there is a handicap.
This system functions according to either what it has encountered before, based on memory so as to say, in which case the answer is swift, or it may be faced with something new. Now, in the case of new, there might be a long delay before an effective response may be mounted.
New antibodies are produced stochastically until shortly before puberty, each new B cell producing its own novel antibody. Here, a particular gland in the neck, the thymus, which ceases functioning after puberty, acts as a filter removing any immune cell capable of causing damage to the body, that includes T cells as well as B cells, and therefore also antibodies.
B cells that pass this “negative selection filter” and are not called upon to act immediately are put in storage (memory B cells) and there are many such stores dispersed throughout the body. But that is also where things can take a turn for the worse because when faced with something new, the difficulty for “the armed forces” is first to find the B cells which produce the type of missile required, if any, and then to wake them up so as to divide rapidly for full mobilization.
With age, some of the B cells in storage simply die, causing gaps in the missile repertoire. But this seldom leads to drastic failure because, usually, more than one type of missile (type of B cell) will be brought into use, for not all are equally effective and the “armed forces” do not take chances. But that takes time, something of the order of 2 weeks.
And that is where the badies, such as influenza viruses, have their chance.
Viruses are a bit like marine mines: balls studded with spikes. These spikes naturally have a 3-dimensional structure specific to each type of virus. Following a first encounter, the spikes on viruses that don’t mutate much, such as mumps, are quickly recognised and the virus dealt with rapidly. Indeed, one gets sick with mumps only once, very rarely twice. But with viruses which mutate easily, such as influenza, it’s more difficult because the 3-dimensional structure of the spikes may change enough for the immune system to fail recognizing it for what it is and start searching the B cells repertoire.
The 2 weeks it will take are more than sufficient for the virus to infect the respiratory tract and start replicating in droves, making us sick in the process. That is why one may catch the flu much more than once.
But there are kings among badies.
So let us talk about these KINGS, for amongst them there is COVID and it’s bag of nasty tricks. Not only does this virus mutate more rapidly than influenza, but it has also played a very nasty trick. The main spike on corona viruses is a single unit, a bit like a big hill.
What COVID does is, it comes in with its big spike and very quickly, as soon as it enters the respiratory system, the spike splits into two, so that the big hill becomes two small hills.
This has three effects
- the missiles directed at the big hill become useless
- the change in scenery is such that the immune systems must scout the B cells repertoire to find the right antibodies. In the meantime, the virus has become infective and starts replicating and mutating at full speed, ensuring that
- whatever new missile the immune system comes-up with will be largely ineffective against several of the variants newly produced.
Furthermore, while the appropriate B cells are being looked for, the cells infected by the virus send distress signals which attract the death commandos (Natural killers) and mayhem begins, further incapacitating the organs affected. That is why this beast is so dangerous.
Of course, the next question is: what about vaccines?
The aim of vaccines is much more preventive than curative. One uses vaccines on a healthy person to protect that person from getting infected by whatever the vaccine is directed against.
What the vaccine does is present the immune system with the 3 dimensional structure of a component specific to the pathogen to be protected against. Presented with a sizable amount of this component, the immune systems will wake-up and mobilize the appropriate B cells so that if, in a not-too-distant future, this pathogen ever tries to invade, it will never stand a chance. That is also why any vaccine will take at least 10 days to provide effective protection.
But in the case of a rapidly mutating virus, the vaccine will necessarily be less effective because unable to represent all the 3 dimensional structures this component may adopt.
That is why the vaccines against influenza as well as against COVID are only partly effective. And there is very little one can do in anticipation because it is largely impossible to guess what new 3 dimensional structures will appear next. All one can do is produce vaccines directed against the most frequently encountered such structures, hoping that most new ones won’t differ too much.
But there is hope nevertheless. A person who has been infected and survived has now acquired a very broad response capacity and will be largely resistant to any new attack.
That’s all very well, but how does one survive such an attack in the first place?
There is only one known way: by keeping one’s body in good health.
The immune system doesn’t exist in isolation. It is entirely dependent upon the functional efficiency of the main physiological components such as:
- the digestive tract (supply of nutrients and co-factors [vitamins, minerals, etc.]),
- the liver (our local chemical industry),
- the respiratory system (supply of oxygen and removal of CO2),
- the brain and nervous system (supply of hormones and modulators),
- the kidneys (removal of chemical wastes and preservation of essential minerals),
- the cardio-vascular system (our “road-sea-air” distribution network) etc., the list is long.
This why one cannot “boost the immune system”. But it can be kept balanced and optimally efficient by maintaining the functional efficiency of the main physiological components above.
You might have noticed: while a great many people of all age and gender may be infected by COVID, as well as by influenza, the vast majority of those who died as a result of these infections were well past their prime (70 years old and beyond) AND/OR affected by already present multiple pathologies deeply affecting the functional efficiency of several of the main physiological components above and involving their immune system (diabetes, cardio-vascular, kidney, bowel disorders, etc.). In other words, their immune system was already busy full-time trying to keep them alive and that infection was the last straw.
Alright. But then, maintaining all this in optimal functional efficiency seems somewhat unrealistic, no? So, how does one do it?
It’s much simpler than one may think and it doesn’t call for recourse to a magic wand either.
The keys, and indeed the only keys, are
- what you eat,
- how you eat it, and
- how you move your body.
What you eat and how you eat it not only defines what you supply your metabolism with as energy sources but also how easy or difficult you make for your systems to function efficiently in both the short and long term. For example, meals consisting in a wide variety of proteins (meats or fish), pulses and dairy products but low in cereals and processed food while rich in vegetables and fruits will balance your energy requirements and make your body dig into the fat stores. But gently, because all the vitamins and minerals required to do this efficiently and painlessly will be available at all time as actual components of your food and not as supplements, and that makes a massive difference to the efficiency of your metabolism.
In parallel how you move your body affects the flexibility your metabolism can be endowed with. For example, a bit of gentle exercise every morning improves your cardio-vascular system which, in turn, will help adapting supply to demands, thereby regulating your metabolism with flexibility.
It is all of these which, cumulatively, define the ease with which your physiological systems can accommodate and efficiently respond to the huge variations in demands they are constantly subjected to, and particularly so in the case of a viral attack.
So, what’s the take home message?
It is simple.
- – The concept of “immune boosting” is misleading and scientifically erroneous. It is primarily invoked to help marketing unproven and all too often utterly useless products and so-called “therapies”; and
- – The best way to help your immune system is by first and foremost adopting habits and ways of life that will help you establish lasting well-being.