Protect Your Immune System

The immune system acts as a connector between the nervous and the mucosal systems, all of which are constantly sampling how we are doing and what’s around us. It has the highest presence in those areas of the body that are sampling the outside world.

This is one of the main reasons why it is affected by both the outside world, and by our internal responses to what happens all around us.

The Innate and Adaptive Immune Systems

The innate immune system is our first line of defense and it is composed of different sets of cells that include macrophages, monocytes, neutrophils, and dendritic cells These have the responsibility of detecting things that are foreign to the body such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, and chemicals.

How we influence the innate immune system and the adaptive immune system is a critical part of immune health. The existence of T cells allows our body to remember certain exposures, so if we’re re-exposed, we can more easily defend ourselves, which leads to natural immunity. T cells and B cells produce a collection of antibodies that remember what the body has been exposed to. Vaccines and immunizations work by activating the production of these immune cells to produce antibodies to prepare the system in case of future exposure.

Changing the Immune System

In addition, it turns out that our immune system and our mental state are intimately tied together and there really is no separation of mind and body. Fear, anger, rage, negative emotions, and post-traumatic stress all influence and imprint on the immune system.

After enough constant or repeated exposure, the cells start changing through a process called epigenetic imprinting. These changes can have long-term negative impacts on your overall health, and are often the root cause of chronic diseases.

However, even if no-one gets out of life without some traumatic experiences, that doesn’t mean we’re all on a one-way ride to a bad immune system. One of the major breakthroughs in immunological science in the last decade is the recognition that we can not only collect these immune scars, but also reverse them.

The more scientists study the effect of our daily decisions in life like food, lifestyle, thought processes, environment, sleep, stress patterns, exercise, and toxic exposure, the more we recognize the importance of rejuvenating our immune system and getting rid of old, damaged immune cells. This process is called immune autophagy and leads to the selective collection of damaged immune cells, sometimes called zombie cells.

Our behaviors, thoughts, and beliefs affect the immune system just as much as diet and lifestyle choices, and therefore impact the whole body. Unfortunately, not enough of us listen to what our bodies are communicating when these moments of immune dysregulation occur.

Symptoms of Immune Cell Damage

When a person is sick, over 50% of their energy is directed towards mitochondrial activity in immune cells. When we’re sick we feel very tired because our body puts a lot of energy into mobilizing the immune system. Many events, some of which are chronic in exposure, can injure our immune cell activity through an epigenetic modification of our genetics and injure our mitochondrial DNA, which impairs our energy production, and acute episodes that have rapid onset.

Many people have chronic fatigue and chronic dysfunction, and it didn’t just happen overnight. It occurred over years and it’s often hard to remember all the things that happened over the course of our lives. They could be eating less-than-ideal diets, living a life of burning the candle at both ends, or not getting good sleep. This slowly starts to accumulate and erode resilience.

Thankfully, it is reversible. It requires committing yourself to change your lifestyle, usually with the support of a functional medicine practitioner who can guide you. However, it can take months to start changing your biochemistry to begin reversing the damage of decades.

Listen now and start better supporting immune health today!

Guest Bio

Dr. Jeffrey Bland, World-Renowned Nutritional Medicine Expert , “father of Functional Medicine”, and founder of Big Bold Health, a company on a mission to transform the way people think about one of nature’s greatest innovations — the immune system. Through Big Bold Health, Jeffrey is advocating for the power of Immuno-Rejuvenation to enhance immunity at a global level, often through the rediscovery of ancient food crops and superfoods. To get there, Jeffrey is building a network of small farms and suppliers throughout the US that take a clear stance on regenerative agriculture, environmental stewardship, and planetary health. Jeffrey’s career in health spans more than 40 years. A nutritional biochemist by training, he began in academia as a university professor. Jeffrey then spent three decades in the natural products industry, working alongside other pioneers. A lifelong educator, Jeffrey has traveled the world many times over in his role as the “father of functional medicine.” In 1991, he and his wife, Susan, founded The Institute for Functional Medicine. In 2012, Jeffrey founded another educational nonprofit called the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute. Jeffrey is the author of The Disease Delusion: Conquering the Causes of Chronic Illness for a Healthier, Longer, and Happier Life, as well as countless additional books and research papers.

Links

@drjeffreybland
https://jeffreybland.com/
Bigboldhealth.com
Podcast
plminstitute.org

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