Many people are aware of what your immune system does because it’s essentially in the name. It provides the rest of your body with immunity to things like diseases and illnesses.
However, a crucial part of understanding things is not just knowing what they do, but also how they do it. Many people don’t have a clear idea of how exactly their immune systems are helping you stave off viruses, but it’s an important part of understanding your own reactions to illness and what your body needs to keep protecting itself.
One of the most common things that you’ll find your immune system doing to protect you is giving you a fever. While most people associate fevers with being a bad thing, minor fevers can actually help you.
Your body will raise its temperature to kill off the virus in your body, which can’t survive well under higher temperatures. But higher, prolonged fevers can still be quite dangerous to us, so keep track of your temperature in case it gets too high.
Another response your body has to foreign bodies is the use of white blood cells. White blood cells are like "Dirty Harry" Callahan, The Enforcers of your body, taking out any kinds of harmful microorganisms that it finds.
When you get sick, some white blood cells will attach themselves to the organisms to weaken them, while others will attack them directly to try to kill them off. These cells then learn about the type of organisms they fought off, and that’s how you build up an immunity in the future.
You might find that one uncomfortable symptom of getting sick is that certain parts of your body get inflamed. Inflammation is uncomfortable and annoying and might be a sign of an infection, but it’s also a part of your body’s immune system.
When bacteria enters your body, it will travel through your blood vessels to spread and cause havoc. By inflaming portions of your body, you’re able to constrict the blood vessels in that area, making it more difficult for the infection to spread.
Additionally, the inflammation alerts your white blood cells that there is an infection, making the response much quicker to try to get rid of it.
While many of your body’s reactions to illnesses might be annoying, uncomfortable and gross, they can certainly benefit you in the long run. It’s important to keep your immune system well maintained so that it can continue to keep up these functions to prevent serious illness.
Understanding the 5 Parts of Your Immune System
While fully understanding the different systems of your body can be difficult, it’s a bit easier if you break them down into their individual components. When it comes to your immune system, there are five main parts of it that you need to know about.
All of these parts work together to help your immune system keep you healthy and free of any serious illnesses. The first part of your immune system to understand, and arguably one of the most important is your white blood cells, as we have already talked about.
The part of your immune system that helps the white blood cells is the complement system. This system basically boosts the effectiveness of the white blood cells in a few different ways.
One thing it does is send out signals for the white blood cells to eat the microorganisms that they take out, allowing them to clear them out of the system. Additionally, it’s the system that causes inflammation, which weakens disease cells.
Finally, when it comes to bacterial threats, it can rupture the membrane protecting it, which allows the cells to easily attack them.
Your lymphatic system is a crucial part of your immune system and is also a component of your circulatory system.
Throughout various blood vessels, the lymphatic system helps to transport certain things through the bloodstream. Of course, this is important for a variety of reasons, but when it comes to your immune system, this is essentially the highway which transports and directs white blood cells through your bloodstream so that they can get to the infection site and do their job.
Bone marrow is a very important component of your body because it’s where the white blood cells are produced. It additionally creates red blood cells and platelets, which harden and clot to help stop bleeding.
Finally, there’s the spleen, which helps filter your blood. This removes any microorganisms found in your blood, and it also helps your immune system by creating antibodies, which help in the fight against disease.
The human body is an amazing, complicated, fascinating creature with the ability to survive and thrive in the harshest of conditions. All we have to do is feed it well, keep it strong and stay out of harm's way.
Unfortunately, we're not very good at doing those three simple things.
Fortunately, thanks to our immune system, we still thrive despite ourselves.
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