Your skin and saliva are key barriers to infection and form part of your immune system, along with cells in every tissue of your body, including your blood and your brain.
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The cells that make up your immune system need energy too, and when you’re low on juice, they’ll be on low-battery mode. This is when our natural immune defences are weakened and normally innocuous bugs can begin to cause strife.
Our immune system requires a lot of energy to defend our bodies. Feeling tired and achy, overheating, and glands swelling are all signs that our immune system is busy fighting something. (Or we have CLL cytokines causing similar symptoms - Neil)
Boosting our natural defence system
- getting adequate sleep. Sleep deprivation increases the hormone cortisol, which suppresses immune function when its levels are elevated
- exercising, which helps the lymphatic system, where our immune cells circulate, and lowers levels of stress hormones
- eating well and drinking enough water. Your immune system needs energy and nutrients obtainable from food. And staying well hydrated helps the body to flush out toxins
- not smoking. Smoking, or even secondary smoke, damages our lungs and increases the vulnerability of our respiratory system to infection.
Full article by Hui-Fern Koay, Research Fellow in Immunology and Jesseka Chadderton, PhD Candidate, University of Melbourne: theconversation.com/a-stron...
The responses by Sue Ieraci in the comments section are well worth reading. I have a great deal of respect for her knowledge imparted in many The Conversation articles.
Neil
Photo: I don't think I need to introduce the subject of this photo, spotted by my wife not 4km from our home. We saw this marsupial jump onto a tree, pose for us, then climb off and scamper to another tree, where we were entertained by effortless climbing up and down branches, coming down a branch holding on just by the forelegs and leaping across to nearby branches, before settling in the crown of eucalyptus tree for a feed.