Just as our country is currently engaged in a war against covert terrorism, your immune system is similarly waging a constant war against
hidden enemies within your body.This war started before you were born and it will continue until you die. Although it's a war that always ends in defeat, there's a lot you can do to markedly postpone that ultimate defeat and to maintain a state of vibrant health into advanced old age.
These enemies of your immune system include well over 400 toxins ingested from
food you eat,
water you drink, and
air you breathe, along with a multitude of bacteria, viruses, and mutated cancer cells. Increasingly, it has to deal with particularly aggressive bacteria that have developed resistance to most, if not all, antibiotics.
It is also being challenged by a host of new viruses, including HIV, SARS, West Nile, ever-changing strains of influenza that now bear
threat of a world-wide pandemic. Never in
history of our species has it been more important to have a very strong, well-functioning immune system.
A recent longitudinal study, however, has shown that an average person's immune system declines at a rate of approximately 3% per year! The subjects in this 12-year study were all young adults and were apparently healthy when
study began.
When your immune system is functioning fully, it's very much like a very powerful army. It is composed of several highly specialized types of cells, much as an army is made up of many different specialty groups.
Just as supply lines are of crucial importance for an army to wage an effective and successful campaign,
cells of your immune system must similarly receive a constant infusion of all
crucially-important nutrients that they need. As is well known in
art of war, when these supply lines break down,
war is lost.
Another element that is of equally crucial importance--both to an effective fighting army and to your immune system--is constant and effective communication. If this breaks down,
war also cannot be won. One of
most common objectives in warfare is to destroy
"command and control" of
enemy.
When communication breaks down in
immune system,
individual cells in this system do not work together effectively; moreover, they lose their effectiveness both in being able to detect various kinds of enemies and in disabling them. And worst of all, they often mistakenly perceive that other cells are
enemy and aggressively attack them. This results in
many forms of auto-immune diseases that are becoming increasingly prevalent.