INNATE IMMUNITY
Our innate immune system is designed to give immediate protection to the body.
There are many components to our innate immune system, and we will look at them shortly.
However, before we do this, it will be useful to look at what factors can influence or modify our immune defences.
These factors can decrease the ability of the body to fight infections, and they include:
|
Age: |
Babies have an immature immune system, it can take many months before the system is functioning properly.
Similarly, the elderly experience a loss of immune defensive ability, as this tends to decline as we get older - like so much else!
Therefore, just as soldiers need to be in the prime of their life to be effective, so the soldiers that make up our immune system are more effective when we are in our prime.
|
Hormones & Stress: |
Steroids are a major hormone and can cause our immune system to function less well - as can many other hormones.
Stress also can reduce our immune system's effectiveness, because stress can produce natural extra hormones in our bodies
|
Drugs & Chemicals: |
Amongst these I am also including alcohol, because alcohol damages the ability of the phagocyte do their job properly.
Some drugs and chemicals can seriously damage our immune systems - if not wipe them out completely.
|
Malnutrition |
People who are malnourished and more prone to get infections than are people who are well-nourished.
One of the reasons for this is that people who are malnourished are not taking sufficient proteins and other essentials, such as vitamins, which are essential in the formation of all cells - including the cells that form the immune system.
Now we can turn our attention to the various components of our protective defences which make up our non-specific (innate) immune system.
| REFLECTION
You may have wondered why we talk about 'non-specific/specific' and 'innate/acquired' when referring to this part of our immune system. The reason for this is that 'innate' means what we are born with, and so consequently this part of our immune system is what we are born with. 'Acquired' refers to that part of the immune system whose protective qualities we build up throughout our life - we acquire this protection by coming into contact with specific micro-organisms. Only when we have come into contact with these specific micro-organisms are we able to produce immunity (or a defence) against them. From the previous sentence, you can see why we also can call the acquired immune system the specific immune system, because this part of the immune system only provides protection against specific pathogenic micro-organisms once we have met them. 'Non-specific' refers to the fact that this part of our immune system will attempt to protect us from anything, not just specific pathogenic microbe-organisms. |