How to boost your immune system?
“At least for now, there are no scientifically proven ways to directly boost your immune system with any products that are easily available. And if there were, it would be very dangerous to use them without medical supervision.
The most important thing you need to do to have a healthy immune system is to eat a diet that provides you with all the vitamins and nutritions your body needs. The reason is, simply, your immune system constantly makes many billions of new cells. And all these newborn cells need resources to function properly. Malnutrition is strongly associated with a weak immune system. If you are starving, you are more susceptible to infections and diseases because your body has to make hard decisions and the immune system suffers from that.
But if you eat at least somewhat of a balanced diet with some fruits and vegetables, you will get all the micro and macronutritions for your immune system to work just fine…
On top of just eating right, the positive health effects of even moderate regular exercise have been known for a long time… Working out also directly boosts your immune system, because it promotes good circulations of fluids throughout your body…And good circulation is good for your immune system because it allows your cells and immune protein to move more efficiently and freely, which makes them do their job better.”*
簡單總結，我們的免疫系統(immune system)的運作，是極其複雜的。截至目前為止，並沒有任何藥物，可以增益免疫系統的效能。為了維持健全的免疫系統，我們唯一能做的，就是養成健康的生活和飲食習慣，諸如：
1. 攝取均衡的營養。
2. 做充分的運動。
“In general, chronic stress seems to disrupt the ability of the body to shut down inflammation and causes chronic inflammation…chronic inflammation has been linked to a higher risk for numerous diseases, from cancer to diabetes, heart and autoimmune diseases, and also a general frailty and higher chance of death. Chronic stress changes the behavior of your Helper T, which is not great since they are particularly important conductors and influence a number of other immune responses. This can lead your Helper T into making the wrong decisions, which can throw your immune response out of balance.
Stress also releases hormones like cortisol that shut down and suppress your immune system, making it weaker and less able to do its job properly in a variety of ways. Wounds heals slower, infections are more likely to break out and to cause disease…Chronic stress means a chronic release of cortisol, which generally slows your defense systems down.
A pretty strong connection has also been made in recent years between the onset of autoimmune diseases and stress. And stress also seems to be one of many risk factors for tumor progression.”*
其次，長期的壓力(chronic stress)，會促使皮質醇(cortisol)的分沁，降低人體的免疫能力。
如何處理壓力，避免長期曝露在壓力之下，是一個攸關免疫系統健康的重要課題。
“The Killer T Cells scan the tumor cells’ malformed proteins that should not be there and order them to kill themselves…
The new cancer cells that were molded and formed by countermeasures of your immune system are the ones that will eventually cause all the trouble. In a perverse way they become immune to the immune system…”
免疫系統在偵測到腫瘤細胞的時候，一般會將之殺死。而當新的腫瘤細胞發展出對免疫系統的免疫力的時候，免疫系統會把那些不正常的細胞(癌細胞)當作是正常的細胞，這就癌細胞開始肆無忌憚增生的時候，會影響到我們身體的健康，最後甚至會要了我們的命。
身體中不正常細胞的數量，會隨著年紀的增長而增加。這也是為什麼，只要人活得夠久，在身體內有不正常細胞(癌細胞)的機會就會增加，最終唯一不同的只是，要嘛死於癌症，不然就是在癌症完全爆發前死於其他原因。
“Cigarette smoke is saturated with 4,000 different chemicals, many of them with unknown properties and interactions with each other. But we know for sure that nicotine, the magic and vile substance that makes smoking addictive, suppresses your immune system. It makes your immune cells slow and ineffective…”*
香菸中的尼古丁(Nicotine)會降低巨噬細胞(Macrophage)的效能，而且巨噬細胞在肺部吸收了香菸中各種化學物質，也常在肺中溢出而造成肺細胞的傷害。另外專門殺死新癌細胞的自然殺手細胞(Nature Killer Cells)，也會因為吸菸而降低了活性，這或許也是吸菸容易罹患肺癌的原因之一。
為了免疫系統好，為了活命，戒菸吧！
*：Philipp Dettmer, Immune, a journey into the mysterious system that keeps you alive, 2021, Random House
2023/7/19 Immune, a journey into the mysterious system that keeps you alive Damakey
