Immunity -- What is it Good For?

We hear plenty about immunity boosters, protecting your immunity, and the benefits of a strong immune system. But if you don’t really care about the occasionally cold or flu, what does your immunity really matter to you? There is a wealth of immunity support herbal supplements -- today we are looking at what they do in your body and why people take them.

What is immunity?

Immunity is the natural ability of your body to fight infection and disease. The immune system recognizes a pathogen as foreign, and then creates an antibody specifically to fight it. In the lag time, sometimes you get ill. If you have a well-honed immune response, you will be sick less often and for shorter durations. Some diseases we cannot develop an immunity to naturally -- viruses, for example, constantly mutate so our bodies don’t have a memory of how to fight them.

Types of immunity

You can acquire immunity both naturally and artificially. Artificial means of acquiring immunity refer to vaccination or direct antibody transfer; if you naturally acquire immunity it means that your body has fought a particular infection or pathogen before and retains a memory of how to fight it again. You cannot acquire immunity through a herbal supplement; you would need either a vaccination or passive natural immunization to become immune to something specific. However, herbal supplements can support the complex web of bodily systems that make up the immune system if your diet is inadequate.

Boosting your immune system

Therefore, boosting your immune system involves taking whole food supplements or herbs that help boost the numbers of certain types of cells in the body -- or at least, provide the chemical bases to ensure that your natural immune system has all it needs to make numbers of immune cells up to its genetically predetermined limit. The types of cells that are involved in immune function are types of leukocytes, specifically :

• Killer T cells
• Helper T cells
• B cells

How should I boost my immune system?

You should eat a balanced, varied diet including plenty of fruit and veges; get a full 8 hours of sleep per night (although the optimal timing for that will differ from person to person); drink plenty of water; eliminate processed foods and refined sugar as far as possible; and of course, take an immune boosting herbal supplement like Immunity Take Care.