THE COMPLEXITY OF IMMUNITY - PART 1
Welp. I think I answered my own question today. Why has it taken me SO long to write this blog about immunity? I’ve been thinking about it for at least a year now. So I started by telling myself, “Keep it simple, don’t go into all the science and deep dives” …. 5 hours later, 20 tabs open, I have a thesis paper about immunity. UGH!
Ok, let’s start again. One thing that has been constant for the past 2 ½ years is hearing, “STRENGTHEN YOUR IMMUNITY”, which is often followed by suggestions like: take quercetin, zinc, vitamin D, elderberry, vitamin C, etc. Is that really building our immunity? Is that going to keep us and our family significantly healthy through all the flus, colds, and pandemics of the world? The simple answer is NOPE.
So what does build our innate and adaptive immune system? I’m going to give a simple answer and then I’ll leave behind a little science and studies for those who want the deeper dive. But it comes down to a minimum of 8 extremely important pieces; and you’ll see how some of these are very intertwined.
Sunlight (not to be confused with vitamin D)
Vitamin D levels
Supplementation - MAKE IT COUNT
Heat and/or hot/cold treatments
Foods to avoid and foods to eat
Emotional health
Sleep health along with melatonin levels, which brings us back to vitamin D levels and sunlight
Movement along with a healthy lymphatic system
Ok, so let’s discuss the first two today.
WHAT IS OUR INNATE AND ADAPTIVE IMMUNE SYSTEM?
There are 2 main parts of the immune system:
The innate immune system. We are born with these; skin, mucus, stomach acid, inflammation, scavenger cells, and natural killer cells, to name a few.
The adaptive immune system. We develop this when our body is exposed to microbes or chemicals released by microbes; T lymphocytes (t cells), B lymphocytes (b cells), and antibodies, to name a few.
These 2 immune systems work together.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279396/
WHY IS SUNLIGHT SO IMPORTANT?
REASON 1: Sunlight - even indirect, helps ramp up movement and action of our T cells, which is our immune system’s number one defense mechanism.
“Georgetown University Medical Center researchers have found that sunlight, through a mechanism separate than vitamin D production, energizes T cells that play a central role in human immunity.” THOSE ALL IMPORTANT T CELLS!!
"T cells, whether they are helper or killer, need to move to do their work, which is to get to the site of an infection and orchestrate a response," Ahern says. "This study shows that sunlight directly activates key immune cells by increasing their movement."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161220094633.htm
REASON 2: Sunlight increases melatonin production - something we’ll come back to when discussing the importance of sleep.
“Sunlight also supports better sleep and sets people’s circadian rhythms by regulating the levels of serotonin and melatonin.”
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/benefits-of-sunlight
REASON 3: Sunlight initiates natural vitamin D production which is known to:
support healthy bones
manage calcium levels
reduce inflammation
support the immune system and glucose metabolism
“Vitamin D's best-known role is to keep bones healthy by increasing the intestinal absorption of calcium. But researchers have begun to accumulate evidence that it may do much more. In fact, many of the body's tissues contain vitamin D receptors, proteins that bind to vitamin D. In the intestines, the receptors capture vitamin D, enabling efficient calcium absorption. But similar receptors are also present in many other organs, from the prostate to the heart, blood vessels, muscles, and endocrine glands. And work in progress suggests that good things happen when vitamin D binds to these receptors.
SIDE NOTE - VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY IS A PREDICTOR OF SEVERE COVID INFECTION
This study “demonstrate[s] that vitamin D3 deficiency, which is a well-documented worldwide problem, is one of the main reasons for severe courses of SARS-CoV-2 infections.” In fact, it says it “provides strong evidence that low D3 is a predictor rather than just a side effect of the infection.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8541492/
So WHY do viruses get worse in winter? Is it the cold? Is it humidity? Well … I was blown away by this study where they were trying to find the correlation between surges of Covid because of temperature, humidity or sunlight exposure and the one that had significance was SUNLIGHT EXPOSURE!
The country surge date corresponds to the time when its sun UV daily dose drops below ≈ 34% of that of 0° latitude.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33479261/
Let’s revisit this next month and talk about supplementation that counts and DIY options that build our immune system.