What the Modern Immune System is Up Against
During the millions of years of evolution, our bodies developed complex systems to protect us from harmful substances, such as bacteria and viruses. In humans we refer to these systems as our immune and detoxification systems (see How the Body Detoxifies.)
While modern sanitation and hygiene reduces our exposure to bacteria and viruses, our immune and detoxification systems are often overwhelmed by chemical exposure.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 500,000 different chemicals are used today, and that 5,000 new chemical substances are added each year. In addition our bodies are exposed to natural toxins like pollen, dust, animal dander, and smoke.
Simultaneously, the misuse of antibiotics has created resistant strains of bacteria. What effect these "super-bugs" will have on humanity is still unknown, but their emergence points to the vital importance of protecting and strengthening one's immune system.
Until recently, very little was known about the immune system. American medicine has been dominated by an allopathic theory of offense based on fighting disease agents. As a result, we know more about individual diseases than about the body's own healing and cleansing mechanisms. It is only recently that we have had the technological ability to observe and record many functions of the immune system. The advent of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and Epstein-Barr have led to more research on the bodily mechanisms centering around preventive health and healing. Now we have a much clearer idea of why some people get sick, and others exposed to the same environment stay well.
While our knowledge of the immune system is still in its infancy, we are beginning to understand some of the ways the body responds to toxins. A body that's processing toxins efficiently is much more likely to have a strong immune system. The two are intertwined, especially via the lymph system.
Your Immune System and Emotions
We're also beginning to understand the interconnectedness of the immune system and other systems of the body. One important new area of study is called psychoneuroimmunology, which studies how our emotions affect our immune system.
Another breakthrough in "holistic" medicine, i.e. the body as an integrated "whole" rather than a series of systems, is looking at the immune system and the nervous system, the unity of which Sidney McDonald Baker, M.D., explains in his book, Detoxification and Healing. Dr Baker writes that "certain cells of the central nervous system and the immue system share at least one key attribute: an enduring presence in each of us from infancy to old age." He continues, "There are other features shared by the central nervous system and the immune system. The first such shared feature is memory. Memory depends on the persistence of permanent nerve and immune cells...the capacity for memory resides exclusively in the two tissues of the body where the permanent cells reside, linking these two features (permanence of cells and the capacity for memory) in the brain and immune system. Another feature of both systems is perception." A major point that Dr. Baker makes throughout his book is how important our detoxification processes are to the protection and functioning of the permanent cells in our bodies. It is the job of the immune system to "remember" and "perceive" which substances are harmful to the body, and then attack and destroy them.
If the immune system is suppressed by an illness such as AIDS, or by drugs, as in the case of organ transplant recipients, the body can fall victim to opportunistic diseases that would never affect a healthy person. The immune system can also become confused. This often happens as a result of yeast infections and resulting leaky gut syndrome, which allows partially digested proteins to enter the bloodstream. The immune system begins marking the proteins as "foreign invaders" and a host of food allergies results. The proteins are no longer just "toxic," but have become immunoreactive, stimulating inflammation. Fibromyalgia results. In severe cases, an auto-immune condition can result when yeast infection-related toxins attach to the body's hormones and the immune system begins attacking elements of the endocrine system. A wide variety of body function impairment results.
Learning more about your own immune system benefits you on two fronts. For those who face illness, which we all do at some time or another, knowledge of the immune system can help you to respond to your illness, to help your body's own healing mechanisms in responding to your illness. For those of you who are currently healthy, knowledge of your immune system can help you to maintain you health, and help you to avoid practices that might lead to illness in your future. For anyone living in an increasingly toxic world, knowledge of your immune system and detoxification can help you respond to the toxins you encounter in everyday life. The choice is up to you. But today's choices may well determine your comfort and well being in the days ahead.
Recent Studies on The Immune System
New research on the immune system has led to an unprecedented understanding of the relationship between the nervous system and the immune system. One kind of immune cells, lymphocytes, remain undivided and unchanged throughout your lifetime -- just like brain cells. One set of lymphocytes even develops at the same stages and in the same place as your brain cells.
The immune system and the nervous system also share a number of features, including memory and recognition. It now appears that bidirectional pathways, two-way avenues of communication, exist between the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. The phrase psychoneuroimmunology describes the combined study of the psyche, nervous system and immune system. Coined by Robert Adler as early as 1975, the fruits of this complex area of study have only recently begun to become available.
It now appears that immune function and psychological health may be directly related. One recent study, for example, found that women with histories of long-term sexual abuse had lower ratios of certain immune cells, resulting in "significant immunological abnormalities." Another study suggests that the ability to express one's distress can improve immune function.
This relationship between psychological health and immunity can have a profound effect on how the body reacts to illness. In the 1970s Carl and Stephanie Simonton began teaching cancer patients the use of visualization at the Cancer Counseling and Research Center in Dallas. Patients visualized forces coming to fight their cancer. The survival rates of their patients doubled. Some even experienced spontaneous remissions. Researchers do not fully understand this connection between psychological well-being and immune function, but there is considerable evidence that this link exists. Robert Ader and Nicholas Cohen conducted a series of experiments at Rochester University Medical School. Beginning in the 1970s they administered a drug that lowers immune response in water flavored with saccharin to mice. They then measured the immune response of the mice. After testing, they administered saccharin alone. The mice showed the same immune suppression without being given the immuno-suppressant drug. The response came with exposure to saccharin alone – a conditioned response. This suggested a strong link between immune function and psychological learning.
Similarly, Jon Kabat-Zinn, who heads the Stress Reduction Clinic at University of Massachusetts Medical Center, emphasizes that use of meditation must center on healing not on cure. "In order to be effective for healing, we believe that the use of visualization and imagery needs to be embedded in a larger context, one that understands and honors non-doing and non-striving," he writes. "Otherwise, visualization exercises can too easily degenerate from meditation into wishful thinking, and the intrinsic healing power and wisdom of the simple mindfulness practice itself can remain untapped or be trivialized in the quest for something more elaborate and goal oriented." Ironically, it seems the best way to use meditation to increase healing involves letting go of the immediate goal and practicing mindfulness or meditation for its own sake. "To bring calmness to the mind and body requires that at a certain point we be willing to let go of wanting anything at all to happen and just accept things as they are and ourselves as we are with an open, receptive heart," Kabat-Zinn explains. "This inner peace and acceptance lie at the heart of both health and wisdom."
Links between the immune system and psychological well being are not yet fully understood, but they clearly exist. An integrated approach toward heath will involve not only the development of knowledge of the immune system, and learning detoxification and methods of supporting the immune system, but will incorporate some sort of spiritual orientation and practice. Unresolved psychological wounds appear to have a real impact on our health, and the work of psychological growth and healing cannot be ignored in moving toward full health. Perhaps most importantly, full health involves creating and sustaining an image of yourself as a healthy and fulfilled person. That work of visualization and imagery can be started today, at no cost, by first seeing yourself as the person you hope to be.
Yale researcher Bernie Siegel is widely known for his work on visualization. He focuses on helping patient to achieve peace of mind, and notes that when they do, diseases and illnesses often disappear. "My message is peace of mind, not curing cancer or paralysis," Siegel says. "In achieving peace of mind, cancer may be healed and paralysis may disappear. These things may occur through peace of mind, which creates a healing environment in the body."
