We rely on our immune system every day—to prevent viral and bacterial infections, to protect us from other types of foreign pathogens, and to protect us from developing cancer. This complicated and highly sophisticated miracle system works all day, every day to detect enemy agents in our bodies and distinguish them from our own tissue.

A good immune system is necessary for all around good health. What kinds of things effect the immune system and what does it take to maintain a healthy immunity against disease?

The immune system is an interconnected and intricate system that researchers don’t completely understand. While the link between lifestyle and the immune system hasn’t been completely figured out well, there may be things you can do that can enhance the functionality of your immune system. Continue reading →

As babies, we are born with an extremely weak immune system, having not been exposed to any environmental pathogens since the immune system is a sort of learning mechanism that “identifies and logs” threats as they come.

The only immunity we have is that given to us by maternal immunoglobulins, which help prevent a newborn from getting sick soon after birth. Unfortunately, these immunoglobulins do not last and, after a few months, the infant’s immune system is on its own.

This is not true, however, among breastfed infants, which continue to gain protection against disease from the mother’s milk, which makes them relatively invulnerable to those infections a mother is already immune to. Continue reading →