Are you ready to boost your immunity and be better prepared to face any possible assaults from bacteria, viruses, and fungi? We all need to be ready to help keep our immune system operating at its very best, and that means doing a variety of things, such as following a nutritious diet, getting adequate sleep, avoiding environmental toxins, staying hydrated, and practicing stress management, among other things. Among those “other things” is the use of herbal remedies that have been shown to work with the immune system.
Immune System Basics
The immune system consists of a wide variety of players, including antibodies, white blood cells, bone marrow, lymph nodes and vessels, thymus, the complement system (composed of various proteins that complement the antibodies), and spleen. Its job is critical: to protect the body against harm from bacteria, fungi, physical trauma, viruses, stress, toxins from the environment and food, and other bad guys.
Your immune system is activated by substances that your body doesn’t recognize as friendly or as its own. These substances are called antigens, and when they attach to receptors on the immune cells, different processes can occur and result in some type of response, such as symptoms of the cold or flu, inflammation, cell mutations, or other reactions.
The immune system has two subsystems, called the innate and adaptive immune systems. Both of them work together to deal with invasive substances, but they also work in different ways. The innate system offers a general defense against invasive substances and fights those that enter the body through the digestive system or the skin.
The adaptive immune system produces antibodies that it uses to fight certain germs that it has encountered before. For example, if you’ve had the measles and recovered, your adaptive system will recognize and fight off any future exposures to the measles.
Naturally, the best way to support the immune system is to avoid all of the factors that can bring it down. In real life, however, that isn’t possible, which is why we often bring in helpers, including herbal and nutritional remedies. One of those remedies is called quercetin.
