Monday, September 8, 2008

Understanding The Immune System by Lida Ghaderi MD

Understanding The Immune System

Constant Surveillance & Error Correction

The Immune system is yet another amazing and critical pillar that impacts many aspects of your functioning through communication with all the other CENIGENT systems - mutually exchanging information, receiving and conferring.

Your immune system is your body’s self-esteem. Think of it as a refined and cohesive blend of an army’s central intelligence system, hospital, judge, proofreader, teacher and janitorial service. The immune system has soldiers, correction officers and guards named T-cells and B-cells, macrophages, monocytes, natural killer cells and others that also produce a variety of unique chemical signals called cytokines. These cytokines provide specific information to a variety of other cells.

All the soldiers, guards and correction officers are in constant communication, checking for errors inside cells, identifying and battling foreign invaders and instructing other systems on how to deal with problems. Ironically, the immune system has the power to fight disease and prevent us from catching a common cold, yet it can also be the underlying reason we get sick. A healthy immune system has an arsenal of tools and weapons to do its job. It can shoot holes in the invader, tag or capture it for others to deal with or repair the problem.

Inflammation is a natural life preserving process of recruiting the immune system’s artillery to curb infections, offending organisms, toxins, injury and error. We may experience it as swelling, fever, or redness. If, however, this life saving inflammation becomes ongoing at your cell level we call it chronic Inflammation. Chronic inflammation at your cell level becomes a trigger for many other chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases like high blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks, congestive heart failure, peripheral vascular disease, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s and many other conditions such as osteoporosis, insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, cancers, and metabolic syndrome to name a few.

Chronic inflammation instructs our genetic system to create more damaging inflammatory chemicals by activating a dangerous genetic reader called Nuclear Factor Kappa B (NFKB) (you may explore this in more detail in the epigenetic section). Chronic inflammation can lead to the shrinking of specific types of nerve cells which are involved in learning and memory as well as to lower specific hormones such as testosterone.

In short, Chronic Cellular Inflammation is WAR on our bodies…

As we age, our overall immune function declines. Combine that with a decline in hormones, chronic stress, poor nutrition, environmental toxins such as garden herbicides, pesticides, industrial toxins and heavy metals, adverse lifestyle habits, certain drugs, chemicals, and your genetic susceptibility, plus a decline in your cellular and mitochondrial health, and your immune system is very likely to become faulty.

An example of a faulty overactive immune system is when it attacks itself, giving rise to a variety of autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, sarcoidosis, or inflammatory bowel disease like Crohn’s disease, or ulcerative colitis to name a few.
Whether it is chronic Inflammation at your cellular level, a declining immune system as a result of aging, and/or the failure of your immune system to distinguish self proteins from foreign proteins, it can to lead to a lack of vitality and, at its very worst - debilitating chronic diseases.

At CENIGENT we meticulously assess every aspect of your immune system, which is possible through extensive health questionnaires and testing of specific immune markers, markers of cellular inflammation, a variety of inflammation promoting cytokines as well as testing for chronic bacterial and viral exposure, and toxic heavy metal levels.

We also test you for specific food allergies and check the health of your digestive system, both of which are critical factors as whether or not your immune system is functioning at its peak level. A complete action plan is then designed and implemented to restore and balance your immune system.




For more information visit http://www.cenigent.com/

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