Lifestyle Choices

Here are some of the basic ingredients that need to be added to your daily diet if you want to boost and protect the performance of your immune system. Do remember that what is being aimed for here is a basic framework that can be adopted on a long-term basis in order to experience optimum health and vitality. The suggestions made are deliberately not extreme or drastic, but should be easy to stick to without feeling restricted or hard-pressed to know what to eat. (more…)

Decreased Immunity

Your skin is your first layer of protection from the environment. These capture foreign substances and organisms to present them to the immune system deeper in the skin and in the blood.

It is known that after exposure to UV light, the number of Langerhan’s cells markedly decreases and can even disappear completely, making us far more susceptible to skin infection. When you suffer sunburn you compound the problem. Not only are your immune cells depleted, but the blistering of acute sunburn breaks down the skin, making infection more likely. (more…)

Allergy has been recognized for centuries. Even the ancient Egyptians knew that certain substances, such as cat hair, pollen, and shellfish, ‘didn’t agree’ with some people. But they didn’t know why.

The first person to categorize food allergy as a medical condition was Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, who noted that some people reacted negatively to cheese while others didn’t. But Hippocrates couldn’t figure out why this happened.

In the 1920s, doctors finally began to understand the biochemistry of allergy. They found a substance in itchy, allergic skin that wasn’t in healthy skin. It wasn’t until the 1960s, though, that researchers realized that this substance was an immune system substance known as an antibody. Antibodies are sent out by the immune system to kill foreign invaders, such as bacteria and parasites. Antibodies are essential for keeping us healthy and are powerful enough to kill worms in the intestines. (more…)