Preventing Illness or Sickness Begins When Your Immune System Starts

Do you suffer at least once a year from the symptoms of the dreaded common cold? Is a sore throat, runny nose and cough an annual tradition you wouldn’t mind if it just went away?

Nature has provided you with a system of preventing illness or sickness via the organs of your immune system. You just need to do your part in keeping this system in optimal condition, as in, healthy diet, exercise and weight control.

This highly specialized system works to protect your body from potentially harmful substances by recognizing and responding to antigens. Your immune system recognizes and destroys substances that contain these antigens.

Antigens are molecules, usually proteins, on the surface of cells, viruses, fungi or bacteria. Non-living substances such as toxins, chemicals, drugs, and foreign particles can be antigens as well.

If foreign antigens gets past your first line of defense, then all kinds of symptom creating stuff occurs. Its your immune system’s response to these antigens that actually causes your greatest discomfort. That’s right, that runny nose of yours is not the antigen, but your body putting up a fight.

Your first line of defense barriers include:

  • skin
  • cough reflex
  • stomach acid
  • enzymes in tears and skin oils
  • mucus ~ traps bacteria and small particles

An efficient immune response protects against many diseases and disorders.

Upon your first sign that a foreign invading antigen has crossed your barriers, i.e. sniffling or minor sore throat, is not the time to go play in the snow. Instead, start by resting, consuming a healthy balanced diet and keeping your head, neck and feet warm. The later health choice provides a much better condition for your immune system’s battle stations to launch/begin a successful attack.

Nip it early with healthy lifestyle means, or suffer your body’s overreaction later.

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