What Happens When Our Immune System Becomes Imbalanced

Healthy Aging

Something’s been awry with our immune responses

After a whirlwind first 2 weeks of The Longevity Nutrient’s launch, we are excited to share that the book has become an instant Best Seller on USA Today’s Booklist and Amazon!
❤️📗

In this series of Science Says!, we have been providing a behind-the-scenes science peek relevant to each of the book’s chapters. This week, let’s talk about how our immune system both helps and hurts us – and studies showing how C15:0 can help keep our immune responses balanced.

What is our immune system, exactly?

If you took a class in college on Immunity 101, you may remember getting through a big, heavy book detailing all the ins and outs of our immune system. And after a couple of years, that book would become outdated… and need to be even bigger and heavier. Bottom line: As summarized by Sa-Nunes, our immune system is complex.

In general, our immune system is like our very own military guard of white blood cells and pro-inflammatory chemicals (called cytokines or chemokines) that help protect our bodies and brains against invaders. This includes, but is in no way limited to:

• T cells that are on the front line, ready to jump on anything they see as a foreign threat. Like, bacteria.
• B cells that learn from first viral infections (or vaccines) and adapt to fight that virus when it comes back.
• Eosinophils, mast cells and basal cells, which help to fight off parasitic infections, in part by releasing histamine.
• Kupffer cells that help to take out bad players in our blood as they pass through the ultimate filter: our liver.
• Microglial cells that patiently await the unlikely, but possible, chance that invaders make it to our brain.
• Cytokines (like IL-6 and TNFɑ,) and chemokines (like MCP-1) which serve as loud signalers to the body saying, “Hurry up immune cells! There’s an invader in Section 4 of the Liver, and we need you here, now!”

Thus, we are fortunate to have a complex immune system that is ready to take on just about any pathogens that come our way (for those viruses, we’re ready at least the second time they come our way). While talk about the immune system is often focused on when it goes awry, it is important to remember that it really is there for a good reason. Thus, it is all about keeping our immune system balanced.

When our immune system goes awry.

There is a good reason that imbalanced immune systems have become a giant topic in the fields of science and medicine, and the issue here is the definition of “invader”.

Let’s use our dog as an example. We have a maltipoo who barks at any person who comes to the door. Delivery person, grandma, friends from the neighborhood, and yes, ill-intended invaders. Similarly, when our immune system is unable to properly differentiate a neutral threat from a real threat, you get a whole lotta barking, which translates to an unbalanced immune system that can lead to conditions like:

• Allergies, when overeager mast cells improperly release histamine when exposed to neutral threats – like pollen.
• Autoimmune diseases, when our immune army accidentally turns on us and goes after our joints, our gut lining, and other tissues.
• Chronic inflammation, which happens as our cells break down with age and our cellular signaling is not as good as it used to be.

Many of these conditions have been on the rise. Warren et al. discuss the growing epidemic of food allergy in children and adults across the globe. In their review, Punzi et al. share how autoimmune conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, are on the rise. Meanwhile, Li et al. share how aging plays a role in chronic inflammation – and how an overactive immune system speeds up our aging.