Yo ver0007 thanks for the awesome chat today, was heaps of fun, you ask great questions!
The immune system is very complicated (it even makes my head spin sometimes trying to understand it!). But to cut a long story short, what happens is that a virus or bacteria or bug gets inside you. This is called a pathogen. The body sends out cells that will look at the pathogen. If these cells have seen this pathogen before, the body knows what to do and sends a message to some killer cells that will destroy all of the pathogen really quickly! If the body hasn’t seen it before, then it sends messages about a new pathogen to some other cells, and the cells figure out how to kill it. Then they send that message to go and destroy it!
This is why why you get a virus like chickenpox you have it real bad the first time, but don’t get it again – because your body remembers it and is super awesome at killing it! But when you get a virus like the flu you can get it bad each year. Because it changes itself so much that your body doesn’t recognise it from last time!
Ver007 Sam did a good job at explaining how the immune system fights disease. But sadly sometimes the immune system fails to fight disease.
In many cases our immune system is trying really hard to fight off pathogens by sending out killer cells that phagocytose (eat!) the invading pathogen. When this happens, we might need to take antibiotics. These will help us kill the pathogen or weaken it so that our immune cells can kick some tiny micro rear!
New born babies as well as old people have an undeveloped immune system. This means that their bodies are not prepared to fight disease. Babies and old people are at a higher risk of getting sick very quickly.
There are some people who have immune system disorders and they sadly can’t off the disease. Some of these disorder in the immune system result in conditions of varying severity from affecting quality of life through to death.
There is also an overactive and hyper immune system. So this is for instance when you get an allergy. Some people have a very hypersensitive reaction to things like fur and dust and pollen. Their immune system fails to recognize this allergen as a “normal” particle and thinks its a pathogen! When this happens their immune system goes into overdrive and well, they sneeze, are itchy, cry, swell up.
So it is very important to maintain a very healthy immune system for as long as we can to help fight of nasty infections. 🙂
Great question. The immune cells scan the body constantly for foreign bodies. Once these cells locate something that should not be in the body the cells send an alarm to other immune cells (by secreting molecules that attract more cells). The foreign body is then removed by the immune system and a memory of it is created so the next time you are infected with the same thing the immune cells can respond quicker than the first time.
ver0007
Yo ver0007 thanks for the awesome chat today, was heaps of fun, you ask great questions!
The immune system is very complicated (it even makes my head spin sometimes trying to understand it!). But to cut a long story short, what happens is that a virus or bacteria or bug gets inside you. This is called a pathogen. The body sends out cells that will look at the pathogen. If these cells have seen this pathogen before, the body knows what to do and sends a message to some killer cells that will destroy all of the pathogen really quickly! If the body hasn’t seen it before, then it sends messages about a new pathogen to some other cells, and the cells figure out how to kill it. Then they send that message to go and destroy it!
This is why why you get a virus like chickenpox you have it real bad the first time, but don’t get it again – because your body remembers it and is super awesome at killing it! But when you get a virus like the flu you can get it bad each year. Because it changes itself so much that your body doesn’t recognise it from last time!
I hope that helps. If you want a bit more, there is a sweet video here that explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJEc2GDEfz8
0
Ver007 Sam did a good job at explaining how the immune system fights disease. But sadly sometimes the immune system fails to fight disease.
In many cases our immune system is trying really hard to fight off pathogens by sending out killer cells that phagocytose (eat!) the invading pathogen. When this happens, we might need to take antibiotics. These will help us kill the pathogen or weaken it so that our immune cells can kick some tiny micro rear!
New born babies as well as old people have an undeveloped immune system. This means that their bodies are not prepared to fight disease. Babies and old people are at a higher risk of getting sick very quickly.
There are some people who have immune system disorders and they sadly can’t off the disease. Some of these disorder in the immune system result in conditions of varying severity from affecting quality of life through to death.
There is also an overactive and hyper immune system. So this is for instance when you get an allergy. Some people have a very hypersensitive reaction to things like fur and dust and pollen. Their immune system fails to recognize this allergen as a “normal” particle and thinks its a pathogen! When this happens their immune system goes into overdrive and well, they sneeze, are itchy, cry, swell up.
So it is very important to maintain a very healthy immune system for as long as we can to help fight of nasty infections. 🙂
1
Great question. The immune cells scan the body constantly for foreign bodies. Once these cells locate something that should not be in the body the cells send an alarm to other immune cells (by secreting molecules that attract more cells). The foreign body is then removed by the immune system and a memory of it is created so the next time you are infected with the same thing the immune cells can respond quicker than the first time.
0