module #6 - lesson 1 - amazon s3 · b u Ç x } u 2 super nutrition academy – modle - lesson...

Everything You Need to Know About Your Immune System

MODULE #6 - Lesson 1

© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

2Super Nutrition Academy – MODULE 6 - Lesson 1

Welcome to Module 6, Lesson 1. We are going to talk about the immune system today. I am going to give you everything you need to know about the immune system in an easy to understand way.

What We Will Be Covering Today Today we will cover: the basics of the immune response; how we fight infection; antibodies; the hygiene hypothesis; and we’ll be looking at immune system builders and immune system boosters.

Everything You Need to Know About Your Immune System

Module 6 - Lesson 1


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

What is the Immune System?

The Immune system is our defense system. It works to protect us against microbes, germs that want to eat us.

Lines of Defense

If an invader like food, germs in the air or on our hands come in to our body we have different lines of defense that protect us. For instance, our first lines of defense are our skin, mucosal membranes, in the nose, in the lungs, and the digestive system. The mucosal membranes, hydrochloric acid, saliva, all of these things which are technically outside of the body, are barriers to protect us against foreign invaders.

Now, if those get breached, if we cut our finger, get bitten or if a microbe gets inside of our digestive system we move to our second line of defense, innate immunity, where we have cells like neutrophils, which will try to kind of neutralize the damage, macrophages come in to eat up all the bad guys. If that doesn’t work, then we move into what’s known as the adaptive immunity,


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

or acquired immunity. This is where antibodies come into play. There’re really three different types.

What it DoesThe immune system protects from infections. These are some stats from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). There are 208 viruses, 538 different bacteria, 317 fungi, and 287 worms that our immune system is able to fend off and 57 parasitic protozoa. These are the ones that we’ve identified and our body can protect against, but we’re literally a reservoir of microorganisms, and it’s really amazing how we have such incredible health, for the most part, considering that. Again, some of these are good, some of them are not so good, and it’s all part of what’s supposed to happen.

The immune system also promotes normal functioning of the body. For instance, it cleans up tissue, it helps to repair wounds, and it will remove abnormal and malignant cells. So, in some cases the immune system can actually help get rid of cancer as well as different cells that don’t need to be propagated.

However, it can also cause disease if it’s not working properly. Allergies are a disorder of the immune system. Autoimmune disease as well. For instance, I have alopecia which is an autoimmune condition whereby my immune system has attacked my hair follicles as an invader.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Cells of the Immune System

You may have heard of stem cells, stem cell research, well, stem cells are really the genesis of all cells in the body. Here we have a stem cell produced in the body, and it gives rise to two different types of cells. There’s a myeloid cell and a lymphoid cell.

Depending on the path the stem cell takes; it divides the immune system, or the immune cells, into the innate immunity as well as the adaptive or acquired immunity side. Let’s look at the innate immunity. We have this myeloid cell, which can then turn into an erythrocyte, which is a red blood cell. Other than that, everything else here—the acidophil, the neutrophil, the basophil, the macrophage, the mast cell, these are all cells that are involved in innate immunity, which means kind of the second stage of the immune response. Really the first stage after the skin and stuff. The dendritic cell, as well, is also a really important component of that.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Now, if the stem cell turns into a lymphoid, the lymphoid will give rise to three different types of cells: the T cell or the T lymphocyte; the B cell or B lymphocyte; and the natural killer cell. The natural killer cell is part of the innate immune response, so it kind of hovers between the two, but it’s really a part of the innate immune response.

The B cells and T cells are what we’re going to be talking about when we talk about antibody production.

Lymphocytes – B and T CellsWhen we talk about white blood cells we’re talking about all these different cells here. Erythrocytes will be the red blood cells; everything else here, will be white blood cells. Lymphocytes are part of that lymphoid adaptive side of immunity, and B cells, or B lymphocytes, are called that because they’re developed in the bone marrow. We have memory B cells; so, they recognize invaders for faster antibody production in the future.

Plasma cells are kind of a more mature B cell and they’re turned into plasma cells with the help of T cells. They become antibody-producing machines. These guys crank out antibodies in the presence of various antigens.

T cells are named T cells because they’re made and matured in the thymus gland,


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

which is kind of the master gland of the lymph system. They’re further divided into a helper T cell also known as a CD4 cell, and these cells help B cells to start producing antibodies against various invaders and it activates the cytotoxic, or killer, T cells and macrophages. This cell itself is impaired by HIV so, for those with HIV, this helper T cell doesn’t work.

The cytotoxic, or killer T cell, also known as CD8, recognizes small pathogen proteins within our cells and destroys them. When the T cells are called into action, this is known as cell-mediated immune response.

When the antibodies are involved in an immune response, this is known as the humoral immune response. Antibodies cannot see that the cell has been infected; they can only see an antigen, they can only see a pathogen on the outside of the cells.

This is where these killer T cells come in hand, because they have this X-ray vision. They can see damage, our own cells that have been damaged or infiltrated by different invaders, and they can kill those cells so they don’t reproduce or cause further damage. And then there are memory T cells, which recognize and tag invaders for faster and stronger response in the future.

This is a further breakdown of the B and T lymphocytes, they can remember this is an invader, so the next time around, it produces antibodies more effectively. This is really where vaccinations come into play. Vaccinations usually infect with an inactive form of the virus, so the body develops these memory T cells and memory B cells so the next time that invader comes in, we can respond a lot quicker.

It’s the same thing if you get sick. Any time we’re exposed to something for the first time, we produce these memory cells that our immune system knows what they are the next time around so we don’t get sick.

The regulatory T cells or suppressor T cells suppress the immune system when needed. If the immune system just kept on killing stuff it would be a dangerous thing, especially for those with autoimmune conditions. The regulatory T cells kind of keep everything in check.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

The Organization of the Immune System

The immune system revolves around the lymphatic system. The lymph is where fat and fatty acids are absorbed. They circulate through the lymph and eventually the liver. It’s also very important for the circulation and production of white blood cells.

There’re two divisions. There are primary lymphoid tissue, which generate lymphocytes, they produce them. These are bone marrow, which contain stem cells that are the source of most cells in the immune system, then there’s the thymus gland, which we saw the T cells, the T lymphocytes are produced in the bone marrow, travel to the thymus to complete their maturation. And the thymus gland is very close to the thyroid gland and around the Adam’s apple in the neck.

Then we’ve got the secondary lymphoid tissue, which kind of like a storage house for lymphocytes. They also initiate adaptive immune response. The spleen would be one of these, it synthesizes antibodies and removes antibody-coated bacteria and they will get them out of the blood and kind of circulate through the lymph for excretion, out of the body.

Then there are the lymph nodes. There are larger lymph nodes throughout the body, and as this picture shows, there are lymph nodes on the neck, just behind the ear, in the groin region. These generally become a little bit more enlarged when there’s an infection because there are more white blood cells being reproduced and stored in and around these areas. So, if you’re fighting an infection, the lymph nodes become a little bit bigger.

The Lymphatic SystemBefore we move one, remember we have the arteries in the veins well, right beside those are the lymph vessels, because arteries carry oxygenated blood from the heart to the tissues. Veins carry deoxygenated blood from the tissues back to the heart. Alongside those are the lymph vessels, which transport excess interstitial fluid, waste, fatty acids, and the white blood cells.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

They’re very important around infected areas because not only do we want blood vessels in those areas, but we also need to drain the germs away from infected areas. The lymph vessels take excess drainage germ stuff to the lymph nodes for processing.

The lymphatic system transports white blood cells to and from the lymph nodes and into the bones. It transports antigen-present cells, so cells that have a


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

pathogen or an antigen on them. They’ll send them to the lymph nodes, where the immune response, that’s kind of like where the battle will take place. It also carries cancer cells between various parts of the body. The intervening lymph nodes, again, can trap the cancer cells, and if they’re not successful in destroying the cancer cells, the nodes may become sites of secondary tumors. You may have heard things like Hodgkin’s or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Those are types of cancers, tumors that take place in the lymph nodes.

Lymph Nodes – Command CentralLymph nodes are like command central. All the debris of the immune response gets cleaned up and sent to the lymph nodes for processing. It’s kind of like the dump or the liver, of the lymphatic system. They function as a filter, storage facility, and activation for B and T cells and the center for antibody production.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Once inside, the T lymphocytes or T cells identify invaders and then those T cells will send out specific instructions to the B cells about what to do, so produce antibodies or whatever else it might be.

The B cells, in a lot of cases, will then mature into plasma cells and produce antibodies specific to a particular invader. They also generate memory cells to protect against future invasion. That’s kind of the roles that we saw earlier with the different types of B cells and T cells, a lot of that action is taking place in the lymph node itself, so there’s a lot of stuff going on in the lymph nodes. Really interesting.

Routes of ExposureFirst of all, the skin. The skin, as we saw, is our first barrier of protection, and, really, diseases of the skin, like serious infections, are pretty rare. There’s Malaria’s which we don’t have a cure for it yet, Lyme disease, happens in North America quite a bit within the forest, if you have trauma or punctures that can result into tetanus.

Mucus membranes, so tuberculosis is another thing we don’t have a cure for. It’s the result of inhaling a specific bacteria, hepatitis A, rotavirus, food allergies, food poisoning, everything you can think of can really come in the GI tract.

Your skin is a much better barrier than the digestive tract. Your digestive tract probably has larger pores. The reproductive tract. syphilis, HIV, gonorrhea, all those great diseases that we know and love.

The skin is a great barrier. The mucus membranes are pretty solid depending on nutritional status. If you’re not healthy, those mucus membranes will be much more susceptible to allowing things to pass through.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Types of ImmunityWe have the innate immunity and the adaptive or acquired immunity. Innate involves an immediate response; it has no memory and does not involve antibodies. It occurs around the skin and mucosal membranes. It uses phagocytosis and the presentation of various pathogens to lymphocytes. And then it involves the complement system.

The adaptive immune system is where we have antibody response to invaders. So, we have previous experience, which leads us to developing memory cells, which, in the future, leads to a faster response. The new exposure to something creates a directed, specific response in lymphocyte memory.

In the innate side, the immune system will recognize anything, any germ, it’s all the same response. The adaptive side is very specific, so we have a B cell that will produce antibodies, but that B cell could only produce antibodies for one specific pathogen or one specific antigen. If there’s another antigen, well, we’ll have to have another B cell that will produce specific antibodies for that specific antigen.

The innate system will always be sent out first. It’s kind of like battles in the medieval times everyone is just kind of thrown out there, no matter what the enemy is, no matter what the invader is. The innate system just kind of gets in the initial infantry, which is going out there and trying to do its job. If the bad guys get by that initial infantry, then more specialized commanders, will be called into action, and that’s where we have these antibody production types of stuff in the immune system.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Innate Immunity

Let’s look specifically at innate immunity to give you a sense of what this is all about.

Mechanisms of DefenseIt’s the first line of defense, just before the innate immunity kicks in, but it’s still very intertwined with it. Mucus is a form of production; we produce about a liter a day of mucus, we have mechanical washing, like chewing; mechanical expulsion, like coughing or sneezing, so we’re trying to get stuff out of the body; hydrochloric acid and enzymes. We’ll break stuff down in the stomach and digestive system to get rid of them.

There’s bacterial competition, so, as I mentioned at the onset of this presentation, there’re tons of bacteria all around us and inside of us, and that bacteria will compete for different things. Sometimes the good bacteria will beat up the bad bacteria and vice versa.

Cilia – Conveyor Belts We also have cilia, in your nostrils, you have these little hairs; well, think even smaller than that. We have cilia that line most of our mucosal membranes. They’re like palm trees; they move in the wind; kind of just imagine that.

What they do is they help move bacteria through and out of the body. They’re very prevalent in the trachea. That’s why when you cough up mucus; a lot of that mucus is being propelled up through the cilia. The cilia’s like a conveyor belt; it’s moving stuff out of the body in a really kind of rhythmic, wavelike fashion. It’s really cool.

Again, it’s most pronounced in mucus membranes and the lungs, especially anywhere where we inhale. It’s going to serve two purposes: It’s going to trap airborne bacteria and airborne germs, and it moves it out of the body.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

DefensinsAnd then we have things called defensins a new area in immunology, these are small protein molecules found throughout the body that serve many different roles. The cells in the immune system contain these peptides to assist in killing phagocytosed bacteria. Phagocytosis, is a way that different cells bacteria. So, the defensins will mark these types of cells once they’ve ingested bacteria with a special protein, and that tells the immune system that they can kill or really destroy these cells because they’re no longer useful.

For instance, white blood cells contain defensins that attach to a germ, pokes a hole in it, and renders it harmless. That’s one kind of mechanism of action defensins but there are a lot of different types of defensins. They’re types of proteins that work within the immune system to either tag phagocytosis bacteria or they can poke stuff through in conjunction with different white blood cells to render them harmless.

Natural Killer (NK)Then we have natural killer cells, NK cells. I mentioned this in the beginning; these derive from the lymphoid side with the T and B cells, but they actually are part of the innate immune response, and here is a natural killer cell attaching itself to a cancer cell. They recognize virally infected cells and kill them.

They bind to the cell and expel cytolytic granules like little machine gun pellets that cause a cell to die by apoptosis. Apoptosis is programmed cell death. So, for instance, with cancer cells, cancer cells no longer have apoptosis, they cells no longer have an expiration date like all other cells do, that’s why they grow out of control. Natural killer cells kind of reestablish that apoptosis by firing these granules and causing the cell to eventually die through its own kind of programmed cell death.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

PhagocytosisPhagocytosis is kind of like Pac-Man. Think about Pac-Man kind of going through its game, just chomping down on every little piece of food molecule; same thing with phagocytosis. This image here is a macrophage eating anthrax. You can see the macrophage or neutrophil; is this orange mass engulfing it.

They’re also known as professional phagocytes. They’re cells that consume their enemies. They recognize, ingest, and destroy them. There are three different types of phagocytes: neutrophils, macrophages, and dendritic cells.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Anytime there’s an infection, one or all three of cells will be called to phagocytize, basically recognize, ingest, and destroy these various molecules. They release toxic substances to kill organisms. For instance, nitric oxides, toxic oxygen-derived products. You know, when you squeeze a pimple? That’s all the debris that’s left over after phagocytosis, specifically from neutrophils. Anytime you have a pimple or something, there’s an immune response going on in there, and, usually, it’s an innate immune response. There’s really, generally, there shouldn’t be antibody types of responses with that kind of stuff, but when you have that pus buildup, it’s essentially dead white blood cells and really the most of the makeup there are neutrophils.

Complement SystemThe complement system involves plasma proteins that work together to destroy cell membranes, attract phagocytes, and stimulate activity of other immune system cells. So, they’re usually inactive but contact with microbes or antibodies can trigger a cascade of events, which destroys pathogens.

These essentially attach to a pathogen. So, an invader comes in, this complement system will attach a specific protein to the pathogen itself, to the invader, and it kind of tags the invader as bad. It tells the rest of the immune system, “This guy’s bad news.” And what that does is it attracts the phagocytes, like the neutrophils, the macrophages, the dendritic cells, and other, in some cases, lymphocytes, like the antibodies for destruction purposes.

Innate Immune ResponseThe innate immune response can be broken down into three different types. We’ve got the complement system, which involves plasma proteins, whereby it destroys some membranes, attracts phagocytes, stimulate activity of other immune cells. Again, probably you’re not away of this really because there’s no symptoms with that; however, you might be aware of fever and inflammation.

A fever is an elevation of body temperature. This is important because as the body temperature increases, it provides an environment where we can kill bacteria just by the rise in temperature. The fever response releases pyrogens that increase body temperature by inducing cyclooxygenase-2 or


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

COX2. Things like insets, like aspirin, ibuprofen, they actually inhibit the COX2 pathway. That’s why I’m not a huge fan of using those types of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories, because they are shutting down your body’s natural response to killing off bacteria or infection. Does that make sense?

Check with your doctor, but I don’t believe there is a need for anti-fever medications. If you let your body do what it’s supposed to do, which is increasing its body temperature to destroy what it needs to destroy, it will do its job and come back to homeostasis.

Now, inflammation is also another acute innate response. It’s a normal response, chronic inflammation is a different thing.

Inflammation’s where we have mast cells or dendritic cells, where they release pro-inflammatory cytokines. There’re also cells that release histamine. These cytokines are like interferon, interleukin 1, tumor necrosis factor, and what these do is they dilate the blood vessels and they allow for an influx of immune cells to clear the area. So, if there’s an infection, we need to get more support into the area, so what these cytokines do is, they basically call out to the rest of the immune system, while also stimulating the walls of the arteries to expand to allow all these white blood cells, these different cells in the immune system, to come into the area to help clean up the problem. When this happens there’s pain, swelling, and redness, and that’s known as inflammation. This is a normal response to an acute problem.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Chronic systemic inflammation due to food allergies or other disease processes is not a good thing and can lead to a whole cascade of events. Chronic systemic inflammation is where acute inflammation has not been dealt with properly, and if you continue to inundate your body with things that are pro-inflammatory, your body will respond over time by breaking down different systems. Crohn’s disease is related to inflammation. Now they’re saying that Alzheimer’s disease also has a root in inflammation. Acute inflammation to deal with an infection or problem immediately is totally normal.

Recruitment of Immune Cells

Here’s how this works, let’s say you cut your finger and bacteria come in, macrophages, neutrophils, dendritic cells come into the area release these cytokines: interleukin 1, interferon, TNF, which prompt the rest of the system to come into play.

What happens here is that those messengers get out there and they tell the rest of the immune system to send some neutrophils or send different white blood cells. So, as an example, here’s a neutrophil on the top left, and what this does is it will come to the infected area and the neutrophil comes.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

These cytokines are sent out from the damaged area. They’re going to send a message, saying come over here. We have an issue, but even then, the neutrophils need something else. Bacteria tends to release chemokines, which are chemicals. Chemo-, chemicals, so these different cells in the immune system can smell, these chemokines, they will attach to this chemokine chain and from that the neutrophil basically attaches to the endothelium, the surface of the cell, and then these cells will actually kind of move away from each other, and it’ll allow the neutrophils to seep right into the tissue, and it will start its work on the bacteria in that area.

We have this damage that occurs, bacteria’s present. It gives off cytokines; it gives off chemokines at the same time, and both of those are messengers and call upon neutrophils and the white blood cells to come into the area to squeeze through the cells and into the tissue to clean up the debris and then cure the infection pretty much. This is how it works in the innate immune system in the inflammatory type of response.

Communicating the ResponseThese cytokines are hormone like peptides sent out from lymphocytes to other immune cells with specific instructions on how to deal with a particular invader. Interleukins, interferons, and each cytokine has a matching cell-surface receptor. Cytokines pair up with other cells like a lock-and-key. When this happens there’s a subsequent cascade of events. When blood cells come in, they can up regulate or down regulate different genes, they can increase the number of surface receptors for other molecules.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Chemokine SignalingThe chemokines allow for navigation of immune cells. They’re these tiny, smelly molecules that are present with bacteria. Neutrophils are attracted to smelly bacteria. There are also other stimulating compounds like the cytokines.

Here’s a very simple way of looking at this. We have a neutrophil and a chemokine concentration. The stronger the concentration of the chemokines, the stronger the smell; that’s going to be the direction in which those neutrophils will move, more smell, more neutrophils, and that basically an indication of the amount of bacteria present.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Adaptive Immunity

Let’s look at adaptive immunity. When you think about vaccinations and antibodies, this is what we’re talking about.

AntibodiesAntibodies have a specific immune response. They have a memory, and repeated exposure to the same pathogen will produce an enhanced response to that same pathogen the next time it’s encountered.

Let me define the two: an antigen is a substance that could illicit the production of a specific antibody and be bound by that antibody. So antigens are the bad guys and antibodies are the good guys. An antigen can be anything; it can be dust, it can be pollen, it can be a food protein, anything that’s going to illicit production of an antibody.

Antibodies are proteins that are produced by B cells, and they’re defined by the antigens to which they bind. So, antibodies are created specifically to bind to one antigen. Our body produces a ton of antibodies, there are billions of them.

There are five different types of antibodies: IgG, IgE, IgA, IgM, IgD. But IgG, IgE, and IgA are more of what we’re concerned about.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

I do want to point out the antibody structure and we have what’s known as a heavy chain and a light chain that it’s made up of. It has kind of this Y formation. All antibodies are pretty much the same structure; the only thing that changes is the end portion here, this little end portion.

Each antibody is specific to a specific antigen and it’s a lock-and-key model. So, if an antibody’s produced, it needs to fit on to that antigen. As you can see here, this antigen fits directly right into this antibody.

In this picture here you can see the end portion specifically gripping on to different parts of those antigens. Each B cell, each B lymphocyte, produces roughly ten thousand antibodies that are specific to one pathogen. This occurs in the bone marrow.

So, one B cell produces antibodies specific to one pathogen. Antibodies can then be released to travel through the blood to various tissues. Let’s say you have ten pathogens come into the body. You’re going to need ten different B cells to produce roughly ten thousand antibodies, and each of those ten thousand antibodies will be specific to one those ten different pathogens.

T and B Cell CloningThis is called adaptive because it adapts in terms of its exposure. First exposure, random antibodies to this antigen; the green triangle is the antigen, however because it’s the first exposure, the immune system remember we start creating memory T cells, memory B cells, and the second time the same antigen’s present, we have a much greater presence of antibodies, or B cells and T cells; same idea.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

These B cells and these T cells will multiply after the first exposure with that memory so that the second time that thing’s exposed to the antigens present in these B cells and T cells and thus resulting antibodies that are produced will multiply significantly so that we can deal with the problem and it doesn’t cause any issues.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

If we look at the one on the left this would be a virus that attaches to a host cell. Antibodies come through and basically attach to the virus and neutralizes the problem. The bacteria, which has been attached on by different antibodies, and then a phagocyte, like a neutrophil comes in and engulfs antibody-coated bacteria.

Infection-Specific ResponseThere’s a very specific response to infection depending on the type. Here’s how this works. With a virus, we have the innate mechanisms, which were strict viral replications of the neutrophil response. Then antibodies block virus infection of cells by neutralizing them, and then killer T cells kill them. Innate and adaptive work together.

Type I immunity involves antibodies, phagocytes, and neutrophil-rich inflammation. This can be prolonged by helper T cells that send out messages to produce more antibodies and get more macrophages involved.

Type II immunity is what we’re going to spend most of our time on in the next lecture. Here we have specialized helper T cells that promote IgE formation. IgE is the immunoglobulin that is associated with full-blown allergy. It works with the mast cells in the tissue and the basal cells in the blood to strengthen epithelial barriers and it will bring in the acidophils to attack worms. This leads to coughing, sneezing, itching, diarrhea, or, if you have asthma this is the type of full-blown allergic response that would happen, for instance, in an anaphylactic shock.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Antibody Response

Here’s the antibody response. If you present an antigen into your body—antigen A—the first time it’s present, we’ll have an anti A response. So, we’ll have an antibody response to that antigen, and that response will be somewhat mediocre. However, when that happens those memory cells will be created.

Now, the next time the same antigen is present antigen A is reintroduced into your body. Now, look at the difference in response. We’re looking at the red curve here. This is the secondary anti A response is much greater. At the same


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

time antigen B is introduced, and look at its response, the blue line. It’s basically the same response that we had the first time around with the antigen A.

With active immunity, it takes about one to two weeks to produce antibodies, and this is where vaccines would come in. This is generally the best way to produce immunity versus passive immunity, where you’re directly transfusing antibodies into the host. So, this would be like breastfeeding or direct antibody transfusion if you can’t produce antibodies.

The ideal is that your body basically produces its own immunity, its own antibodies in response to being exposed to different antigens. So, the first exposure, it says, “Hey, whoa. I know what that is,” and you might experience something, but now you have that defense. You know what to expect the next time. Let’s say you get a cold or you get the flu, the next time that same strain of the flu or the cold comes around, you’re not going to get sick, because now your body has built up a huge reserve of antibodies, because it can recognize, “Hey, I remember that strain. I remember that one.” So, it says, “Hey, you know what? We’re ready to go. We’ve got, like, then thousand, several thousand antibodies specifically to deal with this,” and, therefore, you will not get sick.

And that’s how the antibody response works, so when you get an immunization or a vaccination, it usually takes one to two weeks for those antibodies to be produced. And different antibodies have a different half-life, so it’ll take longer for certain antibodies to kind of disappear, if you will, versus others. A tetanus booster is recommended every ten years, because it takes about ten years for those tetanus antibodies to fall to zero.

And this is really important because with food allergies, your body is essentially producing antibodies against specific food proteins, so that’s why an elimination diet is important, because you need to remove the antigen, that particular food protein, and, over time, allow your body to literally rid itself of those antibodies against that particular food protein. It’s amazing how this works.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Time Course of Immune Response to InfectionHere’s the time course of the immune response. Let’s say you have an infection. You cut your finger or you get an insect bite. You have the innate immunity, which kicks in immediately and up to four hours. So, you get this immediate early response; it’s nonspecific, it just kind of just, whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. And the stronger the innate immunity response, the better. It helps you, it keeps you strong while the antibody system kicks in. Remember, because the antibody system could take, in some cases, one to two weeks? The stronger your innate immunity, the better off you’re going to be. The early induced response, anywhere from 4 to 96 hours; so, again, up to four days.

A little bit more precise recognition of invaders and a recruitment of the inflammatory response, and then after 96 hours, then we get the adaptive immune response, which is where we get the transportation to the lymph tissue and the specific identification of the invaders, and, therefore, we start producing antibodies at this point.

Again, it takes about four days at a minimum before our immune system starts to produce these antibodies against particular invaders. That’s why it’s really important that we have a strong immune system, because even before the antibodies can kick in, we need to have those neutrophils, those macrophages, those dendritic cells, the complement system that are all working to keep you healthy.

Overview of Immune ResponseThe overview of the immune response; everything we talked about, I’m going to bring it together in this beautifully directed animation presentation.

We have a pathogen; that comes into the body. A neutrophil, which is one of those phagocytes, comes to the pathogen, it’s going to start ejecting these granules; it’s going to start peppering the pathogen like a machine gun with these granules. It’s going to try to poke holes into it to damage it. Once it does that, it can then come and engulf it.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

However, if that doesn’t do the trick, then we gotta call in our other friends, the macrophage, which is another type of phagocyte. So, the macrophage could come in like Pac-Man and just try to engulf the pathogen. Sometimes that works, sometimes it’s not enough. If it’s not enough, then we have the complement system, and the complement system, in this case, would use a protein like C3b; it will attach that protein to the surface of the pathogen molecule or the pathogen itself, and—remember what this does. Remember the complement system; those proteins that attach on these bad guys flag the pathogen as being, “Hey, you know what? This guy’s not good.” It tells the rest of the immune system, “Hey, guys, come on over. This guy’s bad news. We gotta deal with him.

Let’s say the pathogen survives and it’s inside one of your cells now. What’s going to happen next is that your cell is going to send off a stress signal; it’s going to emit this Morse code to “Help me! Help me! I’m infected.” When that happens the natural killer cell—remember those?—is going to come into play.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

It’s going to start peppering your human cell. It’s going to actually attack your infected human cell with, again, these cytolytic granules and try to poke holes in your cell and destroy the pathogen, destroy your cell altogether.

That’s what happens kind of from an innate perspective, without bringing in the antibodies. If this is taken care of, then it’s all good. Then the immune system just has to come in and clear the debris and it’s all good. Now, if that’s not enough, if your cell down here is still infected, the natural killer cell came along and still couldn’t do its job, then we have the antibody response coming into play. So, the antibody, the B cells here, have these specific antibodies on its cell surface. And, again, as we see, it signals off into the bloodstream, and if they are specifically designed to deal with this pathogen then the antibodies can then attach to those antigen receptor sites on the pathogen.

First of all, this kind of lock-and-key of the antibody and antigen is going to further signify to the complement system, “Hey, you know what? Let’s get further support here, further intervention; we need more stuff.” So, the complement system will do more of its job; it’ll add some more proteins to this, and it’ll signal more and more cells to come and deal with this, these neutrophils and macrophages.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Now, all the stuff is really attacking the pathogen. But at the same time, some of these antigen cell proteins or peptides can be dislodged. They can come off the pathogen itself, then the dendritic cells literally engulf these antigen molecules and they will literally turn them into something called MHC. When this happens those helper T cells will launch on to the MHC. It’s kind of like a lock and key, and it activates the helper T cell to say, “You know what? We need some more help here.”

Then the helper T cell will send out this message of activation so it’s going to strengthen the B cell response. It’s going to tell the B cell, “Start producing more antibodies.” Maybe the B cell will turn into a plasma cell, where it becomes an antibody-producing machine. At the same time, the helper T cell will send that message all the way out to the other macrophages and phagocytes in the innate side of the immune system and say, “Hey, you know what? Let’s keep killing this guy; let’s keep dealing with him.”

So, the helper T cell, in response to this MHC molecule from the dendritic cell, is basically saying, “Hey, we haven’t dealt with this problem yet. Let’s reinforce the antibody production and all these other cells to attack this pathogen.” And that’s not it, because the cytotoxic T cell, which is another form of the T cell—the killer T cell that we looked at—will also latch on to the MHC molecule, and what the cytotoxic, or killer T cell, does is it directly will go to your infected human cell, and, much like the natural killer cell, it will destroy it. It’ll make a sacrifice.

It’ll say, “You know what? My pink toe is infected. We’re going to take care of it. We’ll just get rid of it.” That’s obviously an extreme case. Your body would not literally just get rid of your pinky toe unless you have a specific disorder. But because we have trillions of cells and they’re always replicating and turning over, a lot of these cells will be infected, and we’ll take care of them ourselves with our own immune system.

But, again, the importance here is that these T cells can identify pathogens inside of your own cells and the antibodies cannot. The antibodies can only look at pathogens on the outside of your cells, so it can only see the pathogen kind of floating around the bloodstream. If that pathogen gets inside your cells, antibodies are useless, so that’s where the cell-mediated immune response


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

comes in. the cytotoxic cell, the helper T cell, is part of the cell-mediated immune response. The antibodies from the B cells and how they attach their pathogens in the blood is known as the humoral immune response.

This is a simplified version, but you don’t need to know any more specifics than this.

Antibody Isotopes

So, we talked about the antibody isotopes—IgA, IgE, IgG—and, very briefly, IgA is found in the mucus, saliva, tears, gut, and mother’s milk, really kind of the exterior of our body, the lining of our mucus membranes, it bays the body surface, mucosal membranes, and prevents pathogen entry. It solidifies the epithelial cells.

The IgG is the most prominent type of antibody. IgG and IgE. IgG is mainly found in the plasma throughout the blood it can also cross the placenta. So, for newborns, this is where they’re getting immediate protection from their mothers, because the IgG is coming directly through the placenta.

IgG is also associated with type I and type II hypersensitivities. IgE, is associated with the full-blown allergic response known as type I hypersensitivity and the reactions to parasites and, again, is found in the lung, skin, and mucus membrane. IgE is actually the least abundant type of antibody in the body. It’s found in trace amounts. IgG’s about ten times more than IgE, but IgE is higher in hypersensitive people.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Evolution of the Immune System

Genetic influences, obviously if your parents have eczema, then there’s about 50 to 75 percent likelihood that you’ll have it as well. Genetic tendencies are pretty prevalent. Prenatal influences, you know, depending on what types of allergens the mother’s been exposed to, some of that may cross the placenta.

Lifetime exposure to microbes, birth order, the first child is more likely to have hypersensitivity issues than the second, third, or fourth child, simply because they are exposed to fewer germs typically.

If you work in a hospital surrounded by sick people all the time then your immune system will be stronger even though you might get sick a little bit more than somebody who is living by themselves on an isolated island, where they’re exposed to nothing. If you live in a very humid, damp area, you’re going to be exposed to different things than if you live in the desert in Arizona. And lifestyle, obviously, lifestyle’s really important.

Hygiene HypothesisThis was put forth by David Strachan in 1989, so it’s pretty new. He states this in the British Medical Journal and basically proposed that, the hygiene hypothesis was proposed to explain the observation that hay fever and eczema, both allergic diseases, were less common in children from larger families, which were presumably exposed to more infectious agents children from families with only one child. Interesting.

It is used to explain the increase in allergic diseases that had been on the rise since industrialization and the higher incidents of allergic diseases in more developed countries. What we’re saying here is that there’s a greater tendency for people in cleaner, more developed environments to develop allergic disease. That’s essentially what this hypothesis is saying.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Allergic diseases are caused by inappropriate immunological responses to harmless antigens—pollen, dust, for instance—driven by humoral-mediated immune response. Remember, humoral mediated means antibody mediated. Many bacteria and viruses illicit a cell-mediated response—so, there’s no antibodies involved—which down regulates antibody responses, and that’s a good thing. However, the first proposed mechanism of action of the hygiene hypothesis stated that insufficient stimulation of the cell-mediated arm—of the immune system—stimulating the cell defense of the immune system leads to an overactive antibody arm or overactive antibody response stimulating that antibody-mediated immunity, which, in turn, leads to greater development of allergic disease, because allergies develop as a response of you developing specific antibodies to certain antigens. We don’t develop allergies through the cell-mediated side of things; it’s only through antibodies.

Hygiene Hypothesis…Are We Too Clean?Studies have shown that immunological and autoimmune diseases are much less common in the developing world than the industrialized world. Immigrants to the industrialized world from the developing world increasingly developed immunological disorders in relation to the length of time since arrival in the industrial world. So, the longer they’ve been in an industrialized country, the greater their chances of developing allergies and other immunological disorders.

A big study in the journal Cell in 2004 showed that when short-lived T cells were replaced during a state of too few long-lived T cells—so, memory T cells. Because of lack of infections, the risk of developing autoimmune diseases increases.

What they were saying is there was an insufficient cell-mediated response, and because of that, there were more antibodies produced in response to a lack of infections. If you are not exposed to germs, your body will not know how to deal with them in a cell-mediated immune response way. It’s going to have to develop, or it’s going to switch over to developing antibodies too quickly. And as a result of doing that, you become more hypersensitive and more prone to developing immunological disorders like allergies and autoimmune diseases. That’s why things like antibacterial soap, not a great idea. It’s fine to wash your


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

hands, but do not use the antibacterial stuff, because you’re literally creating super bugs, because these bacteria will learn how to replicate, develop new strains, and that’s a whole issue.

Let the kids play in the dirt; let them come into contact with different germs and different microorganisms. We don’t want to put them in a bubble, because then their body is not going to be used to dealing with these problems. If you are not exposed to germs, your immune system will not develop appropriately to deal with germs in the future…or any other nondangerous invader.

The conclusion is that an overly clean environment with a lack of infections, especially in your early years, increase the risk of an autoimmune disorder.

In developed countries where childhood diseases were eliminated, the asthma rate for youth raised approximately 10 percent. In the 19th century asthma was a very rare disease. It’s kind of like this inverse relationship, so as we’ve kind of taken care of infectious disease, our rate of immunological disorders—asthma, allergies, autoimmune diseases—has increased dramatically, whereby they were pretty much nonexistent before that.

The other thing here is that the use of antibiotics in the first year of life has been linked to asthma and other allergic diseases. Again, I’m not a huge proponent of antibiotics unless it’s a dire strait case and you have to be using it. Try not to use them unless you absolutely have to. And the use of antibacterial cleaning products has also been mildly associated with higher incidents of asthma, as has birth by Caesarian section rather than vaginal birth. Interesting.

When Things Go WrongWe’re looking at microbes that can hide inside your cells. This happens with HIV; cancers grow, programmed cell death, in this case, doesn’t occur; neutral agents are viewed as dangerous so, this is known as hypersensitivity. Again, we’re talking about different food allergens, that; neutral antigens that don’t kill things naturally. And when the body attacks itself. We’ll talk about the latter two in the next lesson.

Why do things go wrong? Well, first of all, stress or chronic disease play big roles. They weaken the adrenal glands, which will reduce your ability to handle


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

stress, and it slows down and impairs digestion. We know that digestion is intricately related with the immune system, because if we have leaky gut and stuff is leaking into the blood, then that’s going to create an immune response.

Why Things Go WrongIf you’re not providing your body with the right nutrients you’re not going to be able to build a strong immune system. Malabsorption and poor digestion basically just ties in with that. Improper liver function; if your liver’s too toxic, it’s not going to be able to do its job properly. Toxins, pollutants, infections, that’s what we typically think about when the immune system goes wrong. Okay, well, it’s an infectious disease. Are those toxins or are those pollutants? Well, there’s also this other stuff as well. It’s usually drugs, steroid creams, cortical steroids, whatever it might be, right?

Signs of Impaired Immune SystemSome of the signs are fatigue, repeated infections, allergic reactions, autoimmune disease, and slow wound healing. If you don’t have the energy you want, that’s because your body is reverting energy away from movement to healing inside of your body.

If you don’t have proper cell-mediated response you’re not producing the appropriate antibodies to deal with those infections, well, you’re going to get sick more often. Allergic reactions, autoimmune disease, obviously that’s a sign, and slow wound healing, because if you’re not able to repair a cut, well, there’s stuff—the inflammatory response is not working properly, and that’s not a good thing.

Supporting the Immune SystemWe’re going to look at lifestyle stuff. Avoid smoking and alcohol because they impair white blood cell mobilization. Decrease and avoid sugar; sugar itself decreases the potency of phagocytes. Decrease poor fat intake, so those polyunsaturated oils, the canola oils, soybean oil, all that stuff; remove it. Good sleep; maintain a healthy body weight; regular exercise; and drink plenty of water. It’s all the same stuff, right?


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Now let’s talk about nutrition builders and nutrition boosters. Builders give you the building blocks to help you build a strong immune system. Immune boosters literally just give kind of like a horse powered injection into your immune system, and if you have an autoimmune condition, you don’t want to be using the boosters, because it’s going to turn your immune system against yourself to an even higher degree. So, builders, protein, decrease the occurrence of bacterial parasitic infections, stimulate macrophage activity, supports cell-mediated immune response, which is a great thing and is needed for antibody production, because, remember, we saw antibodies are proteins. If you’re on a very low-protein diet, if you’re a fruitarian and not eating any kind of protein, well then, you’re going to be susceptible to some problems.

Vitamin A is an antioxidant, so that’s important. You need it for normal T cell metabolism, IgA, production, and it strengthens mucosal membranes. B vitamins are needed for T and B cell production, and they help with liver support. Vitamin E is an antioxidant and is needed for normal immunoglobulin production. Vitamin C, again, is an antioxidant; it’s needed for collagen production, normal adrenal function, healthy activity in macrophages. Again, you don’t need to supplement individually just make sure you’re eating whole foods.

Zinc is an antioxidant. It’s good for the reproduction of DNA, which is important for the production of antibodies, increases cell-mediated response, increases natural killer cell activity and macrophage activity, iron is needed for cell-mediated response and antibody production.

A lot of these nutrients support cell-mediated responses, and the more we can support a cell-mediated response the better off we’re going to be.

Copper; macrophage function. Selenium is an antioxidant and it’s needed for proper macrophage activity. Fatty acids, stabilization of cell membranes, antibody production, anti-inflammatory properties. Specifically, we’re going to talk about omega-3s here; we’re not talking about soybean oil, canola oil, omega-6 oils. We know that the more omega-3s we’re going to bring into our bodies, the stronger our cell membranes are going to be, the more fluid they’re going to be, especially from an anti-inflammatory perspective, omega-3 fatty acids are very, very important.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Immune System Boosters

These are for when you are sick or it’s flu season and you want to boost your immune system. Just a word of caution: If you have an autoimmune condition, you may not want to use these. Check with your doctor.

First of all, Echinacea, it activates the complement system, antibody production, increases phagocytosis, and has antitumor effects. Well, that’s all great. However, if used for more than five to seven days, it may suppress immunity, so, use it for five to seven days and then go off it for a couple days or a week and then go back on if you need to.

Astragalus, it handles phagocytosis and interferon production, promotes T cell maturation, and increases IgA levels. Not to be used if you have an autoimmune condition.

Oil of oregano, I’ve used too much of it in the last couple years, more than I should actually. It’s an antibiotic, antibacterial, antiviral, antiparasitic. A very powerful stimulator of the immune system. So, if you’re a healthy individual and you don’t have any issues with immune stuff, then add a drop or two to a shot glass of water, shoot it back a couple times a day, and it’s a great way to kill off bacteria. Very powerful stuff.

Then we’ve got things like reishi mushrooms. They boost a compromised immune system. Garlic is a natural antibiotic, antiviral and it’s involved in liver detox. I don’t consider this a significant booster. I eat it, I wouldn’t say I eat a lot of garlic, but I eat garlic whenever I can. Again, it’s a whole food and it’s got some incredible properties and it’s amazing. So, if you can add garlic in, some reishi mushrooms, if you’re okay with them, very, very potent compounds that will help with your immune system.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Vaccination

Let’s finish off really briefly here with vaccination, here’s the thing: it’s highly debated. You talk to a natural practitioner, and they’ll tell you “Don’t get vaccinated.” You talk to a doctor, and they’ll tell you, “You must get vaccinated.” So, who are you supposed to believe if you have kids?

Our son Oscar and received his initial boosters and after that we decided not to vaccinate him anymore. I’m going to give you my personal opinion, I personally don’t like vaccinations just because—and the real issue here is actually, it’s not the vaccination necessarily itself; it’s the binding agents, like the mercuries and the different compounds they use to stabilize a vaccination. That’s an issue.

There are some reports with autism, and that initial scientific study that showed vaccination was related to autism has been heavily refuted based on a flawed science. This is a very touchy area because you go on the Web, you try and do your research, and it doesn’t matter where you go. You go to Dr. Mercola’s site, and he’ll blast vaccinations until the end of time. You go to the Centers for Disease Control, and they’ll tell you, you must vaccinate. You go to your local government’s site; they’ll tell you, you must vaccinate. It’s a very, very debated topic.

I personally, there are certain things, like small pox; it’s a safe vaccination. And when you look at the fact that small pox has almost been eradicated around the world, the last thing I would want is for Oscar to travel to India, for instance, and pick up small pox because we didn’t vaccinate him. So, there are certain cases where vaccinations may be applicable; other cases may be not. For instance, I have not been vaccinated with the flu vaccine for as long as I can remember. That’s just a personal opinion of mine.

I don’t believe we need to be vaccinated with the influenza virus because if we have a strong enough immune system, we’ll be able to deal with it. And unless you’re a baby or an elderly person who has a compromised immune system.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

The nice thing about vaccinations is the premise upon which they work. They’re giving your body exposure to an antigen it would not normally receive. You really need to be informed about this.

Perhaps I’ll put together a special report on this and really get into some more in-depth information, one thing I can tell you the thing you really need to keep in mind with vaccinations is that people are very polarized. So, it depends on who you speak to. I’m trying to give you as objective an opinion as I possibly can.

A colleague of mine who’s a natural holistic doctor, has a patient who was a lab technician at the CDC, Centers for Disease Control, and he asked him if he vaccinated his kids, and that person said no, because he knew what was going into these vaccinations. So, I don’t want to use that as fuel to say “Don’t vaccinate,” but I just want you to realize that you really need to do your research beyond this presentation.

I’ll probably do something a little bit more extensive on this in the future, but for now just understand that who you listen to is going to have a very opinionated, biased opinion, and the only thing you can do is just do the research yourself and make the best decision for you and your family. That’s what I can say.


© S

uper

Nut

rition

Acad

emy.

com

Coming in Lesson 2In Lesson 2, we’re going to look at hypersensitivity reactions in greater depth. We will look at allergies, autoimmune disorders, how to prevent and treat them, and we’re talking about everything: food allergies, environmental allergies. This is a very important lesson coming up, but it’s also really important that you understand Lesson 1, everything we just talked about, because it forms the foundation and understanding of how your body’s going to respond when these foreign invaders come into your body.

So, I hope you’ve enjoyed this presentation, and I’ll see you in Lesson 2.

module #6 - lesson 1 - amazon s3 · b u Ç x } u 2 super nutrition academy – modle - lesson...

Documents