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HOW YOUR BODY DEFENDS ITSELF
AGAINST DISEASE

The immune system is the complicated
system of defences that your body uses to
prevent or fight of harmful
microorganisms-microbes
...
For this reason people
should wash their hands and keep
hygienically clean as microbes can enter our
body through our lungs, through cuts in our
skin, in the food we eat and so you must try
to:
Cover your mouth when you have a cough
Use a handkerchief when you have a cold
Clean cuts and cover them with a plaster
Keep your body clean
Wash your hands before preparing or
eating food
Keep food wrapped up and in the fridge
The body has various ways of reducing the
chances of microbes entering the body, for
example:
Mucus lines your airways and lungs to
protect them from smoke and particles as

well as from germs
...

The skin is a barrier that stops pathogens
entering the body
...

When you sneeze, cough, vomit or itch it is
the body’s ways of getting rid of unwanted
microbes
...

The body also has many specialized cells
and chemicals that fight germs that get
inside you
...

Interferons are proteins that help the
body’s cells to attack viruses and also
stimulate killer cells
...

Phagocytes are big white blood cells that
engulf and digest microbes
...
You can recognise
phagocytes as they have a lobed nucleus
...

Lymphocytes are white blood cells that play
a key role in the body’s immune system
...

Antibodies kill microbes or make them
clump together so that the phagocytes
engulf several microbes at the same time
...

Thus Vaccinations is one of the best ways to
get treated beforehand and this is because
when you are given a vaccine [e
...
flu], it is a
vaccine, which injects a dead/weakened
form of the pathogen, and this stimulates
the white blood cells to produce the correct
antibody against the pathogen
...
Vaccines are usually injected
into the body, but the mouth can take some
too
...
Each antibody is
effective against one microbe so doctors
have a different vaccine for each microbe
...
They are produced by white
blood cells-lymphocytes
...
Human
beings generate per person ten billion
different antibodies
...

This is how vaccinations work too
...
Autoimmune diseases are ones in
which the body forms antibodies against its
own tissue cells
...

Inflammation is the consequence of an
injury or infection, it is the occurrence of
redness, swelling, heat and pain
...
When the body is damaged,
nearby cells release histamine and other
chemicals
...
The
chemicals attract the special white blood
cells called leucocytes, which destroy the
infection
...
Inflammation may very
depending on whether it is acute- which is a
sudden reaction or chronic which is slower
reaction and lasts up to several months

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