Living A Full Life

From Pathogens to Protection: Understanding Your Immune Response

• Full Life Chiropractic • Season 3 • Episode 9

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Unlock the secrets of your immune system with Dr. Enrico Dolcecore, a seasoned chiropractic physician with 17 years of experience, as he demystifies the complex machinery that keeps us healthy. Explore the intricacies of how your body's innate and adaptive defenses work like a symphony to fend off pathogens, especially crucial during the colder months when our immune system is put to the test. From the frontline soldiers like neutrophils and macrophages to the vital role of T-cells and antibodies, Dr. Dolcecore offers insights into the body's galaxy of defense mechanisms.

Journey through the fascinating landscape of your immune response, discovering the pivotal roles of organs such as the bone marrow and the gut-associated lymphoid tissue in orchestrating a robust immune defense. Learn how memory cells provide a quick response to familiar invaders, reducing the impact of viruses like the common cold and COVID-19. Dr. Dolcecori also sheds light on how a well-coordinated attack on pathogens is achieved through the synergy between innate and adaptive immunity.

Dr. Dolcecore's expertise challenges common myths about so-called immune-boosting products, highlighting the importance of a balanced lifestyle for maintaining immune health. Embrace practical tips on nutrition, sleep, and stress management to fortify your body’s natural defenses. With an emphasis on proven vitamins and minerals like zinc and vitamin C, listeners are equipped to make informed decisions for their health. Prioritize your well-being with advice tailored for sustaining immune health throughout life's seasons.

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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to another podcast of Living a Full Life. I'm Dr Enrico Dolcecori and this week's podcast is all for the nerds. So if you're a nerd, you're going to love this one. We're going to dive deep into the immune system to understand it even better.

Speaker 1:

I've always been taught as a doctor to not over-teach certain things to your patients. So I've come up all these years 17 years of teaching in layman's terms, which makes it digestible and easy for my patients to walk away with some information that can change their lives. That's always been my mission. Every single day I walk into my practice. That's what I want to do, and this podcast has been a great way to megaphone that mission to as many listeners from all over the place. That's cool. It's a digital world we live in, so, but because of that layman terms that I've always been taught myself to do for my patients, I realize I'm maybe a little too easy on the podcast when really people want more factual information. And science is wonderful when it comes to facts, because that's all science is is the study of observation and what's happening. So the immune system is amazing and as much as we think we know, we are still learning about the immune system all the time. It's absolutely fascinating what the immune system does and how it works. It's like a galaxy of its own, but it's absolutely crucial and it's a great time in the winter to talk about the immune system does and how it works. It's like a galaxy of its own, but it's absolutely crucial and it's a great time in the winter to talk about the immune system in detail. So I'll keep this entertaining. I will keep you engaged, but I also will go deep into the cells and how the immune system works and some of the terminology that's in there, so that you can be well-versed in how your immune system works and you can fortify it in a healthy way. So it's absolutely critical in the winter to really understand why our immune system may be a little bit more lethargic or more fighting a little bit more. It's because we don't have the things that we have in the vibrant summer, like great temperatures, lots of sunlight and all a good circadian rhythm with sleep and all the other things that come with summertime living.

Speaker 1:

We are designed, whether, no matter what you believe in as far as religion and where we came from, evolution, whatever it is, they're all wrong. Uh, they're all just thoughts and theories. Honestly, when it all comes onto it, we're truly just continuously learning. They're not wrong, they're just not right. I guess I should say they're just not correct. It's. We still are learning. We still just don't know.

Speaker 1:

No one has lived for 2 million years to report back to us and tell us how it was. No, no, no. I was there in the first cave. We were just humans. There was no evolution. We're just humans. We were in a cave 2 million years ago and I've watched us just go for 2 million years and then report back to us. So all we have is evidence to go back on and make theories on.

Speaker 1:

So, really, our immune system is designed to live around the equator, whereas as humans and the species that we are, we're an equator type living person, or people or animals, for Pete's sakes because of look at our fur, look at our coat. We've lost that over time or we've never had it. Whatever you believe in, it's just there. It doesn't make any sense for us to be living up in the Arctic or in Antarctica. We just wouldn't survive. It doesn't matter how it would work. So we are definitely equator-based, which means we love the sun. We're just designed as animals to love the sun, we love it, we love being around there. So understanding our immune system plays a big role. So what we need to focus on is the innate and adaptive immunity. These are two things you may or may not have heard, but they're absolutely fascinating things.

Speaker 1:

So innate immune system is the first line of defense, and across all the medical textbooks it's called innate immune system. And innate is just that internal intelligence that's given to all life. That's what innate means. It's a chiropractic principle that we're taught in chiropractic school on the first day that you're there innate intelligence and across all the other medical programs it's not. And you wonder why we're the weirdos? We think a little different, because we know that everything has been programmed inside of our DNA. We know that we are supposed to express that to its fullest every single breath that we take. We know that it's designed, the program is designed that way.

Speaker 1:

So when it comes to the immune system the innate immune system, the first line of defense it has physical barriers. Our skin, our mucosal membranes, bodily fluids like saliva, tears, all act as the first line of defense to prevent from pathogens entering the body. Then we have hairs and all these things to block pathogens as well, then we have cells. Certain cells have certain jobs White blood cells, such as neutrophils and macrophages. What they do is quickly respond to invaders. They engulf and destroy them through a process called phagocytosis. Then what we have is protein, protein chains. These complement proteins circulate in the blood and help to destroy pathogens by puncturing their cell membranes. It's your immune system's army that they send out these proteins to destroy and puncture the other cells of the invaders. This is the immune response, and inflammation inflammation is part of that.

Speaker 1:

Innate immune first line of defense. When an area is injured or infected, whether it came through the skin or an orifice, whatever it has, it becomes red, warm and swollen and it responds. It responds with a triggered isolate to isolate the invader and promote healing. So that's what isolated inflammation is. You may have had that like a pimple or a cold sore or something becomes red, tender and what's happening is your body, your body is pumping red and white blood cells to the area to get rid of the invader. That's what's happening in that. So that's cool.

Speaker 1:

Then the second line of defense is the adaptive immune defense. So lymphocytes, so B cells and T cells. B cells produce antibodies that target specific pathogens, so your body gets exposed to specific pathogens. So your body gets exposed to specific pathogens. Then those pathogens are documented in a directory that is forever saved in the immune systems, rolodex, and B cells are produced to target those specific pathogens and they will forever remember that specific pathogen and be ready next time with those specific B cells. So it's like the art of war. They realize that these pathogens respond really well to breaking their cells with arrows, and then these ones to explosives, and then these ones with bullets, and then these ones, and they just produce these cells with the armor that they need to break those cells. Very cool thing T-cells, including helper T-cells that coordinate the immune system to response to cytotoxic T-cells that kill infected cells.

Speaker 1:

So if an invader gets into our intracellular components, their T-cells come out and destroy our cells that have been invaded to make sure that the proliferation stops. This is very much a process in viral infections. So viruses typically latch onto our cells and then get into them and re replicate and then burst the cell with more viruses and that's how it kind of spreads. That's typically the common cold, rhinitis, covid, whatever it is. That's how those things work.

Speaker 1:

Now the antibodies these are the proteins we were talking about that recognize and bind to specific antigens. They have unique markers on pathogens, neutralizing them or making them for destruction, or they mark them for destruction. I should say so that's what they do. So they tag them and then either they call on the help of more white blood cells, b cells, t cells, whatever it is, to help them destroy those cells. So it's all this army, it's all this military type design on destroying pathogens and foreign invaders. And then we have memory cells. After infection, the immune system creates memory B and T cells that remember the pathogen, allowing for faster response if it's invaded Again.

Speaker 1:

The whole premise of immunization is based on this Introduce a string of the virus, a string of the RNA, a string of the DNA, whatever it is, to excite this adaptive immune system so that the memory cells are triggered forever and ever. Whether it works for all the immunizations we have out there or not is up for science, and some of them have better retention than others. But that was where the whole premise came from. Well, let's not just get exposed to the real pathogen which could cause serious effects. Let's create immunizations of a section of this so that you have minimal to no effects to that and you can build memory T cells. But then we learn about viruses and bacteria over time and how to keep them in a vial and all the other things we have to add to that vial to neutralize the virus portion or the bacteria. And then it just turns into this whole debate about are all the other ingredients safe for us? And that's a different talk for a different day. But that's memory cells, organs of the immune system. So let's talk about where all these cells are made Bone marrow.

Speaker 1:

So inside of all your bones, especially large bones and long bones, they produce white blood cells, including your lymphocytes, your thymus gland. It's the site where T cells mature. So T cells get stored there, they mature there, then they're ready to disperse through the thymus gland. Then the lymph nodes is where they filter lymph fluid and house immune cells that can respond to pathogens. And those guys are just floating around your lymph and in your lymph nodes waiting, waiting for an attack. It's like in the military, just stationed at each base waiting for the next call. And then the spleen filters blood, removing old red blood cells and pathogens. So it's a big sponge that filters this stuff. And then we have the gut-associated lymphoid tissue, which includes structures like the appendix and Peyer's patch, which protect the digestive system. So these are designed areas in the gut to store pathogens so that they can be killed off slowly through this whole system.

Speaker 1:

Inside of the gut, the gut internal gut is considered external of the body. Okay, so think of it as like your garden hose the one end of the garden hose is your mouth, the other end of your garden hose is your bum, and inside of that garden hose is considered everything external to your body that's never supposed to get into your bloodstream, it's never supposed to get into your lymph stream. It's never supposed to be absorbed. So your gut tissue has this lining of immunity that protects it from pathogens, from getting absorbed into the bloodstream. Isn't that cool. But it can pick up all your nutrition your carbohydrates, your monosaccharides, your disaccharides, your proteins, your amino acids, your fats, your triglycerides everything can be absorbed through, but not the pathogens. Very amazing system there.

Speaker 1:

So the immune system works in a very complex way and I'm not an immunologist. So we're going to go through simple physiology. I've done a lot of that and I can speak well-versed in that. But when it comes to immunology and how the immune system adapts to certain and specific pathogens. That's not for me.

Speaker 1:

So how it works, the detection of invaders when a pathogen enters the body, the innate immune system recognizes it through receptors that detect common features of pathogens, like a bacterial cell wall or viral cell wall, whatever it is. So it detects it. Immediate response is that the phagocytes, like microfragilis, engulf and destroy the invader and then dendritic cells collect samples of the pathogen and present them to the lymphocytes to activate the adaptive immune response. It's a whole process. It's a whole system and procedure to how to get rid of invaders. So the activation of the immune, adaptive immune system is through antigen presenting cells. So dendritic cells travel to the lymph nodes to activate these T cells and B cells. Then the activated B cells produce antibodies specific to the pathogen and then cytotoxic T cells seek and destroy affected cells Make sense. So we go back to dendritic cells. Are the messengers? They activate, they wake up the B cells, the Marines and the T cells the army, and they say let's go. And they go. And they go and destroy, seek and destroy them. The dendritic cells bring them, you know, guide them back, and then they do their thing. And this all happens immediately, within hours of an invasion. So it's pretty cool Many times.

Speaker 1:

Your immune system, every second of every day, is fighting things off and you have zero symptoms that you can tell. The symptoms are your B and T cells doing their thing. They're always working and destroying things. Think of it like JFK airport the dog sniffing. The sniffing dogs are out there, the police are out there, they're going up and down the aisles and each gate and they're just protecting the whole thing While thousands of travelers are coming in and out of that airport. That's how I look at our immune system. Have you ever been through JFK? Oh my gosh, that is, uh, that's how your immune system works, just like jfk airport.

Speaker 1:

Uh, elimination of the pathogen is the next thing. So, um, we now break down all the material, the antibodies, neutralize these pathogens or mark them for destruction by other immune cells, and then the killer t cells destroy the infected cells, preventing them uh, preventing them to spread any more of the pathogen. So once we do this, then it's documented inside of the immune system that, after the infection is cleared, the memory B and T cells remain in the body, allowing for a faster and more robust response for the same pathogen for the rest of your life. That is crazy. So you're a six-month-old baby. You get the common rhinitis cold with that one virus and boom, your B and T cells are now marked and they're like not never again are we going to let you have this bad of a snotty nose Because we're going to be on top of it even faster next time. It's just absolutely amazing.

Speaker 1:

And this is where vaccinations come in and create, try and replicate this through. They skip the innate process and they go straight to the activation process to create that inflammation response. But, however, when we've all these codes for all vaccines, is that we don't get the permanent B and T cell memory. What we get is a short term B and T cell memory. Hence why we figured this out 30 years ago with the boost vaccinations that were needed Back in the 50s and 60s. You got that big shot in the shoulder with everything and that was it.

Speaker 1:

Then we learned oh man, we have to boost the polio vaccine, we have to boost the measles vaccine, we have to boost the rubella vaccine, because they're short-term memory and they were still trying to figure out. You know why is it short-term? Well, because we didn't actually put in the pathogen into the body, so it didn't mark the entire bacteria or the virus virus in most cases. So that's why and that's where research is now, they those cases. So that's why and that's where research is now. They're like oh, okay, so we have this, this short term, but the the the science is very solid now on this that the immunization of vaccination process is only short term. That's agreed across all epitheliology, all epidemiology and immunology. It's across the board in the science like, okay, yes, when we bypass type one immunity and we go straight to type two, we were missing the long-term memory in the immune system, which is okay, it's okay, it just means we just need to boost it. That's where the science of boosting comes from. Is we just got to re-stimulate that nervous system. So, uh, what happened to all the people that were born in the 70s, 80s and 60s and 90s who did the baby shot, the five-year-old shot, and now they're 55 years old and haven't had a shot since they were six years old? They got no immunity to all that old stuff because it's only short-term unless they were exposed to it. Very, very cool stuff, very cool stuff.

Speaker 1:

The immune system's role in maintaining health. So how does this all work? Now you know the cells. You can go now, tonight you're going to go have dinner with your family and friends. You're going to go guys, t and B cells. I got to tell you all about this stuff. This stuff is like an army. There's like, maybe, seals. There's army in our body. It's called the immune system. There's an innate. You're going to be super cool, but this is how it kind of works. It protects. The protection against pathogens is its main objective of the immune system. It prevents infections and fights off illnesses. It has a major surveillance system as well. It detects and eliminates abnormal cells, including potential cancer cells, and it wound heals. It heals wounds. It coordinates inflammation and tissue repair. That is what your immune system is responsible for. So we need to go through some major factors to optimizing immune health.

Speaker 1:

There's a lot of literature behind supplementation for vitamins A, c, d and E and minerals like zinc and selenium to help support the nervous system's abundance supply of finding these pathogens, and a balanced diet, of course, but these are the vitamins that the immune system thrives on for being as strong as possible. Vitamin C is a go-to for most people. They just understand this, that they just feel better when they take some vitamin C. When they're down, they feel like they shorten the length of the symptoms. But A, c, d and E all play a big role in that as well. So you can take these daily as vitamins, maybe in a multi, or you can have them stocked up. We have a zinc drink and a high dose vitamin C for when we do start to feel ill. We quadruple 10 times or 15 times the dose of zinc, 15 times the dose of vitamin C compared to a multivitamin, and we do that once we start feeling a little bit sick. To help boost the immune system or give it everything it needs. Fill up all the gas tanks, all the propane tanks in the immune system so that they're well-equipped to take on the pathogen and eliminate it faster. That's the point there.

Speaker 1:

Sleep is almost as important as that nutrition for our immune system. It's the only time the immune system has time. It never rests. It never does because even at night you're breathing and you're getting pathogens in right, so it's always working. But it's the only time where energy from the rest of the body goes down for your motor function and actually goes into the immune system. The immune system gets more of the brain and the brain just sits there and just repairs tissue and produces and removes inflammation, does all the good stuff. So sleep and nutrition are the biggest factors when it comes to a healthy immune system. So if you're just finding, if you wear a device that monitors your health, like an Apple iWatch or Fitbit or anything, it gives you your weekly statistics and if you see there you're like, oh, I get 5.25 hours of sleep per night. You're falling under the curve of what proper health, proper sleep pattern should be, which is about seven hours per night. So you're cutting it short and that may lead to a weakened immune system or just ill-prepared immune system.

Speaker 1:

I like the analogy of like half tank, half full gas tanks in the immune system. So once it gets bombarded with pathogens, you're going to succumb to one of the colds or viruses and get the symptoms from it. So that's it Stress. Stress can empty those gas stores very quickly. Once you get stressed they can just burn through gasoline really quick and then your immune system's like man we're out of fuel and then we're more susceptible to getting sick and having those symptoms as well.

Speaker 1:

Exercise helps boost everything we talked about with the nutrition. It helps invigorate the immune system and it helps flush out inflammation and push out toxins in a speedier way. So exercise plays a great role. And age too. The older we get, the immune system isn't as apt as it used to be, and we just have to take precaution, especially with our seniors, and just making sure we wash our hands, keep the areas cleaner for them and just minimize their exposure to as much as possible. You can't put them in a bubble, but that's what ends up happening. There is an age correlation to immunity. It starts to get a little bit more delicate as we get older. But, honestly, where we see the drop-off is in our 70s. So it's not like other things where heart disease, organs and other things like testosterone, where they start to plateau in our 30s and go down, when it comes to immunity, it seems like the cliff, or where it starts to curve in a downward trajectory is in our 70s. So that's great. I mean, that's good news there. So we have strong immunity for most of our life. All right, I think that is Immunity 201 for most of you.

Speaker 1:

Some myths, yeah, some myths. Immune boosters like mega dosing of vitamins or quick fixes there are some myths around being able to boost your immune system. I talked about c and zinc viruses. Just don't like zinc. There's a very strong correlation between zinc proper zinc levels in the body and viruses just having a harder time to do their thing, which is great. You don't want them to them to do their thing, you want you to do your thing. So that's there too. And vitamin C is linked to tons of research. We even do it intravenously now to just get it straight into the bloodstream faster, and it has a lot of immune boosting and energy boosting things there too.

Speaker 1:

But for the other myths out there, like the, the prepackaged multivitamins for being sick, how much validity is behind that I don't know. The research isn't too supportive of it, so I like to look at those things as a little bit of a myth. The magic all-in-one multivitamin for boosting your immunity I'm not too sure about that. Elderberry syrup for immunity not so much, it's more of an antioxidant thing. I know elderberry for immunity not so much, it's more of an antioxidant thing. I know elderberry, acai berry juice.

Speaker 1:

All these things that are out there that say they're anti, they're um immune boosting hard claim to make. They are um antioxidant. They are antioxidant boosting in the body for sure, which is always good. Antioxidants are good. They remove free radicals from the body. Those are great as well. So, uh, you know. So you know, when you want to take care of your immune system. It starts with nutrition, it ends with sleep. These are the two biggest things you can do, and we brought this podcast in for this time of the year, during the winter and holiday season, because this is when we're the most stressed, this is when there's the least sunlight, this is when we feel like it's flu season. Everyone says flu season. It's really just sugar season. So, eliminate the stresses, eliminate the poisons, get some good night's sleep and have a well stocked supplement cupboard and you're all good to go for the winter. If you have any questions, reach out to us. Stay well, stay healthy and take care.

People on this episode

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Dr. Enrico Dolcecore

Host
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Dr. Christine Hafer

Co-host
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Dr. Crystal Corona

Co-host