I recently read Matt Richetel’s book “An Elegant Defense, The Extraordinary New Science of The Immune System.” He presents his 400+ page tome both as both a case study and a science primer. And it’s an enjoyable read by a Pulitzer Prize – winning author!
As a healthcare professional, it was a nice review of what I learned in school. But it was way more – it served as a simpler and easier to grasp reintroduction to seeing and understanding how our immune system works, supported by the latest science and interwoven with the life-stories of four people with real immune system challenges. Richter’s writing is accessible to the general population, and the science is very congruent with the chiropractic / holistic lens through which I am trained to see the body.
For the sake of this review, I am more interested in sharing the larger metaphors and how we can apply his conclusions to our greater lives in the world.
Richter writes in metaphors. He presents the stage of the body as a festival of life – think of a county fair. Its grassy borders are porous and practically anyone can enter. It is a big party and most folks there are well-intentioned. But there are some shady characters, the party crashers – pick pockets, saboteurs, shooters, drug dealers, pedophiles, the usual riff-raff lineup for the makings of an action adventure movie. These bad elements represent the pathogens in this system, and the immune system players are the police there to make sure everyone remains safe. But, as Richter so elegantly pieces together, their role is not so much a police force as an FBI surveillance team or even a UN peacekeeping force. They are there preferably not to attack but to keep the peace. They are there to identify the “self” from the “non-self.”
Richter states that “Everything is connected. Cancer, autoimmunity, HIV, the common cold, allergy. The immune system, our elegant defense, is a river that runs through every aspect of health and wellness. It tends to the festival of our lives, and it does so by seeking balance and harmony.” (p 395).
Our immune system seeks harmony with its surrounding environment, not so much to just defend and attack invaders, as we’ve all been led to believe. In fact, not only does our immune system seek harmony over attack, but it also cooperates with the surrounding organisms. At its core, it tries to discern self from other. But having done that, it doesn’t just try to destroy what is alien.
In most cases, they try to sequester the truly bad players, and to placate the not-so-bad but rowdy ones. In the case of a truly bad viral exposure – picture the Death Eaters entering the Quidditch World Cup (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and setting the whole place on fire. In this case, there is a SWAT team response (hopefully quicker than the Ministry of Magic managed!), where they are sequestered and blown up – AKA an inflammatory response.
Some of the most devastating chronic deadly conditions in the festival that is our life arise when this system goes even a touch out of control. And this can happen with the best of intentions through medical intervention. In such cases, pathogenic and inflammatory effects can become indistinguishable.
Cancer is an example of a “self” gone rogue, and metastasis is when that rogue player has tricked the authorities into believing they are part of the crowd, one of the good guys. In such a case, the defenses stand down and even help the building process of the cancer.
In cases where there is a rowdy crowd and the authorities overreact and start arresting or worse, shooting innocent people, then they are acting like a police state, and this is a good metaphor for an overreactive autoimmune response. When we over-react proverbially and literally, we emulate an overheated defense system. This leads to self-destruction, such as is found with RA, Lupus or even asthma and allergies.
Throughout the book, Richter explains all the major players in a way that helps the reader better understand of how the immune system works (see Part II of this review for a breakdown of the players).
The Microbiome in our gut, which Richter refers to as our second immune system, coexists with our innate immune system, and consists of “foreign” bacteria, which we are totally interdependent with. It has millions of bacterial allies in the gut’s microbiome, for example, and relies on them for survival. These bacteria actually communicate with our immune system when bad players are present.
On a global scale, we are currently out of balance with our bacterial environment, with the chronic medical and industry overuse of Antibiotics, and our overuse of antimicrobial soaps, our ingestion of inorganic (and junk) foods. We as individuals and a species are best off cooperating with our environment and with other species and peoples in it. The more diverse our genetic tool kit, the greater chance for our common survival.
The immune system teaches us to err on the side of cooperation and acceptance. We have overcorrected our quest to build a perfect and efficient world. How do we find balance? We ultimately have control over our sleep, exercise, meditation and nutrition. The less toxic the things you put into your body, the less likely it is to respond with an inflammatory response.
I’ve learned another analogy, not of the Immune System, but rather of how we as individuals or as a society or race tend to deal with our health. Picture a cliff-edge with a simple wooden fence at the top with a keep-out sign. And picture at the bottom of this enormous cliff a fleet of ambulances and a world-class hospital. If we choose to live in harmony and to pay heed to our sleep, stress, diet and exercise, we’re staying behind the fence on top. And if we lack adequate sleep, don’t consume enough water, drink too much coffee and alcohol, eat too much junk food, smoke, take a lot of pharmaceuticals, choose to read the news all the time and push ourselves and others to always be “doing” vs “being,” well, we just might find ourselves over the cliff and broken at the bottom, dependant on technology at the bottom to rebuild us. There are choices we make every day. And please remember that this is just a metaphor and there are exceptions to everything – sometimes we don’t have a choice!