When the smoke clears, the invaders have been destroyed. Now your immune troops reduce, your glands shrink, the aches, pains, and fever disappear. The sentries drift back to routine patrol. And you get out of bed and go back to work, taking for granted your good health, not knowing what a valiant battle your immune soldiers have fought on your behalf.
These immune battles rage every second of every day, without stop. Because our bodies contain many trillions of microorganisms, our immune system is engaged in constant battle for as long as we live.
Sometimes the threat isn't from outside invaders; sometimes our own cells turn pre-cancerous. No matter—your immune cells treat these traitors the same way. The eminent Dr. Lewis Thomas, former Director of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, helped pioneer our understanding of this immune surveillance. His work helped show how the immune cells keep constant patrol to locate and destroy cells that have mutated—that is, changed from their normal form. If the immune system is impaired, these cells can turn into cancer. |
