Love Your Immune System

When you’re fighting a cold or flu, did it occur to you that might be exactly what you’re doing—fighting? Fighting implies an adversary—one we assume is mindless and whose behavior should be predictable, but how well do we understand the micro world where viruses or cancers live? Frank T. Vertosick, Jr. dares to suggest that we’ve blurred our vision with human hubris, assuming we’re the only intelligent living beings on Earth. Many others, including our opponents, may be far more resourceful than we imagine. Vertosick’s book MIND: A UNIFIED THEORY OF LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE is not an easy read for someone whose talents do not lie in science (like me) to read, but it will challenge the less informed and expert, alike. He admits some of his ideas are considered controversial. He contends that life and intelligence are inextricably linked, at both the micro and macro level, because all living entities need some kind of intelligence to survive—survival, the “prime directive.” He explains that even our familiar biological friend, the immune system, works to preserve itself, and if we survive as a result, that’s nice.

Since his discussions of the nature of both intelligence and life soar far beyond my ability to explain them to a six-year-old (as Einstein posited was a test of understanding) or anyone else, I won’t embarrass myself by struggling to summarize them. But I do understand, as he says, living things tend to underestimate the intelligence of others, and humans may be the worst offenders. Intelligent beings—be they cells or complex networks such as humans—look for patterns that remind them of features of past experiences to fashion appropriate responses. Our immune system recognizes what may be trillions of different molecular patterns to discriminate between allies and enemies—a feat that may surpass even the incredible range of abilities of our brains.

Vertosick maintains no one is cured by either medication or vaccines. Only our immune systems are quick enough and versatile enough to triumph, although they use our medications and vaccines to slow and weaken the enemy. Meanwhile, supposedly mindless bacteria find ways to nullify the effectiveness of vaccines as quickly as they can—perhaps by viral gene transfer. That’s the reason solutions that look like miracles this year may soon be ineffective and need to be reformulated or replaced. The medical scientists, like caretakers cleaning a busy 24/7 office, are never done. Bacteria have evolved as we have.

Most of nature follows certain guidelines or rules to thrive. An oddly encouraging note that I appreciated was that few of the world’s bacterial species produce disease, because attacking a living host is far more hazardous than feeding off dead things that don’t fight back. What makes cancer cells so difficult to defeat is that they don’t come from outside us. They’re our own rogue cells that don’t follow rules, so we have to second guess them, instead.

MIND: A UNIFIED THEORY OF LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE, of course, contains much more than I’ve mentioned here, but if you have no biological background, be prepared to have to work to follow all the arguments. In the meantime, do what you can to care for your immune system—minimize your stress, keep your body in good shape, feed your emotional needs, and eat foods that your immune system will appreciate. It’s what we, as living beings, can do to help our bodies survive.

Image by Jeanne Kelly