BOOSTING IMMUNITY: A STRATEGY FOR HEALTH-PATHOGENS: VIRUSES

The perspective of health developed in this article is based on a holistic philosophy. This means that, in addition to considering the harm caused by pathogens, we will also look at any useful place our enemies may have in the overall scheme of things. It is very limiting, and ultimately self-defeating, to view those things which attack us only in terms of disease. A holistic view seeks to enhance all life, even if some of its forms have to be avoided or kept in their place.

Viruses are tough and adaptable. They are fascinating creatures which exist on the border between matter and life. The best way to envisage them is as a strand of genetic material encapsulated in a tough coating — a life-form in a spaceship. Some can lie around almost indefinitely, enduring heat and cold, drought or flood, to awaken when they come into contact with a potential host. To reproduce, viruses have to get inside the cells of a much more complex compatible plant or animal. Once inside, they set about perverting the cell's genetic codes. Instead of doing what it should, the cell reproduces more of the virus. Eventually the cell collapses from exhaustion, and hordes of new viruses spread out to multiply by invading other cells. When this happens, you are infected; you will go down with 'flu or measles or whatever illness the virus causes.

Your viruses will be passed on to others. The growing population in your body will spill out into our shared global environment. They will add to the virus numbers in the disease's specific vector; by breathing out clouds of them into the air, or into food and drink; by passing them on by bodily contact; by releasing them into the environment in bodily wastes; or by feeding them to intermediate insect hosts such as mosquitoes.

Viruses are everywhere. They float in the air we breathe and the water we drink. They are a natural and constant part of the microscopic background to life. Frequently they will not affect us, because we have acquired immunity to them. Some remain in our bodies in a form of coexistence, as with the herpes virus which causes chicken pox {Varicella zoster), which will flare up when immunity, usually gained in childhood, has decreased sufficiently. In middle age this is experienced as an attack of shingles, which dies down once immunity is re-established.

Every now and then a new strain of a common virus will emerge and sweep around the world. When this happens we are reminded of the potential danger of virus infections; 'flu can be a killer, particularly of the very young and the old or enfeebled. New strains arise because of the ability of many viruses to change the structure of their protective coating. It is the molecular shape of this coat that our immune systems identify; by changing it viruses become immune to us. The AIDS virus seems extremely adept at changing its structure.

We frequently behave as if evolution stopped once Darwin had initiated the debate upon it. Unfortunately this is not so; very rarely a new type of pathogen will emerge. Sometimes an established infection of another species will adapt to survive within us, or evolution will throw up a new entity. As AIDS tragically illustrates, evolution continues in the microsphere. We will always have to confront the possibility of the appearance of entirely new types of disease for which we have no specific answers.

Viruses are remnants from the very beginning of life on Earth. They have evolved one step beyond the first replicating molecules in the primeval pro-biotic soup to have a protective coat around their active genetic material.

The next stage in the broad evolution of life was the formation of the cell, the basic structure upon which all subsequent life-forms have been built. Cells are basically sophisticated replicating molecules, genes, inside their own protective environment. Originally all such environments were mobile, but, like most mobile homes, cells soon discovered the advantages of congregating in groups. The viruses adapted to this innovation by learning to penetrate the cellular environment. Once inside, the ancient competition to reproduce by stealing resources or perverting processes is much as it was those many thousands of millions of years ago at the dawn of life. The odds against viruses being able to adapt in this way must have been astronomical. It is an indication of their high survival capacity which we overlook at our cost.

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