BOOSTING IMMUNITY: A STRATEGY FOR HEALTH

Our immune systems are complex and beautiful examples of biological adaptability. They evolved with us over millions of years, as we clashed with many other creatures pursuing their own evolutionary paths. Immunity protects us against invasion and takeover by a wide range of potential enemies.

In our shared global environment, every life-form depends upon others for its survival. Higher life-forms crop or kill and eat those lower down the scale. Many lower forms fight back, killing much more complex plants and animals, as all seek to extend their command of global resources. Humans are not excluded from these life-cycles: we are under attack from hundreds of microscopic life-forms all the time.

The degree to which one life-form is able to resist the attacks of others creates the balance of life. The total interaction is figuratively described as the web of life; its balance will alter from time to time, as environments change, species evolve, decline or outgrow their resources. Even during the most stable epochs, inter-species conflicts finely hone each other, removing the weaker individuals for the benefit of all. Although we may not like it, the failure of the weak and the survival of the strong is one of nature's primary mechanisms. Another is its way of dealing with the over-strong: those species which overextend themselves tend to fall through the web and fail.

It is paradoxical that humans, some of the largest and certainly the most extended of the Earth's creatures, suffer so much from the unwanted attentions of some of the planet's smallest creatures. Indeed, they live in and on us in colonies all the time. Trouble arises when we cannot maintain our defences, or when we lack the capacity to deal with new types or pathogens from different environments, as when a new 'flu virus evolves or we go to another region of the world for a holiday.

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