Your immune system is actually part of the NEM stress response, and basically, that's how your body responds to stress as it comes in, whether it's physical, emotional, or psychological stress.
How does your body deal with this stress?
The immune system actually lies between the inflammation circuit and the detoxification circuit. So it's very unique in that way. That it actually plays a part in both of these circuits.
Dr. Lam, why don't you tell us first about the inflammation circuit and how it relates to the immune system?
So let's back off a little bit.
We know that the NeuroEndoMetabolic Stress Response is how your body deals with foreign insults. The insult can be in a form of stress. It can be physical or emotional. And there are 6 circuits and 12 systems that actually physiologically are all tied in and regulate together.
The Inflammation circuit is one of the six circuits and it consists of the system of the immune system, the GI tract that we talked about, and also the microbiome.
Dr. Carrie already talked to you about the importance of the microbiome.
In fact, if you don't have a good microbiome, you're not going to be a strong person, and you might get repeated infections all the time.
Starting off with the Inflammation circuit, it is, in essence, the whole immune system in the body because the immune system works by causing normal healthy inflammation.
When the immune system is irritated, the inflammation comes on. Inflammation is classically characterized by redness, heat, and swelling.
Let's say if you sprain your ankle or your wrist or you hit something with your fist, you're going to have redness. You're going to have heat. You're going to have swelling. Of course, you’re going to have pain and loss of function. That's normal.
So, inflammation is a normal part of your body's defenses, but when we are concerned about inflammation is when it becomes chronic. Then long-term problems can start to arise. This can lead to even more chronic stress on your immune system and lead to different conditions.
So it's important to make sure that your immune system is as strong as it can be to be able to fight and also create an adequate amount of inflammation, but not too much inflammation.
Next up is actually the Detoxification circuit and how the immune system plays into that.
How does the detox circuit work, Dr. Lam?
Well, the Detoxification circuit is part of the Inflammation circuit. They’re next to each other. They are like sisters and brothers.
You cannot put the body through inflammation to kill off the bad guys unless you can get rid of the bad guys. It's like you're going to war. You can kill the enemy, but if you don't have the body bags ready to transport and clean up the battlefield, you're going to leave the battlefield full of infestation and you're going to end up killing yourself because of the germs.
So while the immune system is responsible for protecting the body, after the infection is finished, the toxin level has to go down. That’s when you have the Detoxification system.
In fact, it would be foolish to start fighting a war if you don't have the body bags and the disinfectant all ready to go as part of the very important cleanup process.
In our body, detoxification is oftentimes so overlooked. We’re always thinking about all this fighting. "Fight with the immune system! Fight with the immune system," but very few people think about, “Well, what do you do with the toxins that build after the pathogens have been eliminated?" Many of us find that we have actually a detoxification system that’s compromised.
So there is actually a backfiring involved. At the heart of what you do to fight inflammation, the harder your immune system responds, the more often people actually feel worse because they get an overload of toxins that they cannot get rid of.
So, the body becomes toxic, becomes congested, and as a result, the immune system sets up an alarm.
The immune system says, “Well, why am I so toxic?” So it gets more immune cells going. This becomes a little vicious cycle.
When your detoxification is not well, your immune system goes in overdrive. The immune system goes in overdrive and gives you more toxins, and more toxins overload the detoxification. That then wraps up into the immune system again. So, this keeps going until you just feel so drained, so much malaise.
You can have what we call toxic metabolites that are kind of migrating around your body. You feel draggy. You feel sluggish, and you can have adrenal crashes. These are many of the unwanted symptoms that come out of a very good intention to strengthen the immune system.
So the right thing to do at the wrong time, even with a healthy body, can be problematic. And if you have adrenal fatigue, it just makes things so much worst.
So we have to be very careful in looking at the whole picture, the 6 circuits, the 12 systems, and how it’s all connected before we embark on any immune-building system because you can have the best intentions and actually make yourself worse.
That's what happens to a lot of people who don't know what they're doing.
