By Gillian Ehrlich, DNP, ARNP and owner of Center for Healing Neurology
Our immune system is the system of bodily defense, and like any good militia, has regimens of front-line foot soldiers, and intelligence officers, and can receive external reinforcements (this is passive immunity from mom to baby and via vaccination). This system gets going while we are still in utero (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4707740/) and doesn’t stop until after our final breath. It is with us through thick and thin, through hardship and triumph, through childhood colds and chickenpox (or now through immunizations against the infectious diseases of childhood) and plays a role in the chronic diseases of adulthood like autoimmune disease, cancer, and even persistent infections like Long-COVID.
