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Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Free Radicals and Autoimmunity

The healthy human body is equipped with immunity to fight against viruses, bacteria, and parasites—in short, disease. Unfortunately, this immunity, known as the immune system, may become compromised such that, instead of attacking the unwelcome foreign invaders to the body, it begins to attack the cells and tissues in the body itself. In a healthy individual, the immune defenses protect the cells from outside invaders. However, when a person develops autoimmunity, the immune system mistakenly attacks the body's own cells instead of protecting them.

Your body is composed of negatively and positively charged molecules, which must be balanced in order to enable your cells to function normally. A free radical is formed when there is imbalance in these molecules. The presence of free radicals may also damage other molecules, and thus causing them to produce many more free radicals—and this is how a vicious chain reaction of damages by free radicals is created, resulting in the scourges of aging and the sources of disease and disorders, in particular, autoimmune diseases.

There are several types of free radicals, and oxygen free radicals are most damaging, especially to your DNA and cell membranes.

Your cells require oxygen for survival. Unfortunately, what gives life also takes away life. In the process of oxidation, harmful oxygen free radicals are produced. Oxygen free radicals and other free radicals in your body cause damages to your cells.
The neurons in your brain may become damaged by free radicals. The damage may be irreparable because the neurons, unlike other cells, cannot replicate themselves.

The cumulative damage to your DNA by free radicals is a major contributing factor to many autoimmune diseases, including human cancers. \When your LDL or “bad cholesterol” is attacked by free radicals, they become more attached to the walls of your arteries, and thus forming plagues to block the free flow of blood to your heart.

The only way to fight free radicals is by boosting your body’s own immunity. As you age, your immune system becomes weaker, as evidenced by the high incidence of influenza and pneumonia after age 25, not to mention among the elderly. Therefore, it is important to boost your immunity, which is closely related to your thymus (the commander-in-chief of fighters in your immune system against foreign invaders).

Myasthenia gravis is one of the many autoimmune diseases. The damage of free radicals is only one of the many factors that may have contributed to a dysfunctional immune system. The underlying causes of myasthenia gravis are complex, and medical science has not been able to identify the real causes. Without really knowing the causes, it is difficult to design a treatment plan to cure myasthenia gravis.  Therefore, to date, there is no cure, only control of the disease symptoms.

Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau

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