Our human body is guarded from infections and cancer by the immune system, our natural defense power against disease.
If you think of our body as a country, the immune system would be 2 teams of defense – one team would be the military (or army), and the other team would be the police. The army and the police work together to maintain the safety of the country (our bodies). The army consists of immune cells we call T cells and B cells, and they make up the majority of about 80% of the immune system. The army normally does not need to work, unless there is a serious invasion or attack.
However, the police, on the other hand, are always active. They consist of “Natural Killer” cells (or NK cells) and make up 20% of the immune system. The NK cells continuously patrol throughout our whole body and kill virus-infected cells and cancer cells whenever they start to appear, thus effectively stopping them from growing and causing viral infections and cancer.
As you can imagine, our bodies are invaded by viruses each day, as they enter our bodies from the external environment. From within our bodies, about 6,000 cancer cells are produced each day during normal body cell growth and replication. If not destroyed, these cancer cells will grow into tumours.
So, it is of key importance to our health that our immune system functions optimally at all times to minimize the risk of virus infections and cancer occurrence.
Dr Kazuyoshi Takeda from Juntendo University, Division of Cell Biology Biomedical Research Centre pointed, NK cells are the best natural occurring immune cells to fight cancer cells. When NK cells activity falls at 20%, 1 out of 5 cancer cells will be killed. However, when NK cells activity reaches 80%, 4 out of 5 cancer cells can be killed.
According to Dr Takeda, an epidemiological study revealed that the population with low NK cells activity has a significantly higher risk of cancer than the population with intermediate or high NK cells activity. Elderly humans with low NK cells activity exhibit a higher mortality rate due to infectious diseases.
Although it is encouraged to eat healthily and exercise, but intensive exercise will increase risk of upper respiratory infection. According to a survey, NK cells activity will be affected by the intensity of exercise, heavier exercise will reduce NK cells activity.
In 2001, World Health Organization has also stated, appropriate consumption of Probiotics is beneficial to health. According to Dr Takeda, several studies in animals and in also humans have also shown that probiotic bacteria L. casei Shirota (also known as Shirota strain) can help to reduce risk of colorectal cancer, breast cancer and bladder cancer due to its effect on improving the immune system, in particular the NK cell activity.
Henceforth, daily simple exercise, keeping distance with pressure, balanced diet and consuming good bacteria can easily augment NK cell activity, free from diseases.
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