• Question: WHICH DO YOU THINK IT IS THE MOST PROBLEMATIC ORGAN IN THE IMMUNE SYSTEM?

    Asked by A. Viscarri to Natasha, Ester, Eoin on 7 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Natasha Myhill

      Natasha Myhill answered on 7 Nov 2017:

      Tricky question – I don’t think any of the organs of the immune system are problematic until they fail in some way, which is hard to predict. I had my tonsils removed as I got a lot of tonsillitis when I was younger, so for me it would be them 😛

    • Photo: Ester Gil Vazquez

      Ester Gil Vazquez answered on 7 Nov 2017:

      The most problematic organs tend to be the most important ones, so I’ll go with the thymus. The thymus is a tissue located in front of your thrown (where it merges with the chest). It is really active at the beginning if life because it needs to generate our army of immune cells. They call it the school of the immune cells because it teaches them how to recognize danger and attack it (we would be helpless without it), and how to avoid harming our own body. If the cells are not well trained, they need to be eliminated. If badly trained cells escape, they can enter the blood, travel to different parts of the body and start attacking them, which will cause disease (autoimmune diseases).

    • Photo: Eoin McKinney

      Eoin McKinney answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      good question – I would have to say the gut. The immune systems main problem is to tell the difference between which cells are part of you and which aren’t (and so are potentially dangerous). If it gets this wrong, disease results – either infection if it doesn’t recognise things it should or autoimmune disease if it recognises things it shouldn’t.
      an extra difficulty is that our bodies have around 10 times (!) as many bacterial cells than human cells – thats right, we are mostly made up of bugs! so our immune system has to also leave many ‘harmless’ bacteria alone and only recognise the dangerous ones. The gut is absolutely full of bacteria and most need to be there. Our immune system spends a lot of time and effort trying to get this right.

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