Immune System
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Janet

Balance

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I sat in the conference center; stiff chairs set in a steep incline, angled so that everyone could view the small stage and see the speaker. A Mexican conference, this speaker from a highly acclaimed New England Ivy League school would be talking to us in English. He had already confessed to the majority of conference goers that his Spanish was non-existent and as he began to lay out his talk, the three topics neatly outlined on his power point, I sat back and wondered how much I would understand. Despite his English, he was going to speak on a different aspect of evolution than what I work on; he was going to talk about the decades of evolution our human bodies have undergone and how understanding our adaptive responses during that time affected the practice of medicine. Hmmm… well, being something of a hypochondriac, my stomach was tightening to the possibility that I might hear something from this PhD doctor indicting I was deathly ill. As he began his lecture, his words were different, his medical vocabulary unfamiliar,  but as he picked up speed and settled into his topic, it became easier for me to hear what he was saying. 

It turns out that for the thousands of years human beings have been running around on this planet foraging, working, walking, living and dying, we have become accustomed… actually becoming obligated, to the millions of bacteria, parasites, and worms, that inhabit our guts. It’s something we call co-evolution. Over the generations, as allof these various God-made creatures came to live inside us, something really cool happened, or I should say, evolved. In an amazing, delicate dance of adjustment, our immune systems recognized and attacked the ever present microbes, BUT in response back, the microbes produced little molecules that prevented that immune system from getting rid of them. So with hundreds of generations of human stomping around getting parasites and eating things that were perhaps a bit blinky with bacteria, the little arms race to get rid of them that our bodies attempted was counterbalanced by the worms and bugs attempts to stay there, incubating so niclely in our in ninety seven degrees bodies. Well and of course you know, we have figured out lately that our turns out our guts don’t work too well unless we have those millions of good bacteria building little communities and thriving in our bodies. Think yogurt and smoothies. Now what made this speakers lecture so incredible was this: it looks like in the last fifty or so years, something very significant has happened in countries like ours, something that has upset this nicely evolved, finely tuned relationship with bugs in our bodies. We have gotten rid of them. Armed with antibiotics, antifungals, and all kinds of drugs to rid ourselves of worms and parasites, we have cleaned our bodies form the inside out and it looks like in the process, our bodies have responded in a way that no one expected. We have gotten sick, but these illnesses are primarily because our bodies are attacking themselves! Autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, arthritis, lupus, things that have no names and even more weirdly things like autism, things we don’t think of as having to do with a little arms race inside our bodies with no enemy to attack, have risen in numbers. Given enough time our bodies will evolve and adapt, but right now, like hyper active children without those dampening chemicals from our little microbial neighbors, our bodies, well our immune systems, have literally gone haywire. In one of the most elegant points of the ivy-league doctor’s talk, he explained that new creative ways of using this knowledge was affecting the practice of medicine. He explained. In a landmark study, patients with multiple sclerosis were re-infected with a certain kind of worms and tracked for the progression of their disease. Turns out their immune systems quieted down, the little worms making those necessary chemicals that our bodies have grown used to and like little co-horts everybody settled down into the normal, you-have-worms routine. 

Well, I sat there in that stiff chair and I thought about wondrous this was, both to see how elegantly life works here on planet earth and how wonderfully made our minds are to discover it. But also while I sat there, I realized in the most marvelous way, the little truth God had in mind to impress on me that day. The rest of that little story above is that there are germs and bugs and parasites that can kill you and it is good to get rid of some of them. There are lots of examples that demonstrate that fact. So how do we think about good bugs and bad bugs? The real solid truth is about balance. It’s the way God made the world and it the way he wants us to work in it. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about work, fun, food, drink, love, or bugs in your gut, balance is the necessary goal. But what is so extraordinary is that God made sure we would never neglect the need for balance. All over the universe, innate in God’s creation is the ability to change, to adapt. It’s His maintenance plan for balance. 

How cool is that? 

Happy Monday and have a balanced week. If it turns out you need to change.. your attitude, your heart, or your diet.. just do it!

Bible Verse of the Day:

“I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)”

Quote for the day: Life is like riding a bicycle; to keep your balance you must keep moving”. Albert Einstein

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