Most Russians have an idea of immunity under the influence of commercials. Means for its maintenance and strengthening are offered in the form of yogurts, cottage cheese, vitamins, by using which you can completely forget about all the sores. In fact, the state of the immune system depends not only on the intake of a fermented milk product or biological supplement. Moreover, with the abundance of all widely advertised means to strengthen immunity, especially drugs, such as immunomodulators and immunostimulants, their use should be approached with extreme caution. Often high-profile words about miraculous products are just a clever advertising move.
The concept of immunity
Immunity is a mechanism of action of immune cells aimed at maintaining the constancy of the internal environment of the body, formed in order to protect against infections and viruses and develop methods to withstand the effects of the latter when they penetrate.
Types of Immunity
Types of immunity have many classifications on various grounds.
First of all, they share congenital and acquired types of immunity.
The congenital type is due to heredity, transmitted through the placenta with the blood of the mother, with breastfeeding with milk.
Acquired immunity is formed throughout a person’s life. Factors of influence are the environment with its bacteria, transmitted infections. This type involves the division into active immunity, which is modulated by storing the causative agent of the disease by the immune cells, and passive, when ready-made antibodies are introduced into the body using vaccines and sera.
Locally, immunity is divided into general and local. The general immune system covers the whole organism, the local one - a specific organ.
By action, humoral and cellular immunity are distinguished.
In areas distinguish anti-infection, anti-tumor and transplant immunity.
One of the types of anti-infectious immunity is antitoxic immunity.
Antitoxic type of immune response
Antitoxic immunity is aimed at neutralizing toxic substances released by pathogens of diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, gas gangrene, botulism, polio, dysentery. Its protective properties are based on the action of immunoglobulin G. It is he who builds protection against the toxic effects of harmful microorganisms, developing his own specific antibodies to each. Immunoglobulin G also has memory, and if the same virus is repeatedly intoxicated with the same virus, it will quickly remove it.
Method of exposure and features of antitoxins
Antitoxic immunity is due to the actions of antitoxins, which are produced in response to the toxic effect of toxins secreted by the microorganisms that carry the infection, inhibiting the activity of their toxic properties.
The German scientist P. Erlich developed a scheme that reflects the principle of the action of antitoxins on toxins. The toxic effect of the toxin occurs when it has managed to cling to a living substance in the blood. If such a connection occurs, the living blood element is exposed to the toxic effects of the toxin.
The links of a living element with an alien toxin joining in the body are far from in this direction, therefore, the connecting parts occupied by toxins, the immune system begins to replace with new ones. These new links are antitoxins. In adhesions with the toxin, they suppress the effect of the latter on living matter.
The main feature of antitoxic immunity was derived from this: antibodies (antitoxins) do not kill the antigen, but neutralize its toxic properties. Erlich's studies have given a new characteristic to the types of immunity. It began to be divided into cellular (previously discovered by I. Mechnikov) and humoral, which is formed in blood plasma.
The use of antitoxins in medicine
Antibodies not always produced by the body itself are enough to suppress the toxic effects of antigens. The German immunologist-microbiologist A. Bering and the Frenchman E. Roux, based on Erlich's studies, invented antitoxic serum. In the early stages of a disease such as diphtheria, antibodies to diphtheria toxin are administered to the patient, and with their help the patient successfully cope with the disease.
In general terms, anti-diphtheria serum is a liquid containing a large number of antitoxins. It is obtained with the participation of horses resistant to diphtheria. The animal is injected with diphtheria antigen until the animal begins to produce a huge amount of antibodies to it. This blood serum with a high concentration of antibodies to diphtheria is a powerful weapon against this poisonous infection.
The same treatment method is used for other infectious diseases, such as tetanus, dysentery, etc. Patients are given serum with a high content of antitoxins to the poisonous antigens of the disease.
Mechanisms for producing an antitoxic immune response
This form of the immune response is not hereditary, capable of being transmitted from mother to fetus. Antitoxic immunity - acquired, is produced by the introduction of poisonous antigens naturally or artificially. Naturally, antitoxic protection is acquired when highly toxicogenic infectious diseases are transferred, when the body's self-production of antitoxins is a response to the toxic effects of pathogens.
Artificially antitoxic immunity is produced with the introduction of vaccines or toxoid, as well as immune sera.
Immunity Tension
The risk of infecting an organism with an infectious disease depends on the amount of antibodies produced in the liquid part of the blood against this disease. Resistance to pathogens is called immunity.
The level of resistance is analyzed separately for each disease and is determined by the amount of antitoxins produced. For example, if 1/30 of 1 ml of blood is an antitoxin against diphtheria, then we can confidently say that there is no risk of infection.
In conclusion, it should be noted that immunology gives antitoxic immunity its place of honor, since the study of its mechanisms of action and production has made it possible for humanity to rid itself of such deadly diseases as diphtheria, tetanus, dysentery, botulism, gas gangrene, etc.