Immune: How Your Body Defends and Protects You

Immune: How Your Body Defends and Protects You
ISBN-10
1472915143
ISBN-13
9781472915146
Series
Immune
Category
Health & Fitness
Pages
288
Language
English
Published
2017-09-21
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing
Author
Catherine Carver

Description

The human body is like an exceedingly well-fortified castle, defended by billions of soldiers – some live for less than a day, others remember battles for decades, but all are essential in protecting us from disease. This hidden army is our immune system, and without it we could not survive the eternal war between our microscopic enemies and ourselves. Immune explores the incredible arsenal that lives within us – how it knows what to attack and what to defend, and how it kills everything from the common cold virus to plague bacteria. We see what happens when the immune system turns on us, and how life is impossible without its protection. We learn how diseases try to evade the immune system and exploit its vulnerabilities, and we discover how scientists are designing new drugs to harness the power of the system to fight disease. Do transplants ever reject their new bodies? What is pus? How can your body make more antibodies than there are stars in our galaxy? Why is cancer so hard for our immune system to fight? Why do flu outbreaks cause a spike in sleep disorders? Can we smell someone else's immune system, and does that help us subconsciously decide who we fall in love with? In this book, Catherine Carver answers all of these compelling questions, and many more besides. Drawing on everything from ancient Egyptian medical texts to cutting-edge medical science, Immune will take you on an adventure packed with weird and wonderful revelations about your own internal defensive system.

Other editions

Similar books

  • ADHD is Not a Four Letter Word: Drug Free Strategies for Managing the Gift that is ADHD
    By Karen Ryan

    ... John F. Kennedy Justin Timberlake Karina Smirnoff Kurt Cobain Liv Tyler Magic Johnson Malcolm Forbes Melissa Joan Hart Michael Phelps Michelle Rodriguez ...

  • Breastfeeding and Human Lactation
    By Karen Wambach, Becky Spencer

    Although the gifts might be smaller, these practices are still in use by formula companies today ( Fortin, 2007; Tanovic, 2014). In the United States, ...

  • Freedom from Obesity: Unlock Your Combination to a Healthy Weight
    By Karen Warren Locklear

    If you've lost sight of the dream of ultimate health and wellness, and you never again want to experience the dieting roller coaster, this book will empower you to understand that being lean and fit starts from the beauty within your mind.

  • Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine
    By Andrew Chevallier

    With its jargon-free text, fantastic photography, and focus on safety, this guide enables ease of understanding no matter what your level of herbal expertise.

  • Clean House Clean Planet
    By Karen Logan

    Casey Kitty's Litter Box Deodorizer Casey the Kitty is my daughter Sophie's favorite cat; she belongs to our neighbor, Laurie. We can't have cats because Sophie's daddy is allergic to them. Casey is a most friendly cat and willingly ...

  • Nutrition Research: Concepts & Applications
    By Karen Eich Drummond, Alison Murphy-Reyes

    by S.M. Robson, S.C. Couch, J.L. Peugh, K. Glanz, C. Zhou, J.F. Sallis, and B.E. Saelens, 2016, Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 116,988. Reprinted with permission of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. 6.

  • Therapy and the Postpartum Woman: Notes on Healing Postpartum Depression for Clinicians and the Women Who Seek Their Help
    By Karen Kleiman

    At least 10–20% of mothers will suf- fer from postpartum depression (Kumar & Robson, 1984), defined officially as a major depressive episode that has an onset within 4 weeks postpartum, according to the fourth edition of the Diagnos- ...

  • Nutrition for Brain Health: Fighting Dementia, Second Edition
    By Laura Town, Karen Hoffman

    ... L., Smith, M., & Segal, R. (2020). Stress management. HelpGuide. Retrieved from https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-management.htm Robson, D. (2015). Dos and don'ts to preserve your brainpower. BBC Future.

  • Breastfeeding and Human Lactation
    By Karen Wambach, Becky Spencer

    Another group of studies report that breastfeeding does not appear to influence resumption of coitus, coital frequency, and other indices of sexuality (Grudzinskas & Atkinson, 1984; Knodel & Chayovan, 1991; Robson et al., 1981) What do ...

  • Backbone: Living with Chronic Pain without Turning into One
    By Karen Duffy

    Buff's dog Gibson was a Golden Labrador Retriever puppy, a hair-raising furball of energy who was inflicted on our family for a year. Gibson went through a chewing phase that lasted ...