Demolition Man

In the previous article we looked very briefly at antioxidants and how uncontrolled oxidation creates excess free radicals. I suggested that in order to maintain a long lived healthy body and mind, we need to balance this process.

Most commentators on health in the general media would have you believe that free radicals are fiendish Gremlins that wreak havoc upon the body that should be entirely eliminated. It’s also been suggested that the fact that the body seems to naturally produce free radicals as a natural component of energy processing is an inherent flaw in the design of the Human body. Pish!!!

Excess free radicals will damage the body there is no doubt, we looked at the process by which this happens. However, far from an undesirable element, the body also uses free radicals in a huge array of processes, one notable function being immunity. Without free radicals, you would be prey to every passing virus, bacteria, microbe or sundry other wee beasties. Much like Special Force Units in the military, the fittest members of a population are recruited to execute specialised manoeuvres that the majority of the population neither have the skills or the necessary partitioned enmity that is demanded to have the required devastating effect. Or more succinctly put by John Spartan in Demolition Man ‘Send a Maniac to catch a Maniac’.

Ever wondered why most infections begin with a sore throat. The throat is one of the most accessible points of entry into the body (it’s actually still outside of the body, but I digress), where the aforementioned viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, microbes, chemicals etc. have the best chance of mounting an invasion. Upon detection of an unwanted invader, the body immediately contacts specialised armed forces called lymphocytes. This response is known as the lymphocyte proliferative response which is part of cell mediated immunity. This initial response and the subsequent battle for ground ‘is’ your sore throat.

The lymphocytes are divided into different components called T-Cells, B-Cells and Natural Killer Cells and much like the Armed Forces divisions of Army, Navy and Air force, each adheres to a specific remit. Within each division are sub-divisions, much like the Marine infantry within the Navy, with an even more specialised role within an already specialised unit.

Generally, foreign elements are tackled by Natural Killer Cells, which act as sentry guards. Natural Killer Cells do not need direction from the immune system as they auto-regulate their activity.  Natural Killers, on a daily basis destroy viruses and tumors before they can take hold and multiply. However, because of their fairly indiscriminate and very potent nature, the body keeps Natural Killers on a pretty short leash.

During this initial stand-off both the invading elements and the Natural Killer Cells create a substantial amount of collateral damage to normal body cells. Damaged cells, in response, raise a red flag (chemical signals such as prostaglandins and leukotrines) to alert the immune system that ‘it’s on’.

The Immune system then deploys another group of lymphocytes that are of a more discerning constitution. Although they are more selective in targeting, the collateral damage is even more severe.

Usually the first team to turn up at the battlefield are class of Phagocytes called Neutrophils. Neutrophils upon identifying an invader, attack by engulfing them. Having ingested the invader the Neutrophil essentially takes a huge breath, taking in 50 times the amount of Oxygen. This results in what is known as an ‘Oxidative burst’ within the Neutrophil, destroying the ingested foreign element by enlisting free radicals. The Neutrophil can perform this action about 20-30 times before the oxidative damage accumulates and damages the Neutrophil itself. At this point of no return, the Neutrophil detonates like a bomb, causing massive fallout from the oxidative contents and the free radicals that have been generated.

This may seem like a flaw in design of the immune system. Not at all, it’s genius, you just need to look at it from the right angle. The shrapnel emitted from the explosion hits, and damages, everything, both normal tissue and invading elements alike. This fallout weakens the invaders, softening them up for the killer blow delivered by your immune cells. To prevent the body from being overly damaged by the friendly fire, your cells require appropriate levels of antioxidants to shield themselves.

This is only the beginning stages of immune response, the later stages recruit various other cells such as Monocytes, T-cells as the battle becomes a lot more targeted via Humoral Immunity. However, even this brief skim over oxidation, free radicals and immunity demonstrates the delicate balance we need to maintain in order to allow oxidation to occur for beneficial reasons and having sufficient antioxidant armour to protect ourselves from rogue soldiers.

Exercise - Good for your health? Ummm..Not always.

I see it all the time, people begin a new exercise routine and throw themselves headlong into it for a few weeks. Then, suddenly, boom, they get ill, and are forced to lay off for a week or so. This enforced lay-off unfortunately allows detraining to occur, and because the person is new to exercise, the gains disappear extremely rapidly.

Then the self-talk starts; ‘Why should I bother training, if I’ll end up ill again and lose all of my gains?’ or ‘What’s the point? Exercise is meant to make me healthier, not unhealthy.’

This negative spiral of despair continues until the person convinces themselves not to continue their exercise program any more. Chalk another person up to the Health and Fitness scrapheap.

You can’t blame them. The majority of celebrity fitness ‘experts’ and ‘gurus’, where the majority of people access their knowledge of fitness, still trot out the same old ‘no pain, no gain’, and ‘feel the burn’-esque philosophical maxims. Unfortunately just like their vacuous ‘personalities’, their knowledge of physiology and exercise is also found to be wanting.

Beyond all question, any exercise above playground clapping game level, puts your bodily systems under pressure. The body’s response to this challenge is the cause for the defensive changes and growth that is the hallmark of improved fitness.

So unless you want to limit your chosen fitness activity to lawn bowls or crazy golf which provide little challenge and therefore little gain, then you’d better learn to respect your immune system.

If you do however want to make improvements in fitness you need to use effective exercise such as resistance training or play higher intensity sports both of which overload the body quite severely. Overload is the key, but overload, taken too far leads to overtraining and system crash.

Even if you can will yourself through subsequent bouts of illness and continue training, is this really the way to go?

Take for example that a lot of elite sportspeople die earlier than the average person. How can this be? Aren’t they super fit? Yes, but years of excessive overload, whether taken to the point of clinical overtraining or not, depresses the immunity of these people and leaves them prey to disease.

The most obvious disease caused by depressed immunity is Cancer. Your body develops Cancerous cells thousands, if not millions, of times during your lifetime. In the majority of circumstances, your immune system recognises and destroys the abnormal cell before it becomes entrenched and replicates. Cancer like many other diseases are a result of immune system failure.

You may have experienced this yourself or with someone close to you. For instance, it has become popular to run marathons. Whether this be for a personal challenge or to support a charity, both of which are great causes, but a little myopic. The general training plan used by most marathon newcomers is to begin 3-6 months prior to the event and increase volume of training each week until the race date. With a lot of people they are taking a body that may not have seen exercise in maybe 10-20 years or more, and asking it to develop over a period of 12 weeks the ability to run 26 miles. Seen in that light, I’m sure you can appreciate how stressful this is to the body. And it shows, research done on both professional and recreational runners show a huge hike in infections following participation in a marathon. If you’ve attempted a marathon before, think back, did you suffer an illness during the weeks leading up or following the event, when you were supposedly at your fittest?

In fact a few years ago there was quite a high profile case that may have involved the above factors. Big Brother contestant Jade Goody in a well documented lack of preparation attempted to complete the 2006 London Marathon. Jade actually collapsed 21 miles in, demonstrating total body shut down. To complete 21 miles would have been a monumental effort for the young lady and she really should have been advised not to have participated. Two years later Jade was diagnosed with Cervical Cancer and after a valiant effort unfortunately succumbed to the disease. Were the two linked? We don’t know for sure, but to my mind the Marathon scenario sticks out like a red flag.

Your immune system is vital to prevent many diseases and your overall health, without a strong immunity you are prey to all manner of virus’s, bacteria, chemicals and other insults that your body is exposed to daily. In terms of fitness and performance, a strong immunity will take the handbrakes off, allowing you to use the full power of your motor.

In a later article I’ll show you how to bolster your immune system, here I want to leave you with a simple way to identify whether you are falling into overtraining or immune system overload.

We use four measures, three are simple assessments you can easily do at home, the last test requires the assistance of a Doctor or Medical Lab. The tests follow the acroymn HIBI.

H – Waking (H)eart Rate. This needs to be taken daily and immediately upon waking, whilst still lying in bed. If your waking heart rate is eight beats or more above the previous week’s average then this is a sign that you are overloading your immune system.

I – (I)nsomnia. If you have trouble sleeping, or maintaining a regular sleep pattern, despite feeling tired, then it’s likely you are in immunity overload.

B- (B)odyweight. This needs to be measured daily, preferably in the morning. If you find that your bodyweight has dropped by 3lbs or more below your previous week’s average then it’s a good sign you’re immune system is overloading.

I- (I)mmunity. This requires the performance of a Full Blood Count (FBC). You will either need to ask your Doctor for this test, or, if available to you, you can approach an independent lab. What you are looking for (or not looking for really) is elevated levels of Segmented Neutrophils, Lymphocytes, Monocytes and Eosinophils. If you find these measures elevated in the absence of obvious illness or injury, you are in immune system overload.

Using HIBI or just HIB to detect an overloaded immune system can help you eliminate the possibility of losing weeks and months of training gains due to illness. It may even help you reduce the possibility of developing the big diseases, which make lost training time seem trivial by comparison.

To end, I promised a follow up article to show you ways to strengthen immunity, but in the meantime, if you notice any of the above symptoms, cut back on your training to reduce the imposed stress and get more sleep. Sleep is one of the key players in immunity.