Question

Which would you say is more important: innate or adaptive defense mechanisms? Do you believe there is such a thing as being too clean and that it can lead to harm? Why or why not? Please explain

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Answer 1

Inspite of the Innate immunity system being fevershly fast in their response and being the first line of defense of our body system, the Adaptive defense mechanism has its own advantages, making them far more important, when it comes to our immune system.

The Adaptive system is more efficient and specific, they have receptors that identify one pathogen from the other, these receptors can distinguish freindly bacteria from deadly ones, the trade of is that it can some time before it can act. Innate immunity are very effective against common microrganism, however they always cannot eliminate infectious organism and moreover there are many pathogens which they cannot easily recognize. The bigest advantage of the Adaptive immune system is that they have memory cells, which can identify the pathogens which have invaded our body earlier, so that they can remember and prevent reinfection, this explains why, once you have a disease like chicken pox in your childhood, rarely do you get chicken pox when you become adult. Once the antigen or pathogen is identified the adaptive system can respond faster.

Being too clean, sometimes can be harmfull. Its widely accepted that early exposure to germs or bacteria helps childs immune system to develop resistance, which help you withstand certain disease at later stages of life. The immune system works itself, so if you are exposed to germs early in life, this gives more chance for the immune system to work properly. B lymphocytes of the immune system are the memory cells that remember the same pathogen for fastet antibody production in future infection, so for B lymphocytes to work properly it should be exposed to some amount of pathogens early in life so that, it can prevent reinfection that can happen in adult age, this is simlar to how our muscles work, in order for you to lift heavy objects, the muscles must be trained by lifting gradual increase in weights over a period of time.

Studies have shown that children grown in cleaner enviornment are more likely to get allergic disease like asthma, as compared to children grown in not so clean enviornment. The answer for this, is not be dirty and unclean, there should be a proper balance between cleanliness and early exposure.