The physiology of abnormal states:

Many infections and diseases are caused by microorganisms—organisms that cannot be seen without the aid of a microscope. But, not all microorganisms cause disease. There are many bacteria in the environment that don’t make you sick.

How do the pathogens—disease-causing agents—produce infection and disease inside the body?

http://www.pandemsim.com/CauseDisease.html

Pathophysiology: specifically the functional changes that accompany a particular syndrome or disease,

Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon.

Pathophysiology or physiopathology is a convergence of pathology with physiology. Pathology is the medical discipline that describes conditions typically observed during a disease state, whereas physiology is the biological discipline that describes processes or mechanisms operating within an organism. Pathology describes the abnormal or undesired condition, whereas pathophysiology seeks to explain the physiological processes or mechanisms whereby such condition develops and progresses. Pathophysiology can also mean the functional changes associated with or resulting from disease or injury. Another definition is the functional changes that accompany a particular disease.

How Pathogens Make Us Sick

Infection with a pathogen does not necessarily lead to disease. Infection occurs when viruses, bacteria, or other microbes enter your body and begin to multiply. Disease occurs when the cells in your body are damaged as a result of infection and signs and symptoms of an illness appear. The incidence of disease among those infected varies greatly depending on the particular pathogen and individual susceptibility.

Many of the symptoms that make a person suffer during an infection—fever, malaise, headache, rash—result from the activities of the immune system trying to eliminate the infection from the body.

In response to infection, your immune system springs into action. White blood cells, antibodies, and other mechanisms go to work to rid your body of the foreign invader. Indeed, many of the symptoms that make a person suffer during an infection—fever, malaise, headache, rash—result from the activities of the immune system trying to eliminate the infection from the body.

Pathogenic microbes challenge the immune system in many ways. Viruses make us sick by killing cells or disrupting cell function. Our bodies often respond with fever (heat inactivates many viruses), with the secretion of a chemical called interferon (which blocks viruses from reproducing), or by marshaling the immune system’s antibodies and other cells to target the invader. Many bacteria make us sick in the same way that viruses do, but they also have other strategies at their disposal. Sometimes bacteria multiply so rapidly they crowd out host tissues and disrupt normal function. Sometimes they kill cells and tissues outright. Sometimes they make toxins that can paralyze, destroy cells’ metabolic machinery, or precipitate a massive immune reaction that is itself toxic.

Other classes of microbes attack the body in different ways:

Trichinella spiralis, the parasitic worm (helminth) that causes trichinosis, enters the body encased in cysts residing in undercooked meat. Pepsin and hydrochloric acid in our bodies help free the larvae in the cysts to enter the small intestine, where they molt, mature, and ultimately produce more larvae that pass through the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream. At that point they are free to reach various organs. Those that reach skeletal muscle cells can survive and form new cysts, thus completing their life cycle.
Histoplasma capsulatum, a fungus that causes histoplasmosis, grows in soil contaminated with bird or bat droppings. Spores of the fungus emerge from disturbed soil and once inhaled into the lungs germinate and transform into budding yeast cells. In its acute phase, the disease causes coughing and flu-like symptoms. Sometimes histoplasmosis affects multiple organ systems and can be fatal unless treated.

The protozoa that cause malaria, which are members of the genus Plasmodium, have complex life cycles. Sporozoites, the stage of the parasite that infects new hosts, develop in the salivary glands of Anopheles mosquitos. They leave the mosquito during a blood meal from a human, enter the host’s liver, and multiply. Cells infected with sporozoites eventually burst, releasing another cell form, merozoites, into the bloodstream. These cells infect red blood cells and then rapidly reproduce, destroying the red blood cell hosts and releasing many new merozoites to do further damage. Most merozoites continue to reproduce in this way, but some differentiate into sexual forms (gametocytes) that are taken up by the female mosquito, thus completing the protozoan life cycle.

Pathogens are microorganisms – such as bacteria and viruses – that cause disease.

Bacteria release toxins, and viruses damage our cells. White blood cells can ingest and destroy pathogens. They can produce antibodies to destroy pathogens, and antitoxins to neutralise toxins.

In vaccination pathogens are introduced into the body in a weakened form.

The process causes the body to produce enough white blood cells to protect itself against the pathogens, while not getting diseased. Antibiotics are effective against bacteria, but not against viruses. Some strains of bacteria are resistant to antibiotics.

Pathogens – bacteria

Pathogens are microorganisms that cause infectious disease. Bacteria and viruses are the main pathogens.

a salmonella bacterium cell

Structure of a salmonella bacterium cell

Bacteria are microscopic organisms. They come in many shapes and sizes, but even the largest are only 10 micrometres long – 10 millionths of a metre.

Bacteria are living cells and, in favourable conditions, can multiply rapidly. Once inside the body, they release poisons or toxins that make us feel ill. Diseases caused by bacteria include:

food poisoning
cholera
typhoid
whooping cough
gonorrhoea – a sexually transmitted disease
allergens

Pathogens – viruses

spherical shaped virus showing a cross-section through the core

A hepatitis C virus showing DNA enclosed in a protein coat.

Viruses are many times smaller than bacteria. They are among the smallest organisms known and consist of a fragment of genetic material inside a protective protein coat.

Viruses can only reproduce inside host cells, they damage the cell when they do this. A virus can get inside a cell and, once there, take over and make hundreds of thousands of copies of itself. Eventually the virus copies fill the whole host cell and burst it open. The viruses are then passed out in the bloodstream, the airways, or by other routes.

Diseases caused by viruses include:

influenza – flu
colds
measles
mumps
rubella
chicken pox
AIDS

Functions of the white blood cells

A white blood cell ingesting disease-causing bacteria

A white blood cell ingesting disease-causing bacteria.

White blood cells can:

ingest pathogens and destroy them
produce antibodies to destroy pathogens
produce antitoxins that neutralise the toxins released by pathogens

In a written examination, it is easy to get carried away and waffle on about things such as invaders and battles, but stick to the point. Note that:

the pathogens are not the disease – they cause the disease
white blood cells do not eat the pathogens – they ingest them
antibodies and antitoxins are not living things – they are specialised proteins

More about white blood cells

There are several different types of white blood cells, each with different functions, but they can be put into two main groups:

phagocytes or macrophages
lymphocytes

Phagocytes

Phagocytes can easily pass through blood vessel walls into the surrounding tissue and move towards pathogens or toxins. They then either:

ingest and absorb the pathogens or toxins
release an enzyme to destroy them

Having absorbed a pathogen, the phagocytes may also send out chemical messages that help nearby lymphocytes to identify the type of antibody needed to neutralise them.

Lymphocytes

Pathogens contain certain chemicals that are foreign to the body and are called antigens. Each lymphocyte carries a specific type of antibody – a protein that has a chemical ‘fit’ to a certain antigen. When a lymphocyte with the appropriate antibody meets the antigen, the lymphocyte reproduces quickly, and makes many copies of the antibody that neutralises the pathogen.

Antibodies neutralise pathogens in a number of ways:

they bind to pathogens and damage or destroy them
they coat pathogens, clumping them together so that they are easily ingested by phagocytes
they bind to the pathogens and release chemical signals to attract more phagocytes

Lymphocytes may also release antitoxins that stick to the appropriate toxin and stop it damaging the body.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/microbiology/chapter/how-pathogens-cause-disease/

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Six Guiding Principles to Being Food Smart

As The Stupid Diet suggests, there are six guiding principles for identifying high-quality foods. The first is Organic and Grass-Fed Foods, which means any food free of synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides or fungicides; genetically modified organisms (GMOs) such as seeds or ingredients; sewage; antibiotics or added growth hormones; animal byproducts and other undesirable substances in animal feed.

Organic fruits and vegetable juices will help combat the side effects of chemotherapy. There are over 2,000 papers cited worldwide on the benefits of antioxidants to patients during and after treatment (regardless of what conventional oncology states). Learn about the power of live (i.e. not concentrated or synthetic) foods and juices.

Furthermore, organic standards require that the animals are treated humanely, in pastures instead of warehouses, so that their living standards accentuate their health and natural behavior.

The second principle is food that is hypoallergenic, meaning it is unlikely to cause an allergic reaction. Most people are aware of what happens when folks with food allergies eat their version of Kryptonite, such as peanut butter – the throat swells up or they get hives.

However, it is estimated that 75% of Americans actually have food sensitivities to various degrees. These types of food reactions are harder to detect, because of their subtlety, delays and they produce symptoms that appear unconnected to a food reaction, such as headaches, acne, fatigue, digestive pain, chronic infections, depression, mood swings, joint pain and much more.

These sensitivities are generally caused by allergens and are further complicated by chemical toxins, additives, genetically modified organisms and whatever other junk is put into our food.

As you may know, your body has a certain pH level that it needs to maintain to remain functional. A more alkaline environment (meaning the opposite of acidic) is ideal, as this is better for cellular communication and function, the transport of oxygen and nutrients. In contrast, an acidic environment is the exact opposite, making it very hard for cells to do their job. If you want to prevent disease, you want to keep your physical constitution as alkaline as possible. Increasing intake of organic vegetables, fruits loaded with live enzymes and high-quality water can help.

You also need to balance your glycemic index, or the rate at which your blood sugar levels rise after eating certain foods. After eating, glucose, the sugar from the food, is released in the bloodstream. Then, insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, transports the glucose through the bloodstream and to cells, thus regulating blood sugar levels. Our cells use the glucose as fuel, for growth and recovery.

Cancer cell grow faster in sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Cancer cells are anaerobic, using glucose and fermentation as an energy source. Candida and fungal infections also feed on sugars. (Most cancer patients also have fungal infections as the disease progresses for some of the same metabolic reasons.)

So the glycemic index evaluates the rate food releases glucose into the bloodstream. A faster release is given a higher value and a food that has a slower release has a lower value. Now, foods with a high GI cause rapid fluctuations in blood sugar levels, which, over time, screw up the insulin receptors on the cell membranes, making them less responsive or even resistant to insulin. When this occurs, it’s known as Type 2 Diabetes. Over 80% of people of people with this condition are obese or overweight and excessive fat cells exacerbate the problem, increasing insulin-resistance.

On the other hand, low GI foods can actually reduce insulin levels and insulin resistance, helping to control appetite and delay hunger. Disruption in insulin levels has been shown to affect everything from cardiovascular disease to immunity problems and research shows that risk from heart disease or Type 2 Diabetes is strongly related to the GI of your overall diet.

If you follow The Stupid Diet, you will eat combinations of foods that help slow the absorption of glucose and sustain those levels over a longer period, preventing extreme hunger or lack of energy (like many side-effects from fad diets). Balancing your GI is essential to long-term health and prevention of disease.

It is also very important to support your immune system with immune-supportive foods. After all, your immune system is your first and last defense against destructive elements in the body. This type of intake falls back on earlier points, such as avoiding allergenic foods, balancing alkalinity, etc. As you can see, it’s all interconnected.

A clean, efficient and strengthened immune system that isn’t weighed down with attacking allergens, toxins or inflammation is free to wage war on things like infection and cell mutations. As you may know, even the smallest of infections can lead to worse conditions, such as cancer. For example, human papillomavirus can lead to cervical cancer and hepatitis C can lead to liver cancer. Not to mention, it’s estimated the average immune system terminates cell mutations and their development into cancer cells over 10,000 times per day.

It goes without saying your immune system requires everything it needs to function at its best. Eating high-quality, nutrient-rich foods is the primary way to give your body a chance of overcoming and preventing disease.

Last but not least, there’s detoxification. Avoiding exposure to toxins in our industrial world is nearly impossible, unless you lived in a magic bubble. Therefore, it’s important to eat foods that flush toxins from the body, so toxins don’t build up. Yes, the body detoxifies itself naturally, but given the ever-increasing amount of toxins in our everyday environments, it’s important to really make sure this function runs at full capacity. Some antioxidants like glutathione help clean the liver and neutralize the effects of harmful medications for patients dealing with chronic disease and cancer, making it an important part of cancer nutrition.

Detoxification is key when fighting infections, because dead bacteria (such as Lyme disease) can release harmful neurotoxins. If you’re trying to recover, it makes no sense to get further sick by the byproducts of the war waging inside you. Detox is also key when losing weight because toxins can remain stored in fat tissue. As that weight is shed, years of accumulated toxins are released into the bloodstream.

Certain foods that promote healthy urination, bowel movements and support live function are the best detoxifiers, as these are the primary elimination points within the body.

Hopefully, explaining these dietary habits will help you understand how dieting really works and that it’s important to aim for more than shedding pounds, but an overall healthy body, like a well-oiled machine.

Learning these habits may be difficult at first, but over time, as you develop healthy dietary routines, you will begin to reap the benefits of your hard work and begin to live a new life that is healthy, energized and strong. Whether used as prevention or as an adjunct to treatment, getting the food right will help you. Keep it simple and once you learn these principals, you can create many wonderful recipes for yourself and your family.

The best part about these treatments is they are helpful for most, if not all cancers.

If you have questions about your specific cancer or if you have any questions about chronic disease treatment, chronic Lyme disease complex treatment, integrative cancer treatment, recovering the strength of your immune system or other questions, feel free to contact us today at: https://www.envita.com/cancer/smart-foods-that-impact-your-fight-with-chronic-disease-and-cancer

Caroline Porter Thomas is the founder of EmpoweRN inc. and the author of “How to Succeed in Nursing School: Before, During and After” and “New Nurse? How to Get, Keep and LOVE Your First Job!” https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmhPgswuoCd–XV4Lu34Kkw