The Breakdown of Immune System
Diseases always suddenly burst into people’s lives and leave long-term scars for these patients. There are many diseases that are so serious that have global influence in human history. As the article, The Evolution and Breakdown of Immune System wrote, “The breakdown of the immune system is one of the most frequent and dangerous diseases all over the world. (Jonsson, Brokstad, Hansen, Davies & Ulevestad, 2002)” It not only influences the patients, but impacts their families, and even worse, they may become the burden of the whole society.
Every patient really suffers lots of pain when they fight with these kinds of diseases. They will simply influence your immune system, the guardian of your body, even destroy it. Patients may get sick and find it hard to recover once there has some disturbance that comes from the outside environment. AIDS is one of the most influential diseases of them. According to the dates from UNAIDS, in2010, there are a total of 33. 3 million people who suffer lots of pain for AIDS in the earth (UNAIDS, 2010).
People who get AIDS will become unbelievably vulnerable and can only lengthen their life under some medical help. The influence of these kinds of diseases will expand from personal to social. Patients’ families are the first who will bear the torture of worries and sadness. The immune system is hard to rebuild after breaking down so the patients’ families have to pay money for their treatment endlessly. Once they do not have enough money, the patient can only wait for the end of life, which will bring families huge pain.
Only in Africa, 23 million people who died because of AIDS in 2010 (UNAIDS, 2010). And there are millions of families suffer the hurt caused by AIDS. Not only the patients’ families will suffer a lot when they try to save the patients, but the society also weighs down by the expenditure to treat patients. In 2009, US$ 15. 9 billion was used to get all kinds of available sources for HIV, but in 2010 there will have $ 26. 8 billion needed for HIV services, and the scholars said there will have a long period increase because of the growth of patients who are infected by AIDS (UNAIDS, 2010). Since extensive impacts caused by the immune system breakdown, if we can find some causes of it, there may have some favorable changes in our future. Based on its different causes, it is usually divided into three main parts: immunodeficiency, autoimmunity, and hypersensitivity. Immunodeficiency is the first type, which refers to diseases that can make the ability of the immune system to fight infectious disease is compromised or entirely absent.
Most cases of this kind of disease are acquired but some people are born with defects in their immune system or primary immunodeficiency. One example provided by Dr. Greenberg is the mix-use of things which can touch our body, such as syringe needles and toothbrush (Greenberg, 2009). So we should be careful about our actions in our daily lives. The second is autoimmunity, which contains diseases are caused by the failure of an organism in recognizing its own constituent parts as self, which allows an immune response against its own cells and tissues.
It is often caused by a lack of germ development of a target body. The immune system may fight with each other regardless of the corporations. Some scientists regard overstress and overwork as two main reasons of these kinds of diseases (Clare, 2003). It means the irregular living style may lead to the breakdown of the immune system. Lastly is hypersensitivity. It refers to undesirable reactions produced by the normal immune system, including allergies. Many of them are caused by unhealthy living habits in our daily lives (Allen, 1999).
Maybe some people always eat a lot once they find something is delicious, maybe they spend too much time in a certain environment, all these may cause the breakdown of our immune system. After we are aware of the bad influences of immune system breakdown on patients, families and society; after we research and trace its causes and divide them into three main types, immunodeficiency, autoimmunity and hypersensitivity, we really hope that the breakdown of the immune system will leave less pain on people’s lives.
But unfortunately, immune system breakdown is still one of the most destructive diseases in the world.
Reference
- JONSSON, R. R. , BROKSTAD, K. , HANSEN, T. T. , DAVIES, T. T. , & ULVESTAD, E. E. (2002). The Evolution and Breakdown of the Immune System: Implications for Development of Autoimmune Diseases*. Scandinavian Journal Of Immunology, 56(3), 323-326. doi:10. 1046/j. 1365-3083. 2002. 01158. x
- Greenberg, S. (2009, 2). Immunodeficiency. Retrieved from http://www. utoronto. a/kids/Immunodeficiency. htm
- UNAIDS. (2010, 12 23). The fact sheet on HIV for global report use. Retrieved from http://www. unaids. org/documents/20101123_FS_Global_em_en. pdf
- Clare, A. (2003). The stranger within. New Scientist, 180(2421), 34. Retrieved from http://www. katewerk. com/chimera. html
- Allen, C. (1999). Delayed type hypersensitivity: Current theories with an historic perspective. Dermatology Online Journal, 5(1), 7. Retrieved from http://dermatology. cdlib. org/DOJvol5num1/reviews/black. html
