Regenerating Your Thymus to Support Your Immunity
Nov 09, 2023Dr. Tai's shares his health pearls on this week's Instagram Live with the topic of Immunity and Regenerating Your Thymus.
What is a Thymus and why it is important?
Our bodies need an immune system to fight off infections throughout our lives. The thymus plays an important role in the immune system, but gets smaller and less effective with normal aging and can also be damaged by some medical treatments.
Normal aging causes the thymus to shrink, and it can also be damaged by genetic conditions, chronic infections, and some medical procedures.
If the thymus does not work properly, we can end up with too few T cells to protect ourselves – this is called immunodeficiency – or we can produce T cells that attack our own body – which is called autoimmunity.
Some medical treatments can also damage the thymus as a side effect. For example, chemotherapy and radiation therapy, which are common treatments for blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, not only deplete mature T cells but also significantly damage the thymus. Recovery of thymus function is required to generate new T cells after bone marrow transplantation and is delayed in some patients. This delay has been associated with increased risk of infections and poor clinical outcome.
Watch this important Instagram live clip and contact Dr. Tai for a FREE Consultation today.
