Swine Flu, Noni and the Immune System

What are the symptoms of swine flu?

About one to four days usually elapse between the time a person is infected and the onset of symptoms. Influenza normally causes symptoms such as coughing, sneezing, headaches and body aches, fever, chills, and sometimes vomiting and diarrhea. Swine flu causes the same symptoms, and may be difficult to distinguish from other strains of flu and respiratory illnesses. Severe cases of flu that lead to death are normally seen in very young and very old people whose immune systems are too weak to fight off the virus. Adults with severe illness may also have difficulty breathing, dizziness, confusion, or severe vomiting and diarrhea.

Why are health officials concerned about the outbreak of swine flu?

When flu viruses mix genes with one another, they can take on new forms. New flu viruses are harder for the human immune system to defend against. With little or no opposition from the immune resistance, the virus can grow quickly and invade many tissues and organs. The swine flu virus from Mexico has spread quickly and caused a worldwide pandemic.

What is a flu pandemic?

A flu pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus spreads quickly and few people have immunity. While influenza viruses were only discovered about a century ago, researchers believe flu pandemics hit about two or three times each century. Some pandemics kill a few million people globally. The most severe flu pandemic on record was the 1918 Spanish Flu. Researchers estimate it killed about 50 million people around the world.

Are there any similarities between the swine flu and earlier pandemic viruses?

Flu viruses are classified by two proteins on their surface, called H for hemagglutinin and N for neuraminidase. The swine flu found in Mexico and the 1918 Spanish Flu viruses are of the H1N1 subtype. Both viruses appear to have originated in animals. Researchers believe the Spanish Flu spread to people from birds. The two viruses are not identical, and there are still many genetic differences between them that researchers are studying.

Flu is always a moving target for medicine because of its ability to reinvent itself to evade the body’s natural defences and vaccines and drugs.Because the virus mutates at a high rate, the flu strains that circulate every winter are slightly different from those of the previous year. This process, called antigenic drift, requires the issue of fresh flu vaccines every year to protect against the latest strains.It does not, however, carry a pandemic threat: the genetic changes involved are minor, so people who have already been exposed to flu generally retain a measure of immunity. New strains created this way can spread, and sometimes kill the young, old and infirm, but they do not sweep through entire populations.What virologists fear is a different process, called antigenic shift or reassortment, which has driven previous pandemics. It is this that appears to have created the Mexican swine flu.

Antigenic shift allows flu to acquire much larger genetic changes very quickly, creating new strains to which the human immune system is entirely naive. These can make it much more dangerous because the body cannot immediately defend itself.

The Immune System

The immune system is complex and interesting.  Our immune system works around the clock, in thousands of largely unnoticed ways.  It comes to our notice when it stops working, or when it does something that has a side effect we can see or feel.  When we get a cut, bacteria and viruses enter our body and our immune system goes to work to eliminate the invaders and heal the skin.  We inhale thousands of airborne germs every day.  Our immune system deals with all of these, usually without a problem.  Occasionally a germ gets past the immune system and the cut becomes infected or we catch a cold.  The infected cut or cold or flu is a visible sign that our immune system failed to stop the germ.  The fact that the cut heals and we recover from our cold is a visible sign that our immune system is able to eliminate the invader. When our immune system is sluggish, works at less than full capacity or breaks down altogether, we get sick.

Noni and the Immune System:

The best protection we can offer our body is to support and nourish the immune system before it weakens, becomes sluggish or breaks down altogether.  Our body needs essential nutrients for it to function at peak performance.  Taking a daily dose of Life Health 100% organic Noni Juice provides the body with a natural “power pack” of the essential vitamins, mineral and nutrients that our immune system needs to protect us.  Research has shown that the chemical constituents of Noni juice assist in immune system modulation. Whether we need to support our immune system to strengthen it to fight an existing disease, or support it to stay healthy, a daily dose of Life Health Noni Juice improves and assists the immune system in its fight to keep us in good health.