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An immune response is a physiological reaction which occurs within an organism in the context of inflammation for the purpose of defending against exogenous factors. These include a wide variety of different toxins, viruses, intra- and extracellular bacteria, protozoa, helminths, and fungi which could cause serious problems to the health of the host organism if not cleared from the body.
In immunology, systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) is an inflammatory state affecting the whole body. [1] It is the body's response to an infectious or noninfectious insult . Although the definition of SIRS refers to it as an "inflammatory" response, it actually has pro- and anti-inflammatory components.
Overactive immune responses form the other end of immune dysfunction, particularly the autoimmune diseases. Here, the immune system fails to properly distinguish between self and non-self, and attacks part of the body. Under normal circumstances, many T cells and antibodies react with "self" peptides. [119]
The inflammatory response is characterized by the following symptoms: redness of the skin, due to locally increased blood circulation; heat, either increased local temperature, such as a warm feeling around a localized infection, or a systemic fever;
A representation of the cholera epidemic of the 19th century. For thousands of years mankind has been intrigued with the causes of disease and the concept of immunity. The prehistoric view was that disease was caused by supernatural forces, and that illness was a form of theurgic punishment for "bad deeds" or "evil thoughts" visited upon the soul by the gods or by one's enemies. [8]
The term inflammation is not a synonym for infection. Infection describes the interaction between the action of microbial invasion and the reaction of the body's inflammatory response—the two components are considered together in discussion of infection, and the word is used to imply a microbial invasive cause for the observed inflammatory ...
In biology, it refers to damage caused to an organism by its own immune response, as a result of an infection. It could be due to mismatch between pathogen and host species, and often occurs when an animal pathogen infects a human (e.g. avian flu leads to a cytokine storm which contributes to the increased mortality rate). [1]
Cytokines are a normal part of the body's immune response to infection, but their sudden release in large quantities may cause multisystem organ failure and death. [ 1 ] Cytokine storms may be caused by infectious or non-infectious etiologies , especially viral respiratory infections such as H1N1 influenza , H5N1 influenza , SARS-CoV-1 , [ 2 ...