Inflammation and the Immune System

Ocular inflammation can produce extensive damage to innocent bystander cells leading to vision loss and blindness. Fortunately, the eye possesses multiple strategies to help control immune-mediated inflammation, a phenomenon known as immune privilege.

Nevertheless, virtually all severe or chronic diseases have, to a greater or lesser degree, an element of immune dysfunction that is central to the disease process. Scientific literature now links many age-related degenerative diseases of the eye to an autoimmune inflammatory response to external and internal environmental conditions, including nutritional deficiencies.

These responses include dry eye syndrome, macular degeneration, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, iritis and uveitis.

Multipotent hematopoietic cells (MHSC) are stem cells found in the human bone marrow. These self-renewing cells are responsible for the formation of the immune system leukocytes (white blood cells) that defend the body against infectious disease. Proper development of the immune system is dependent on the nutritional status of the body. This status also affects the macromolecule nucleic acids, including double helix— deoxyribonucleic (DNA) and protein synthesis ribonucleic (RNA). These are the acids that signal intracellular genetic instructions responsible for disease susceptibility, including immune system responses that affect the entire body.

A properly modulated immune system sends clear instant cellular defense messages that protect the body against viral, bacterial, parasitic and fungal foreign invaders. This is particularly important, given the increased global risk of infection from one of the pathogens.

A healthy immune system is also able to distinguish between the body’s own cells: self vs. non-self. When the immune system is deficient in nutritional ammunition, it can send confusing signals that cause it to turn on itself (autoimmune response). This unleashes a torrent of inflammatory diseases, including some forms of arthritis, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, iritis, uveitis, dry eye syndrome, glaucoma and vascular disease, which contributes to macular degeneration.