What Is An Antibody?
What Is An Antibody?
What is an antibody? An antibody, also known as an immunoglobulin, is a protein produced by a B cell lymphocyte white blood cell and works as part of the immune system to keep us healthy.
B cells or B cell lymphocytes are one type of lymphocyte white blood cell. White blood cells come in several different varieties and lymphocytes are one of them. Lymphocytes come in 3 types which include B cells, T cells, and “natural killer cells.”
A B cell produces an antibody which is a “Y” shaped protein that is used to neutralize bacteria, fungi, and viruses. An antibody protein attaches to specific parts on bacteria, fungi, or viruses, called an antigen.
Antigen vs Antibody
Antigens are large molecules on the surfaces of bacteria, fungi, and viruses.
Each tip of the Y shaped an antibody has a paratope (a lock) and that is specific to a particular epitode (key) on the antigen of bacteria, fungi, or viruses.
This allows an antibody and and antigen to lock together with precision. From this antigen-antibody reaction two things can happen.
The antibody can tag the antigen to be destroyed by mechanisms like macrophages or T cells of the immune system, or the antibody can neutralize the bacteria, fungi, or viruses by blocking their ability to invade cells and by interfering with their ability to survive.
An Antibody Gone Wrong
An antibody is normally programmed to know the body’s healthy proteins, cells, and tissues and avoid them, while attacking pathological substances like bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Sometimes, however, the immune system ceases to recognize one or more of the body’s normal proteins, cells, and tissues as being part of itself, which lead the body to produce pathological autoantibodies to target them.
My whole food plant based diet reduces the burden put on my immune system and protects my healthy living by minimizing and eliminating foreign substances that trigger white blood cells and antibodies like hormones, additives & preservatives, chemically processed sugars & fats, and inflammatory animal proteins.
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