Your Immune System Continues to Save Your Life

Abstract

In order to fight off pathogens, also known as foreign substances, your body uses two types of defense mechanisms (Murray, Rosenthal, Pfuller, 2016). The first is the innate immune system. This is a nonspecific primary response that serves as the initial defense mechanism. This mechanism involves physical barriers and internal defenses. The second is the adaptive immune response, which responds to specific diseases. This type of immunity has memory and will be reactivated and elicit a faster response upon a second exposure to the pathogen. The adaptive immune response can be further broken down into humoral and cell mediated responses. In addition, the adaptive and innate immunity have specific cells that are involved with each type of immunity (Murray et al., 2016).