so I'm going to talk about the thymus gland and why it shrinks down to nothing
as you get older it's a very very important gland as it relates to your
immune system because it is the training center for your immune cells
specifically the t-cells which stand for thymus cells and this gland is right
underneath your breastbone right on top of the heart not to be confused with
your thyroid which is a little bit higher up right here the thyroid and the
thymus are completely two different separate glands now when your infant you
have this huge thymus gland and the reason why it's huge is because it
doesn't have all the experience yet it has to go through practice by being
exposed to germs and develop or acquire it's immunity because the t-cells are
part of the immune system that relates to adaptive or acquired immunity so you
have to be exposed learn from this experience and develop immunity over
time and as you age it starts to decrease in size by the time you're like
75 years old it's virtually replaced by fat and they call this thymic involution
okay or or thymic atrophy atrophy means it shrinks okay so without that gland
working or even being there your risk for infection goes up your risk for
getting cancer goes up your risk of getting an autoimmune disease also goes
up because one of the key functions of the thymus is to prevent or protect
against autoimmune diseases and one of the theories that contributes to this is
a decreased amount of antioxidants and then you're gonna have all this
oxidation which is gonna kill more cells so if that is true which it might be it
validates the idea of consuming a good amount of vegetables leafy greens
preferably raw throughout your life but the thymus is involved with these
t-cells so we have the T killer cells these are antiviral they're also anti
tumor they kill tumor cells and then we have the T helper cell
this cell is like the commander of the entire immune system so the HIV virus
for example targets this cell and it takes out the entire immune system so
the T helper cell is not necessarily the quarterback of a football team it's the
coach of the football team in which they are helping design the plays
coordinating what everyone does to help win the game so you take this guy out
and the whole thing kind of goes downhill so that's what the T helper
cell does now the T regulatory cell or t suppressor cell is involved with
suppressing an overactive immune system so it'll put out inflammation it also
specifically helps prevent autoimmune diseases so you take this thing out and
then your risk factor goes up now when you hit age 65 the diversity of these
cells diminishes significantly so basically this all increases your
susceptibility to having problems now what's interesting about this Koba 19 is
that it seems to be when you're below 65 and healthy the risk factor from dying
from this virus go down so significantly that the odds of you dying are very
similar to the odds of you dying in a car when you're traveling to work yet
when you go over 65 it kind of goes up so apparently 65 is kind of a key age
for your immune system so now the question is what can we do we can't
control aging we can control our health and other things number one we can start
to beef up no pun intended our antioxidants from vegetables that
could help us number two keeping the stress lowered stress by itself I'm
talking about sustained stress like cortisol has the ability to shrink the
thymus gland as well as your lymphatic glands like the lymph nodes so excessive
stress can cause atrophy of your immune system next thing is very very
important and I'm gonna put some research down below if you have a zinc
deficiency one of the symptoms is this your thymus gland actually atrophies so
how difficult would it be just to take some zinc on a regular basis very very
important for your immune system to maximize and optimize the size of your
thymus glands so you can keep this going as much as possible now through your
life if you've been exposed to germs you have a tremendous amount of antibodies
sitting there to help protect you so it's not that you need to keep the
training going for these t-cells like you were when you're a kid but it's
important to maintain this thymus gland so you can keep your resistance to
infection very very high one more thing I want to mention if you are over 65 or
even over 75 there's a really good support remedy that you could get
thymus extract now I'm not going to recommend any brands you're gonna have
to do the research by yourself it's a glandular extract that you can
get freeze-dried and take a little bit each day that can greatly help support
your immune system specifically the thymus gland take a very small amount
initially and gradually work up to maybe even like one capsule per day don't
take the whole capsule right off because it could wake up the immune system and
create a little bit of a reaction but if you take just maybe a half a capsule
with food and take it for like a couple weeks and then slowly increase it a
little bit more and more I think that can support your immune system alright
thanks for watching