Immunity
The Immune System's Secret Weapon
Neutrophils are essential immune cells that do the heavy lifting from day one of an infection. Discover their unique superpowers and how everyday factors like coffee can influence their function.
Immunity
Neutrophils are essential immune cells that do the heavy lifting from day one of an infection. Discover their unique superpowers and how everyday factors like coffee can influence their function.
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In recent years, we've had to learn a lot about our immune system, whether we wanted to or not.
Even people who had never really looked into it before now know at least antibodies and T cells.
Both components are part of the adaptive, specific immune system. At its core, our immune system actually consists of two major parts: the innate, non-specific immune system and the adaptive, specific immune system, which includes antibodies and T cells.
The latter only kicks in a few days into an infection. Because the adaptive part of the immune system – T cells, antibodies – must first learn which pathogen has infected us. Only then do specialized defense reactions form that can eliminate the pathogen very precisely and very efficiently.
Until then, hopefully our innate immune system has protected us. The key immune cells here are the neutrophils (neutrophilic granulocytes). They make up one-half to two-thirds of all leukocytes in the blood – and that's saying something.
We've learned surprisingly little about them in recent years. Yet our immune system can't even handle larger amounts of viruses without granulocytes. Because: T cells only eliminate infected cells. And antibodies only block the action of viruses.
Both components would be hopelessly overwhelmed if there were no immune cells to do the heavy lifting: destroying viruses and other pathogens in large quantities. Because once we're hit with a more severe infection, it's no longer enough (if it ever was) to just block the virus's function or kill only infected cells.
What we need is a "weapon" that crushes the virus en masse and prevents its spread. That's exactly what neutrophils do. They're involved in so-called viral clearance from day one to the end of the infection and are therefore essential for us to recover from infections quickly and sustainably.
Neutrophils have properties that other immune cells simply don't possess:
Because a neutrophil is hundreds of times larger than a virus and still significantly larger than a typical bacterium, they're extremely effective at destroying or neutralizing large quantities of pathogens in a short time.
In the media or on Twitter, we've heard little about these wonder cells. But COVID research showed: Studies could demonstrate that impaired neutrophil function played a major role in why people became severely ill – think cytokine storm and so on.
The flip side: As so often, we have influence over the function of this wonder weapon. In a recent blog post, for example, we discuss how coffee can inhibit the function of granulocytes – and about which vitamin in high doses significantly increases the quantity and function of granulocytes.
To be clear: these are just two factors. You can, of course, assume that many lifestyle factors influence the function of neutrophils – and thus, how powerful our immune system is. For instance, there are also a few studies on Vitamin D ;-) Is anyone surprised?
