Explainer | What is the immune system and how do you strengthen it? Expert tips on boosting your defences

Your immune system needs your support to protect your body. This includes things like maintaining a healthy diet, exercise, getting enough sleep and not smoking

A strong immune system might stop us from contracting, or minimise, a cold or Covid-19 – it may even help us when we face diseases such as cancer or dementia

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Your immune system needs your help in protecting the body from viruses, from keeping a healthy diet to getting plenty of sleep and keeping your stress levels low. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 8:15am, 16 Dec 2021Updated: 8:29am, 16 Dec 2021

You’ve heard this word a lot in the last two years: immunity. And you’re going to be hearing it a lot this winter, as Covid-19 and its latest mutation carry on just as flu season begins.

Immunity is the protection our immune system delivers. Made up of cells, antibodies and chemical mediators that protect the body from infections, that system includes multiple layers and barriers – like your skin and the cilia, or tiny hairs, that line your airways – as well as special cells that recognise and attack viruses and bacteria. These ranks of protective elements work together to support your overall well-being.

Dr Adrian Wu Young-yuen, a specialist in immunology and allergy in Hong Kong, says you should think of the immune system like a small internal army. It needs your support to do the work of protecting the body, though, in the form of “the usual healthy lifestyle choices”, he says.

These include a healthy diet, sufficient exercise, rest and sunshine, and not drinking alcohol or smoking.

Dr Adrian Wu Young-yuen is a specialist in immunology and allergy in Hong Kong.

Sleep is important, Wu says, because without enough, our bodies do not get the necessary restorative downtime, and we stop making enough of the protective proteins called cytokines that our immune response relies on to battle infection or inflammation.