Our immune systems are an amazingly intricate and efficient defense system that protects us from foreign intruders, like bacteria, viruses and fungi, and toxic chemicals in the environment, such as chemical and bacterial contamination from the air, pesticide and fertilizer runoff in our water, etc.

Sistema imunitário

A healthy immune system functions like a perfectly coordinated group to discover, identify, intercept and destroy or neutralize any threat to our health and well-being. Our immune system consists of distinct lines of defense. The first line of defense are our barrier shields – our skin, intestinal lining, blood-brain barrier – physical obstacles to germs and toxins getting into our bodies.

This line of protection also is composed of more active mechanisms which eliminate microorganisms and toxins that enter our airways and digestive tract, such as cilia – little, hair-like appendages on the cells in our airways which beat in unison to move any particles that enter our airway out again, mucous in our digestive tract and airways that acts to wash up and flush out any undesirable waste in our system, and various compounds that neutralize or destroy harmful germs we might encounter.

Adaptive factor

Our next line of defense consists of the cells and toxins of our adaptive immune system. This defensive system strikes potentially harmful intruders with antibodies that are specific for those pests. In order to do so, certain immune cells called macrophages (a sort of hunter/killer mobile ) first discover the intruders, and they then communicate with other immune cells, known as helper T-cells (the T indicates that they originate in the thymus gland in the throat) exactly what the threat is by displaying pieces of the intruder in their cell membrane.

Through a series of events, other immune cells, called B-cells (the B suggests that they arise in the bone marrow), start to produce specific antibodies against the intruders. The antibodies stick to the intruders, marking them for other immune cells to destroy. Another immune cells, known as Natural Killer (NK) cells, attack cells in the body that have been infected with the intruders, like viruses, thus providing the intruders no place to hide.

T- Cells

Eventually, if the system works as designed, it is going to remove the danger, and other immune cells, known as suppressor T-cells, switch off the immune response to minimize tissue destruction. Another cells, memory T-cells, keep a routine of the intruder’s protein so that in case it shows up again, the reaction will be a lot quicker. There are lots of small proteins and peptides (short chains of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins) that control and manage the immune reaction. These are known as cytokines (cyto, from Greek kutos, “mobile” or “hollow vessel”, and kine, Greek for”to move”).

Cytokines

These themselves have many esoteric names, like interleukins, tumor necrosis factors, and interferons, but they all have the same basic function: communication. Cytokines are the cells of the immune system communicate or”speak” to one another. They could turn on B-cells to create antibodies or flip them off, as an example. There is, however, one type of cytokines that stands out from others in its distinctive ability to stimulate and suppress the immune system, in other words, to regulate the machine. That cytokine is called Proline-Rich Polypeptide, or PRP and it’s the prime element in Lactopeptide. It’s so named as it’s a larger amount of the amino acid proline in its composition than most other proteins and peptides created by the body.PRPs can be categorized into five sub-classes; PRP1 (inactive), PRP2a & 2b (very active interferon modulator), PRP3a & 3b (very active pro-inflammatory cytokine modulator), PRP4 (less active, reduced concentration, unstudied), and PRP5 (less active, lower concentration, unstudied). Colostrum is a rich source of PRPs, and the PRPs can easily be separated out from entire colostrum.