What happens in our bodies when we are sick?
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From the brains behind Brains On, this is the Moment of Um. Moment of Um is brought to you by APM Studios. I'm Ruby Guthrie.

Good morning world. Wow, I've got so much to do today. Good thing I slept a ton last night. Okay, let's see. I've got to make breakfast, take a shower, get to the library, run to the grocery store, get a birthday card for my friend Ellen, assemble some cowboy caviar for the party, and then I... Whoa, my throat hurts. Oh, no, no.

No, no, no, no, no, not today. I want to have so much to do. Why? Why am I sick? You know, thankfully, listener Penny had a great question about this. Hi, I'm Penny. And my question is, what happens in your body when you get sick?

Hi, I'm Courtney Jordan-Beckler. I'm a cardiologist, which means I'm a heart doctor. I usually take care of adult patients. Before we become cardiologists, we're required to be internists first.

Internal medicine doctors specialize in adult medicine. So we have a lot of practice of taking care of people when they're sick. In fact, we do that for about three years in our training. After we graduate medical school, we spend three years doing an internal medicine residency, taking care of people in the hospital when they're sick. So you guys asked, what happens in your body when you're sick?

The reality is our immune system, when we get sick, is doing a lot of really good work. So when you start to get a cold or a runny nose, what's happening is your white blood cells, so those are the cells that are in our body, they're in our bloodstream, that get activated to help fight off illness. And they're supposed to do that. And so part of what is happening when our nose gets runny or whatever the case is, when you're congested,

is your immune system is getting activated, all the fighter cells that are there to help get that out of your body. So it's actually a really positive thing. When you get a fever, you feel kind of icky when your body's hot. But part of what is happening there is that's the immune system working to help produce all sorts of fighting cells that eat up some of the bacteria

Thank you.

to help your immune system continue to fight well and make you better. But it's the same thing when you get a cough. Part of what's happening there is your immune system has recognized some type of antigen, which again is going to be either the virus or the bacteria or whatever it sees that it doesn't think belongs in your body. And it's going to help create that process in your lungs to make you cough more.

to get rid of that and really ultimately tell us signs and symptoms of, do we need to stay home from school? Do we need to go see a physician? What do we need to do next to make sure that this ultimately settles down as we get rid of that antigen in our body?

All sorts of people have different types of immune systems, and part of it depends on what you've been exposed to. And that is different for everybody at different times in their life. So I don't know for any of the kids out there, but if you went to childcare when you were younger, my kids went to childcare and

That first year that they went to childcare, they were sick almost the whole time because they were constantly getting exposed to all those germs, which is normal. Other kids maybe have a later exposure. Sometimes kids don't get exposed until you're in kindergarten. And sometimes a lot of kids are sick during that kindergarten year.

And then ideally what happens is our body recognizes those antigens, those things that caused us to get sick, and then it develops a memory to that. And that's what we call an antibody. And your body remembers that. So ideally, the next time you see it, you don't get quite as sick as you did that first time. But not everybody's immune systems work as well as others.

There are some things that you can do to help your immune system function well. So eating lots of varied fruits and vegetables, we think about the rainbow with that, that helps us stay healthy because those vitamins, and it's different than a vitamin that you take, the vitamins in food have all these extra nutrients that make those function extra well for our body. You want to make sure you're getting your fruits and veggies to keep you healthy. Another thing

that is super important is sleep. Sometimes we're up late at night, we're studying or we're watching something fun on TV or you had a late game. But especially as kids, if we don't make up that sleep, our immune system gets run down and sometimes people are more likely to get sick that way. Um, uh,

In terms of colds, the average adult gets two to four colds per year. But some kids can get many more than that, depending on the time of year and whether they're in school or daycare. Colds can be hard to avoid. But if you want to try, wash your hands often with soap and water. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth, unless you've recently washed your hands. And try to avoid your friends and family when they're sick.

It can be hard. Believe me, I know. Hopefully this cold doesn't last too long. If you like this episode, take a second to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you're feeling sleepy, check out the Brains On podcast, where we have a whole episode about dreams and the science of the sleeping brain. If you have a moment of um question, we would love to help you answer it. Drop us a line by going to brainson.org contact.

Rest up and I'll see you tomorrow. And the day after that. And the next day. And every weekday. Until then, um...