Question: Do you think the human body could fight disease on its own ?

Ross King answered on 18 Nov 2015:

Great question, Nell.

Actually, the human body fights diseases on its own VERY well indeed! Bacteria and viruses and other nasty things surround us all the time, and are always looking to infect us to live inside us. Our immune systems do an excellent job of hunting these things down if they do get inside and killing them quite quickly. If we didn’t have an immune system, we would get sick a lot more often! The immune system is also really good at hunting down cancer cells and killing them, meaning we don’t get cancer as often as we would without them.

Of course, there are other diseases like heart attacks, stroke and brain diseases (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s…) that the body is less good at fighting against. Some scientists even think that these diseases are caused by the body fighting against itself by mistake. I think drugs and medicines will definitely help to fight these diseases in the future, but the body does do a pretty great job on its own!