Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive

by Philipp Dettmer

*1 A callback to what we learned before. One of the reasons why some people are able to deal better with the coronavirus than others is the genetic variability and the difference in MHC molecules or your toll-like receptors that lead to slightly different immune systems from person to person. Some immune systems are just better at dealing with the virus than others. And some are unfortunately really bad at dealing with it. So if you hear in the media that seemingly young and healthy people suffer from severe cases of COVID-19 and even die, this is one aspect of it. We never know what our individual immune system is great against until it is put to the test.

One of the many reasons obesity is such an unhealthy thing is that fat tissue produces loads of inflammatory cytokines. So even on a good day, an obese person has a lot of inflammatory signals in their system. When infected by the coronavirus for example, their starting point is already worse, they are already more inflamed than they should be.