Has Medical Science Rediscovered the Immune System?

 "Scientists discover new part of the immune system"

These were the headlines of several British mainstream media outlets on 6 March 2025. The Israeli researchers said that what they had discovered "transforms our understanding of how we are protected against infection".

Of course, we have known that it is our immune system is what keeps us healthy for a very long time, although pharmaceutical medicine in recent years have been telling us that only their drugs and vaccines can keep us safe. But followers of natural medical therapies have always known about the importance of the immune system. This is how the BBC article on the discovery explains the new discovery.

        "A new part of the immune system has been discovered and it is a goldmine of potential antibiotics. (Scientists have) shown a part of the body known to recycle proteins has a secret mode that can spew out an arsenal of bacteria-killing chemicals. The researchers in Israel say it transforms our understanding of how we are protected against infection".

Well, this is brilliant! Isn't it? Perhaps we should all have known how special our immune system is in protecting us from illness and disease: but this discovery demonstrates just how clever the body is in achieving this remarkable feat, unaided, undirected. 

Apparently the discovery centres on the proteasome, described as "a tiny structure found in every cell of the body". Its main role is to "chop up old proteins into smaller chunks so they can be recycled to make new ones".  But now a series of scientific experiments (detailed in the Journal 'Nature') shows the proteasome detects when a cell has been infected by bacteria, and can then change its structure and role. "It begins to transform old proteins into weapons that can rip open the outer layer of bacteria to kill them".

The brilliance of our immune system is the reason why most people who follow natural medicine are content to rely on it to keep us fit and healthy. We certainly need to support and strengthen our immune system all the time but if we do this the secret of staying healthy, and recovering from sickness, is to rely upon it.

But this is not what conventional, drug-based medicine does. So the Guardian's article on the research adds to the headline: ... "and it could help solve our antibiotics crisis".

The antibiotic crisis to which they refer is, of course, that the pharmaceutical industry have been producing antibiotic drugs for nearly 100 years; and each one of them, in turn, has led to (i) resistance, and (ii) the development of superbugs. So pharmaceutical medicine has effectively stopped trying to replace the antibiotics as they no longer work. So an "Antibiotic Apocalypse" has been widely predicted within conventional medicine - the drugs on which they have relied for so long are no longer working, and are not going to be replaced.

So apparently medical 'science' sees this new scientific understanding of how the immune system works to be an opportunity to produce new and different antibiotic drugs! Prompted and assisted, of course, by this new knowledge about our immune system. Presumably the new drugs that might emerge can be patented by pharmaceutical companies (in order to ensure and boost profits), and to market them to an increasingly sick population.

But wait? Isn't the body already producing these 'new' antibiotics? Is it not doing so on the basis of the actual bacterial 'threat' to the health of each one of us as individuals? The research suggests that the proteasome, present in each cell, can detect a new 'problem', and reacts to it accordingly by producing a new and appropriately antibiotic? So if our body is capable of doing this for itself, why does conventional medicine need to intervene and produce its own?

This question represents the difference between pharmaceutical medicine and natural medical therapies (homeopathy, naturopathy, herbalism, acupuncture, et al). The latter seek, each in their different ways, to support and strengthen the functioning of the immune system. By contrast, conventional medicine seeks to interfere with the immune system with drugs - on the basis that 'it' knows best what our body needs.

And, in fact, this is the choice that we all have, as patients. 

    When we are fit and healthy do we have confidence in our immune system to keep us so? 

    When we are sick do we have confidence that our immune system is working to make us better? And that it needs to be supported, and left alone in order to do so?

If, as this research seems to demonstrate, that our body is capable of recognising a problem, and then can produce an 'antibiotic' capable of responding to it, why would we want a conventional doctor to 'second-guess' this natural process. 

Do we really believe that a doctor can do it better? 

Or should we not just leave well alone?