We All Die of Immune System Failure.

   I was arguing with my doctor a while back, and I made the comment that anyone who dies a natural death dies of immune system failure.  (I was having some immune system issues at the time.)  My doctor was taken aback by what seemed like a perfectly absurd idea.  But when I explained exactly what I meant, he nodded in agreement.
      I said that in even the worst epidemic of any infectious disease,  the majority of people survive because their immune system simply fights off the infection.   So those who do die are victims of immune system failure.  And in some epidemics, like the flu of 1918,  the disease kills by provoking such an exaggerated immune reaction that those who die are actually killed by their own immune system.  And of course, with autoimmune diseases like MS, death is also due to immune failure.
     He said, "What about heart disease?"   I replied that most heart disease begins with arteriosclerosis,  which begins with inflammation  of the lining of the arteries, and inflammation is a function of the immune system.  And cancer too is an immune failure.  All normal people have a few cells going cancerous every day, but their immune system finds and destroys these cells before they cause trouble.
       So what use is this perspective?  It's simply this:    If all natural death is in some way attributable to immune problems, then the one area of basic research which should be receiving more attention is immunology.  Understanding more about the immune system helps us fight everything that kills us.