Bruce Goldman explains how your immune system often weakens your body in order to save it:
Much has been written about the power of the immune system to stave off infectious disease; not so much about the damage the immune response itself can inflict on the organism it’s designed to stave. If you’ve ever ever had influenza, you’re well aware of how rotten it made you feel. That was largely a byproduct of your immune response, which, in its zeal to destroy microbial pathogens, often attacks not only infected but healthy tissue. It also raises your body temperature to uncomfortable heights and squirts out inflammatory molecules and oxidants that, while nipping the bug in the bud, may weaken innocent nearby cells and render them more vulnerable to maladies later on.
The Dish 