Never before has the immune system had so much airtime. But what actually is the immune system? Can it be

boosted? What kind of things influence it? Does vitamin C really fight off a cold? And is there

truth in the old wife's tale, feed a cold, starve a fever? I'm Dr. Hazel Wallace, host of the

Food Medic podcast. And on this episode, we're answering all those questions with immunologist and author Dr. Jenna Machoki.

Jenna has a PhD in allergy immunology from Imperial College London and has previously worked in academia, the pharmaceutical industry and clinical trials.

Jenna currently holds a lecturer position at the University of Sussex, progressing research

into understanding the science of lifestyle-related disease.

I think first of all, I would just love by asking you a little bit more about you, who you are, what you do and what you're passionate about.

Yes, so my name's Jenna Machoki. I'm an immunologist. I'm currently at the University of Sussex, where I teach immunology to a broad range of different degree programs, pharmacy, medicine, biomedical science, anyone

who needs to know about the immune system. And I've been in the field nearly 20 years. I love

research. I'm really passionate about immunology and the immune system. And I feel like it's one

of those fields where the more I learn, the more I feel there is to learn.

And I'm so passionate about all the different inputs that are shaping our immune system.

Because as I came to realize a few years ago, there's so much written about the immune system,

but not all of it is incredibly accurate.

So I like to try and communicate what I know in a way that's really

accessible to people and kind of inspire them to see the immune system as fascinating as I do.

Yeah, amazing. And I completely agree with you. I think, you know, there's always chat about

the immune system and immunity. And I mean, the last couple of years,

it's never been such a hot topic. But I don't think everyone fully understands what we mean

when we talk about the immune system. I know. I think that's a great place to start because we do

tend to kind of speak about it as if it's a binary on-off switch. You know,

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