This blog post is part-science and part-urban legend which makes it very interesting for seniors especially now that they are probably hearing about these things more and more. First of all, memory cells are different from cellular memory even though they share the same concept—that is, cells are remembering organisms. For us to understand the difference between the two, we must introduce cells first. Cells form a human body; in fact, cells are the structural unit of all living things therefore your body’s building blocks. Cells are also considered as the smallest living unit ever. The only difference is that memory cells are defined by science and its principle is used for developing vaccines and booster shots to defeat potentially fatal viruses early on while cellular memory has no scientific basis to it and is purely hypothetical.
It is quite common for seniors to hear about cellular memory especially if they are nearing an organ transplant. This is a myth—more of an urban legend which may or may not be true but still gains some followers for reasons still unknown. Cellular memory is a belief that every cell in the body remembers everything that has been introduced to it such as habits and lifestyle. It was even said that cellular memory includes personality and traits of a person that when it is transferred to another person, it will still continue on doing what it was trained to do. Take for example if you are undergoing a heart transplant and the heart came from an alcoholic person, you as the recipient will experience alcohol cravings even if you are a non-alcoholic individual prior to the operation. That is how the supposed cellular memory goes and there are a couple of organ recipients that swear by it. Apparently, this belief existed way before us; evidences showed that warriors ate their brave opponent’s heart so that the trait will be passed to their system by way of cellular memory. Today, this principle is practiced when eating different kinds of animal organ while believing that these animal traits will be passed to us such as longevity and brain power. Again, there was no scientific basis to it although one that dispels it is non-existent as well.
On the other hand, seniors may have encountered the term memory cells once or twice their lifetime and actually, they really exist. Memory cells are naturally occurring phenomena inside our bodies and it has two types, the memory B cells and the memory T cells. Memory cells usually deal with strengthening our immune system. One type recognizes a foreign organism when it enters the body and will then launch a full scale war to defeat the foreign enemy which is, most of the time, marked by flu-like symptoms. First encounters usually take longer than it should be but when attacked by the same virus the second time, memory cells act quicker since they already know what to do with it. The other type makes duplicate copies of cells that have been recently infected; these cloned copies now bear immunity from the infection that attacked the original cell—sort of a mutated cell and it can survive for a long, long time. These are the principles applied and used for vaccines and boosters that are recommended for seniors to prevent communicable diseases from affecting us.
