ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Pharmaceutic adjuvant

Okay, imagine that you are making a cake. You need some important ingredients like flour, sugar, and eggs. But what if you want to make your cake taste even better? This is where adjuvants come in.

In medicine, an adjuvant is kind of like an ingredient that helps make a vaccine or medication work better. Just like how adding chocolate chips to your cake makes it yummier, adding an adjuvant to a medication helps it work better.

Adjuvants work by helping the body's immune system respond better to the medication or vaccine. They basically give a little extra push to help your body fight off whatever it is trying to fight. So, just like how you need some extra baking powder or soda to make your cake rise, your body needs a little extra help from adjuvants to fight off germs or diseases.

There are different types of adjuvants that work in different ways. Some might help increase the body's production of antibodies, while others might help stimulate certain immune cells to work better.

Overall, adjuvants help make medications and vaccines stronger and more effective in helping keep our bodies healthy.