system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What stops our bodies from decomposing while we are alive?

We constantly have flesh eating bacteria living in our bodies. But somehow, they wont start decomposing out bodies until we die. Why is that? What is in out bodies while we are alive that keeps up from stopping to decompose, alongside other animals across the world?
gpt
Your cells replace themselves regularly, and dead matter is collected by your immune system and either disposed of through various excretory processes or broken up into constituent parts and re-used. Your whole body is constantly repairing itself -- in fact, this is one of the reasons you need to sleep, so your body can run the cleaning-and-maintenance cycle in your brain. Your immune system also keeps the number of bacteria and other not-you organisms in check so they don't start decomposing you while you are still alive.