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Turns out lowly thymus may be saving your life

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Re: Turns out lowly thymus may be saving your life

#41

Post by darkclouds »

tgv wrote: post #5
xeromal wrote: post #2

I've always felt us removing things like tonsils and appendix without a high barrier was always premature. I remember kids wanting to have their tonsils removed to eat ice cream for a few weeks. lol. Even if we have legacy parts in out body, I'm fine just letting it fester in my body as long as it's not trying to kill me. Feels very similar to thinking farming just needs 3 nutrients. Turns out better farming requires…

The ice cream was to ease the pain. The cold calms the exposed nerves.

I thought tryptophan used to be added to icecream in the 70's and 80's until the tryptophan scare that caused Eosinophilia–myalgia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eosinophilia%E2%80%93myalgia_s...

Re: Turns out lowly thymus may be saving your life

#42

Post by SamBam »

ipython wrote: post #16
tgv wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ice cream was to ease the pain. The cold calms the exposed nerves.

I encourage you to read the book “Madeline” for more information on this phenomenon.

All the little girls cried "Boohoo, we want to have our appendix out, too!"

Re: Turns out lowly thymus may be saving your life

#43

Post by nicup12345689 »

ReallyAnonymous wrote: post #21
bluepod4 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Appendicitis can, and is, treated with antibiotics Yeah, kids don’t get tonsils removed anymore either. Just antibiotics.

surgeon here: antibiotic treatment works great as long as there's no peritonitis and/or no appendicolith seen on CT. However, statistics show that 30% of successfully treated patients go on to get appendicitis again within 1 year. Anyway, I offer my patients a choice. Most choose surgery. Those conscientious enough without insurance usually choose nonoperative management because it's much cheaper.

The 30% is because people do not change their diet so they'll once again be susceptible.

Re: Turns out lowly thymus may be saving your life

#44

Post by robbiep »

nicup12345689 wrote: post #43
ReallyAnonymous wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

surgeon here: antibiotic treatment works great as long as there's no peritonitis and/or no appendicolith seen on CT. However, statistics show that 30% of successfully treated patients go on to get appendicitis again within 1 year. Anyway, I offer my patients a choice. Most choose surgery. Those conscientious enough without insurance usually choose nonoperative management because it's much cheaper.

The 30% is because people do not change their diet so they'll once again be susceptible.

No it’s not, you’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. There isn’t an ‘appendicitis’ diet

Re: Turns out lowly thymus may be saving your life

#45

Post by bookmark1231 »

joe__f wrote: post #30
Calavar wrote: post #23

This is a fluff piece. We've known for decades that the thymus is an important part of the immune system. It's not an organ that's been believed to be vestigial, like the appendix. > For the study, Kooshesh mined data from 1,146 adult patients who had undergone thymus removal, alongside demographically matched control patients who had undergone similar surgeries but kept their thymus Sure, you can demographically mat…

I believe that the appendix is now understood to be a store for gut flora so that the microbiome can regrow after an infection or bad episode of diarrhoea etc.

It’s been conjectured by some researchers that maybe this is the case, particularly for infants. But there’s very little evidence for it. As far as I’m aware there have been no studies that are able to statistically distinguish between people with and without an appendix in terms of actual heath outcomes

Re: Turns out lowly thymus may be saving your life

#46

Post by delfinom »

bookmark1231 wrote: post #45
joe__f wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that the appendix is now understood to be a store for gut flora so that the microbiome can regrow after an infection or bad episode of diarrhoea etc.

It’s been conjectured by some researchers that maybe this is the case, particularly for infants. But there’s very little evidence for it. As far as I’m aware there have been no studies that are able to statistically distinguish between people with and without an appendix in terms of actual heath outcomes

Otoh, I wouldn't say that dismisses the appendix having a potential role. Part of the problem is we barely have a grasp on gut flora and it's full impact on human health, and several studies show that impact can be over years including potentially being one cause of dementia.

Re: Turns out lowly thymus may be saving your life

#47

Post by autokad »

gadflyinyoureye wrote: post #20

What are the chances that I'd see two things about the thymus in a week? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVoxfABoHh4&t=2s This covers a paper that, while small in sample size, shows a reduction in age of 6 years. One of the major impacts of the drug cocktail is that it removes much of the fat that accumulates in the thymus as one ages.

I was wondering that. what about people who have less fat? what if we stop it from fattening? etc. good video

Re: Turns out lowly thymus may be saving your life

#48

Post by runnerup »

joe__f wrote: post #30
Calavar wrote: post #23

This is a fluff piece. We've known for decades that the thymus is an important part of the immune system. It's not an organ that's been believed to be vestigial, like the appendix. > For the study, Kooshesh mined data from 1,146 adult patients who had undergone thymus removal, alongside demographically matched control patients who had undergone similar surgeries but kept their thymus Sure, you can demographically mat…

I believe that the appendix is now understood to be a store for gut flora so that the microbiome can regrow after an infection or bad episode of diarrhoea etc.

I believe it’s only posited to be useful for isolated small groups where everyone might get the same stomach bug at the same time, and have no other humans around with a healthy gut biome to “re-infect” them. Which explains why in dense modern society we couldn’t find a difference that the appendix makes, because we get reinfected with healthy microbiome from sharing germs with all the other humans in our big cities - some of whom didn’t just get a terrible stomach bug at the same time as us.

Re: Turns out lowly thymus may be saving your life

#49

Post by DantesKite »

There's an amino acid chain synthesized from the thymus of a cow that helped double my lymphocytes (they were low for months). Called Thymic Protein-A. Readily accessible. One of the few things that made a change. Nothing else really helped me out.

What I find interesting how the thymus becomes essentially a blog of fat as we get older and partially explains why infections tend to hit us harder as we age.

Re: Turns out lowly thymus may be saving your life

#50

Post by cma »

DantesKite wrote: post #49

There's an amino acid chain synthesized from the thymus of a cow that helped double my lymphocytes (they were low for months). Called Thymic Protein-A. Readily accessible. One of the few things that made a change. Nothing else really helped me out. What I find interesting how the thymus becomes essentially a blog of fat as we get older and partially explains why infections tend to hit us harder as we age.

I can't remember what it was but there was a talk about some kind of tradeoff with thymus function and age that was supposed to explain its atrophy, something like pneumonia death vs auto immune or cancer or something?

Edit:

Wikipedia on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thymic_involution#Unknown_sele...

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