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Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

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Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

#111

Post by lkrubner »

idunnoman1222 wrote: post #82
lkrubner wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad to say, the fecal-oral cycle of infection remains common in the USA, with the most common areas of spread being restaurants although hospitals were sadly guilty of this until recently. And for any gastrointestinal illness in the USA, the single most common cause is Helicobacter pylori. Back in the 1980s and 1990s researchers mostly associated Helicobacter pylori with ulcers, but since then the research has expand…

What’s to stop you from Just getting it again two days later?

Just like respiratory infections, some people get it multiple times, and have to be treated multiple times.

Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

#112

Post by nradov »

modeless wrote: post #26

This is an excellent article. Too many people believe that kids getting colds will help their immune system get stronger. In reality, getting sick is almost never beneficial. The information about the hygiene hypothesis and how it is really more about "old friends" is also very important and not widely understood. Many don't know about the hygiene hypothesis at all and those who do usually interpret it incorrectly.

Kids getting colds allows them to develop immunity to some of the hundreds of endemic upper respiratory viruses that constantly circulate throughout the human population. They're going to get infected with many of them sooner or later, so better to get it over with sooner. This protects them later in life when their immune systems are less effective.

Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

#113

Post by sickblastoise »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #101
renegade-otter wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people walk into a restaurant - fast food, slow food - especially before COVID, do you see people go to the bathroom to wash their hands before the meal? That never happens.

I've never seen it happen either - and I live in Poland, though I haven't seen it in my various visits to China, Germany and the UK either. Who actually does go into the restaurant bathroom specifically to wash their hands before the meal?

I do - it just makes sense if you are riding public transport or touching stuff that isn’t as clean as you’d think. Like your phone, wallet, keys, backpack, shoe laces, pant pockets, etc. Not obsessively, but if I haven’t washed my hands in a few hours or feel they are dirty I wash them before eating.

Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

#114

Post by jph00 »

nradov wrote: post #112
modeless wrote: post #26

This is an excellent article. Too many people believe that kids getting colds will help their immune system get stronger. In reality, getting sick is almost never beneficial. The information about the hygiene hypothesis and how it is really more about "old friends" is also very important and not widely understood. Many don't know about the hygiene hypothesis at all and those who do usually interpret it incorrectly.

Kids getting colds allows them to develop immunity to some of the hundreds of endemic upper respiratory viruses that constantly circulate throughout the human population. They're going to get infected with many of them sooner or later, so better to get it over with sooner. This protects them later in life when their immune systems are less effective.

I haven't seen any research to support that contention -- rather, everything I've seen suggests you don't get coronaviruses like colds once off, so you don't "get it over with". Instead, they can weaken your immune system and these viruses can stay around for years, as discussed in the article.

Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

#115

Post by dudeofea »

bink wrote: post #94
SoftTalker wrote: post #39

> Comparing the immune system to a muscle that gets stronger with use is overly simplistic and, in many cases, inaccurate. But a vaccine does something analogous: it "exercises" the immune system (hopefully harmlessly) to strengthen it for when real pathogens are encountered. So between vaccines, and natural immunities developed by exposure to and recovering from a disease, the "getting stronger with use" comparison…

But it isn't the "exercising" of the immune system that provides the benefit, it's training it to recognize a new virus. If that could be done without a huge immune response it would be just as effective. The immune system isn't any stronger after a vaccination, it's just smarter. Presumably exposing the immune system to several unrelated viruses provides no benefits as to how it can deal with the target virus.

unlikely you could achieve that given that vaccine manufacturers purposely add adjuvants to annoy your immune system to in turn create a stronger immune response for higher antibody titers, which last longer.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/...

Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

#116

Post by rincebrain »

renegade-otter wrote: post #60
lkrubner wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad to say, the fecal-oral cycle of infection remains common in the USA, with the most common areas of spread being restaurants although hospitals were sadly guilty of this until recently. And for any gastrointestinal illness in the USA, the single most common cause is Helicobacter pylori. Back in the 1980s and 1990s researchers mostly associated Helicobacter pylori with ulcers, but since then the research has expand…

The one thing that shocked me after moving to the States was how no one washed their hands before meals. It's just not a thing.

It's nominally a thing, but a lot of people don't do it.

I was certainly raised to do it.

Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

#117

Post by photon_lines »

Xcelerate wrote: post #4

I don’t know enough to comment on the Hygiene / Old Friends hypothesis, but anecdotally it seems like almost everyone I know now has an allergy or autoimmune disorder of some sort. After giving birth, my sister suddenly developed something similar to celiac disease (but not quite the same; I don’t think doctors ever figured out exactly what it is) to where she can’t eat grains and a few other types of food as well. I…

Vitamin D (or lack of it) plays a vital and huge factor:

"A prospective study of dietary intake of vitamin D found women with daily intake above 400 IU had a 40% lower risk of MS. [53] In a study among healthy young adults in the US, White men and women with the highest vitamin D serum levels had a 62% lower risk of developing MS than those with the lowest vitamin D levels. [54]"

"Another prospective study in young adults from Sweden also found a 61% lower risk of MS with higher serum vitamin D levels; [55] and a prospective study among young Finnish women found that low serum vitamin D levels were associated with a 43% increased risk of MS. [56] In prospective studies of persons with MS, higher vitamin D levels have been associated with reduced disease activity and progression. [57,58]"

"Collectively, the current evidence suggests that low vitamin D may have a causal role in MS and if so, approximately 40% of cases may be prevented by correcting vitamin D insufficiency. [59] This conclusion has been strengthened substantially by recent evidence that genetically determined low levels of vitamin D predict higher risk of multiple sclerosis."

"While this may largely be due to genetic differences, some studies suggest that T1D rates are lower in sunnier areas. Early evidence suggesting that vitamin D may play a role in T1D comes from a 30-year study that followed more than 10,000 Finnish children from birth: Children who regularly received vitamin D supplements during infancy had a nearly 90% lower risk of developing type 1 diabetes than those who did not receive supplements. [61]"

"A prospective study among healthy young adults in the US found that White individuals with the highest levels of serum vitamin D had a 44% lower risk of developing T1D in adulthood than those with the lowest levels. [63]"

"The Vitamin D and Omega 3 trial (VITAL), a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial following more than 25,000 men and women ages 50 and older, found that taking vitamin D supplements (2,000 IU/day) for five years, or vitamin D supplements with marine omega-3 fatty acids (1,000 mg/day), reduced the incidence of autoimmune diseases by about 22%, compared with a placebo. Autoimmune conditions observed included rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, polymyalgia rheumatica, and autoimmune thyroid diseases (Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Graves’ disease). [80]"

Source: https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/vitamin-d/

Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

#118

Post by hirvi74 »

Aurornis wrote: post #56
klysm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, antibiotics can fuck up your gut in other ways.

On the other hand, we're discovering that certain antibiotics can be very useful in treating specific GI conditions. Rifaximin, and antibiotic designed to stay in your gut, has been approved for treating specific types of IBS. When it works it can induce remission for months or longer.

Story time: I went through a dark and stressful period of my life when I was in my teens. After I mostly got over the issues, I went on a vacation with a friend and his family. At one point in the vacation, I ended getting some kind of food poisoning from shellfish that apparently no one else who at the same meal got. Anyway, I eventually recovered in a few days, but it seemed as though I never fully recovered. I had frequent GI issues for literal years.

I sometimes wonder if the intense stress and whatnot that I had experienced prior some how made me more susceptible to whatever illness I happened to succumb to? No way to truly know, I suppose.

After various specialists and unhelpful treatments for what was later deemed to be "IBS", I was recommended to try something by my GP. He gave me some antibiotic (this was 15 years or so ago) it may have been that one -- Rifaximin -- I know it started with an "R." Anyway, my GP warned me that he came across it in some research, and would be willing to give a try, but I was not to get my hopes up.

I took the antibiotics for 14 days. Towards the end of the regiment, I was starting to have symptoms far worse than normal, but I pushed through. 15 years or so later, I basically have no issues at all. Whatever the drug was it was like a freaking miracle cure.

Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

#119

Post by nradov »

jph00 wrote: post #114
nradov wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids getting colds allows them to develop immunity to some of the hundreds of endemic upper respiratory viruses that constantly circulate throughout the human population. They're going to get infected with many of them sooner or later, so better to get it over with sooner. This protects them later in life when their immune systems are less effective.

I haven't seen any research to support that contention -- rather, everything I've seen suggests you don't get coronaviruses like colds once off, so you don't "get it over with". Instead, they can weaken your immune system and these viruses can stay around for years, as discussed in the article.

The article is a mix of half-truths and speculation with a few random facts sprinkled in. It doesn't represent any sort of scientific consensus. Don't take it too seriously.

Infections with typical rhinoviruses and coronaviruses build adaptive immunity to those viruses (as well as those that are genetically similar). This typically reduces the severity of subsequent infections. They didn't stay around for years.

When we talk about things that "strengthen" or "weaken" the immune system that's really an oversimplification. There's a lot more going on in the complete system.

Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

#120

Post by infecto »

renegade-otter wrote: post #60
lkrubner wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad to say, the fecal-oral cycle of infection remains common in the USA, with the most common areas of spread being restaurants although hospitals were sadly guilty of this until recently. And for any gastrointestinal illness in the USA, the single most common cause is Helicobacter pylori. Back in the 1980s and 1990s researchers mostly associated Helicobacter pylori with ulcers, but since then the research has expand…

The one thing that shocked me after moving to the States was how no one washed their hands before meals. It's just not a thing.

So true. The thing that always shocked me outside of the US was the inverse. The habit to clean hands soap or just a moist towel but then the lack of soap and sanitation in the restrooms.
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