Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

Post by dillydogg » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 7:48 AM UTC

istultus wrote: post #68

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…

Exactly, anecdotes, with a healthy portion of the Availability and Confirmation Heuristics. We already know that women are more susceptible to auto-immune responses and that pregnancy is one of the reasons for that disparity between the sexes (carrying a foreign invader for 9 months plays with the expression of immunity genes in a manner that occasionally - rarely, at a population level - backfires.) And we know that…

Post by dillydogg » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 7:54 AM UTC

aqfamnzc wrote: post #88

idunnoman1222 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once a (DNA) virus incorporates itself inside your DNA and that cell divides you are never getting rid of the virus

Wait, is that how viruses work? Is a parent guaranteed to pass on viral illness to their children (genetically) then?

Post by psd1 » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 8:51 AM UTC

autokad wrote: post #67

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…

I use to get the flu 1 or 2 times a year. I started going out in more crowded areas, going to pub, etc, and I haven't had a cold or flu in 4 years. I don't know the article knows as much as they think they do about health, because using muscles also damages them. I been nursing a bicep injury for the last 4 months. I get its not a prefect analogy, but nothing is, else it would be the same thing I don't think people s…

Post by ragingroosevelt » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 9:32 AM UTC

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.

Post by otikik » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 10:44 AM UTC

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?