Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle

> Most people aren't actually interested in knowing what's going on.

I don't necessarily think this is the case, at least the US. It's time consuming and expensive to get testing done without an actual diagnosis, even with healthcare. Taking the time off or spending the money on allergy testing just isn't going to take command of the budget over necessities or more serious healthcare needs.

You're right about the rest of it though, but IMO the systemic issues with money in politics prevents anything from being done about it at the moment, and I don't know what it would take to push the working class into a general strike or revolt.

> Some people compare the immune system to a muscle

To reiterate something from a recent discussion on air purifiers [0], if your body is a civilization of cells then activating the adaptive immune system is like unleashing Skynet [1] to stop a potential zombie apocalypse.

Even if Skynet reliably wins, you're losing at least a few cities as glowing craters, and each time you're rolling the dice hoping that not too many of the murder-bots go rogue before you can make them self-destruct or go back into storage. You definitely do not want to slam that big red button just because of one police report of a human biting another human, or a report that a bunch of people with green skin are marching down the road, etc.

As we studying the adaptive immune system, we keep discovering safety-interlocks and subtle feedback loops, which presumably evolved because our relatives without them simply tore themselves apart a bit too often.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41347868#41348890

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_(Terminator)

It's long been believed that an ACL rupture requires surgery as the ligament does not have sufficient blood flow to repair on its own. But then a recent study showed that in a significant percentage of people who suffer ACL ruptures and elect not to have surgery the ligament eventually repairs itself on its own.

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 should go licking railings, but total avoidance of germs is quite harmful. that's a fact.

I prefer the antifragile metaphor.

"The immune system is an example of antifragility in the natural world since an effective response is only produced in the presence of an antigen threat, but the response leaves the body better able to respond in future. The presence of an antigen activates the immune response, which not only deals with the immediate challenge through the innate immune system in the short term and long term through the adaptive immune system but also provides ongoing protection against this and similar future threats through the immunological memory of B cells. In other words, exposure to an invading antigen leaves the body stronger than before, so the stressor has created a benefit that was neither present nor possible before it occurred."

read more: "Beyond resilience: towards antifragility?" https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=13108278257209181...

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And see the -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation

"Variolation was the method of inoculation first used to immunize individuals against smallpox (Variola) with material taken from a patient or a recently variolated individual, in the hope that a mild, but protective, infection would result. Only 1–2% of those variolated died from the intentional infection compared to 30% who contracted smallpox naturally. Variolation is no longer used today. It was replaced by the smallpox vaccine, a safer alternative. This in turn led to the development of the many vaccines now available against other diseases."