It's actually a lot more interesting than what the article explains here. The immune system essentially goes through a process of hypermutation and can be compared to a hashmap which is populated during the first few years of one's life. After that the hashmap is essentially frozen. This is why early immunization is very important because being exposed to mild pathogens when young helps one's immune system recognize and deal with similar pathogens later in life. The immune system only gets worse over time which is why eventually most viral infections overwhelm the immune system and either cause death or cancer.
Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
81–90 of 202 posts
Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
#82I 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…
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?
Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
#83I 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 became allergic to Yellow 6 randomly. I would get extreme abdominal pain, even went to the ER a couple times and got a CT scan once due to the severity of the pain. I broke out in hives, tongue would swell, etc. I eventually figured it out after having a reaction to Cheese Doritos but not Cool Ranch (the only ingredient difference was Yellow 6). I tested it on some other foods with Yellow 6 and confirmed it. So I s…
I’m dealing with a similar thing with poultry right now. If I eat it too frequently, it gives me ridiculous, flu and allergy-like symptoms. However, now that I’ve basically eliminated it from my diet, I can eat it on occasion without much issue.
It took me forever to figure out because poultry is often a filler meat.
Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
#84My "unpopular opinion" is that in 100 years, people will consider it very strange that most of the population was permanently infected with a bunch of viruses like EBV/HSV/CMV/HPV and nobody cared or did anything about it.
Once a (DNA) virus incorporates itself inside your DNA and that cell divides you are never getting rid of the virus
Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
#85Wow - meningitis lowers IQ by 5 points
Bacterial does, viral does not appear to. I am a survivor of bacterial meningitis and sepsis at eight months and fortunately do not experience any known side effects. However, the IQ effect is sobering.
Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
#86I'm confused about some of the implications regarding crowd infections. Certainly for some of these -- say, Chicken Pox -- we know that early and controlled exposure is preferable to a first case later in life. And that the cycle of herd immunity in survivors leads to endemicity and less deadly strains. It seems like both things can be true: it's best not to get infections at all, but if you live in a world where you…
Chicken pox also returns as shingles in adulthood if you got the actual virus instead of the vaccine.
Even if you got the vaccine, you can still get shingles
Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
#87I 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…
I did this for covid. The second my vaccine kicked in I dropped all precautions and started staying indoors with as many people as possible for as long as possible, basically trying to never go a day without a small exposure. I’ve tested for infection a number of times and a university study tested my antibodies periodically for a year and I’ve never had a detectable case. Continuous exposure to small amounts of the virus seems to have kept me more free from infection than those that took significant precautions. I’m not just reckless, I used to have severe OCD, so living carefully with lots of precautions is actually more dangerous for me than the virus.
Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
#88My "unpopular opinion" is that in 100 years, people will consider it very strange that most of the population was permanently infected with a bunch of viruses like EBV/HSV/CMV/HPV and nobody cared or did anything about it.
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?
Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
#89I'm confused about some of the implications regarding crowd infections. Certainly for some of these -- say, Chicken Pox -- we know that early and controlled exposure is preferable to a first case later in life. And that the cycle of herd immunity in survivors leads to endemicity and less deadly strains. It seems like both things can be true: it's best not to get infections at all, but if you live in a world where you…
We used to think that "early and controlled exposure is preferable to a first case later in life" for chicken pox, but AFAICT that's no longer widely accepted in most western countries. Chicken pox in children can lead to serious complications in some cases, including bacterial skin infections, pneumonia, and encephalitis. The virus remains dormant in the body and can reactivate later in life as shingles. Now that there's an effective 2-shot vaccine, that's the recommended approach.
Re: Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
#90I 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…
https://github.com/cutestuff/FoodDepressionConundrum Been collecting for a while. Latest success was supplementing with a probiotic specifically for oxolates. Prepare the gut with l-glutamine and silicea if you go that route
Have you tried taking an anti-acid or acids reducer?
I was getting a rough depression after eating certain foods. My/my doctors current hypothesis is my liver was producing too much bile acid and triggering a condition known as bile acid malabsorption. This would basically wipe my gut out. I couldn’t absorb nutrients correctly so my mood and energy levels would drop.
I now know it lasts a few days if I goof up my diet, but it use to appear chronic since I was basically triggering it daily.