[HN Gopher] Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
___________________________________________________________________
Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
Author : awendland
Score : 140 points
Date : 2024-08-27 16:06 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (rachel.fast.ai)
(TXT) w3m dump (rachel.fast.ai)
| sirspacey wrote:
| Fascinating read and novel hypothesis on the increase in
| allergies.
| bhk wrote:
| Interesting that in one of the cited studies the authors are not
| afraid to claim that viral infections may cause autoimmune
| diseases, despite the fact that the potential mechanisms they
| list could also apply to vaccines.
|
| "Current research suggests that several mechanisms, such as
| molecular mimicry, epitope spreading, and bystander activation,
| can cause viral-induced autoimmunity."
| giantg2 wrote:
| Autoimmune responses are well known with some vaccines and some
| conditions, such as GBS. Most real experts know that vaccines
| carry all sorts of risks. It's the general public that is
| mostly unaware and would find this sort of thing surprising.
| It's the whole "safe" vs "generally safe" thing.
| krackers wrote:
| >Most real experts know that vaccines carry all sorts of
| risks
|
| And that's why all the real experts made sure to properly
| communicate the risks vs benefits of the Covid vaccine in an
| age, sex, and dose-stratified fashion, right? Oh wait...
| randomdata wrote:
| The real experts in the fields I know well don't tend to
| spend much time communicating with others about their
| expertise, especially to the layman. Why would the real
| experts in this particular field be any different?
| XMPPwocky wrote:
| Experts in _any_ field are generally not the ones
| communicating with, and making recommendations to, the
| public.
| nielsbot wrote:
| What is GBS? And the vaccine for it causes autoimmune
| responses? Can I read more?
| giantg2 wrote:
| GBS is the autoimmune response to many vaccines. In a lot
| of ways, it's similar to having a stroke in as far as
| people have to relearn how to do many things, sometimes
| down to relearning how to walk.
| projektfu wrote:
| Why would they be afraid? These are well-worn paths of
| research. I doubt anyone would be censored for referring to the
| vaccine-related injuries in 1976 and the proposed pathogenesis
| mechanisms, including molecular mimicry.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| When a virus replicates inside your cells, it sets off alarms
| that as a result of sensing of viral nucleic acid signatures in
| your cells (i.e. MAVS
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_antiviral-
| signal...). A vaccine, unless it is a live attenuated vaccine
| (these are rare) does not set off the same alarms since you
| don't actually get viral nucleic acids in your cells.
| Xcelerate wrote:
| 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 used to get
| eczema occasionally, but now it seems to have morphed into a
| permanent rash that continuously moves to different locations
| over my body. And my wife had food allergy testing done a couple
| of years ago due to constant stomach pain and has now eliminated
| chocolate, seafood, peaches, and many other foods from her diet.
|
| It's bizarre. We really need to figure out what's going on before
| everyone has a diet prepared by their pharmacist alongside all of
| the pills needed to cope with their autoimmune pain.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| IHMO An old myth, I believe: Your immune system needs something
| to fight, otherwise, it starts finding problems that aren't.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Less of an old myth and more like well accepted scientific
| fact: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-019-0675-0
|
| Excess calorie intake causes chronic inflammation, which
| gradually causes a plethora of other problems. There's also
| autoimmune conditions as a consequence of viral infections,
| so many of that from covid in recent years.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| I had an allergist tell me about a study that supported this
| idea recently : Introduction of pig whipworm eggs into the
| digestive tract of IBS patients reduced symptoms for a some
| patients. Pretty fascinating actually.
|
| I was seeing the allergist for my eczema and he asked me if I
| experienced symptom relief when traveling abroad, which I did
| in Honduras. He thought I may have been exposed to a parasite
| there that diverted my overactive immune response. go figure.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149054/
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1856386/
| legohead wrote:
| 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 stayed away from it for a couple years, then decided to
| cautiously try some Doritos again, and no reaction. Today, I'm
| not allergic to yellow 6 at all.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| I have a hypothesis based on my own experiences that this can
| happen from accumulating something in the body faster than it
| can be cleared. Could you have been continuously ingesting
| yellow 6 for a while, to the point that it crossed some
| threshold?
| newaccount74 wrote:
| Allergies seem to come and go. My partner developed
| allergies against many local fruits in her early twenties,
| to the point where she could barely eat any fresh fruits
| without her lips and throat swelling up; but most of them
| subsided in her 30ies and she can now eat almost all fruits
| again with only minor irritations for some.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Fruit allergies can actually be pollen allergies because
| the pollen contaminates the fruit. If your partner moved
| to a different areas which has trees she's not allergic
| to, or just eats fruits produced from somewhere else than
| she used to, that may simply be the reason.
| legohead wrote:
| You ever get that itch in the roof of your mouth, and you
| use your tongue to kind of scrape/scratch the roof of
| your mouth? After I started paying attention to food
| allergies from this Yellow 6 thing, I noticed I would get
| this mouth-itch from certain fruits and nuts. Watermelon,
| almonds, and oranges. Super minor in the grand scheme of
| things, but never knew this itch was due to an allergy --
| just thought it happened randomly. That is one thing that
| has yet to go away, but I can live with it at least.
| legohead wrote:
| I wasn't ingesting it any more than a regular person -- but
| I was surprised to find out how many foods use Yellow 6.
| It's more orange than yellow. It's also banned in several
| countries. It used to be in Kraft Mac and Cheese but they
| replaced their artificial colors with natural ones, which
| is nice.
|
| One thing I wondered while being allergic to it, was how
| much could I take before triggering the reaction. It ended
| up being extremely little. A single dorito chip would set
| it off. After that, I just cut it out of my diet
| completely.
|
| Another weird thing is the reaction would last about 45
| minutes exactly every time. I'd be sitting on the toilet
| bent over in agony, watching the clock.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| 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.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Most people aren't actually interested in knowing what's going
| on. But one can find out. Even if one isn't conspiracy minded,
| it's quite obvious that oligarchs, their multinational
| companies and governments couldn't give a single fuck about
| normal people.
|
| PFAS and microplastics everywhere, rises in autoimmune diseases
| as well as allergies and Alzheimer's. Addictive amounts of
| sugar in a lot of food. GMOs everywhere unless you can pay
| extra for organic.
|
| None of these people actually care about us. If we don't get an
| understanding of what's healthy and how to get rid of all of
| this artificial poison we're probably going to end up in the
| Idiocracy timeline.
| fwip wrote:
| Most GMOs are safe, with the possible exception of those that
| produce their own insecticide, and overspraying of herbicides
| on crops GMO'd to be more herbicide-resistant.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| I don't trust any of the GMO vendors.
| randomdata wrote:
| So you grow your own food from identity preserved seeds
| sourced from a vendor that has no association with GMOs?
|
| If you buy commercial products, the non-GMO seeds are
| unquestionably being sourced from the very same GMO
| vendors, and thus can't be trusted either.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Addictive amounts of sugar in a lot of food._
|
| Realistically, this and seed oils are the only place you are
| going to really encounter GMOs. If you are avoiding such
| processed food anyway...
|
| _> GMOs everywhere unless you can pay extra for organic._
|
| If you really must binge on the junk food and are concerned
| about any GMO content, why are you paying extra for organic?
| Why not just buy non-GMO products?
| lukan wrote:
| "Why not just buy non-GMO products?"
|
| I think that is hard, since non-GMO can still contain GMO.
| Organic is a bit stricter, but I think also not 100% GMO
| free.
|
| (Personally, I don't care about GMO, but organic)
| randomdata wrote:
| The US does not appear define a specific threshold - best
| effort only, but I believe the EU allows 0.9%
| contamination in organic crops. The identity preserved
| program only allows 0.5%, so that's theoretically a
| better bet than organic, if you had some reason to care.
| Root_Denied wrote:
| > 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.
| lkrubner wrote:
| 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 expanded to show it
| produces a wide range of symptoms. It is a serious illness,
| even if you never develop an ulcer. And it so contagious that
| you can get it simply by kissing someone. And it is shockingly
| prevalent, with more than 20% of the public having it. It is
| always the first thing that should be checked when someone has
| weird gastrointestinal issues. The good news is that it is easy
| to cure: 14 days of antibiotics cures the disease in 96% of
| patients.
| klysm wrote:
| Unfortunately, antibiotics can fuck up your gut in other
| ways.
| hollerith wrote:
| Most people can take 14 days of an oral antibiotic without
| significant long-term adverse consequences.
|
| As of 15 years ago, according to my doctor, while on the
| antibiotic, sacchromyces boulardi is the best probiotic to
| take to try to minimize the risk of adverse consequences.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Both can be true, antibiotics can cause substantial side
| effects in some people and most people will be fine.
| Still sucks if you are not one of those most people.
| hollerith wrote:
| Yes, it still sucks, but so do uncontrolled chronic
| bacterial infections.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Antibiotics seem to be underused for GI issues, anecdotally
| I've experienced a dramatic reduction (even elimination) of
| some GI issues when using antibiotics (Z-pack) for
| unrelated infections (a course followed by quality
| probiotics like Visibiome).
|
| The positive changes seem sticky!
| Aurornis wrote:
| 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.
| renegade-otter wrote:
| 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.
| tomlue wrote:
| weird, I've lived in the US most of my life and I think
| pretty much everyone washes their hands?
| fancyswimtime wrote:
| Have a family member being treated for Helicobacter pylori
| right now! He was very worried it was cancer as the symptoms
| seemed to align. Interestingly he is allergic to penicillin
| which is complicating the treatment.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| What's to stop you from Just getting it again two days later?
| autokad wrote:
| 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.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| 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. I've tested
| for it 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.
| istultus wrote:
| 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 the risk for an autoimmune "malfunction" rises
| with age. Thus there will obviously be random clusters of
| people, with more women who've given birth and and average age
| that skews older than, say, 30 - to which you unfortunately
| seem to belong - where there are more autoimmune responses than
| the average population.
|
| What's funny is that in response to this post there are
| multiple posts each suggesting their own conspiracy. I wonder
| if _this_ actually points to something, or it too is a just
| random noise.
| aszantu wrote:
| 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
| evrydayhustling wrote:
| I'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 will get
| infected, doing so early and outside a correlated epidemic can be
| advantageous. And, while our immune system evolved for a
| different social density, it still plays a critical role in
| mitigating the long-term collective impact of crowd infections.
| abracadaniel wrote:
| Chicken pox also returns as shingles in adulthood if you got
| the actual virus instead of the vaccine.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| No lol if you got the vaccine, you can still get shingles
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| >We can see that not all obstacles make you stronger. Destroy the
| cartilage in your knee, and it may never fully recover, since
| cartilage doesn't grow back. //
|
| I'm not a medic but I recall this being disproven or shown to be
| at least partially a myth a few years ago -
| https://physicians.dukehealth.org/articles/humans-have-salam...
| from 2020, for example. Researchers showed that ankle cartilage
| is younger than knee- and younger still than hip cartilage.
| Indicating that it grows back in ankles relatively quickly.
|
| As the article says, analogies can mislead us, but this didn't
| inspire confidence.
|
| I could probably dismiss it if the article weren't about being
| scientifically precise and dispelling myths relating to human
| biology.
|
| Good piece, but the title is misleading too as the conclusion
| appears to be "it's complicated; yes and no".
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Also runners have great knee cartilage compared to sedentary
| people, despite the myth.
|
| >Using motion capture and sophisticated computer modeling, the
| study confirms that running pummels knees more than walking
| does. But in the process, the authors conclude, running likely
| also fortifies and bulks up the cartilage, the rubbery tissue
| that cushions the ends of bones.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/well/move/why-running-won...
| HappMacDonald wrote:
| Is that causative though? Or do people with great cartilage
| simply enjoy running more because it isn't as painful?
| TeaBrain wrote:
| Why this way of looking at cartilage is a misconception is
| explained in the study cited by the top level comment.
| Cartilage in different parts of the body has been shown to
| be different ages, indicating that it rejuvenates and that
| there there isn't just a single set of good or bad
| cartilage.
| viraptor wrote:
| That's mixing up repeated increased stress from running and
| "destroyed" from the parent comment. Those are different
| things.
|
| Same situation with resistance training lightly damaging and
| rebuilding muscles over time and actually tearing a large
| part of a muscle which leaves lasting damage.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| 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.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Curious about the ACL study... do you have a link handy?
| hyperpape wrote:
| I'm (genuinely--I don't know enough to pretend this is a knock-
| down argument) curious how this characterization of "crowd"
| illnesses fits with reports that Covid was extensively
| circulating in deer (not known for congregating in indoor spaces
| with poor ventilation).
| https://www.unmc.edu/healthsecurity/transmission/2023/08/29/...
| yieldcrv wrote:
| If its surviving in deer longer than it would in a human, then
| all calculus about the virus is different either way. There
| wouldn't be a need to conform that data to this observation.
| Terretta wrote:
| No idea either -- but humans tend to exchange less blood than
| deer (via thickets of ticks).
| iwontberude wrote:
| > may never fully recover, since cartilage doesn't grow back
|
| Doesn't this categorically mean cartilage injuries never fully
| recover because the cartilage doesn't grow back?
| kens wrote:
| My "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.
| whythre wrote:
| Probably an accurate prediction. Kind of like how large
| populations in the American south were once infected with
| hookworm.
| from-nibly wrote:
| Also now we don't have enough hookworm. Cause apparently that
| has caused a lot of auto immune disorders.
| darby_nine wrote:
| No governments cared or did anything about it, you mean.
| Terretta wrote:
| Governments _were_ doing something about it until all the
| fifth dentists* got amplified by "journalists" in the "media"
| we now recognize are mostly just wannabe influencers playing
| pundit drumming up clicks.
|
| * _" 4 out of 5 dentists agree" except it's more like the
| 50th dentist, given research consensus_
| glitchcrab wrote:
| Almost certainly, but you're forgetting one thing - hindsight.
| We can look back a hundred years from today and say that
| treatments back then were very misguided (and possibly even
| barbaric). Knowledge and science advance with time.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Accurate, especially with a hindsight bias. I suspect in the
| hundred years they would have largely forgotten that they
| couldn't really do much about it beyond say, shingles
| vaccinations. Sort of like how we'd facepalm at pre-germ theory
| medicine and all of the things "obviously" done wrong.
| Terr_ wrote:
| A modern example that is easy to visualize (unlike internal
| parasites) might be head-lice: There's a reason powdered wigs
| were very popular a few hundred years ago.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| Once a (DNA) virus incorporates itself inside your DNA and that
| cell divides you are never getting rid of the virus bud
| modeless wrote:
| 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.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Similar to the "old friends" theory, I personally thought the
| issue with allergies and parasites suppressing allergies as a
| "calibration issue". Where evolution effectively set the dominant
| immune-systems to what would be hypersensitive in an environment
| without parasites order to compensate for parasites immuno-
| suppressing to protect themselves. Sort of like how sickle cell
| anemia genes were selected for its malaria resistance, in spite
| of how bad it is to be born with two copies of the gene.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > 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 is generally correct.
| alecst wrote:
| I guess I'm cool coming out and saying it. Out of curiosity I
| bought some helminths online and infected myself. I was inspired
| to do it after reading a book called An Epidemic of Absence.
|
| I can't say a whole lot -- positive or negative -- came from it,
| but it was easy to do and inexpensive. So even though the article
| says you shouldn't try it at home, I did. I consider it safe. I'm
| not a doctor, I just read a lot of PubMed, so take that for what
| it's worth.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Why would this co-evolution history with parasites have only
| started with Homo Sapiens ?
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| The Old Friends hypothesis doesn't make a ton of sense to me.
| Viruses did not come around much later than bacteria and
| parasites, and definitely before the adaptive immune system.
|
| Bacterial viruses may have been involved in the evolution of
| nuclei
| https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j....
|
| The adaptive immune system of jawed vertebrates itself probably
| wouldn't be around if a virus hadn't infected the gametes of our
| fishy ancestors https://www.nature.com/articles/29457
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2686171/
|
| More likely is that there is a critical time window during the
| development of the immune system when it is trained not to react
| to most bacteria (which are passed on from the mother's vaginal
| microbiota and harmed by cesarian sections and early antibiotic
| use). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6904599/
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4464665/
|
| There's more and more evidence that one person's commensal
| bacteria can be someone else's pathogen, and that we should
| really think about it as a "lock and key" with your immune system
| rather than categorizing bacteria as inherently good or bad.
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5300855/
|
| Another rarely mentioned complication though is that the
| successful immune response itself likely selects for more
| pathogenic microbes. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15539148/
|
| Removing selective pressure from pathogens can actually lead to
| less virulent strains. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30100182/
|
| That may be why the body spends considerable resources feeding
| the microbiota at a slow pace using by secreting mucus which
| contains a large amount of sugars, but which are attached using
| an extreme amount of diverse linkages so that one bacteria cannot
| sweep the field and take over.
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1134114/
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41522-023-00468-3
|
| You cannot really withhold food from bacteria, they will just eat
| you. But if you give them a slow trickle of sugar, you remove
| their reason to invade you (which is is at a risk to themselves).
| I personally think this concept can be applied to wars and
| immigration, but anyway..
|
| Why are viruses more likely to cause autoimmune diseases than
| parasites? Probably because viruses go inside us and set of (Th1)
| intracellular responses , whereas parasites set of extracellular
| responses (Th2). You're probably more likely to be tricked into
| attacking yourself when you are fighting off something inside
| yourself than something outside your cells.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> The Old Friends hypothesis doesn 't make a ton of sense to
| me. Viruses did not come around much later than bacteria and
| parasites, and definitely before the adaptive immune system, so
| why aren't there "commensal viruses" which fight off parasites
| for us?_
|
| Viruses are even harder to study than bacteria, which are
| already very difficult because most of them can't be cultured
| in a lab [1], so we just haven't studied them that much. It's a
| lot easier to study viruses that cause a disease because we
| know what to look for. The gut virome [2] alone is likely to
| contain a lot of commensal viruses that help us fight off
| parasites but our understanding is in its infancy.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_dark_matter
|
| [2]
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-39...
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| Sorry I edited my comment before I saw your response. I agree
| in general, and we may find commensal viruses. It's not
| crucial to the argument though so I removed it.
| modeless wrote:
| The "old friends" hypothesis is not that parasites evolved to
| be beneficial to us. They're not literally our friends, that's
| why "old friends" is in scare quotes. It's that the immune
| system evolved in an environment where parasites were
| omnipresent, and it malfunctions in an environment where they
| are entirely absent.
|
| For example, the IgE protein present in peanut allergy is part
| of the parasite-fighting machinery of the immune system. It's
| not supposed to be reacting to food. But when there are no
| parasites to fight, it doesn't just become dormant as we would
| like.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| I don't disagree with that.
|
| However the original article talks about 'peaceful'
| commensals and links to this post
| (https://rachel.fast.ai/posts/2024-04-25-microbiome-1/), with
| the example that "friendly" microbes may not trigger your
| immune system if they leak into your bloodstream because they
| 'look similar' to your pancreatic cells.
|
| While critical during the development of the immune system,
| this idea that there are certain actually 'friendly' or
| peaceful bacteria is less and less supported by the
| literature, and overstated to the point of probably being
| harmful. Even probiotic strains can be harmful if your immune
| system is overloaded or incapacitated.
|
| Strong immune avoidance or induction of tolerance outside of
| the critical window is a strategy often used by pathogens to
| escape host defenses.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Very much disagree with the implication that helminths will help
| very much for these conditions. While not a commonly known
| treatment in the 'medical sphere' it's is very commonly known in
| the 'patient community spheres' and from the patient run studies
| it does not appear to have a particularly strong effect. It does
| appear to help some people so it's hard to rule it out but that
| could easily be noise. Those who did report a benefit were most
| often in the less impaired category and those same people tend to
| benefit from a wide variety of treatments that are generally
| ineffective on those of use who are more impaired.
|
| This post reads like someone who has just discovered the world of
| ME/CFS/LongCovid (post viral)
| /ToxicMold/POTs/SIBO/IBS/Lymes/hEDS/Graves/Hashimotos/MS/Lupus
| etc. etc. As a lifer I have seen many people enter the space and
| go through this exact same early stage of discovery.
|
| What I really think it is; it's genetic, various types of
| generalized anxiety disorders with their associated auto-immune
| conditions with the most common being Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos.
| These genetic predispositions are made worse by diet and
| lifestyles and triggered by all manner of stressors.
|
| On how to treat it, Low Dose Naltrexone is a good step one, then
| meds for dysautonomia, TUDCA, 3,3'-diindolylmethane (DIM), and
| then finally I think Low Dose Semaglutide < 0.1mg per week is
| going to be huge for auto-immune. It's early stages but few
| things have appeared more promising in the patient community. It
| worked wonders for me and a few other people I know. Everyone is
| different but those are in my opinion a good place to for someone
| starting.
|
| Helminths did not work for me the several times I tried it and
| have not worked for anyone that I have personally known that has
| tried it which to date is around ~10pp. But I do believe the
| people who do say it has worked for them but I don't count them
| unless I knew them prior due to the issue of selection criteria
| biases.
| jph00 wrote:
| But the article isn't implying that. In fact it explicitly says
| that helminths can be dangerous.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| The Th1 program in a T-helper cell suppresses the Th2 response,
| and vice versa.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_helper_cell#Th1/Th2_model
|
| Although it's way more complicated than that and there are
| exceptions, but it's still a real phenomenon.
|
| Community deworming increases Th1 cytokines
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5098677/
|
| When you administer helminths to yourself there is no guarantee
| that they are going to the right spot in your body, etc. which
| explains why everyone responds differently.
| Terr_ wrote:
| To recycle a recent comment, activating the adaptive immune
| system is like unleashing unleashing Skynet to stop a feared
| zombie apocalypse.
|
| Even if that army always wins, a few cities become glowing
| craters and you're rolling the dice hoping that _only a few_ of
| the murder-bots go rogue.
|
| Some evidence for this is how we keep finding additional safety-
| interlocks, presumably evolved because the creatures without them
| tore themselves apart too often.
| pella wrote:
| 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...
|
| ------
|
| 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."_
| highfrequency wrote:
| Wow - meningitis lowers IQ by 5 points
| incanus77 wrote:
| 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.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| So, drop food on kitchen floor - pick it up and eat it (without
| washing) good or bad?
| prologist11 wrote:
| 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.
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