7 ms·

What is wrong with white blood cells [0] and T cells [1] and the already existing immune system? This is the equivalent of "roll your own encryption" in the co

What is wrong with white blood cells [0] and T cells [1] and the already existing immune system? This is the equivalent of "roll your own encryption" in the computer security world. The number of real world cases where people have no or little immune system is likely minuscule (real numbers?) compared to the number of people that destroy their immune system through poor life and health choices. (obviously high number) Eat better, exercise some (any?) and let your immune system take care of this stuff. That is what it's there for. Introducing _another_ foreign substance that will need to be fought off later is a recipe for disaster.[2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_blood_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_blood_cell [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_cell [2] https://www.amazon.com/King-Mice-Cheese-Nancy-Gurney/dp/0394800397 https://www.amazon.com/King-Mice-Cheese-Nancy-Gurney/dp/0394...

Fomite 8y ago
...you are aware that infectious diseases sometimes defeat your immune system, yes?
- RobertRoberts 8y ago
  Of course "sometimes", but consider how serious this is. As far as I know people with completely depleted immune systems either die or live in a bubble. No vaccination, no antibiotics help them.
  - mathgeek 8y ago
    The CDC provides this page, which seems like it may be useful to you as an overview: https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/index.html
    - RobertRoberts 8y ago
      Slide 3 shows washing hands, a behavior meant to defeat infection. A section caled "Healthy Habits". https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/protecting_yourself_family.html https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/protecting_yourself_famil...
  - vertex-four 8y ago
    People with perfectly healthy immune systems often require medical intervention to help them fight off disease too, sorry to say.
  - Fomite 8y ago
    You don't need to "completely deplete your immune system" to get sick with a bacterial infection.
    - RobertRoberts 8y ago
      My original argument was related to creating a system that does the work of a current system. This kind of thread gets side tracked easily.
MichaelApproved 8y ago
Your use of sourcing gives your comment a seemingly higher level of stature but the sources are unnecessary and silly. You source simple concepts and then use a children's book to back up your final claim? Oh please... Yes, your immune system is a wonderful defense that you can damage or improve based on lifestyle but medical advances are often necessary to assist the immune system.
- RobertRoberts 8y ago
  >You source simple concepts and then use a children's book to back up your final claim? Yes, because the concepts of healthcare in the US are absurd, and it's easily illustrated through a children's story book. In the US diabetes (1 version of it) has no known cause or cure, but in other countries (where there is free health care) it has a known cause and cure. >...medical advances are often necessary... Again, in countries with government supported healthcare they recognize that lifestyle choices are the number 1 cause of preventable disease. Number 1. What is "often necessary" in the US is in reality a rare exception. Consider smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, junk food diets, no exercise, etc... these all are widely _known_ to deplete the immune system. So the only argument left for hacked viruses is for people with auto-immune diseases or other serious compromised systems, which is in fact rare.
  - MichaelApproved 8y ago
    > So the only argument left for hacked viruses is for people with auto-immune diseases or other serious compromised systems, which is in fact rare. "The only" You start off making good points then you take this giant leap to absurdity. It's beyond hyperbole.
    - RobertRoberts 8y ago
      Can you offer an example of when it would be required (or useful) to replace the bodies immune system with an alternative? Any foreign substance added to the body (even if it's fighting an infection) still needs to be cleaned out by the immune system. So adding viruses that attack bacteria isn't a zero sum game.
adrianN 8y ago
I too enjoy letting my immune system take care of the gangrene that developed after minor surgery.
- RobertRoberts 8y ago
  I am pretty certain gangrene is easily defeated by modern antibiotics. (is there some evidence to suggest otherwise?)
  - GenericsMotors 8y ago
    For which many bacteria are already becoming resistant to, thanks to overuse or misuse. Please explain how you'll handle infection by a resistant strain.
    - RobertRoberts 8y ago
      A quick look online showed me that there are 2 kinds of gangrene (which I didn't know until today). One kind is caused by alcohol abuse, tobacco use and diabetes, (or frostbite, trauma, etc..) all treatable with life style changes (according to healthcare in other countries, not in necessarily in the US) The other kind is "caused by infection", so you seem to be misunderstanding what gangrene is. It's a symptom/end result from something else. It seems once it's gets to gangrene the flesh is already dead, so removal is the only option, not antibiotics. It's too late for that.
      - GenericsMotors 8y ago
        Replace gangrene with whatever bacterial infection you want. You've been infected with an antibiotic resistant strain - of tuberculosis for example. Please explain how you'll resolve the situation. Note that I'm not arguing lifestyle changes aren't important; I agree with parts of your other comments on that issue. I just don't understand why you think that pursuing other research avenues into defeating antibiotic resistant bacteria, that can cause a resurgence in plagues that were previously under control, is a bad or unimportant thing. I'd very much like to not go back to the days when people died from Consumption left and right.
andai 8y ago
I'm wondering now, what makes immune systems fail? In other words, if our only option were to help immune cells do their job (instead of doing it for them), where would we start?
- RobertRoberts 8y ago
  A lot of people I have talked with look at health from the perspective of "strengthen the immune system". Why not consider "stop weakening the immune system" first? No one supports giving a lung transplant to a persistent smoker. This extreme example demonstrates that damaging life choices _need_ to be addressed to actually help people heal.
- rincebrain 8y ago
  I mean, we do have active research and treatment vectors involving this, but it's tricky for a few reasons. One of the nasty ones is that accidentally teaching the immune system to attack the wrong thing is catastrophic, and we don't really have good general ways to undo learned response once present. (Exposure/desensitization therapy works for some things, but is still relatively early in its refinement.) Just look at the fun with the lone star tick and induced red meat allergies, and that's apparently a purely incidental outcome (e.g. it's not obviously a beneficial part of the tick's outcomes from biting things, just a quirk of primate biology not possessing a protein that every other mammal does, and getting upset when it finds it in the bloodstream). Another example that comes to mind of when this doesn't "just work" is culturing uninfected immune cells from HIV+ patients, teaching them to kill HIV, and then putting them back. AIUI, this works for a little while, but then it just shows back up again, like it never left. As it turns out, T cells happily share information between each other by making a happy little bridge between the two cells, and HIV is perfectly capable of spreading that way. Womp womp. If you want to see a really strange immune outcome, go read the recent experiments about graft-versus-host disease potentially wiping out HIV in patients. (It didn't work for two patients in one experiment, so not extremely hopeful about the outcome, but it's a fascinating complex interaction. [1] [2] [1] - https://www.nature.com/news/hopes-of-hiv-cure-in-boston-patients-dashed-1.14324 https://www.nature.com/news/hopes-of-hiv-cure-in-boston-pati... [2] - https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431244-400-immune-war-with-donor-cells-after-transplant-may-wipe-out-hiv/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431244-400-immune-w...
DoreenMichele 8y ago
What is wrong with white blood cells [0] and T cells [1] and the already existing immune system? It isn't flashy. It doesn't make headlines. Doctors and scientists can't get rich off it. It's also incredibly hard to explain the point of view you have. I'm actually very sympathetic to your position, having pursued diet and lifestyle changes to manage a dread disease. But I will say that your comments here read as rather snarky, not good faith efforts to explain. Edit: Having read through more of the article, it is (at least in part) research into helping patients with cystic fibrosis, who actually have a seriously impaired immune system. It's actually what I have. And I'm quite sure you are wholly unqualified to tell people with CF what they need to eat to restore the functioning of their immune system in spite of a defective cell channel permanently impairing their functioning at the cellular level in all systems, but especially so in epithelial tissues, which includes both the lungs and gut.
- RobertRoberts 8y ago
  What do I know? I am a random person voicing my opinion on the internet. Read my other comments, I will freely admit when I am wrong. If they make something that helps you, I think that would be great. Note: I accidentally posted this comment further down. More proof of fallibility.

Fomite 8y ago

...you are aware that infectious diseases sometimes defeat your immune system, yes?

RobertRoberts 8y ago
Of course "sometimes", but consider how serious this is. As far as I know people with completely depleted immune systems either die or live in a bubble. No vaccination, no antibiotics help them.
- mathgeek 8y ago
  The CDC provides this page, which seems like it may be useful to you as an overview: https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/index.html
  - RobertRoberts 8y ago
    Slide 3 shows washing hands, a behavior meant to defeat infection. A section caled "Healthy Habits". https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/protecting_yourself_family.html https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/protecting_yourself_famil...
- vertex-four 8y ago
  People with perfectly healthy immune systems often require medical intervention to help them fight off disease too, sorry to say.
- Fomite 8y ago
  You don't need to "completely deplete your immune system" to get sick with a bacterial infection.
  - RobertRoberts 8y ago
    My original argument was related to creating a system that does the work of a current system. This kind of thread gets side tracked easily.

MichaelApproved 8y ago

Your use of sourcing gives your comment a seemingly higher level of stature but the sources are unnecessary and silly. You source simple concepts and then use a children's book to back up your final claim? Oh please... Yes, your immune system is a wonderful defense that you can damage or improve based on lifestyle but medical advances are often necessary to assist the immune system.

RobertRoberts 8y ago
>You source simple concepts and then use a children's book to back up your final claim? Yes, because the concepts of healthcare in the US are absurd, and it's easily illustrated through a children's story book. In the US diabetes (1 version of it) has no known cause or cure, but in other countries (where there is free health care) it has a known cause and cure. >...medical advances are often necessary... Again, in countries with government supported healthcare they recognize that lifestyle choices are the number 1 cause of preventable disease. Number 1. What is "often necessary" in the US is in reality a rare exception. Consider smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, junk food diets, no exercise, etc... these all are widely _known_ to deplete the immune system. So the only argument left for hacked viruses is for people with auto-immune diseases or other serious compromised systems, which is in fact rare.
- MichaelApproved 8y ago
  > So the only argument left for hacked viruses is for people with auto-immune diseases or other serious compromised systems, which is in fact rare. "The only" You start off making good points then you take this giant leap to absurdity. It's beyond hyperbole.
  - RobertRoberts 8y ago
    Can you offer an example of when it would be required (or useful) to replace the bodies immune system with an alternative? Any foreign substance added to the body (even if it's fighting an infection) still needs to be cleaned out by the immune system. So adding viruses that attack bacteria isn't a zero sum game.

adrianN 8y ago

I too enjoy letting my immune system take care of the gangrene that developed after minor surgery.

RobertRoberts 8y ago
I am pretty certain gangrene is easily defeated by modern antibiotics. (is there some evidence to suggest otherwise?)
- GenericsMotors 8y ago
  For which many bacteria are already becoming resistant to, thanks to overuse or misuse. Please explain how you'll handle infection by a resistant strain.
  - RobertRoberts 8y ago
    A quick look online showed me that there are 2 kinds of gangrene (which I didn't know until today). One kind is caused by alcohol abuse, tobacco use and diabetes, (or frostbite, trauma, etc..) all treatable with life style changes (according to healthcare in other countries, not in necessarily in the US) The other kind is "caused by infection", so you seem to be misunderstanding what gangrene is. It's a symptom/end result from something else. It seems once it's gets to gangrene the flesh is already dead, so removal is the only option, not antibiotics. It's too late for that.
    - GenericsMotors 8y ago
      Replace gangrene with whatever bacterial infection you want. You've been infected with an antibiotic resistant strain - of tuberculosis for example. Please explain how you'll resolve the situation. Note that I'm not arguing lifestyle changes aren't important; I agree with parts of your other comments on that issue. I just don't understand why you think that pursuing other research avenues into defeating antibiotic resistant bacteria, that can cause a resurgence in plagues that were previously under control, is a bad or unimportant thing. I'd very much like to not go back to the days when people died from Consumption left and right.

andai 8y ago

I'm wondering now, what makes immune systems fail? In other words, if our only option were to help immune cells do their job (instead of doing it for them), where would we start?

RobertRoberts 8y ago
A lot of people I have talked with look at health from the perspective of "strengthen the immune system". Why not consider "stop weakening the immune system" first? No one supports giving a lung transplant to a persistent smoker. This extreme example demonstrates that damaging life choices _need_ to be addressed to actually help people heal.
rincebrain 8y ago
I mean, we do have active research and treatment vectors involving this, but it's tricky for a few reasons. One of the nasty ones is that accidentally teaching the immune system to attack the wrong thing is catastrophic, and we don't really have good general ways to undo learned response once present. (Exposure/desensitization therapy works for some things, but is still relatively early in its refinement.) Just look at the fun with the lone star tick and induced red meat allergies, and that's apparently a purely incidental outcome (e.g. it's not obviously a beneficial part of the tick's outcomes from biting things, just a quirk of primate biology not possessing a protein that every other mammal does, and getting upset when it finds it in the bloodstream). Another example that comes to mind of when this doesn't "just work" is culturing uninfected immune cells from HIV+ patients, teaching them to kill HIV, and then putting them back. AIUI, this works for a little while, but then it just shows back up again, like it never left. As it turns out, T cells happily share information between each other by making a happy little bridge between the two cells, and HIV is perfectly capable of spreading that way. Womp womp. If you want to see a really strange immune outcome, go read the recent experiments about graft-versus-host disease potentially wiping out HIV in patients. (It didn't work for two patients in one experiment, so not extremely hopeful about the outcome, but it's a fascinating complex interaction. [1] [2] [1] - https://www.nature.com/news/hopes-of-hiv-cure-in-boston-patients-dashed-1.14324 https://www.nature.com/news/hopes-of-hiv-cure-in-boston-pati... [2] - https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431244-400-immune-war-with-donor-cells-after-transplant-may-wipe-out-hiv/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431244-400-immune-w...

DoreenMichele 8y ago

What is wrong with white blood cells [0] and T cells [1] and the already existing immune system? It isn't flashy. It doesn't make headlines. Doctors and scientists can't get rich off it. It's also incredibly hard to explain the point of view you have. I'm actually very sympathetic to your position, having pursued diet and lifestyle changes to manage a dread disease. But I will say that your comments here read as rather snarky, not good faith efforts to explain. Edit: Having read through more of the article, it is (at least in part) research into helping patients with cystic fibrosis, who actually have a seriously impaired immune system. It's actually what I have. And I'm quite sure you are wholly unqualified to tell people with CF what they need to eat to restore the functioning of their immune system in spite of a defective cell channel permanently impairing their functioning at the cellular level in all systems, but especially so in epithelial tissues, which includes both the lungs and gut.

RobertRoberts 8y ago
What do I know? I am a random person voicing my opinion on the internet. Read my other comments, I will freely admit when I am wrong. If they make something that helps you, I think that would be great. Note: I accidentally posted this comment further down. More proof of fallibility.