3 ms·
Beefing up the immune system without garunteeing it something to do seems like a recipe for autoimmune disorders, no?
by thatguy0900 5y ago
Beefing up the immune system without garunteeing it something to do seems like a recipe for autoimmune disorders, no?
- graderjs 5y agoYeah, agree. It would be tricky. I'm hoping that by 'enhancing' the immune system you lean into its natural self-regulation equilibrium system and avoid that mostly--but then again autoimmune disorders seemingly emerge from those stasis systems going haywire, maybe without external poking...so it would be tricky for sure. I guess the intuition is that the human immune system is an incredibly sophisticated, evolving capability that over time, and over the mass population, can respond to become resilient against a wide array of pathogens. So if you could somehow capture the best of that (like, for illustration, take the immune system of the healthiest, most resilient person, 30 generations from now in the future) and convey that benefit to many other people, that would be truly awesome. Sort of like an idea of training an AI, more iterations are better, the immune system of any one person at any one point in time, might not be so great, but the best immune system of the population after encountering many pathogens, is going to be really great. How can we short circuit that "natural training" process and enhance the immune system? But I agree that attempts to do so might run the risk of creating or exacerbating autoimmune diseases...But I still think it's worth it.