5 ms·
I have always entertained a "what if?" question here: What if... the common cold is like a folk tradition of viruses that do us little harm and keep our immune
by unfocussed_mike 5y ago
I have always entertained a "what if?" question here:
What if... the common cold is like a folk tradition of viruses that do us little harm and keep our immune system on its toes, and that as such a "cure for the common cold" is the wrong thing to want?
To be clear I am no kind of biologist and I have no reason to believe this is anything other than a silly idea, but I still like it.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y agoWhy can't we just take vaccines to keep training our immune system to be strong?
- aliswe 5y agoMaybe that's what a cold is?
- toyg 5y agoLike those "good Samaritan" network viruses that patch the vulnerability they exploited. Could be.
- XorNot 5y agohttps://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/common_cold_causes https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/common_cold_ca... The common cold is a low level respiratory infection caused by a known suite of virus candidates. If we made ourselves permanently immune to those without going through the mucus and sore throat part there would be no negative consequences.
- dudeinjapan 5y ago
- unfocussed_mike 5y agoOh no, my "what if" is catching. I have taken my rightful place in the pantheon of those undermining reason ;-)
- tnorthcutt 5y ago"what if?" can absolutely be a useful frame. The flip side: what if... the common cold causes small amounts of permanent damage, or damage that doesn't show up until much later in life? What if all viruses are this way, and preventing infection/bad infection in the first place is an enormous net benefit?
- unfocussed_mike 5y agoIndeed!
- blagie 5y agoIt is a silly idea. There's pretty good evidence it's false. Your immune system might benefit from some types of stimulation, but those are from: 1) Parasites 2) Generic (as opposed to human) bacteria 3) Mild, latent infections which co-evolved with humans The problem is that most diseases like colds, flus, smallpox, measles, etc. are relatively recent in evolutionary terms. They rose with the rise of civilizations. In hunter-gatherer times, things like colds didn't exist.
- nerdponx 5y agoThis sounds a lot like "paleo diet" reasoning, which mostly seems to be bunk. I am not saying that your claim definitely is wrong, but it does sound a lot like other claims that many people believe are not valid. So my initial reaction is "extreme skepticism". Even if these viruses didn't exist before modern civilization, how do we know that they aren't at all relevant for immune system "fitness" in modern humans?
- csee 5y agoIt isn't bunk to eat whole foods that were favored by our ancestors. You'd have a better diet than the large majority of people. We evolved to eat this stuff which is exactly why we stop getting diabetes and obesity when we stick to it.
- nerdponx 5y agoI should have been more specific. The paleo diet specifically prohibits grain and dairy. My understanding was that this is an unscientific idea of "what our prehistoric ancestors ate", because homo sapiens is at least partially adapted to eating those foods. Is my understanding not correct?
- csee 5y agoI wouldn't go so far as to say unscientific, because as you say we are only partially adapted to it (e.g. lactose intolerance), and grains are an extremely easy source of calories which is problematic in a context of the obesity crisis and problematic when it's only simple carbohydrates being consumed by poor people such as potatoes or white rice (vitamin deficiencies). I don't expect epistemically sound and measured statements from a community around a diet that's become a social media fad, anyways. I understand we can slip into the naturalistic fallacy easily, but at the same time I appreciate the line of reasoning as a first approximation because of how complicated the human body and nutrition is, and how messed up our public health situation is thanks to the modern diet. Even though I acknowledge this situation is attributable to processed foods and sugars, and not to whole grain consumption which I think is fine/good for most people, it is still the delta between modernity and how our bodies evolved that is the culprit. Let's put it this way. The Paleo community is probably totally wrong about whole grains, but right about a lot of things.