4 ms·

Our body would have evolved to keep whatever these 'good' microbes are in and near our lungs, much like it does for our intestines and digestive system. The la

Our body would have evolved to keep whatever these 'good' microbes are in and near our lungs, much like it does for our intestines and digestive system. The lack of this system, and the evolution of things like hair and mucous in our nose to filter and trap foreign objects is a pretty good hint that our body doesn't want anything except our clean atmosphere in our lungs.

malfist 4y ago
Fair, but your body also does away with things it's not using. An inactive immune system for too sterile environments may result in not being able to protect yourself in less sterile environments, or the immune system finding uses for itself, i.e. an autoimmune disease like allergies.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  The immune system is not a muscle--you don't need to keep exposing yourself to pathogens. Think how ridiculous that sounds--are you going to go get rabies, ebola, HIV, brain eating bacteria, etc. to be 'healthy'?
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    The whole point of a vaccine is to expose the immune system to an antigen.
    - qbasic_forever 4y ago
      No, you're exposing a harmless or safe part of an antigen to stimulate memory B and T cell immune response in the future. Rawdogging unfiltered air with true COVID or other bad virons will expose you to a potentially harmful virus--millions of people have been killed and many more disabled from it so far. You have no way of knowing if you will join their fate and are just rolling the dice.
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  Would you, by the same logic, suggest that we filter drinking water less?
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    That's a good example of training the immune system actually.. Go to southeast Asia where drinking water isn't so great. Drink it as a tourist and you'll spend a few days running to the toilet. But a native will drink it just fine as they're exposed to it all the time and their immune system has learned to deal with it. Low level exposure is good for that, you will find germs everywhere, not enough to make you sick but enough to give your immune system a heads-up for when it does come across a high level source of them like a contagious carrier.
    - Eisenstein 4y ago
      They also do end up getting serious diseases. There is no way to filter 'just a little to get enough of the bad stuff out but keep a tiny bit in' and ensure safety. If you really believed this you would tell your surgeon not to bother wearing gloves or wash hands because you want to ensure your immune system is functioning ideally,
      - wkat4242 4y ago
        No, this is because a surgeon actually works with carriers of infectious diseases. So a direct source of these, rather than a passing encounter. And vulnerable patients (open wounds etc) of course. When the surgeon goes home on the metro he doesn't wear gloves either. Or a mask in many cases. Of course living in a sterile environment works but the problem is that you will then have to do it all the time everywhere. Otherwise the first time you're out of that environment your immune system will have to catch up on everything. And there's a whole spectrum in between. Perfect "safety" is not possible while having an actual life. The question is, does the covid pandemic indicate we should move towards the more sterile side of that spectrum? I personally don't think so, on the contrary. If you see the isolationist tactic employed by China it has been far less effective at getting the situation over with than our approach in the west. We were enjoying our lives for a year while the Chinese were still brutally locked up. In the case of Southeast Asia, just getting used to the water is far more easily achieved than fixing it everywhere due to the high cost of a good water system. Some people get ill but life always carries risk. And for foreigners there's always bottled water. In our case we make a different tradeoff. But training the immune system against common threats by exposing it to low level sources is really a thing. If it couldn't do that we would have been extinct millennia ago :) Because threats appear much faster than evolution can cope with them.

malfist 4y ago

Fair, but your body also does away with things it's not using. An inactive immune system for too sterile environments may result in not being able to protect yourself in less sterile environments, or the immune system finding uses for itself, i.e. an autoimmune disease like allergies.

qbasic_forever 4y ago
The immune system is not a muscle--you don't need to keep exposing yourself to pathogens. Think how ridiculous that sounds--are you going to go get rabies, ebola, HIV, brain eating bacteria, etc. to be 'healthy'?
- mr_toad 4y ago
  The whole point of a vaccine is to expose the immune system to an antigen.
  - qbasic_forever 4y ago
    No, you're exposing a harmless or safe part of an antigen to stimulate memory B and T cell immune response in the future. Rawdogging unfiltered air with true COVID or other bad virons will expose you to a potentially harmful virus--millions of people have been killed and many more disabled from it so far. You have no way of knowing if you will join their fate and are just rolling the dice.
ajmurmann 4y ago
Would you, by the same logic, suggest that we filter drinking water less?
- wkat4242 4y ago
  That's a good example of training the immune system actually.. Go to southeast Asia where drinking water isn't so great. Drink it as a tourist and you'll spend a few days running to the toilet. But a native will drink it just fine as they're exposed to it all the time and their immune system has learned to deal with it. Low level exposure is good for that, you will find germs everywhere, not enough to make you sick but enough to give your immune system a heads-up for when it does come across a high level source of them like a contagious carrier.
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    They also do end up getting serious diseases. There is no way to filter 'just a little to get enough of the bad stuff out but keep a tiny bit in' and ensure safety. If you really believed this you would tell your surgeon not to bother wearing gloves or wash hands because you want to ensure your immune system is functioning ideally,
    - wkat4242 4y ago
      No, this is because a surgeon actually works with carriers of infectious diseases. So a direct source of these, rather than a passing encounter. And vulnerable patients (open wounds etc) of course. When the surgeon goes home on the metro he doesn't wear gloves either. Or a mask in many cases. Of course living in a sterile environment works but the problem is that you will then have to do it all the time everywhere. Otherwise the first time you're out of that environment your immune system will have to catch up on everything. And there's a whole spectrum in between. Perfect "safety" is not possible while having an actual life. The question is, does the covid pandemic indicate we should move towards the more sterile side of that spectrum? I personally don't think so, on the contrary. If you see the isolationist tactic employed by China it has been far less effective at getting the situation over with than our approach in the west. We were enjoying our lives for a year while the Chinese were still brutally locked up. In the case of Southeast Asia, just getting used to the water is far more easily achieved than fixing it everywhere due to the high cost of a good water system. Some people get ill but life always carries risk. And for foreigners there's always bottled water. In our case we make a different tradeoff. But training the immune system against common threats by exposing it to low level sources is really a thing. If it couldn't do that we would have been extinct millennia ago :) Because threats appear much faster than evolution can cope with them.