How The Immune System Peacefully Co-Exists With 'Good' Bacteria

The human gut is loaded with commensal bacteria - "good" microbes that, among other functions, help the body digest food. The gastrointestinal tract contains literally trillions of such cells, and yet the immune system seemingly turns a blind eye. However, in several chronic human diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), HIV/AIDS, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, the immune system attacks these normally beneficial bacteria, resulting in chronic inflammation and contributing to disease progression. See rest here if interested:

www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/260927.php

I guess it all depends, for me probiotics seem to make me worse if I take too many, other people

have no problem taking large amounts.

Old Mike

here is much more on this special cells

http://www.med.nyu.edu/skirball-lab/littmanlab/Immunology_Journal_Club/Papers_files/Hepworth.pdf

One of the theories about the cause of IBD is that our immune system gets tricked or reprogrammed into destroying one of more of the good bacteria in our colons, causing inflammation and a micorobial imbalance. The trouble is, since there are literally thousands or millions of different good bacteria, a different species of bacteria could be being attacked in different individuals. By introducing more of the bacteria that are being attacked by our immune systems, we could be making the situation worse as our immune systems would be revving up even more to attack. This would explain why a particular probiotic works in some and has the opposite effect in someone else. It might be beneficial to find out exactly which one or ones of our good bacteria are being attacked but if you couldn't deprogram the immune system you would have to figure out a way to eliminate these particular species of bacteria from our systems (which might be almost impossible). Unfortunately, this would still leave our systems with an imbalance of microbial bacteria. Finding a different substitute to replace the bacteria being attacked might or might not work.