New immune system discovered

FYI learn something new everyday.

Old Mike

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-immune.html

What has been very interesting through this is learning about the plus side of these microbes.

In the beginning I was on the train of, kill them all and sort it out later.

Then slowly I realized we must change the terrain of our bodies so that these microbes can all do what they are supposed to do, keeping each other in check while giving our bodies the best of that interaction. There is no medicine as powerful as a properly functioning immune system and enzymatic pathways.

I wish I had the immune system of a shark...I've heard they are immune to getting diseases, basically having a perfect immune system.

Hey OM,

This is very interesting from all your stuff on the degradation of the mucus layer and such. At the same time, I recall reading an article from the Human Microbial Project recently where they talked about the results they found in people with IBD. They said that what they found odd and worthy of looking into was that in general we all have a very similar make-up of bacteria in our systems common to all people and ethnic groups etc - BUT when it comes to the case of bacteriophages we are all different. They said even in the case of twins, this is the defining factor that stood out. From memory they said they found people were colonized with one of four main groups or types of bacteriophages from birth.

There was also another study that counted the quantity - they were shocked to realize that there was over a billion per cubic centimeter of feces i believe. And in people with IBD they either had more or less... I'm pretty sure it was actually substantially more present in the feces.

Anyway - I just got to thinking 1) maybe there's more to this and 2) perhaps in the case of fecal transplants, it's more a case of a phage mismatch for those that have a worsening of symptoms and such.

What I do know (or think it's correct) is that bacteriophages reproduce differently and in much higher numbers under stress - or more correctly when their environment is stressed... Instead of reproducing inside bacteria cells as the bacteria cells divide and reproduce - they take over and start producing multiple copies inside the bacteria cell, then burst out killing the bacteria cell.

It pretty interesting. Here is a link showing the two ways they reproduce - one killing the host cell and the other not - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lytic_cycle

There's more somewhere that talks about the difference between the two and the environmental stress.

Maybe something upsets the balance of these, causing stress and in turn they start mass producing killing their hosts and a sort of chain reaction occurs.. haha.. who knows... in any case it's a very cool article.


Or maybe in response to stress to many reproduce and bind to the sugars in the mucus and this causes damage by degrading the mucus barrier...

Or well, again there's a gazillion different ways one could think of

It may be pollution, toxicity. We may still be able to fix it by compensating for our genetic weaknesses. I think the supplementation of our food supply with folic acid is allowing people with polymorphims in key detox cycles to be born. (hence the boom of autism) Because of their genetic susceptibility their methyl cycles just go more and more haywire the more toxins and stress load that is placed on their system. So, born to stressed parents, getting a huge load of vaxes they cant detox, eating foods that their body cant handle.. it goes south critically and fast, neurologically. Most of these kids have serious digestive problems.

Also, this "enrichment" is creating critical imbalances in those of us that have heterozygous polymorphisms which is closing down pathways. I think that is why some of us who react to wheat but arent celiac do so. We are reacting to detoxing the genetic modification of the grain as well as the enrichment. Just a theory..

A while back I read how IBDers are lacking some specific bacteria (don't recall the name) and tend to have an overgrowth of another type(s) also don't recall the type(s).

Wrong microbes for people with UC? Just a thought.