Immune Systems Increasingly On Attack »
Posted By Beau7890 7 months, 1 week ago in StyleFirst, asthma cases shot up, along with hay fever and other common allergic reactions, such as eczema. Then, pediatricians started seeing more children with food allergies. Now, experts are increasingly convinced that a suspected jump in lupus, multiple sclerosis and other afflictions caused by misfiring immune systems is real.
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Beau7890
I used to have a quote here from Andre Breton, author of several surrealist works.
I now think that if you're here on Propeller ...
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Wolfie20077 months ago
Oooop's the sky is falling again. What a load, there not are more people with allergies now than in the past. The reason is that until the past 20 years most physicians discounted allergies and there was none or very little testing for allergies. The allergies have always been there but now we know. Put your tin hats away, this is not a crisis.
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1-2-Oscar7 months ago
There are a couple of other reasons, as well, Wolfie. The first is genetic. Modern medicine makes more people with allergies and genetic disorders (think--diabetes) capable of living full lives and reproducing, thus passing along their genetic deficiencies as well as their strengths.
The second is pretty obvious; we're stinking up the place. the more crap we pump into the atmosphere and the groundwater, the tougher it's going to be for our kids to breathe and function normally.
There's a probable third reason, too. We medicate EVERYTHING. The medicines that we pump into our kids, from birth on, definitely have an effect on their bodies. We need to quit believing that we can "fix" our children whenever they feel uncomfortable, or if they sniff. A little discomfort is good for the character, they say, and it's definitely good for their health.
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quackpot7 months ago
Wolfie, please cite a reference for your statement, which counters the thinking of most epidemiologists.
How about the great, and very real, increased incidence of asthma in poor innercity neighborhoods? Is this because becuse these children have better medical care than the more affluent areas?
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Beau78907 months ago
The article states that more serious automimmune diseases, like lupus, MS and Type 1 diabetes, are also rising, not just allergies. Those diseases have not been discounted over the past 20 years.
The article also states that the increases are greater in highly developed countries. And in addition to what 1-2-Oscar said about modern medicine, the article also states this:
"The leading theory to explain the phenomenon holds that as modern medicine beats back bacterial, viral and parasitic diseases that have long plagued humanity, immune systems may fail to learn how to differentiate between real threats and benign invaders, such as ragweed pollen or food. Or perhaps because they are not busy fighting real threats, they overreact or even turn on the body's own tissues."
No one said "the sky is falling," but there is a real threat that warrants more study and research to find the causes and remedies.
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Obaku7 months ago
Really? Where did you get your medical degree?
What clinical studies are YOU citing to support your assertion?
How does your colon look to you (from the inside) now?
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sue20087 months ago
I have to agree with the part where it said giving tiny doses of milk or eggs or nuts. to people who have react to it to train their immune system....
I was one of those people, I used to get sick after drinking milk and Lactuse crap. My doctor told me to take some over the counter medicine but I didn't like the idea - taking medicine to drink milk-. soo I started little by little and now am fine....I enjoy my bowl of cereal with milk every morning.
but i don't know if we should play that game with deadly allergy like nuts... remember that story about a teenager who died after kissing her boyfriend who just had peanut better sandwish!!
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flyonthewallzz7 months ago
Interesting:
Was it Richard Dawkins who wondered if there is a God, why did it create parasitic worms?
I read somewhere that it was the milkmaids that had the best chances of surviving the bubonic plague.
Remember what wiped out the aliens in the "War of the worlds".
It seems we need a taste of the creepy stuff to survive.
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flyonthewallzz7 months ago
It was not my intent to make what sounds like an anti-atheism statement.
I was just musing.
I did not catch the polemic overtones until it was up.
Forgive me if I have offended.
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1-2-Oscar7 months ago
In fact, it was milkmaids who had the best chance to survive a smallpox epidemic. They frequently caught a relatively mild infection called cowpox while working. It was uncomfortable, but almost never fatal and usually of short duration. But a person who had survived cowpox developed immunities in their systems which prevented them from contracting the much more serious (and closely related) smallpox. Edward Jenner was the first to use this trait medically--he vaccinated people with cowpox to prevent them getting smallpox.
Bubonic plague, unfortunately, was a separate matter. It originated in India and spread worldwide in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, killing an estimated quarter of the Earth's population. Stay away from flea-ridden rats.
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flyonthewallzz7 months ago
Oops! stand corrected: thanx, Oscar my memory does get a little faulty at times.
There was a Bubonic plague thing that I hope I am remembering correctly about folks that lived in close proximity to animals surviving more than cloistered scholars.
I do not mind being corrected at all.
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walden37 months ago
Wow. You guys know a lot. I'm humbled. I think it has a lot to do with what we eat, the additives. Another thing that always concerns me is the exhaust from jet planes. You see those things flying over you every day. Jet fuel is way bad. Well how about the burned remains of jet fuel being spewed on all of us from 30,000 feet. Is it a coincidence that the spike in auto-immune diseases corresponds with the spike in aviation? Who knows. All I do knowis I don't like seeing all those contrails falling on me.
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Obaku7 months ago
These are all reasonable theories, with some evidence behind each.
Unfortunately, there is just no way to separate out and identify which influences are most important, in which instances, without long term longitudinal studies using human children as subjects. Which is clearly not an option.
The good news is that natural biological processes are working to stabilize the human population with respect to their habitat.
Immune dysfunction, multi-drug resistant staph and TB, violent conflict over diminishing resources, increasing rates of a variety of mental dysfunctions from autism to depression...
Don't trifle with Mother Nature, dat bi-atch will f#@k you up!
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Obaku7 months ago
Argue about Malthus and the Club of Rome all you want, the underlying theory has been proven over and over again, in every ecosystem everywhere and throughout history - technology may postpone the reckoning - but "the bigger they are, the harder the fall" - much like the U.S. economy, they are the social equivalent of meth addicts, always increasing the dosage, right up to the point of sudden catastrophic multi-system failure.
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paweenthas6 months, 2 weeks ago
Doctors know this stuff for a long time and It's quite advantage for such increasing.
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