[HN Gopher] From second thoughts on the germ theory to a full-bl... ___________________________________________________________________ From second thoughts on the germ theory to a full-blown host theory Author : Hooke Score : 22 points Date : 2023-07-15 15:06 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.pnas.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.pnas.org) | throwaway72762 wrote: | This is excellent but also galaxy brain level. Not something | that's ready for popular digestion, given the levels of basic | science denial that have popped up post COVID, even among | supposedly empirical communities like tech. | | Eventually if this gains more predictive power then it can be | merged with germ theory and explained better to the public. | bawolff wrote: | I didn't read the whole thing just the abstract, but isn't this | just the modern standard view? | | Germs cause disease. Your immune system stops germs. To get a | disease the germ must both get into you and either overwhelm or | find a way past your immune system. | | This hardly seems like something beyond public comprehension. | nextos wrote: | I also found it a bit too philosophical in the sense that we | can already explain a lot of the variations in outcomes to | infection. | | For example, HLA/MHC is a family of genes tasked with the | presentation of antigens (e.g. chunks of proteins) from | pathogens and your own cells to the immune system. It is a | very polymorphic region, i.e. full of genetic variants that | lead to lots of differences in the peptides that are | presented, to stop spread of infections at population level. | | If you have one of the lucky/unlucky alleles, you will have | high chances of protection/susceptibility. Some alleles, like | HLA-B57, protect against HIV but it's a tradeoff. Carriers | are much more susceptible of autoimmunity [1]. | | From an environmental point of view, if you have dysbiosis, | e.g. if your gut microbiome ecology is altered, T cell | receptor distributions will be altered and you are more | likely to have a bad response to certain infections. | | [1] Effects of thymic selection of the T-cell repertoire on | HLA class I-associated control of HIV infection. | https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08997 | pazimzadeh wrote: | In our lab we call it the lock and key hypothesis: | | One size doesn't fit all: unraveling the diversity of factors and | interactions that drive E. coli urovirulence | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28217693/ | | Bacterial virulence phenotypes of Escherichia coli and host | susceptibility determine risk for urinary tract infections | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28330863/ | | It can be useful to look at infections from the perspective of | microbes: | | The acquired immune system: a vantage from beneath | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15539148/ | | TLDR: Microbes were here long before us and will be here after | us. We are living in their world and the more we try to fight | them head on, the more they will bother us. Best to adapt and co- | opt. | jvm___ wrote: | Microbes love on every square inch of the world, or close | enough to it compared to humans. | | Humans live like shower fungus at the local gym, we live in the | cracks and near the water sources, on the scale of earth we | might as well be microscopic. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-07-16 23:00 UTC)