In that case it shouldn't be a problem to boost the innate immune system, as long as you have surplus calories to spend. But it could be something else entirely.
The current framework of our immune system could go back quite some time. Even to our mammalian cold-blooded ancestors, 200? mya. When I think of cold blooded, I think of creatures able to remain static and at rest for a long time, periods of low-energy usage. So maybe this framework comes from before warm blooded mammals?
And, if it works well enough that people can breed (which used to be 15 years to 30 years old), and if dying after, oh well. Why evolve better? Or maybe too much monkeying has downsides.
Look at sickle cell anemia. Quite beneficial with malaria parasites around, not so much without them.
So I'd lose weight too? Sign me up yesterday.
Graves’ disease, lupus/SLE, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes, myasthenia gravis, Addison’s disease, Hashimoto, Goodpasture, etc.
One of the risks of an always on response, is if something evolves to evade it - you have nowhere to go.
It's why taking an antibiotic at breakfast everyday is not a good idea.
You probably know that antibiotic use is rampant in industrial livestock. But do you know precisely why?
Antibiotics aren't just given prophylactically to prevent infections; constant low doses actually *increase the animal's size*. The animals can put more energy into growing larger, and spend less on their immune system.
But isn't that what the adjuants that are currently in nearly every vaccine do anyway. That is forcing the triggering of immune response when there wouldn't be none or very little response naturally?
Auto-immune diseases are the downside. There is no way that this ends up being safe or recommended for use outside of epidemic situations or short term occupational hazards.
Couldn’t you apply this logic to any medicine?
A vaccine or inoculation is named because it creates a sustained adaptation to a targeted antigen. Something that boosts immune response is not an acquired adaptation! This would need to be re-upped every month or so.
Good for travel and brief encounters. Not an actual immunization.
Not too mention boosting cell growth factors can have unintended side effects like cancer! There are immune system cancers and I would be concerned about risks there.
What this treatment does is the opposite side of that coin, it mimics cytokines in order to PROMOTE an immune response.
Immune regulation is an area that deserves a lot more research, and there is going to be learning (harm) along the way. An increasing body of science is pointing to autoimmune diseases being triggered by traditional vaccines, which are then treated by the biologics above that increase the likelihood of other disease due to immunosuppression, which can now be treated(?) by a new immunobooster AKA universal vaccine?
Great for the investors though? ;)
I wonder if the vaccine causes inflammatory and other unpleasant responses when administered. If so, I wonder if those responses go away after the last dose, when the three months of protection begin.
Here are the two paragraphs that I found interesting:
> The new vaccine, for now known as GLA-3M-052-LS+OVA, mimics the T cell signals that directly stimulate innate immune cells in the lungs. It also contains a harmless antigen, an egg protein called ovalbumin or OVA, which recruits T cells into the lungs to maintain the innate response for weeks to months.
> In the study, mice were given a drop of the vaccine in their noses. Some recieved multiple doses, given a week apart. Each mouse was then exposed to one type of respiratory virus. With three doses of the vaccine, mice were protected against SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses for at least three months.
Here's hoping the final product doesn't have a side-effect of inducing an allergy to the main component of egg-whites.
Although even if that happened... Would it only apply to the raw materials, as opposed to cooked products where the ovalbumin was denatured by heat?
Edit: No, wait! What about "safe to eat" cookie-dough, which uses heat-treated flour and pasteurized eggs as ingredients!? The might still have intact ovalbumin, and obviously I can't give it up.
A new area of research has opened up. This approach may be more useful for treatment than prevention. It's not really a vaccine; it's more like an induced vaccine response. Keeping the immune system in that state full time might be a problem. But after an infection, that's what's wanted.
I do wonder if the kind of people who got vaccinated 10 times against Covid-19 will end up trying to get a sniff of this every month? Kind of like how we overuse antibiotics in cleaners. It seems like it would be best if saved for an "oh shoot" kind of situation.
That latter term (ectopic lymphoid structure) comes up in connection with persistent inflammation where the immune system sets up camp near the problem point. Is this good or bad? Do these go away once the infection clears up?
In general, it doesn't surprise me that when you prime the innate immune system, the adaptive immune system works well. The problem is that pathogens have an incredible suite of tools ready to evade these mechanisms. The doses of the pathogens are typically insanely high too, which I do not think model natural infections well. Anyways, this is intriguing, so I'll take a look at the original paper one of these days. Vaccine research generally is so boring. It's like, we vaccinated, and it worked, or didn't, no mechanism.
And bear in mind that most people don't have a problem surviving colds and the like long enough to reproduce even with no vaccines at all, and that was probably more true for much of our evolutionary history when we were living much more isolated lives, and not cohabiting with chickens and pigs.
Inflamation uses up resources. When we were hunter-gatherers and had to survive ice ages - it wasn't a good idea to waste calories and vitamins just in case.
Better for 3 people out of 30 to die of flu than for all 30 to starve.
Nowadays the optimal trade-off might be completely different.
We could have paper shredders, blenders, toasters, water taps, and so on that just ran all the time, but our utility bills would be ginormous. Same thing for our bodies.
It might be worth it, at least during certain times of the year. For much of the winter, for instance, I already seem to have a lot of nasal drainage and other unpleasant symptoms for the whole time, along with the occasional actual infection which is much more unpleasant.
There's certain times when there's big flare-ups of infections such as flu, so maybe giving everyone an annoying vaccine during that time which gives them the sniffles would actually improve things overall.
You can have a Th1 or a Th2 reaction. One produces one kind of reaction and the other produces a different kind of reaction. And they both inhibit the other. It's a mechanism whose purpose (to the degree purposes exist) is to identify which kind of problem you have and apply as much energy as possible to that because they each fight different kinds of enemies. You'll see in the article they say:
> Allergic reactions are caused by a type of immune response known as Th2 response. Unvaccinated mice showed a strong Th2 response and mucus accumulation in their airways. The vaccine quelled the Th2 response and vaccinated mice maintained clear airways
Neither of these are immune (haha) to causing problems. Th1 was historically associated with multiple sclerosis. Obviously if your detection mechanism is broken you will create more and more of the wrong kind because of the fact one kind can beat the other with numbers but also because the wrong one won't even get the mis-detected enemy (which might not even be an enemy - and be harmless) out.
The too-much-detail: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC27457/
> Th1-type cytokines tend to produce the proinflammatory responses responsible for killing intracellular parasites and for perpetuating autoimmune responses. Interferon gamma is the main Th1 cytokine. Excessive proinflammatory responses can lead to uncontrolled tissue damage, so there needs to be a mechanism to counteract this. The Th2-type cytokines include interleukins 4, 5, and 13, which are associated with the promotion of IgE and eosinophilic responses in atopy, and also interleukin-10, which has more of an anti-inflammatory response. In excess, Th2 responses will counteract the Th1 mediated microbicidal action. The optimal scenario would therefore seem to be that humans should produce a well balanced Th1 and Th2 response, suited to the immune challenge.
> Many researchers regard allergy as a Th2 weighted imbalance, and recently immunologists have been investigating ways to redirect allergic Th2 responses in favour of Th1 responses to try to reduce the incidence of atopy
There's a lot of detail to it. After all, it's an emergent evolved device that we carry, but that's the rough shape of it. You can create one kind of immune response and simultaneously shut down another kind.
Not trying to be flip, but why? "Natural" isn't always better, and as the obesity epidemic has shown, our evolutionary past hasn't done a perfect job of preparing us for our current environment.
You might be right, but I'm skeptical that there is any non-extreme limit to something as simple and mechanical as our innate immune system.
I get sick after getting the flu vaccine and feel pretty bad for 1-3 days... then I get the flu anyway because they picked the wrong ones.
This looks like the inmune system is keep at the emergency level for 3 months.
These two things have literally nothing to do with each other.
> I get sick after getting the flu vaccine and feel pretty bad for 1-3 days
I thought you skipped it every year? So did this happen like, once, and you don't actually have any real basis for comparison or understanding, here? Come on.
Meanwhile, if you've got spare millions laying around, have a look at ENA Respiratory. They've already done a Phase 1 in Australia (entirely admissable for the FDA). Turns out hypoxia creates and anxiety and old people have most of the world's wealth, so COPD is a lucrative market.
Another super interesting one is Lumen Biosciences - can't make oil from algae at a viable price point, but for sure they can hit pharma price points, even food supplement price points.
Some discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47080267
At first they helped against a broad spectrum of bacteria but then the bacteria evolved.
Damn you Darwin and your evolution.
