Innate vs. Adaptive Immune System (+why there is no story today)
Since June this year, I’ve been posting daily, only missing one or two days. That has been possible because I was on semester break and had a lot of time. This break ended Monday and contrary to my expectations, it already drains me a lot.
Writing my stories takes some time, researching the material and providing good sources for you to look through takes even longer. And I just don’t have the energy to do that every day, not when I’m supposed to study.
But I don’t want to stop writing, I don’t want to stop providing you with stories, especially because we’re still in the middle of one. I just need to … slow down.
So the new parts of the story won’t come out every day now. Instead, you’ll get small posts with interesting stuff I learned that day (or the day before), broken down for non-biologists. That keeps you entertained (hopefully) and me sane. @suesa
And every few days, you’ll get a new story, for which you probably followed me in the first place. I won’t be able to provide a list of sources every time for this kind of posts. The source is the lectures I’ve been in and they’re
- In German
- Not available for everyone.
I hope you all understand my choice and don’t run off now.
~ Suesa
The innate vs. the adaptive immune system
I always assumed it’s common knowledge that we have two kinds of immune system, but after listening to many people’s reasons to not vaccinate, I realized that might be a misconception.
Aside from all the “autism” and “aluminium” cries, there’s one reason I’ve also heard several times.
I want my immune system to naturally take care of it.
Naturally. Well, naturally is good, isn’t it? Vegetables are natural and healthy. Burgers are unnatural and unhealthy. Jellyfish are natural and …. Wait. I don’t think jellyfish are healthy. Maybe for turtles, but not for us. Well, still. Clothing is unnatural and unheal … no that’s wrong too.
Thing is, just because something is natural or artificial doesn’t make it good or bad. That said, the protection achieved through vaccinations is not artificial. The means of delivery might be, but the bodies reaction is as natural as it can get. @suesa
But let’s start with the basics.
Our body always has certain protections against pathogens. Our skin as a barrier, our stomach acid to melt their faces off kill them. Phagocytes and natural (there’s that word again, I’ll give you that) killer cells take care of many unwanted things entering our bodies. But this immune reaction is the same every time.
And the worst thing?
The innate immune system doesn’t remember. It doesn’t know the best way to fight a pathogen, it does the same thing every time.
But it has help! Enter:
When the phagocytes of the innate immune system encounter a pathogen, they collect some samples and offer them to cells of the adaptive immune system, called lymphocytes. Those cells do remember (at least some of them).
T-lymphocytes (a special kind) learn how the pathogen looks from the phagocytes. They then clone themselves several times (to increase the number of helping “hands”) and then swarm out to do their jobs (which I will explain in a different post).
When their job is done, about 90% of them kill themselves (= Apoptosis). The remaining 10%, those are interesting.
They remain in the body, with all their knowledge on how this one pathogen looked. And the moment it enters the body again, they’re there. They know. They remember.
And they get rid of the pathogen a lot faster than the last time, shortening the time in which the pathogen can wreak havoc and significantly decreasing the damage.
For the T-lymphocytes to remember, there needs to be a first infection. In many cases, this can end deadly. Measles killed about 2.6 million people each year before vaccinations. My own great-grandmother recently told me how many of her friends died of diphtheria while she barely made it through.
So the initial infection might not be survived!
Enter vaccinations.
They either contain a dead or a weakened strain of a pathogen. The innate immune system doesn’t care though, it notices the foreign proteins (everything is made of protein) and delivers them swiftly to the adaptive immune system which begins the usual reaction.
Of course, that reaction includes certain symptoms of being sick, even a fever. Your body thinks it is having an emergency situation.
After your body has fought off the foreign “pathogens”, your T-lymphocytes remember. And if you’re ever infected with the actual dangerous, living pathogen? They react fast enough to save you from death.
So no, the way your body was introduced to the pathogens was not natural, but the natural way might have killed you. And the immunization you have after the vaccination is as natural as it gets.
Because it’s not the vaccination that protects you, it’s your own body.
Give it a helping hand. Give it the chance to learn in a less dangerous situation.
Your T-lymphocytes will appreciate it.
First picture taken from pixabay.com, rest is scribbled by me
Source: Lecture about Immunology, simplified by me
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The adaptive immune system is something everyone should learn more about. Too many folks giving their kids hand sanitizer when they need quite the opposite. Instead of giving your kid purrell you want the little one to touch everything and get dirty to develop and teach their own immune system to fight off pathogens at an early age.
Makes you wonder why so many kids are growing up with severe allergies.
Well maybe not everything but yes, let the children touch dirt!
Lol yeah, you know what i meant. Let them play outside in the dirt, play on the playground without Purrell-ing the hell out of their hands when they finish.
well you are not the only wondering this: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1398-9995.2005.00854.x/abstract;jsessionid=DB509CE834D9FC3A463DAE98659F199F.f03t01
That's why todlers put everything in their mouth. They teach their immune system.
However I don't think vaccination in the way it is applied actually works well because it actually does not teach the immune system effectivly
Well explained @suesa and even I learned something new.
At least that you can draw really cute things and that I can recognize a virus from a drawing!
No but really I learned something new too.
Ah I'm quite fascinated by learning a new thing from you so it doesn't remember ! this sounds like a story too to be honest
Guess my way of sharing information is making it a story, no matter how serious I try to be :D
I don't mind if the sources are in german language. :D
And by the way, I also cite sources that, for example, are just available in specific libraries or online through a university affiliation like jstor.org. Don't worry about this. ;)
And welcome back to academic "Hamsterrad". I feel with you.
The thing is, the lectures aren't online. We get them as printed out PowerPoint presentations 🙈
Okay, I understand. :D
Vaccinations is one of the topic I am often face-palming myself when I read about on steemit. Not this time of course :)
Just one suggestion: maybe can you anyways mention the sources, even if they are not available for everyone?
Also, there is a tiny "suesa" in the middle of the text, in the first paragraph. I may have missed something, but this looks like a typo to me ;)
I'll mention the sources, just for you :P
And the tiny @suesa is there on purpose actually. When people copy&paste my posts, they copy that too and I'll get a notification via the minnowbooster mentionator.
Hoho that's clever :)
Now I will delete that tiny suesa and copy pasta master plan ruined !
Do you really want to be flagged? I usually find stolen posts, sooner or later :P
Hmm. What if people with enough high resolution screens can see the tiny @suesa with no problems, while users using lower resolution screens will not see the tiny suesa without zooming?
Or if people use different text sizing?
Hmm. Interesting.
I see it on the phone so I guess it has to do with screen size
I'm guessing some browsers or systems might have a limit on how small the text can be. I'm using a big screen now but using Edge on our work computer and I'll have to zoom in to see it.
@suesa Wonderful information, want to add here that we are eating more unnatural things than natural things that's why our immune system is disturbed. We should focus on eating natural things.
How does our immune system fight with diseases when we are taking unnatural foods?
That was so not the point
Great explanation of the human immune system. The way you passed this knowledge was really simple and effective.
That's basically how applied biology emerged and works.
First, study and find the natural mechanisms through fundamental biology. Second, find and engineer strategies to trick those mechanisms into doing what is needed. Vaccination is just one result of this.
As you noted, it saved millions of lives. There is no way it would be possible without it. Some really nasty viruses are even practically non-observable anymore, because of it.
Could there be some side effects to it. Sure. That's probably true. But, everything has some risk associated. It is just a matter of weighing the pros and cons. To me, the pros clearly seem to outweigh the cons.
As a side note. I really liked the way you used phages on your illustrations. Despite being harmless to eukaryotes, I can see how their weirdness and bad looks made them perfect to visually illustrate your point :)
Thanks for the heads-up!
I'll continue following your work ofc. Whether scientific or fictional.
All the best
Pros vs cons is one of the most important concepts in medical research, true. And I feel like many people don't understand that there are always cons, never just pros.
So they rather do nothing.
I'm very happy to hear that you enjoy my content and will follow me regardless of stylistic choice :)
I totally agree!
As I see it, there is some lack of awareness within the general population about these topics. Within the life sciences, not everything is black or white. Quite on the contrary actually. A lot of research was put into these discoveries. They are constantly being refined to diminish the cons. But we're talking of biology and a biological system can be very unpredictable. Sometimes the same organism respond in a way at a given time, but that could change without any noticeable reason afterwards. That's why it has been difficult to tackle many problems and diseases, for example.
There is still a lot we don't know or control. So weighing the pros and cons is very important, because as you said there will always be cons. At least just for now, I hope :)
Note: Just in case someone might question, I'm talking about scientific based cons, not possible political agenda ones. Thanks
You should really join the steemSTEM channel on steemit.chat if you haven't already!
Oh, thanks for pointing that out and for the invite.
I'll definitely look at it :)
Hehe like the drawings you made, makes me think that our immune are little soldiers.
It's funny vaccines do not directly protects us from diseases. I always found it facisinating how they thought about injecting us harmless versions of the virus.
Once you know how the system works you can game it.
Why do soldiers train in mock up battles? Who thought of that? 😜 the concept is not that novel 😉
Haha true, if it works, it works. Even if it's less "honorable" :P
Very interesting science article. I appreciate your work
Immunization is prohibited among some religions in the world especially Africa, my experiences as a prosthetist and orthotist have really exposed me to many of such people.
How can you tailor this post to be used as an awareness tool to the best understandings of the lay persons or non medical oriented persons advising them on the need to allow and encourage Immunization among their religions or spiritual faith.
Is this a question?
And I don't think you can convince people of something that goes against their faith just by presenting facts. It almost never works.