Thread: Factors affecting immunity

Probably due to more money available for a better diet and health care...

Social rank 'linked to immunity'
10 April 2012 - The level of the blood's immunity seem to respond to changes in social rank
Quote:

A study of rhesus macaque monkeys may have solved a long-standing puzzle on a link between social rank and health. A study of 10 social groups of macaque females showed that the activity level of an individual's immune genes was an accurate predictor of her social rank. In a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team also showed that the monkey's immunity changed when social rank was altered. The work suggests that status drives immune health, rather than vice-versa. A great many studies have shown associations in both humans and non-human primates between social environment and biological markers of health. In previous studies of rhesus macaques, the so-called dominance rank has been correlated to levels of the stress-linked glucocorticoid hormones, sex hormones, the brain chemicals serotonin and dopamine, and white blood cell counts. But one unanswered question concerns cause and effect: does a compromised immunity or imbalance of some chemical cause a particular social rank, or does taking on a particular social rank set the immune system and neural dials? Jenny Tung, now at Duke University, and colleagues addressed this question by carefully assigning social rank to 10 groups of rhesus macaques, each containing five females. This can be done by altering the order in which females are introduced into the group; the later she arrives, the lower her social rank. The team then measured the levels of a broad class of immune cells, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, in the bloodstream. They found that on the basis of those levels of circulating immune cells alone, they could predict an individual female's social rank with 80% accuracy. Further studies that investigated the degree to which hundreds of immunity-related genes were "switched on" also showed increased immune activity in higher-ranking females. What is more, the team found that as rank shifted among seven of the females, the data corresponding to gene activity was again enough to guess an individual's new rank with an accuracy of 85%. "The current results support the idea that changes in gene regulation help to explain links between the social environment and physiology, potentially supplying an important piece to the puzzle of how social effects 'get under the skin'," the team wrote. Though the findings might seem to suggest that low social rank, or a decrease in social rank, can lead to reduced immune health, the team said it was "encouraging" that the effects can be counteracted by a change in the social environment. "Our results motivate efforts to develop a nuanced understanding of social effects on gene regulation," they wrote, "with the aim of both exploring its evolutionary and ecological consequences and addressing its effects on human health." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17663133

Thread started at Forum 4 Politics on 04-10-2012 09:40 PM

Genetics. I said my good health, in spite of everything, was genetic and genetics determined 90% of a person's health. My doctor thought and said, "I'd put it closer to 95%.

I am supporting a family of Indians in Mexico and their immunity is really fine. They have a number of health problems, such as brittle bones, that are a legacy of infant malnutrition. But, genetically, they got a good deal.

Keepin' the immune system healthy...

Species-Specific Microbes May Be Key to Healthy Immune System
June 25`12 : Mice have a jungle of bacteria, viruses and fungi in their stomachs--and so do we. These microorganisms help both mice and us break down dinner. As we are finding, these bugs also help to regulate the immune system. But we are just starting to learn how these tiny organisms influence us and how changing their composition changes us.

In an attempt to find out, postdoctoral researcher Hachung Chung and her colleagues at Dennis Kasper's Lab at Harvard Medical School tried raising mice with exclusively human gut microbiota.

The human microbes did pretty well in the mice guts (the researchers could tell by culturing fecal pellets from these mice). Interestingly, though, the mice with these microbes did not: their immune systems remained underdeveloped. Even when researchers gave rat microbiota to mice, the mice's immune systems failed to mature. The results were published in the June 22 issue of Science.

The findings are "perhaps the most definitive that I've seen," says Eugene Chang, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, who was not involved in the new study. They show "the critical and specific relationship between host and gut microbes, which is needed for proper development of the host immune response," he says.

The results support the thinking that we humans have coevolved with our microbes--and we're probably not the same without them. "The selection of partners is not by chance," Chang says. And that might explain why as we alter our microbiomes--with antibiotics and superclean upbringings--our immune systems have been changing as well, ushering in increasing rates of autoimmune conditions such as allergies and diabetes. "The consequence is that the balance between us and our microbes, determined through evolution, is upset in ways that impact our health and increase risk for many diseases that were previously uncommon," he notes.

Starting germ-free

New peanut allergy therapy may work...

New Therapy for Peanut Allergy Shows Promise
January 10, 2013 - Similar to allergy shots for dust and pollen, feeding peanuts in tiny amounts is designed to reprogram the young patients’ immune system so peanuts don’t provoke life-threatening reactions.

To someone with a peanut allergy, accidentally ingesting a product containing even tiny amounts of the legume can trigger a potentially life-threatening reaction. But researchers have found that when patients were given miniscule daily doses of peanut powder, they were able to build tolerance to the deadly food allergen. There is currently no allergy shot to desensitize individuals with a peanut allergy. The best treatment is to avoid all foods that might contain peanuts, which - in some people - can cause a potentially fatal reaction called anaphylaxis, in which the airways tighten and restrict breathing. The only treatment is a rescue shot of epinephrine, which opens the airways. Those with the allergy often carry an emergency shot with them.

It might seem dangerous to give these people an oral dose of peanut powder. But that’s exactly what U.S. researchers did in a new multi-center clinical trial. Wesley Burks, chairman of the department of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, led the study. He says 20 peanut-sensitive adolescents at two centers were given liquid containing miniscule amounts of peanut powder which they held under their tongue for two minutes before swallowing, while 20 received a placebo, or inactive, liquid.

Every day, according to Burks, scientists increased the amount of peanut in the liquid by a tiny fraction. “Before the study, they only could eat a third of a peanut. At the end of the study they could tolerate three peanuts. So that difference changed. What we don’t know is how long do you need to continue the therapy and then you need to stop it so that change is permanent," he said. More studies will be conducted to find that out. The SLIT trial, which stands for Sub-Lingual or beneath-the-tongue Immuno-Therapy, shows promise in desensitizing people with severe peanut allergies; after 44 weeks, adolescents in the study could tolerate ten times as much peanut as before the trial, compared to subjects who received an inactive liquid, according to Burks.

The researcher cautions those with peanut allergies not to try desensitizing themselves. Microdoses measured in just billionths of a gram of peanut power were used in the trial, doses that could not be replicated at home. "We were unbelievably safe in trying to administer the product. And it is not something that's ready for practice or ready for home use, because for peanut-allergic patients, there's too many dangers in doing that," he said. The study on treating peanut allergy with sublingual therapy is published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Source

Food allergies may be disability...

Gov't: Food allergies may be disability under law
Jan 18,`13 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Allergic to gluten? What about peanuts? Federal disabilities law may be able to help.

The Justice Department said in a recent settlement with a Massachusetts college that severe food allergies can be considered a disability under the law. That gives those who suffer from such allergies a new avenue in seeking menus that fit their diet. But some say it goes too far. The decision leaves schools, restaurants and other places that serve food more exposed to legal challenges if they fail to honor requests for accommodations by people with food allergies.

Colleges and universities are especially vulnerable because they know their students and often require them to eat on campus, Eve Hill of the Justice Department's civil rights division says. But a restaurant also could be liable if it blatantly ignored a customer's request for certain foods and that person became ill, though that case might be harder to argue if the customer had just walked in off the street and was unknown to the restaurant, Hill says.

The settlement with Lesley University, reached last month but drawing little attention, will require the Cambridge institution to serve gluten-free foods and make other accommodations for students who have celiac disease. At least one student had complained to the federal government after the school would not exempt that student from a meal plan even though the student couldn't eat the food. "All colleges should heed this settlement and take steps to make accommodations," says Alice Bast, president and founder of the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. "To our community this is definitely a precedent."

Under the agreement, Lesley University says it will not only provide gluten-free options in its dining hall but also allow students to pre-order, provide a dedicated space for storage and preparation to avoid contamination, train staff about food allergies and pay a $50,000 cash settlement to affected students. "We are not saying what the general meal plan has to serve or not," Hill says. "We are saying that when a college has a mandatory meal plan they have to be prepared to make reasonable modifications to that meal plan to accommodate students with disabilities."

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Granny says, "Dat's good - now dey can catch the lil' buggers at work...

High-Tech Images Show How Viruses Infect Cells
January 29, 2013 — As people around the world contend with illnesses caused by viruses, including this year's strain of the flu or influenza, researchers continue to study how viruses work and how they manage to invade living cells in everything from bacteria to human organs. University of Texas researchers recently collaborated on an innovative technique that allowed them to see a virus in the act of infecting a cell.

At the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Jun Liu uses a powerful electron microscope to examine E. coli bacteria and the tiny T-7 virus that infects them. Liu says until now, scientists could only speculate on how this virus injected its genetic material into another cell, because it happens in an instant. “Before they inject in, they do not have a channel. After they inject in, they actually degrade the channel, so you never have a chance to see it,” Liu said.

But in a collaborative study with other University of Texas colleagues, Liu used the electron microscope to examine quick-frozen solutions full of bacteria and viruses. “Because when you freeze it, it is kind of like a snapshot that captures some intermediate stage. This is one of the highlights of this study, because we captured this intermediate stage that nobody had seen before,” Liu said. This sophisticated technology was applied to a particular virus in this study, but what the researchers found could be useful in studying other viruses in the future, viruses that cause many diseases, such as influenza, or AIDS.

That is the hope of study participant Ian Molineux, professor of biology at the University of Texas main campus in Austin, who prepared the virus samples used in the study. “If we can find a way of blocking any of multiple steps towards the final internalization of the genetic material, it provides the potential for finding more anti-viral drugs,” Molineux said.

An animation, produced for Science magazine by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, shows how the virus puts out tendrils to, in effect, “walk” on the cell surface. "Then it stops moving and all the legs come down and get fixed on the cell surface, and the infection begins to initiate," Molineux said.

Molineux says the collaborative effort with Liu and others paid off, with each member of the team bringing his own area of expertise into play. “We have a very strong collaboration. We are looking at other viruses now,” Molineux said. He says each advance in understanding how viruses function brings researchers closer to finding ways to defeat them - and save lives.

http://www.voanews.com/content/virus...n/1593422.html

Immunization efforts faltering...

Researchers: Immunization Efforts Falling Short
March 20, 2013 > Researchers said that despite progress immunizing African children against disease, vaccination efforts are falling far short of what’s needed. They warn that vaccine supply and cost need urgent attention.

University of Cape Town researchers say there are “failures within the immunization system.” “Well, there’s a very wide range if you look at African countries in terms of performance of immunization programs. Some are doing very well and others are doing very badly. So this disparity is a very big concern,” said Shingai Machingaidze, associate researcher at the university’s Vaccines for Africa Initiative. Similar problems exist in developing countries outside Africa, as well. “For the countries that are not doing so well in terms of their vaccine coverage it means that large numbers of children do not get basic vaccinations before they reach one year. 1.5 million vaccine preventable disease deaths were recorded in 2010,” she said.

Professor Gregory Hussey, director of the Vaccines for Africa Initiative, said that polio, which had been on the verge of eradication, remains entrenched in some places. University of Cape Town Professor Gregory Hussey speaking at the first International African Vaccinology Conference, November 2012. ​​​​“There’s a worldwide move to eradicate polio in the next five to 10 years. The stumbling blocks in Africa are in fact [in] Nigeria where there’s continued transmission of polio because of sub-optimal uptake of polio vaccine," he said. "And I’m sure you’re aware of the fact that the people refusing to immunize their children for a list of reasons – religious, political, etcetera, etcetera.”


University of Cape Town Professor Gregory Hussey speaking at the first International African Vaccinology Conference, November 2012

The World Health Organization had said after polio immunization was disrupted in northern Nigeria several years ago, that particular strain of the virus spread all the way to Ethiopia. Continued outbreaks of measles, Hussey said, are another example of immunization system failure. “With our porous borders in Africa disease can spread from one place to another place, especially if children are not being immunized properly,” he said.

Hussey said that while various U.N. and international agencies have campaigns advocating immunization, Africa lacked a home-grown program to do so. “We started this Vaccines for Africa Initiative precisely to try to make people more aware of issues around vaccine and immunization practices. And this includes not only the individuals who are delivering the vaccines, the healthcare workers, but also the policymakers, as well as communities, who should be receiving the vaccines,” he said.

More http://www.voanews.com/content/afric...3/1625239.html

See also:

African Health Ministers Commit to Ramped Up TB/HIV Treatment
March 20, 2013 > Health ministers from Swaziland and South Africa have agreed to radically change the diagnosis and treatment of the co-epidemic of TB/HIV in their countries. They made their comments at a press conference held on March 20 in Johannesburg. Doctors Without Borders, also known as MSF, said TB deaths in southern Africa account for 40 percent of all TB deaths globally, and it remains the leading cause of death for people with HIV.

In addition, death rates are highest among TB patients with multi-drug, or MDR, resistance to tuberculosis because fast and accurate diagnosis is rarely available. Dr. Marc Gastellu Etchegorry, MSF’s international medical secretary, said the agreement to tackle TB and HIV in a new and innovative way is a real priority not only for the world, but particularly for southern Africa. “It is a priority because we have a lot of cases by now, and TB is a very good illustration of that.

But one of the problems is that the patients have difficulties in accessing the treatment. And as we have a lot of people who are moving from one place to another, or one country to another, it is really important to find a new means to deliver the treatment to them,” explained Gastellu Etchegorry. He said the commitments made by Swaziland and South Africa highlighted the importance of centering treatments on the patient and not on the disease.

This, said Gastellu Etchegorry hopefully will be translated into action. “The action is that we have to deliver diagnosis and treatment close to the patients, build the structure for that,” he explained. “We also have to give the right documents to the patients so if they move they will be able to follow their treatment everywhere. And this means they have to be harmonized.”

Gastellu Etchegorry emphasized the importance of building health structures that are able to diagnose and treat patients suffering from both TB and HIV at the same time. “We have to be on the spot where patients are,” said Gastellu Etchegorry. In addition, the action plan would involve the support of local authorities and governments to help bring about changes for people with TB/HIV.

The initiative to bring about a more vigorous response to deal with TB/HIV and MDR-TB is being funded by the Global Fund, along with other partnerships, and the mining sector. Gastellu Etchegorry says it is not just a matter of money, but of political willingness to bring about radical change for the benefit of the patient.

Source

Harnessing the body's own response to HIV may be used to develop vaccine...

Body's anti-HIV 'training manual' offers vaccine hopes
3 April 2013 > The body's own "training manual" for successfully attacking HIV has been recorded by scientists and it is hoped it can be used to design vaccines.

HIV mutates in order to survive the onslaught of a patient's immune system. However, some patients develop highly effective antibodies that can neutralise huge swathes of HIV mutants. An analysis of the arms race between body and virus, published in the journal Nature, has shown how these antibodies are made. When someone is infected with HIV, their body produces antibodies to attack it. But the virus mutates and evades the offensive, so the body produces new antibodies that the virus then evades and the war goes on.



However, after about four years of this struggle some patients hit on to a winner by targeting something the virus finds harder to change - an Achilles heel. "Even though the virus mutates and there are literally millions of quasi-species of virus because of all these mutations, but there are parts the virus can't change otherwise the virus cannot infect - these are the vulnerable sites," Prof Barton Haynes, of Duke University, in North Carolina, told the BBC. At this stage of the infection it is far too late to make a difference for the patient as the virus is hiding in untouchable reservoirs. However, some researchers believe that vaccines that encourage the body to produce these "broadly neutralising antibodies" may give people immunity to the virus.


Super antibody

The research team's study is based on a patient in Africa who had a rapid diagnosis, about four weeks after being infected with the virus. They were eventually able to produce an antibody named CH103 that could neutralise 55% of HIV samples. It was not produced in one easy step. Rather it was the product of the war of the immune system and HIV trying to out-evolve each other. However, through regular genetic analyses of both the immune system and virus, researchers could piece together each of the steps that culminated in the production of CH103. It is like a training manual for the immune system. Prof Haynes said: "What we were able to do was map out the arms race of both virus and antibody, and in doing so we have now a map. "This is the first time we've been able to see the actual road map." He said the challenge now was to see if re-creating those steps could lead to a viable vaccine.

However, he said it would almost certainly need to be a vaccine combining multiple "Achilles heels" - in the same way that HIV therapies are a combination of drug treatments. Prof Jane Anderson, consultant at Homerton hospital in London and chair of the British HIV Association, said: "The study gives important insights into the ways in which the human immune system responds to HIV infection and increases our understanding about the relationships between the virus and the human host. "This is another welcome step on the path to develop vaccines against HIV." Dr Sarah Joseph, who tests HIV vaccines at the Medical Research Council clinical trials unit, said: "This paper is really interesting. Some people do make antibodies that neutralise a lot of HIV virus, bit it is not of use to them as they produce it way too late." She said harnessing these antibodies "could be a big deal" and there was "even talk about mass-producing antibodies and infusing people with them".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22002455