I've posted a lot of interesting material on the "HIV/AIDS" debate thread, but I decided to start a new post with material that may be relevant to "HIV/AIDS," but appears to have broader implications. Since my examination of the evidence has led me to think that "HIV/AIDS" would be thought of better as premature aging of the immune system, there is no real difference as far as the molecular-level mechanisms involved. Here is a new report that illustrates my point:
QUOTE: Scientists have discovered that at the same time the immune system is vigorously attacking invading viruses or bacteria, it is unexpectedly reducing its production of a particular type of factor that directs the movement of immune cells.
The new finding, which could help explain the transient immune suppression often seen during acute infections, shows that the immune system is even more complex than previously believed...
The findings could help scientists devise better dosing schedules for multi-dose vaccines and also could provide a better understanding of how the immune system responds to multiple infections. A likely result is a lowering of the body's ability to respond to a second infection.
"If you have an acute viral infection, your immune system may be suppressed in its ability to respond to secondary infections during that brief period," Dr. Mueller says. "If you have a nasty flu infection in the lung, for example, you are more susceptible to secondary bacterial infections, and this chemokine reduction could contribute to that..."
"The discovery of this basic phenomenon - that these lymphoid chemokines are reduced during an immune response - was quite a shock to us. It illustrates another dramatic level of complexity in the immune system and demonstrates in greater detail how the traffic of immune cells is regulated."
Dr. Mueller believes the down-regulation of lymphoid chemokines, which occurs for a one- to two-week period during the height of an immune response, may be the body's way of shutting down the immune response and avoiding excessive and damaging inflammation. In addition, reducing these immune factor could be beneficial for the immune cells that are actively responding to a virus, he points out.
IIn a massive inflammatory response to infection, many immune cells divide into great numbers of cells, Dr. Mueller explains. Once the immune response is complete, 95 percent of those cells die and leave a smaller population of memory cells to circulate in the body and protect against subsequent infections by that same pathogen... UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070802182038.htm
Thus, these researchers have discovered an "AIDS," that is, if you are subjecting yourself to constant viral infections, you may develop an immune system disorder which is literally an acquired immune deficiency problem. I think it's highly likely that this is the problem that really killed many gay men in the early 1980s in New York City and San Francisco, for example. The fact that they were the first generationn of young adults, most of whom had arachidonic acid in their cells, is probably very important as well, but I've explained this on other threads. |
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