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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2943 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 8, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Potentially a stupid question based on misunderstanding, but it's really confusing to me now.

So, as far as I know, allergies are caused by immune system reacting to some substance, usually harmless to most people. One of the ways to treat allergies is to introduce small quantities of the allergen and try to get the immune system to stop treating it as a threat.

Then, the main function of the immune system is fighting infections - e.g. viruses or bacteria or whatever. Unfortunately, sometimes viruses and bacteria do their business so quickly that they overwhelm the system and it can not fight them off. To prevent that, we have vaccinations - where we introduce the small quantities of the antigen to the system and try to get the immune system to recognize it and fight them better when they come next time.

What is confusing to me is why in these two instances the same system is behaving in two opposite ways? In the first instance, if you introduce something it then makes the immune system to ignore it eventually, but in the second instance, if you introduce something, the immune system starts to react stronger to it? What am I missing?

Also, does this mean that if somebody didn't have a certain allergy, and I were their evil nemesis and wanted to give them one, I could do it by concocting a specific "vaccine" that would stimulate their immune system to react on the specific substance - just as regular vaccines do? Or somehow it works with one class of substances and not with the others, and if so - why?

I understand the full answer might be "get PhD in immunology and it'll all be clear to you" but maybe there's a shorter answer to this?

Antibodies are proteins your body makes to fight bad stuff. These are custom-made to stick to a specific target and tell your immune system what to attack, but sometime the target is a dumb mistake, like pollen, and you get allergies, or the target is correctly chosen but it looks just like some other innocent molecule, and you get autoimmunity. There are other systems to dial back unnecessary immune activity, but these have less evolutionary weight than pathogen defense so they’re a bit wimpy.

You can increase the risk of developing an allergy by regularly exposing someone to a scary-looking molecule and have some chance of making them develop an allergy, i.e. regular exposure to latex can lead to a banana allergy. But antibodies are generated in a pseudorandom manner, so you can’t guarantee a bad reaction, just roll a few more dice.

I do not have PhD nor any degree whatsoever in immunology. But what about this: I think none of allergens (say, hay pollen) multiply in the host organism nor cause any other problems than the immunological overreaction. Infectious agents (viruses, bacteria, and other) do generally grow and multiply and eventually will cause problems to the host if the immune system stands still twiddling their thumbs. (And then you have toxins, which are not biological replicators, but disrupt biological function of the host.)

If you introduce allergens to host body in very small quantities, the immune system may do nothing, and then adapt to the "observation" that left alone, those allergens do nothing and ultimately disappear. Whereas a pathogen, unless dealt with, will keep multiplying and causing increasing amounts of problems to the host organism's main functions. If you introduce a very small dose of pathogen to the host organism, so small that the immune system (again) may do nothing, you will have more of the pathogen (a larger "attack surface" for the immune system).

Huh. That’s a really interesting question.

I don’t think the state of allergy therapy is particularly good, judging purely by the people I know who have undergone it, but there should still be a body of theory...somewhere.

There’s got to be two different parts of the system at play. Food allergies are best known for causing anaphylaxis, not fevers and fatigue. And I have no idea how vomiting gets triggered in some allergies and diseases but not others. So my wildly uneducated guess would be separate pathways for inflammation and for fever? Then vaccines could boost the system for one while allergen therapy could subvert the other.

But that doesn’t explain anything! If low-grade exposure can erode performance, then how come “reinfection” is usually via a related strain, not from a lost reponse? Do people ever develop allergies after tragic accidents in the peanut factory? How do our bodies stay functional at all??

Speaking of allergy therapy, mine has been going on for years with no discernible effect. But according to the pharmacist, they're expensive as hell. If that is actually true, then I smell a bit of a scam there.

While not being an expert, I think solid answers to immunology questions like this aren't really available - why and how do allergies happen, and how does that relate to the way the immune system normally functions - "we" know a lot, but don't know a lot.

FWIW, I think this is actually a good question. I never thought much about it, but now that you phrased it like you did I'm also left wondering.

Vaccines are intentionally designed to produce a strong immune response even in minuscule quantities. That goes as far as adding adjuvants to increase the antigenicity of a base antigen. Not to mention that they're usually given parenterally, meaning that the immune system is exposed to a higher concentration than is typical for normal allergens that are inhaled or contact spread.

So, does it mean if I injected somebody (non-allergic) with peanut butter extract mixed with an adjuvant (provided I find a safe way to do it without causing them harm) they'd get a peanut allergy?

Conversely, if somebody were vaccinated, e.g. against flu, and subjected constantly to low doses of flu virus - would they lose the immunity eventually? If not, again, why does it work with allergens and not with the flu virus?

In the first case, unless they already had a genetic predisposition to peanut allergies, it's unlikely that they'd develop an allergy at all. They might develop a local hypersensitivity reaction at the time of injection, but I don't believe that it'll go as far as making normal peanut butter eaten later an allergen.

In the second case, I'm unsure myself.

Conversely, if somebody were vaccinated, e.g. against flu, and subjected constantly to low doses of flu virus - would they lose the immunity eventually

If you have some immunity to the flu, but it's spreading around your community, you are subjected constantly to low doses of flu virus!

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