Art De Vany: Do You Get Sick?

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Do You Get Sick?

May 30, 2005 01:57 PM

As chance would have it, a former vegan asked me this question. But, I would also have to say that it is not uncommon for vegans to have compromised immunity, as do joggers and long distance runners. After a marathon, you are pure bug (as in microbes and viruses) bait because your immune system is so shot. Any over-training does this, even if you lift weights or play baseball or basketball or any vigorous sport.

So, do I get sick?

No, I never get sick. In 20 years I have had only had food poisoning from improperly handled sea food in a rather high end restaurant. I recall one other occasion when I felt under attack from a virus going around, but it never got me. This was during my teaching years when I was exposed to about 700 students a year in my classes and countless others in daily work on a large campus.

This was unusual among our faculty; I could always be counted on to fill in for some one who was sick and couldn't teach class. At finals, my classes were filled with coughing, hacking students sick from all night study and stress. The flu and other viruses never seemed to get me. UCI also has a large foreign student contingent, somewhat weighted toward Asia. This is a part of the world where many flu virus originate because of the hog-duck-people cycle.

When humans live close to their domesticated animals, pathogens cross over from one species to another. When there is a cycle of species, the chances multiply of a cross-over to humans. A disease may be benign in, say, a duck, but when it crosses over to humans it will be virulent at first. Think of avian flu, the newest of these. Later, the virus and the host will accommodate to one another and the virus will cease to be so virulent.

The human history is full of these cross overs from animal to human, since the beginning of agriculture. Distemper crossed over to humans from dogs. Anthrax from cattle, HIV/AIDS from chimpanzees who are butchered for "bush meat". Small pox is the most virulent of these cross overs.

Hunter gatherers were less susceptible to these cross-over diseases (zoonoses) because they did not live in large groups to form a population to carry the pathogen and they did not live in settled areas with their animals and crops. The beginning of settled agriculture was a dangerous time for humans, crowded together, living with animals, eating novel and less nutritious foods, subject to crop failure and starvation, and settling into novel areas where new pathogens resided.

Humans are still subject to these forces, particularly as they move ever farther into novel range and encounter new pathogens. Lyme's and West Nile disease are some of these newly encountered pathogens.

Why don't I get sick?

1. I am a bit older and my immune system has seen a lot of pathogens. So, if it is strong enough (and it is), its memory serves it well. Immunity really just means your system recognizes the antigen and can quickly mount a response because it has just the right killer cell in stock to make copies.

2. I carry plenty of muscle mass. Muscle is the source of amino acids that the immune system uses to proliferate killer cells. The cells are protein and the immune system mounts a furious proliferation of killer and other cells when it detects a pathogen. You fare better in this challenge if you carry spare amino acids in your muscle.

3. I practice intermittent caloric deprivation. This is a known enhancer of the immune system. This is pure evolutionary reasoning. During deprivation, the system reallocates resources from reproduction to repair and maintenance. The immune system is part of that adaptation.

4. I get plenty of rest, about 8 hours of sleep and plenty of non-frenetic and fun play.

5. I don't get stressed. You can learn to operate this way too. It isn't hard. Stress weakens the immune system.

6. I don't ever over train. If I get stiff from a work out, I don't like it. My objective is to function well out of the gym rather than in it and being sore interferes with that.

7. Glutathione. I take it. Good stuff. There are many scientific papers that show the value of glutathione in enhancing and protecting the function of the immune system. You should be taking it too.

8. Low glucose in my blood and none in my diet. Glucose is similar to Vitamin C in shape and composition, so it competes with Vitamin C for entry into killer cells. The cells use Vitamin C to kill pathogens. If they are filled with glucose instead, then they are just shooting blanks. They need Vitamin C to kill.

9. A small thing, but fairly important. I keep my fingers and hands out of and away from my mouth. I have read enough studies that show that doorknobs really are pretty bad. Take it from there to decide where you want to go in guarding against environmentally transmitted pathogens.

· Evolutionary Fitness

Comments

Posted by: Flower Online at September 12, 2006 2:11 AM

Art,

I was doing research on the web about me never getting sick and I came across your BLOG. I used to get sick years ago, I guess like most normal people - about once a year. However it was around that time, actually a few years earlier than that, but just a few, that I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. I also have Syringomyelia, which is a defect within the spinal column. I have taken, and still do, tons of drugs to control the MS, to deal with the pain and so on. My diet used to be horrible, and has improved somewhat, but is certainly not perfect.

I have 2 kids, both grade school aged. They get sick, as does my wife. And my kids are all over me all the time. So I do get exposed to it no doubt. I can feel like I am getting sick though. A tickle in the throat sometimes, but it goes away in a day or less each time.

So I am baffled. My best guess is that my immune system is in overdrive, dealing with MS and SM. But thats just a wild guess.

Does that happen with you? Where you feel like you are getting sick, and then it goes away?

I would also have to mention that as opposed to you and your lifestyle, I am 180 degrees the opposite. I run a company in San Diego with about 200 employees. I have high stress of the type that most mortals will never know.

I never sleep. I can go literally for days without sleeping. I usually try to take a cat nap for an hour here and there, but thats it. I started with this when I used to travel to Asia on business and had to contend with jet lag and different time zones, 7 to 10 times a year. At that point I started just sleeping 4 hours overnight and a quick nap in the afternoon - often not even a nap, but a 20 to 30 minute rest where I read a book or something. Later as the MS got worse and the SM caused a lot of pain, I was unable to lay down for long periods of time without waking up in horrible pain, often accompanied by horrible nightmares (no doubt my body responding to the pain it felt while sleeping and trying to interpret that during a dream state). So I had little motivation to sleep. Often I try to sleep because I feel guilty that I had not slept in quite a while, that I ought to do it. But its very typical for me to work all day, all night, all the night through, and into the next day.

I noticed your comment about Asia and the proximity of humans to animals. That is quite true. I have seen it, and I have lived it. During my business travels, I would often try to take a week or two, sometimes three, to go on vacation and explore the countries and cultures across Asia. Now keep in mind that I have never, ever had immunizations. I did grow up in California and the schools here mandate immunizations, but my father exempted me on religous grounds. So no immunizations, which effectively help the body create the memory of how to fight a disease.

During my travels in Asia I typically went off the paved roads and took treks in jungles, islands, beaches, everywhere. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Philippines, China, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia as well of course as the developed countries of Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore etc where I did business. Trekking in jungles like the Golden Triangle I would sleep for weeks at a time in houses in very remote villages where the animals are kept at night under the house (houses were usually on stilts), and literally inches from where the people slept. The floor would not be solid, but have wide cracks where fleas and all manner of insects would pass through and bite me. Cambodia, sailing down the Mekong, the back roads of Jakarta and so on.

Glucose in blood? Well, I'm pre-diabetic. Not sure how much glucose in one's blood that means, but I suspect mine would be elevated.

In some ways I am your complete opposite, yet we have the same result. I may not last another decade :), but there we are.

So what do you think? How does a guy with high stress, poor diet, not immunized and presumably exposed to just about everything during my travels (not to mention airports and airplanes which are such serious disease vectors they ought to have warning labels).

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Thank you,

Posted by: FreezeFrame at January 10, 2006 9:22 PM

I used to get a throat/ear infection every fall. My diet at the time was a high carb runner's diet of pasta and breads. My triglycerides were also in the 300's. Within 3 months of a nearly no grain, no pasta diet, the tri's went to 99, and after 4 years no more fall bouts with infections. I also no longer run, weight train hard once or twice a week, and hike and occasionally mountain bike. Huge difference

Posted by: Audley Williams at May 31, 2005 11:34 AM

Dear Art
Yes I too would be interested in what and how much you take of the various HMP products.
thank you for the post.
sincerely
Barry

Posted by: barry bocchieri at May 31, 2005 6:23 AM

This link has more information from HMPScience.

http://hmpscience.com/who-beacon.xsp

GSH is branded as "Ultrathione" by HMP.

Thank you Professor for sharing your knowledge with us.

Posted by: Fong at May 30, 2005 9:07 PM

I have been taking the Demopulous product for about 20 years and this coincides with the time frame I mentioned over which I have not been sick. I think Dave heard about the product when I put a message on the old EvFit site. I should add that I have less grey hair now than I had 20 years ago; not a big deal, but some indication of a lack of free radical damage to the melanin in my hair. GSH may be the body's primary ROS defense.

The recent literature I got from HMPScience indicates that there are Glutathione transporters in their product that pump GSH into the cell; this is for their new product for eyes. Of course to pump into the cells it has to get through the stomach and I do think they have solved this problem. I am aware of the contrary claim about GSH breaking down inside the stomach.

Another site is www.glutathionescience.com. Another source is Dr. Demopulous encyclopedic book, with Seligman, which I read, but no longer have the reference for.

Posted by: Arthur De Vany at May 30, 2005 8:39 PM

Dave,

My initial search of HMPScience.com and Thyogen.com websites did not yield much information collaborating your comments. A google search had actually surfaced a few articles indicating pathways to Glutathione enhancement as an area of some contention.

Do share the details of your research on HMP/Thyogen's formulation with us. They may have removed it from their website.

Posted by: Fong at May 30, 2005 8:21 PM

Glutathione levels cannot be increased to a clinically beneficial extent by orally ingesting a single dose of glutathione. (1) This is because glutathione is manufactured inside the cell, from its precursor amino acids, glycine, glutamate and cystine. Hence food sources or supplements that increase glutathione must either provide the precursors of glutathione, or enhance its production by some other means.

But there is a high diversity of views on how to do this effectively and economically from the supplement industry. We would be grateful if you could you share with us the pathways you have chosen?

Posted by: Fong at May 30, 2005 7:27 PM

The answer seems to be no, the immune system is not cut back. Even starving prisoners of war have functioning immune systems. For years, and perhaps even now, scientists could not explain the relative lack of illness among starving people. As long as they still have some muscle the immune system at least functions. And the starvation reallocated resources to the immune system.

The other issue is that the immune system is essential rather than non-essential. Reproduction is non-essential, temporarily, in order to have the organism survive to another day.

Posted by: Arthur De Vany at May 30, 2005 4:15 PM

I can think of no better way to improve quality of life than to minimize the time feeling bad due to colds, flu, and "what's going around" so your experience and list is invaluable.

One question. Caloric deprivation would simulate starvation, so wouldn't non-essentials (like to immune system) be cut back to conserve energy?

Posted by: Fugate at May 30, 2005 2:53 PM

Do You Get Sick?

May 30, 2005 01:57 PM

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