would exposing an individual to infection on a regular basis make their immune system stronger than normal?

Submitted by wakatenai t3_10eleq0 in askscience

say like, several small cuts made and then purposely infected. not anything crazy or dangerous, just many subtle smaller infections.

if you did this regularly, would your immune system be better able to tackle real issues in the future? If so, why don't we do this? and if it wouldn't help, why?

edit: no im obviously not asking about vaccines. I'm not talking about vaccines created to train our immune system against a specific virus.

I'm asking if you're immune system will grow general defenses from simply allowing minor infections.

would strengthening your immune system against generic infections in paper cuts have any benefit to your immune systems abilities to fight other infections? Is there a limit to how trained your immune system can be for infection in general? or a specific infection? or specific types of infection?

ok so fine let's ask something about vaccines then. I've had all the generic vaccines that most people do. does that make my immune system better at fighting viruses in general? or only the ones I'm specifically vaxxed for.

0

Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

die_kuestenwache t1_j4ucsz6 wrote

Afaik, no. Your immune system develops antibodies that are more or less pathogenspecific. Since you are not interested in vaccination, which would be the effect for the pathogen you are using, this would not make your immune system better at fighting other pathogens. But you would likely develop scarring, and eventually, the regions of the skin you are treating may develop rashes and heal less effectively.

You can not generally train your immune system in this way. Getting the flue does not lower your chance of contracting malaria. Any stress, healing wounds and fighting diseases included, weakens your immune response.

If there is other information out there I'd be interested to know as well.

2

wakatenai OP t1_j4uf3x2 wrote

thanks for the reply.

I'm fully vaccinated and understand that vaccines are the best defense we can create, but i was still curious to ask if your immune system can enhance general defenses.

does getting a specific virus multiple times have the same effect as multiple vaccines? like the cold, if I ha the cold 100 times would my immune system be better at fighting future colds? more than someone who has maybe only had 20? assuming I had the same strain 100 times that is.

3

MammothBobcat251 t1_j4utaud wrote

I’m a little rusty on this aspect but I’ll try to explain how things work which may help you answer things better for yourself. we have multiple antibody types making up our immune system. Some of these cells are in constant rotation and react to a broad range of things, they are first line of defense. There are also antibodies for specific antigens and these can take time to make, if you’ve never had exposure to a disease it would take the body a little extra time to ramp up and attack. Some immune cells have longer memories and can be stored away in our lymph nodes until needed leading to a faster response.

The stuff we have vaccines for are diseases that our body makes the memory cells for. Viruses like the one that causes flu constantly change their surface proteins over time which is why we need new ones so frequently, we don’t have the cells to fight the new strains. Some infections can completely wipe out immune systems memory leaving us more vulnerable as we have no/limited immune memory and would have to rebuild it.

There is no way to generally enhance, though limiting stress etc will help your cells do their jobs better in mounting a defense.

2

Aaron1095 t1_j4w5e47 wrote

I wouldn't be thanking someone for such a bad reply lol, I don't know how they twisted this into you being against vaccines, and while they're right that infection won't improve your immunity to all illnesses, they clearly have absolutely no knowledge of how infections improve immunity to similar illnesses (i.e. an influenza strain that is similarly but not identical to a previous infection).

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(21)00180-4/fulltext

2

wakatenai OP t1_j4xu7il wrote

thx for the reply.

and ya i just chocked it up to the current state of immune system discussion. i assume they were assuming my questions were to look for an alternative to vaccines. as asking about it kinda makes me sound anti-vax.

if we weren't in covid times they probably wouldn't have assumed that. i think.

1