Mouse With Human-Like Immune System Could Advance AIDS Research

HealthDay – Thu, Jul 19, 2012 WEDNESDAY, July 18 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists who created mice with elements of the human immune system believe the rodents will further efforts to develop a vaccine against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

One of the challenges facing researchers striving to develop an HIV vaccine has been the lack of a laboratory animals that accurately reflect the human response to HIV and how the virus evolves to avoid that response.

The U.S. team of scientists transplanted human bone marrow cells and other human tissue into mice without a functioning immune system. This gave the mice aspects of the human immune system.

"Our study showed not only that these humanized mice mount human immune responses against HIV but also that the ability of HIV to evade these responses by mutating viral proteins targeted by CD8 'killer' T-cells is accurately reflected in these mice," study senior author Todd Allen, an associate professor medicine at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard, explained in a MGH news release.

T-cells are immune cells that protect the body from infection.

The mice might significantly reduce the time and costs required to test experimental HIV vaccines, according to the researchers.

The study was published in the July 18 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine.

More information

The New Mexico AIDS Education and Training Center has more about HIV/AIDS vaccines.

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Chlorella Boosts Mucosal Immune Defense

Your saliva contains an immune boosting compound that acts as a first line of defense against infections and digestive troubles, but it may not contain enough to be effective. A human study has demonstrated that taking 6,000 mg of chlorella per day over a four week period significantly increased the production of salivary secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA).  This finding is important for those who catch the latest bug, are under high stress, or struggle with ongoing digestive health issues.

It is vital that your saliva contain proper amounts of SIgA for front-line immune chores.  Your immune system needs it to form complexes with hostile germs, rendering them neutralized, so that they cannot attach to your digestive lining and wreak havoc with your health.

For example, if someone coughs or sneezes around you there can be plenty of airborne germs.  Once you breathe in some of these, then you swallow them.  Now they are in your digestive tract.  Your saliva is one of the first points of contact with potential invaders and it must have SIgA in it to defend you.  A person who easily catches “every bug” is typically lacking in SIgA as a baseline of function.

Your SIgA can also be suppressed on a short-term basis, typically from stress. This is one reason why people who are under stress are more prone to infection.  Another example is the stress of heavy exercise, which can also depress SIgA; this is why athletes or whole teams can get sick if they let their systems get worn down.

SIgA is often depleted in those with ongoing digestive problems.  Many times digestive problems start after a bad viral infection, which persists on a low-grade basis and uses up your SIgA trying to fight off the problem. In turn this reduces your digestive health and allows other germ gangs to take up shop.  Problems such as recurring tonsillitis, oral health issues, vaginal issues, Candida overgrowth, and overgrowth of other bacterial germ gangs are indicators of low SIgA defense. If problems persist then highly inflammatory conditions of the GI tract will follow including multiple food intolerance, celiac-like issues, and other inflammatory bowel disorders.

In short, SIgA can be depressed by stress on a short-term basis that places you more at risk for any infection.  It can be depressed on a long-term basis that also places you at risk for any infection as well as developing ongoing digestive health problems of significance.  As the years go by such digestive problems build on themselves, resulting in quality-of-life deteriorating issues.  People with repeated antibiotic use as children are at high risk for such issues as they get older.

The fact that chlorella can help boost up an important aspect of your immune system to help overcome these issues can help you to get over the hump and turn these important issues around.  I have previously explained the broad scope of chlorella as a nutritional super food, that chlorella can lower blood sugar and cholesterol, and that it is a helpful weight loss nutrient.  Thus, the reasons to have chlorella as part of your nutritional support team keep on growing.

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Keeping the flu away: Synthetic protein activates immune system within two hours

ScienceDaily (July 6, 2012) — San Diego State University researchers at the Donald P. Shiley BioScience Center may have found the secret to helping the immune system fight off the flu before it gets you sick.

See Also:Health & MedicineInfluenzaCold and FluBird FluPlants & AnimalsBird Flu ResearchVirologyMiceLiving WellReferenceFlu vaccineAntiviral drugPathogenHPV vaccine

A new study published July 6 in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE, finds that EP67, a powerful synthetic protein, is able to activate the innate immune system within just two hours of being administered.

Prior to this study, EP67 had been primarily used as an adjuvant for vaccines, something added to the vaccine to help activate the immune response. But Joy Phillips, Ph.D. a lead author of the study with her colleague Sam Sanderson, Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, saw potential for it to work on its own.

"The flu virus is very sneaky and actively keeps the immune system from detecting it for a few days until you are getting symptoms," Phillips said. "Our research showed that by introducing EP67 into the body within 24 hours of exposure to the flu virus caused the immune system to react almost immediately to the threat, well before your body normally would."

Because EP67 doesn't work on the virus but on the immune system itself, it functions the same no matter the flu strain, unlike the influenza vaccine which has to exactly match the currently circulating strain.

Phillips said while this study focuses on the flu, EP67 has the potential to work on other respiratory diseases and fungal infections and could have huge potential for emergency therapeutics.

"When you find out you've been exposed to the flu, the only treatments available now target the virus directly but they are not reliable and often the virus develops a resistance against them," Phillips said. "EP67 could potentially be a therapeutic that someone would take when they know they've been exposed that would help the body fight off the virus before you get sick."

It could even be used in the event of a new strain of infectious disease, before the actual pathogen has been identified, as in SARS or the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak, Phillips said.

Right now, the testing has been done primarily in mice by infecting them with a flu virus. Those that were given a dose of EP67 within 24 hours of the infection didn't get sick (or as sick) as those that were not treated with EP67.

The level of illness in mice is measured by weight loss. Typically, mice lose approximately 20 percent of their weight when they are infected with the flu but mice treated with EP67 lost an average of just six percent. More importantly, mice who were treated a day after being infected with a lethal dose of influenza did not die, Phillips said.

She said there are also huge implications for veterinary applications, since EP67 is active in animals, including birds.

Future research will examine the effect EP67 has in the presence of a number of other pathogens and to look closer at exactly how EP67 functions within different cells in the body.

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Poor Sleep Affects Immune System Much Like Physical Stress

HealthDay – 7 mins ago MONDAY, July 2 (HealthDay News) -- Severe sleep deprivation has the same effect on the immune system as physical stress, according to a new study.

Researchers in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom found sleep loss triggers the production of white blood cells, known as granulocytes, particularly at night.

"The granulocytes reacted immediately to the physical stress of sleep loss and directly mirrored the body's stress response," explained the study's lead author, Katrin Ackermann, a postdoctoral researcher at the Eramus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands, in a news release from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

In conducting the study, the researchers tracked the white blood cell count of 15 healthy young men who followed a strict schedule of eight hours of sleep every day for a week, then compared that with their white blood cell counts during 29 hours of sleep deprivation.

The investigators found that the white blood cells showed a loss of day-night rhythmicity and also increased during the sleep deprivation.

The research was published in the July issue of the journal Sleep.

Previous studies have shown sleep deprivation is linked to the development of diseases, including obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. Prior research has also suggested that chronic sleep loss is a risk factor for impairment of the immune system.

Looking ahead, the study authors concluded that future research should examine exactly how sleep loss contributes to the development of certain diseases.

"Future research will reveal the molecular mechanisms behind this immediate stress response and elucidate its role in the development of diseases associated with chronic sleep loss," said Ackermann in the news release. "If confirmed with more data, this will have implications for clinical practice and for professions associated with long-term sleep loss, such as rotating shift work."

More information

The American Psychological Association has more about the importance of sleep.

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Species-Specific Microbes May Be Key to a Healthy Immune System

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

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Beta Glucan Offsets Exercise Induced Immune Suppression

A common problem among athletes is the suppression of their immune system following regular intense exercise.  In fact, if history repeats itself, more highly trained athletes will miss this summer’s Olympics due to infection rather than injury.  A new study shows that consuming beta glucan can improve immune response in relation to demanding exercise; this finding is highly relevant to any person who exercises.

In terms of evolution, demanding exercise implies that you are running from a saber-toothed tiger or chasing down some food to eat.  Such activities tend to be high risk.  If you get bit by the saber tooth tiger you do not want a highly active immune system, it will react against you and cause auto-immune problems.  This is why our genes are programmed to down-regulate immunity in response to demanding activity. 

A common problem today, especially in those who are overweight, have digestive problems, fatigue, or some level of fibromylagia, is that they have toxic bowels due to digestive bacterial and Candida overgrowth.  On the one hand people with these conditions know they need to exercise in order to improve their fitness.  Yet, they may say they don’t have the energy or when they do try to exercise they feel worse or even flu-like (which is not their imagination).

As exercise takes place your body starts to heat up, which in turn causes increased permeability of your digestive tract.  This means that toxins from your gut, especially bacterial LPS, can leak back into your circulation and impair immune function.  When you combine this unfortunate state of circumstances with the fact that exercise can be immuno-suppressive in general, then people can find themselves between a rock and a hard place trying to get their health turned around.

It is vital that any person seeking better health have better fitness, which includes the ability to perform demanding physical output without having immune-related or other repercussions.  In the new study the daily consumption of beta glucan significantly improved the immune response to toxic bacterial exposure (toxic LPS), as a result of one hour of intense bicycle riding in active men and women (not elite athletes).

I previously reported that consuming bovine colostrum also improves this issue as a result of sealing the leaky gut so less toxic LPS can leak back into your body as your body warms up from exercise.

Supplementation with beta glucan and bovine colostrum are tools that can help improve your response to exercise.  Other efforts to improve digestive health, such as increased fiber, friendly flora, or nutrients that help knock down germ gangs may also be important.  My point is that many people need to improve their digestive health in order to improve their fitness and general energy level.

I have written extensively on the subject of using nutrients to improve cellular energy and fat burning during exercise, including my popular article on what I take before I run.  All of these tips still apply.  It is simply that some people may need to do more with their gut health to get back on track.

This information is also relevant to any person who exercises regularly.  This includes children in competitive sports and adults trying to stay in shape.  And if you are striving to be an elite athlete it tells you that the health of your digestive tract may mean the difference between being really good and being the best.

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Belly 'Membrane' May Regulate Immune System, Mouse Study Finds

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Babies' Vulnerability to Colds Tied to Immune Response at Birth

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