Endotoxin, Even When Attenuated, Makes People Visibly Sick

haidut

Member
Forum Supporter
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
19,798
Location
USA / Europe
This is a great study for two reasons. First of all, it shows that people are pretty good at judging other people's health and the study makes the recommendation that doctors should incorporate that method (judging people by appearance) into their diagnostic methods as well. Second of all, it shows that endotoxin can make people visibly sick even when it is attenuated - i.e. not nearly as harmful/noxious as the live, unattenuated LPS released by the bacteria in our gut.

Identification of acutely sick people and facial cues of sickness
https://gizmodo.com/can-you-tell-which-of-these-faces-is-ever-so-slightly-s-1821747224
"...People can tell that you’re sick with just a seconds-long glance at your face, a study published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B suggests. And all the researchers had to do to discover this bit of insight was inject healthy people with a bit of E. coli."

"...In their defense, they didn’t actually sicken people in this study. Instead, they used photos from an earlier study of theirs, in which they totally did sicken people. In the earlier study, 21 volunteers were injected—three to four weeks apart—with both a placebo saline solution and an endotoxin derived from a strain of Escherichia coli. The researchers hoped to test whether being sick would cause people to make riskier choices about money (it did, at least in that study). Ghastly as it might seem to expose people to literal poison, scientists have been using neutered, non-contagious endotoxins to make people mildly sick for decades, with no serious side-effects that we know of (That’s not to say that scientists don’t have a long history of unethically exposing people to dangerous illnesses for research, of course, even as recently as this decade)."

Btw, the unethical medical research referred to by the above article also makes for a VERY interesting read. I think @GAF and @pimpnamedraypeat would like to read about yet another potentially fraudulent vaccine trial. See below.
https://gizmodo.com/report-herpes-researcher-funded-by-peter-thiel-first-p-1820653728
 

Lilac

Member
Joined
May 6, 2014
Messages
636
I had a brief visit with a relative today, outdoors in daylight, and was taken aback at how poorly she looked. The discolored teeth particularly jumped out at me. I am worried even more after reading this.

I have long semi-joked that I am the "5-second psychologist." :emoji_older_man: Now I will be the "5-second doctor." :emoji_head_bandage:
 
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
10,501
I can now feel when I'm being plagued with high endotoxins. It is a sick feeling that I used to think was "I feel like I'm coming down with something" but now I know it's endotoxins. And sometimes, most often, it's from consuming too many wheat-based carbs for me. The delay between consumption and that feeling always led me astray, it can be 24 - 48 hours.

Vitamin A seems to help a lot for some reason.
 
Joined
Feb 1, 2016
Messages
384
Location
NY
From the study...
"high sickness ratings were related to paler skin (b = 0.18 units on the scale for paler skin for each unit on the sickness scale, CI: 0.14 to 0.23, Z = 7.7, p < 0.001), having paler lips (b = 0.23, CI: 0.18 to 0.28, Z = 8.7, p < 0.001), a more swollen face (b = 0.09, CI: 0.05 to 0.13, Z = 4.1, p < 0.001), more hanging eyelids (b = 0.15, CI: 0.10 to 0.19, Z = 6.4, p < 0.001), more red eyes (b = 0.09, CI: 0.06 to 0.13, Z = 5.2, p < 0.001) and droopier corners of the mouth (b = 0.06, CI: 0.02 to.10, Z = 3.0, p = 0.003). Apparent sickness was also related to looking tired (b = 0.30, CI: 0.27 to 0.33, Z= 20.1, p < 0.001)."

I've noticed my lips are always red on low pufa, subsequently I notice how almost everyones lips are almost indistinguishable from their skin tone.
 
OP
haidut

haidut

Member
Forum Supporter
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
19,798
Location
USA / Europe
From the study...
"high sickness ratings were related to paler skin (b = 0.18 units on the scale for paler skin for each unit on the sickness scale, CI: 0.14 to 0.23, Z = 7.7, p < 0.001), having paler lips (b = 0.23, CI: 0.18 to 0.28, Z = 8.7, p < 0.001), a more swollen face (b = 0.09, CI: 0.05 to 0.13, Z = 4.1, p < 0.001), more hanging eyelids (b = 0.15, CI: 0.10 to 0.19, Z = 6.4, p < 0.001), more red eyes (b = 0.09, CI: 0.06 to 0.13, Z = 5.2, p < 0.001) and droopier corners of the mouth (b = 0.06, CI: 0.02 to.10, Z = 3.0, p = 0.003). Apparent sickness was also related to looking tired (b = 0.30, CI: 0.27 to 0.33, Z= 20.1, p < 0.001)."

I've noticed my lips are always red on low pufa, subsequently I notice how almost everyones lips are almost indistinguishable from their skin tone.

The paler complexion is usually due to hypoxia, in severe cases it can make a person look almost bluish. Swollen face is cortisol, which rises in response to endotoxin (presumably to control inflammation), and red eyes are from vascularization driven by lactic acid and inflammation, both increased by endotoxin.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom