Immunosuppressive Substances

[squanch]

Ray talks a lot about pufa being immunosuppressive. I also remember him talking about the dangers of opiates because of their immunosuppressive action.

With my limited understanding of human biology it seems like a slight immunosuppression could be very helpful in the short term for autoimmune diseases, allergies, inflammatory conditions etc..

What exactly are the long term dangers of immunosuppression though and why does ray caution against it?

Also why do you think that so many people today have some sort of immune system dysregulation (especially food allergies) compared to the past and how would you treat it if not with immunosuppressive substances?

 

[tara]

Interesting topic. 'd like to understand it better too.

Part of the picture I have got is:
The thymus develops cells that can distinguish benign 'me' cells from potentially threatening 'not me' cells (possibly including modified cancer cells?), and fights the 'not me' cells.
Peat has said the thymus is one of the first organs to suffer catabolism under conditions of severe stress eg physical trauma, starvation (and maybe very low carb or calorie dieting?) etc via gluconeogenesis under the influence of high cortisol. This is probably evolutionarily adaptive under some conditions - sacrifice the long-term maintenance strategy for short-term survival.
I think maybe, if the body gets confused about which cells to fight, that can lead to both ineffectiveness in fighting infection, and unwarranted attacks on one's own cells (not sure about this last part).

I know this is not the whole of the immune system, just one component.

I think Peat has also talked about some diagnoses of autoimmune dysfunction are not really accurate - that some tests may be detecting the effects of the immune system cleaning up damage to organs caused by other things, not actually doing the damage itself.

 

[tara]

I think some people are encouraged to respond to every allergic reaction with increasing restrictive diets etc, and some of them get malnourished as a consequence, and that leaves them with even less resources to to deal optimally with the environment.
I'm sure there are other factors too.

 

[tara]

My picture includes that we rely on our immune system to constantly weed out cancerous cells as they develop, as well as pathogens. So long-term immunosuppression can leave us vulnerable to many infections, and also leave us with less resistance to cancers.

 

[squanch]

I think some people are encouraged to respond to every allergic reaction with increasing restrictive diets etc, and some of them get malnourished as a consequence, and that leaves them with even less resources to to deal optimally with the environment.
I'm sure there are other factors too.

That's definitely something I've noticed too.
Never had any food allergies before I started doing a really restrictive ketogenic diet a few years ago.
Simply eating more seems like one the most effective strategies. Never seen someone obese with food allergies in my life now that I think about it.

My picture includes that we rely on our immune system to constantly weed out cancerous cells as they develop, as well as pathogens. So long-term immunosuppression can leave us vulnerable to many infections, and also leave us with less resistance to cancers.

Makes sense, thanks

 

[tara]

More speculations about allergies. Low blood sugar can leave people more vulnerable to histamine reactions, and in these conditions sugar may function as anti-histamine. So people who believe that sugar is toxic (was me for a while, though never low carb), or are eating very low carb or calorie may be more prone to developing allergies. There's a bit of that going around. Also, if people get hypothyroid, they can sometimes have reduced production of stomach acid and other digestive enzymes, so that some of the proteins that should be broken down persist further into the GI tract and maybe through it into the body, and possibly provide more opportunities to develop allergies or intolerances?

 

[jyb]

My picture includes that we rely on our immune system to constantly weed out cancerous cells as they develop, as well as pathogens. So long-term immunosuppression can leave us vulnerable to many infections, and also leave us with less resistance to cancers.

There are two situations. One is when one gets wide to exposure to PUFA. It's not good to fight infections when one is too immunosuppressed. So for this and many other reasons (inflammation, longevity) it is accepted by many to avoid this. But a different situation is when you take a small amount of PUFA. Some argue for a sweet spot to reduce inflammation while not being very immunosuppressive. Obviously Ray disagrees as he think even absolute zero pufa would be good. But it is not obvious because in that situation the metabolism doesn't run on pufa (it should not visibly affect your metabolism and thyroid use) and immune system may not be pathologically suppressed.

 

[Daimyo]

It's my first summer in Poland since a long, long time. I am/was allergic to many things, including grass and tree pollen. August was the worst month, I couldn't live without inhaler.

It's been slightly better since I started peating, but few days ago I started to limit liquids (a'la Matt Stone) and my metabolism is up to 37.+ *C (with NDT). My allergy is down significantly. I don't need to take Claritine/aspirine to reduce my allergy symptoms. My breathing is normal, no hay fever, no asthma. So, if anything my immune system should react more strongly to allergens. Clearly it's not happening.