Sugar Slows Down Immune Function

[Elie]

in this study intake of 100g sugar resulted in reduced activity of neutrophils (white blood cells). They engulphed fewer bacteria than when fed starch.
Is there enough info in the abstract to reach a conclusion?
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/26/11/1180.abstract

 

[Tarmander]

One thing to remember, I'm not sure if it applies here, is that estrogen is a powerful immune system stimulator in some context. There is a theory of immune function that goes; part of its job is to clean up debris and estrogen can cause debris. Crack heads and other addicts don't get as sick as often as you would think they would given their living conditions. When they get clean is usually when they get sick.

 

[DaveFoster]

One thing to remember, I'm not sure if it applies here, is that estrogen is a powerful immune system stimulator in some context. There is a theory of immune function that goes; part of its job is to clean up debris and estrogen can cause debris. Crack heads and other addicts don't get as sick as often as you would think they would given their living conditions. When they get clean is usually when they get sick.

Estrogen-mediated immunosuppression in autoimmune diseases. - PubMed - NCBI

In addition, the mechanisms of estrogen and anti-estrogens are discussed in relation to their possible use as future therapeutic anti-inflammatory agents.

 

[dookie]

One thing to remember, I'm not sure if it applies here, is that estrogen is a powerful immune system stimulator in some context. There is a theory of immune function that goes; part of its job is to clean up debris and estrogen can cause debris. Crack heads and other addicts don't get as sick as often as you would think they would given their living conditions. When they get clean is usually when they get sick.

Are you saying that addicts have lower estrogen?

 

[Elie]

One thing to remember, I'm not sure if it applies here, is that estrogen is a powerful immune system stimulator in some context. There is a theory of immune function that goes; part of its job is to clean up debris and estrogen can cause debris. Crack heads and other addicts don't get as sick as often as you would think they would given their living conditions. When they get clean is usually when they get sick.

you know, this is really interesting. I noticed that some estrogen dominant women hardly get any colds and flus.

 

[Elie]

by the way, here is the full study https://www.preventivecare.com/shared/pdf/Sanchez-sugar.pdf

 

[Tarmander]

Are you saying that addicts have lower estrogen?

Just the opposite. Addicts are usually in a very catabolic state, which is probably part of what fuels the addiction.

 

[PakPik]

I wonder if this effect has anything to do with the unrealistic, pure, huge carbohydrate meal used in the study, which increases serotonin levels. Serotonin excess can oftentimes be immunosuppressive. See for example Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors as a novel class of immunosuppressants

"A large carbohydrate meal increases the ratio of tryptophan to the competing amino acids, and it has been proposed that this can shift the body’s balance toward increased serotonin." Peat​

In a more realistic setting there will be a certain amount of protein accompanying a high carb meal. Even including a relatively tiny proportion of protein abolishes the proserotonergic effect of pure carbs:

Tryptophan (serotonin) depletion in brain (and elsewhere)
“…Dietary carbohydrates increase the uptake of the LNAAs into peripheral tissue, thereby decreasing their levels in plasma. Together with an increase in total TRP levels, the TRP/SLNAA ratio changes in favour of TRP and increases its availability for transport across the BBB. As little as 2.5% of additional proteins counteracts the effects of carbohydrates, as the protein ingestion-induced increase in the levels of all amino acids is much higher than the decrease by carbohydrates.”

"Eating pure carbs tends to increase tryptophan availability for crossing the BBB and getting synthesized into serotonin. However, adding just 2.5% (by volume) of protein would negate the serotonin boosting effects of carbs."​

 

[ecstatichamster]

sugar lowers inflammation. Pretty sweet, LOL.

 

[dookie]

Just the opposite. Addicts are usually in a very catabolic state, which is probably part of what fuels the addiction.

So given this and your reasoning above - would it mean that having occasional or frequent flu is a sign that estrogen is low?

I'm not totally sure what you mean by this:

Estrogen is a powerful immune system stimulator in some context. There is a theory of immune function that goes; part of its job is to clean up debris and estrogen can cause debris."

 

[Tarmander]

So given this and your reasoning above - would it mean that having occasional or frequent flu is a sign that estrogen is low?

I'm not totally sure what you mean by this:

I think Ray has said before in this context that getting sick now and then is an okay thing. I could be misremembering, I don't have the quote, but from what I understood he was referring to this very thing where stress is immunostimulative.

Estrogen is weird , and because of its relationship with cortisol can be immunosuppressive. But look at an autoimmune disease, which are all estrogen based, and you will see both immunosuppression as well as immunostimulation, in the wrong places.

 

[dookie]

I think Ray has said before in this context that getting sick now and then is an okay thing. I could be misremembering, I don't have the quote, but from what I understood he was referring to this very thing where stress is immunostimulative.

Estrogen is weird , and because of its relationship with cortisol can be immunosuppressive. But look at an autoimmune disease, which are all estrogen based, and you will see both immunosuppression as well as immunostimulation, in the wrong places.

In email correspondence with Peat, he said that the flu is mostly just bowel inflammation. I don't remember him saying that getting sick now and then is a good sign.

I don't understand your point about estrogen, the flu and addicts.
You are saying that addicts don't get sick when they are taking drugs, because they have a high estrogen(?), or a low estrogen(?). Then when they stop their drug addiction, they become sick because the estrogen goes up, or down?
Curiously, I haven't seen any addicts with a lot of water retention, which is the typical sign of estrogen.

 

[PakPik]

In email correspondence with Peat, he said that the flu is mostly just bowel inflammation. I don't remember him saying that getting sick now and then is a good sign.

I don't understand your point about estrogen, the flu and addicts.
You are saying that addicts don't get sick when they are taking drugs, because they have a high estrogen(?), or a low estrogen(?). Then when they stop their drug addiction, they become sick because the estrogen goes up, or down?
Curiously, I haven't seen any addicts with a lot of water retention, which is the typical sign of estrogen.

As far as I know, chronic stress to a tissue often leads to immunosuppression (either locally or systemic). Although the immunosuppressed person experiences ongoing tissue irritation/low grade inflammaion and progressive damage due to it, they can't mount an effective immune response when facing for example an infectious agent. So, for example, there is a phenomenon called "Endotoxin tolerance" where the body doesn't mount the typical TLR4 activation response when stimulated with endotoxin; the response is blunted or nonexistant, and therefore these people don't exhibit the symptoms of the response to endotoxin, so they do NOT get clear cut endotoxemia symptoms that an otherwise immunocompetent person would when challenged with endotoxin.
So I believe a kind of immune paralysis such as this happens to many of the people who rarely get a cold -or only exhibit mild symptoms to it, or hardly get a fever-, but who do have obvious chronic health issues or chronic stresses (malnutrition, drug addiction, etc)...

Endotoxin tolerance in a nutshell Bench-to-bedside review: Endotoxin tolerance as a model of leukocyte reprogramming in sepsis | Critical Care | Full Text

• "Endotoxin tolerance is paralleled by a dramatic reduction of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) production and some other cytokines in response to LPS. Endotoxin tolerance involves the participation of macrophages and mediators, such as glucocorticoids, prostaglandins, IL-10, and transforming growth factor-β ." [these generally act as immunosuppressive mediators in chronic illness/stress settings] ... inhibitory molecules that down-regulate the Toll-like receptor (TLR)4-dependent signaling pathway."

Moderate alcohol induces stress proteins HSF1 and hsp70 and inhibits proinflammatory cytokines resulting in endotoxin tolerance. - PubMed - NCBI

• "Binge or moderate alcohol exposure impairs host defense and increases susceptibility to infection because of compromised innate immune responses. However, there is a lack of consensus on the molecular mechanism by which alcohol mediates this immunosuppression.
  
• Our data suggest that alcohol-mediated activation of HSF1 and induction of hsp70 inhibit TLR4-MyD88 signaling and are required for alcohol-induced endotoxin tolerance."

Mechanisms of endotoxin tolerance in patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis: role of interleukin 10, interleukin 1 receptor antagonist, and soluble tumour necrosis factor receptors as well as effector cell desensitisation

• "In patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis, upregulation of the pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine system and simultaneous desensitisation of effector cells could explain the restricted systemic inflammatory response to chronic endotoxaemia. This alteration in immune status may lead to impairment of host defences against infections which are frequent complications of alcoholic cirrhosis."

Endotoxin Tolerance in Sepsis - endotoxin tolerance degree and timing seem to be correlated with the outcomes; they even propose anti-endotoxin tolerance therapies for some people http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235239641400005X

• "The association between the endotoxin tolerance signature and confirmed sepsis was strong and statistically significant in a total of 12 distinct datasets ... . These results are consistent with our hypothesis that the endotoxin tolerance signature is robustly associated with very early sepsis. The endotoxin tolerance signature was also associated with disease severity measured primarily by the development of organ dysfunction. Therefore, we propose here an updated model of sepsis pathogenesis mediated by an endotoxin tolerance-mediated immune dysfunction."

• "This is consistent with but further clarifies a recent study (Hotchkiss et al., 2013) that suggested that early sepsis was associated with coincident inflammatory and anti-inflammatory/immunosuppressive responses. It is worth mentioning that endotoxin tolerance is not an anti-inflammatory state per se but rather a cellular reprogramming (which also occurs with Gram positive bacteria) that leads to immune amnesia, disabling responses to agonists like endotoxin ..."

• "In the future, our genetic classifier could help to define a subset of patients who might benefit from immunomodulation (e.g. anti-endotoxin tolerance) and supportive therapies."

• "Sepsis has been traditionally classified as an early stage excessive inflammatory state followed by a transition to a late stage anti-inflammatory/immunosuppressive state (e.g. endotoxin tolerance) ... . However, a model of concurrent immunosuppression and hyperinflammation has been recently hypothesised to explain the complex pathogenesis of sepsis at various timepoints (Hotchkiss et al., 2013). The current study indicates that immunosuppression is being driven by endotoxin tolerance that occurs at a much earlier stage of clinical disease than previously appreciated, consistent with the failure of immunosuppressive treatments in more than 30 clinical trials (Lyle et al., 2014). In agreement with the concurrent inflammation/immunosuppression model, we observed significant enrichment of both the endotoxin tolerance and inflammatory signatures at all early-stages of disease, although the endotoxin tolerance signature dominated."

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other ways immunosuppression can occur or be induced, leading to weakened and innappropiate responses to all kinds of pathogens, tumors, etc, yet maintaining chronic irritation/low-level inflammation which contributes to cumulative damage in the long run.

@Amazoniac and @Kyle M : this may be of your interest

 

[mangoes]

@PakPik I always look forward to and learn from your posts, always so informative and enlightening!

 

[PakPik]

@PakPik I always look forward to and learn from your posts, always so informative and enlightening!

Hey @Jonoh, thanks! Those are kind words of you... I'm eager to share and give back to people, since I've received many blessings freely .

 

[Tarmander]

In email correspondence with Peat, he said that the flu is mostly just bowel inflammation. I don't remember him saying that getting sick now and then is a good sign.

I don't understand your point about estrogen, the flu and addicts.
You are saying that addicts don't get sick when they are taking drugs, because they have a high estrogen(?), or a low estrogen(?). Then when they stop their drug addiction, they become sick because the estrogen goes up, or down?
Curiously, I haven't seen any addicts with a lot of water retention, which is the typical sign of estrogen.

I looked everywhere for that quote, but I couldn't find it. I think it was about vaccines or something. I could just be imagining it, but what I gleaned from it was that it was better to get a little sick then to take some type of estrogen therapy. Wish I could find it.

Pakpik had a nice write up above. Much more illuminating then my post.

The original post was about sugar suppressing the immune system. If you were walking down the street and were about to take a bite of some juicy thing and someone ran up and said hold on there, that supresses the immune system. That generally would not be taken to be a positive thing. So saying sugar suppresses the immune system has negative connotations.

My original post was basically there to muddy the waters on the entire issue. A good example would be the herb astragalus, which is used in China in conjunction with platinum based chemotherapies, and used in this country throughout healthfood stores across the nation in flu season. If you go read the studies on astragalus, it is estrogenic, contains LPS, and up regulates NOs. The herb has an "immune boosting" connotation but would obviously be quite damaging in the long term according to Peats writings.

The example of the drug addict was another situation where someone who is in a catabolic state has their immune system "boosted." The whole point was to show that basically just because something supresses the immune system, does not make it an auto bad just as something that stimulates the immune system does not make it an auto good. I hope that kind of clears things up. Immune system be complicated.

 

[Peater Piper]

sugar lowers inflammation. Pretty sweet, LOL.

So do Omega 3's.

Immune system be complicated.

Indeed.

 

[Daniil]

It seem to I feel worse after eating sugar. I often have herpes outbreaks and active herpes 6 in my blood. I think there is truth in this study.

 

[Elie]

It seem to I feel worse after eating sugar. I often have herpes outbreaks and active herpes 6 in my blood. I think there is truth in this study.

There is research out there that shows preference by certain white blood cell types for glucose and oxidative phosphorylation

Metabolic Reprogramming towards Aerobic Glycolysis Correlates with Greater Proliferative Ability and Resistance to Metabolic Inhibition in CD8 versus CD4 T Cells

T lymphocytes (T cells) undergo metabolic reprogramming after activation to provide energy and biosynthetic materials for growth, proliferation and differentiation. Distinct T cell subsets, however, adopt metabolic programs specific to support their needs. As CD4 T cells coordinate adaptive...

journals.plos.org

Fueling immunity: insights into metabolism and lymphocyte function - PubMed

Lymphocytes face major metabolic challenges upon activation. They must meet the bioenergetic and biosynthetic demands of increased cell proliferation and also adapt to changing environmental conditions, in which nutrients and oxygen may be limiting. An emerging theme in immunology is that...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Particularly in viral infections Opposing Effects of Fasting Metabolism on Tissue Tolerance in Bacterial and Viral Inflammation

Herpes is driven by stress. A possible cure is Prunella Vulgaris

 

[Birdie]

It seem to I feel worse after eating sugar. I often have herpes outbreaks and active herpes 6 in my blood. I think there is truth in this study.

Is that pure sugar or is something else with the sugar such as chocolate or nuts or other high arginine food...