Germs in Digestive Tract Can enhance Body’s Immune System
Germs in Digestive Tract Can enhance Body’s Immune System – Researchers at Duke Medicine hypothesized that treating laboratory rats with worms, would suppress their immune systems.
Previous studies have shown that worms subdue inflammatory diseases like asthma and allergies, so researchers thought that introducing diverse worms and germs in lab rats would make their immune systems inefficient in fighting infections. However, this was not the case. They found that there was an improvement in their immune function when new types of germs and worms were introduced into the digestive tracts of the rats.
Researchers found better responses to vaccination and an increase in natural antibodies. According to senior author William Parker, enriching digestive biodiversity can be used to train our immune system to improve and function better.
In a clean environment neither lab rats nor we do well. Parker says, “We are potentially seeing a decreased ability to respond to dangerous antigens while, at the same time, we respond to things that we shouldn’t, causing allergies and autoimmune problems.” and feels that we should probably artificially reintroduce such germs back into the system.
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