There have been reports of YouTubers I watch getting sick after eating food in third world countries. However, these countries are also home to a large number of people who do not get sick from eating the same food. I think this suggests that the locals may have developed stronger immune systems. What do you think?
There is no such thing, generally speaking and outside of particular medical conditions, as a “strong” or “weak” immune system.
There are two different factors being smooshed together.
One factor is general health and healthcare. A healthier individual – no dietary deficiencies, well-rested, medical conditions treated, etc… will generally just fare better when exposed to a disease. People in richer countries typically have better health.
Take cholera as a classic example. To a person in good health with access to water, cholera is a bad time, but unlikely to kill you or do permanent harm. To a person who already had nutrient deficiencies without access to abundant, clean water, it’s a potential death sentence. This doesn’t mean someone from a rich country had a “stronger” immune system. That person was just able to refill their personal health bucket faster than it drained thanks to those resources available to them.
In some cases, this is literally true. For example, being underweight is a worse comorbidity than being overweight by a similar amount, all else being equal.
The other factor is the immune response. Immune response is about exposure and recovery. You gain immunity to the pathogens you are exposed to as part of the recovery process. There’s very little correlation between having an immune response to one disease and being better at fighting off another, different disease (though with quite similar things like strains of the flu, there is benefit). There’s no such thing as “exercise” for your immune system. There is no evidence of overall strengthening caused by more exposure and recovery. Occasional studies come out that try to make this claim, but nothing very convincing has ever happened. That immunity response, in some cases, can diminish over time without re-exposure. There is precisely one medically sound and safe way to promote immunity: vaccination to relevant pathogens.
But if we’re talking about “Don’t drink tap water in Mexico” kinds of situations, it may APPEAR that way.
The reason locals don’t get sick from the things that hurt tourists is because… they do. They did. It already happened, you just didn’t see it. If you take someone from a very rich, healthy place and someone from a poor, unhealthy place and locate them both to a foreign environment with background pathogens to which they are not exposed, both are likely to get sick.
Lol this is well put. Better than my response. Rip John snow. Did you read the ghost map? A wild guess, from your use of the cholera example. If you haven’t, it was an interesting read.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community space dedicated to being helpful and answering each others’ questions on various topics.
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All posts titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That’s it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it’s in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content. Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Partnered Communities
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
Matrix Chat Room
To find & join our chat room, log into fluffychat.im(or any other matrix client) and put #nostupidquestions:matrix.org on the search bar.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
There is no such thing, generally speaking and outside of particular medical conditions, as a “strong” or “weak” immune system.
There are two different factors being smooshed together.
One factor is general health and healthcare. A healthier individual – no dietary deficiencies, well-rested, medical conditions treated, etc… will generally just fare better when exposed to a disease. People in richer countries typically have better health.
Take cholera as a classic example. To a person in good health with access to water, cholera is a bad time, but unlikely to kill you or do permanent harm. To a person who already had nutrient deficiencies without access to abundant, clean water, it’s a potential death sentence. This doesn’t mean someone from a rich country had a “stronger” immune system. That person was just able to refill their personal health bucket faster than it drained thanks to those resources available to them.
In some cases, this is literally true. For example, being underweight is a worse comorbidity than being overweight by a similar amount, all else being equal.
The other factor is the immune response. Immune response is about exposure and recovery. You gain immunity to the pathogens you are exposed to as part of the recovery process. There’s very little correlation between having an immune response to one disease and being better at fighting off another, different disease (though with quite similar things like strains of the flu, there is benefit). There’s no such thing as “exercise” for your immune system. There is no evidence of overall strengthening caused by more exposure and recovery. Occasional studies come out that try to make this claim, but nothing very convincing has ever happened. That immunity response, in some cases, can diminish over time without re-exposure. There is precisely one medically sound and safe way to promote immunity: vaccination to relevant pathogens.
But if we’re talking about “Don’t drink tap water in Mexico” kinds of situations, it may APPEAR that way.
The reason locals don’t get sick from the things that hurt tourists is because… they do. They did. It already happened, you just didn’t see it. If you take someone from a very rich, healthy place and someone from a poor, unhealthy place and locate them both to a foreign environment with background pathogens to which they are not exposed, both are likely to get sick.
Lol this is well put. Better than my response. Rip John snow. Did you read the ghost map? A wild guess, from your use of the cholera example. If you haven’t, it was an interesting read.