83
votes
Accepted
Russian scientist injects himself with 3.5 million-year-old bacteria, says he is now stronger and hasn't gotten ill in 2 years
The "mad scientist" seems to be Anatoli V. Brouchkov, one of the authors of Draft Genome Sequence of Bacillus cereus Strain F, Isolated from Ancient Permafrost, detailing the organism's name ...
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28
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Russian scientist injects himself with 3.5 million-year-old bacteria, says he is now stronger and hasn't gotten ill in 2 years
The one verifiable claim (assuming Mr. Brouchkov is not lying) made in the article is:
Anatoli Brouchkov, head of the Geocryology Department at Moscow State University, says he has not had flu for ...
- 388
25
votes
Accepted
Does natural immunity offer better protection than mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 of the same variant?
The reason why you saw the latter post is probably because there's a new CDC study (published on Oct 29) with results pretty contrary to the earlier Israeli (Maccabi) study.
CDC used data from the ...
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7
votes
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Do children who attend pre-school get sick less often when they start kindergarten?
From JAMA: Influence of Attendance at Day Care on the Common Cold From Birth Through 13 Years of Age
Conclusions Attendance at large day care was associated with more common colds during the ...
- 3,004
7
votes
Do antibiotics weaken your immune system?
How much antibiotics affect gut flora is open subject, there are studies showing there is long lasting negative effect. Eg. "Gut microbiota disturbance during antibiotic therapy: a multi-omic approach"...
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5
votes
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Were millions of people infected by SARS?
No.
The premise behind the article seems to be that SARS was widely prevalent (in some areas), >10% of people were infected, without severe symptoms, and developed antibodies that can now be tested ...
- 141k
5
votes
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Does sugar deplete enzymes, allowing partially digested protein into the blood, and triggering an immune response?
In short: There is no evidence to claim that high intake of refined (or other) sugars impairs the digestion of proteins, but may stimulate inflammation via other mechanisms.
The most commonly used ...
- 5,012
4
votes
Do antibiotics weaken your immune system?
Antibiotics are designed to either kill or stop the growth of bacteria by targeting specific traits/functions of the bacteria (bacterial cells are prokaryotes) and not to target eukaryotic cells (...
- 279
4
votes
Does regular tongue scraping improve overall immune function?
There is little to no evidence supporting the claim that regular tongue scraping improves anything except bad breath and oral hygiene; however, very little research has been done to credit or ...
- 2,162
2
votes
Accepted
Can having parasitic worms prevent allergies or arthritis?
I can't find much re: arthritis but this paper covers allergies and some more general auto-immune diseases.
There appears to be some support for the hypothesis in the form of animal models and ...
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1
vote
Is it possible to "boost your immune system"?
Yes, there are treatments that are specifically designed to boost the immune system. One such is intravenous immunoglobulin therapy, where antibodies are infused into the bloodstream to increase ...
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