Immunity Health News

Anglo-American scientists have been given permission from the US Food and Drug Administration to collect blood from healthy individuals.

It can be used to grow a whole new army of the disease-fighting white blood cells that can be reinfused back into the patient if required — such as if they fall victim to cancer or suffer an auto-immune disease like AIDS.

The price? A mere $800 for the initial draw, and $25 a month to maintain it at -196°.

Read the whole article.

A competition is currently underway on a sister blog of ours called “The Immunity Challenge.” The public is being offered a chance to come up with a name and a tagline for an immune system supplement ready to be launched in North America. The contest closes June 30th. Total prizes come to $22,500 USD (Open to residents of Canada, USA, and Mexico only).

The supplement, temporarily named “Product I” (for “immunity”), is an extract of an edible, food grade microalgae called Spirulina. While the safe extraction process is new, Spirulina itself has been around forever. Developed by researchers at the University of Mississippi’s Center for Natural Products Research, the active ingredient ImmuXT has undergone years of testing to isolate and manage the immune-boosting properties.

Be sure to read all about the product itself, and visit the Challenge and Rules pages. Good luck!

Here is an interesting blog post about the health claims of food companies, in particular those with products like yogourt claiming to have “probiotic” properties. In light of the increasing notoriety of probiotics, it’s not surprising that companies are trying to capitalize on the public’s buying trends, even if their claims may be misleading or fallacious.

This is why I’m such a big proponent of empirical testing as opposed to anecdotal or “traditional” evidence for product efficacy.

In a recent study, women who got most of their daily calcium from food had healthier bones than women whose calcium came mainly from supplemental tablets. Surprisingly, this was true even though the supplement takers had higher average calcium intake.

“Only about 35 percent of the calcium in most supplements ends up being absorbed by the body,” says senior author Reina Armamento-Villareal, M.D., assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Bone and Mineral Diseases and a bone specialist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. “Calcium from the diet is generally better absorbed, and this could be another reason that women who got a high percentage of calcium in their food had higher bone densities.”

Read it all.

Interleukin-18 is a protein which plays an active part of the immune system.

A team led by Eric Zorrilla, an assistant professor at The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego was studying the protein when they noticed that something unusual occurred in mice genetically engineered to lack the protein.

The mice got fat.

Mice without the protein overate and became fatter than the other mice, the researchers found.

Read the whole article.

A new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds that seniors who take zinc supplements are at a significantly lower risk of infections, in part because of zinc’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, both of which improve immune function.

It should be noted that zinc inhibits copper absorption, and can cause anemia and bone-marrow suppression if taken long-term in large amounts without copper. People taking zinc more than a few weeks, with the exception of those with Wilson’s disease, should also take a copper supplement providing 2 or 3 mg per day.

Read the whole article.

I also note that the study appears to have been funded by Solgar, a vitamin manufacturer out of the UK. Hence the study’s constant reference not to zinc, but “Solgar zinc”.

Researchers in Singapore have compared various types of ceramic nanoparticles for their ability to deliver therapeutic genes to the spleen and trigger a potent immune response capable of attacking tumors.

Read more.

And you thought they only delivered your dinner on ceramics!

The danger comes when there is a sudden demand for a certain product or ingredient, and suppliers looking to make a fast buck substitute cheaper ingredients for the real thing.

The rush floods the market with knock-off products, and the testing of these products only comes once there’s a problem reported. Of course, if the negative effects are less severe, they’ll probably go unreported.

Read more.

Richard Harkness has a health-advice column for the South Mississippi Sun Herald, and gives some information about getting your daily calcium:

Consider the Rule of 300s: You’ll get about 300 mg of elemental calcium from an 8-ounce glass of milk, cup of cottage cheese, bowl of ice cream or yogurt, or one-ounce serving of cheese. For instance, four glasses of skim or nonfat milk provide 1,200 mg of elemental calcium.

He also has points out that reducing your stomach acid decreases the absorption of some types of elemental calcium.

Read more.

Phytodynamic therapy is a process of drug activation using light, which localizes the effect of the drug to the injection site at a tumour.

Researchers have now found that PDT stimulates the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells elsewhere, too.

This research offers the possibility that PDT could be used to treat cancer that has already spread.

More.