Immunity Health News

Well, it has been a splendid time, but this will have to be my last post for immunityhealthnews.com. I know I’ve learned a lot running this blog, and I hope you have too.

Our purpose here was that you, the consumer, would educate yourself about the efficacies of the products, ingredients, and policies which affect your body’s immune health.

So as I sign off, I would encourage you to continue to look for demonstrated effectiveness in the health products you choose, not just the anecdotal or “traditional” belief about a product.

All the best!

Epigenetics is a term referring to changes in gene expression which do not result in changes to the gene itself. Research in animals has shown that what a pregnant mother eats can alter the expression of genes in her offspring, making them more susceptible to certain diseases later in life.

In their most recent experiments, Duke University Medical Center investigators demonstrated that exposure within the womb to bisphenol A (BPA), an ubiquitous chemical used in the production of plastics, caused noticeable changes in the offspring without altering any of the offspring’s genes. Additionally, the researchers discovered that administration of folic acid or genistein, an active ingredient in soy, during pregnancy protected the offspring from the negative effects of BPA.

Read the whole article.

A promotional video for Beta Glucan. Is it really effective? Its makers think so, but I haven’t been able to find any studies on its efficacy from major educational institutions.

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!

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.

I hadn’t thought of oral hygiene in terms of our body’s immune health until I noticed this video.

While I would issue the caveat that this is an advertising video for both laser treatment in general and a specific dental practice in particular, the first part has some interesting things to say about teeth and their connection to the rest of the body.

Research by Osaka University and the Institute of Physical and Chemical Science (Riken), to be published in the May 21 edition of the Journal of Cell Biology, finds that the trace amounts of zinc in our bodies serve to transmit information within the body’s mast cells, which play a major role in the immune system.

They have found that several minutes after stimulating the mast cells, the endoplasmic reticulum began to release large amounts of zinc.

“There are only about 10 different types of material inside the human body known to transmit information within a cell - including calcium and lipids,” says Toshio Hirano, a graduate professor at Osaka University. “If zinc is being released in other cells, too, this information may prove to be a new means by which to control them.”

We all know that we are more prone to illness when we are not getting enough sleep, but scientists have not as yet discovered what sleeplessness exactly does to weaken immunity.

Now researchers at Stanford University have discovered that infecting a fruit fly with Streptococcus pneumoniae or Listeria monocytogenes disrupts the fly’s “sleep”, otherwise known as its circadian rhythm. Conversely, flies whose mutated genes caused them to have disrupted circadian rhythms were also more susceptible to the infection.

“The cool thing is that many of the clock genes are conserved between flies and vertebrates…” says David Schneider, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford. “As usual, it doesn’t work in exactly the same way, but what the fly does is let us find genes that are involved in the process, and then go figure out exactly how they are rewired to work in the human. The fly is really good for prospecting.”

Read more here.

An associated press article is reporting the Supreme Court’s (USA) decision not to hear the appeal by dietary supplements maker Nutraceutical International, which sought to overturn a federal ban on the weight-loss aid ephedra.

The FDA banned ephedra after receiving reports that it had produced side effects including heart attacks, strokes and death.

In response, the company has said that “under the standards and tests it used, almost any herbal supplement could be banned.”

kdsk.com, part of a news network out of St. Louis, is reporting a Washington University (St. Louis)trial of a vaccine for lung cancer.

Scientists know that lung cancer cells produce substances that would be expected to cause the immune system to attack and eliminate them. But for unknown reasons, the immune system does not kill lung cancer cells.

The vaccine used in this trial is meant to teach the immune system to respond to lung cancer cells. It does this by taking advantage of one of the strongest human immune responses - the response to antigens on cells from animals such as pigs or mice. Such antigens provoke a rapid immune response that destroys foreign cells within hours.

The HyperAcute vaccine consists of killed lung cancer cells that have been genetically engineered to produce mouse antigens on their surfaces. Introducing these cells into patients with lung cancer will cause the body to produce immune cells that recognize not only the mouse antigens but other cell-surface molecules characteristic of the killed lung cancer cells.

Having been primed in this way, the immune system is now ready to attack live lung cancer cells in the vaccinated patients.

The trial is enrolling patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer who have received first-line platinum-doublet chemotherapy and whose cancer has responded to the treatment or whose disease has remained stable. Participants will be given vaccine injections twelve times over six months and their health will be monitored for up to fifteen years following the trial.

There’s also a video interview with the researcher.