09 July 2023

So you believe in the germ theory of disease?

All of us were told (or read) as we were growing up that infectious diseases are caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi, worms, and other living things?   This is the germ theory of disease.

Yet we all understand that each of us have staphylococci everywhere on our skin, enough e. coli in our guts to wipe out a city population, pneumococci and other respiratory pathogens continually colonized at the back of our throats, and a parade of viruses that enter and leave our bodies seasonally - and that we have established a symbiotic or commensal relationship with all these creatures.

So... it follows logically that there must be another theory of infectious disease - one that identifies failures of the defenses of the host (us) for the appearance of an "infection."
"Collectively, these two lines of evidence support a host theory of infectious diseases, with inherited and acquired immunodeficiencies as the key determinants of severe infection outcome, relegating the germ to an environmental trigger that reveals an underlying and preexisting cause of disease and death."
Continue reading the essay at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

7 comments:

  1. So you don't believe that pathogens cause diseases? Or else... what is your point?

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    1. Read it again. It's almost like semantics, but what is actually "causing" the illness when the pathogen was in and around your body the entire time. The virus, bacteria, etc. are doing the damage, but is it the body not reacting correctly versus just being exposed.

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    2. "The virus, bacteria, etc. are doing the damage.." Not really. The tuberculosis mycobacterium can sit in your lungs forever doing nothing; it's your body's reaction to it that causes either a silent calcified scar or a symptomatic mass of inflammation. A fungus will sit quietly on your skin; the red rash doesn't appear until your body reacts to the fungus.

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  2. Interesting esp when overlaid with the fungal component of the shaved coconut tale and it's missing anamnesis.

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  3. You are 'healthy' when all the 'stuff living on you or around you' is kept in check by your immune system. You are 'sick' when all / some of that 'stuff' overwhelms your immune system. Is that you / they mean?

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  4. In other words, germs don't cause disease, it's the inability of your body to fight them.

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  5. What causes a forest fire? Is it a dropped cigarette, or the accumulation of dry fuel?

    What causes (infectious) disease? Is it the pathogen, or the vulnerable host?

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