SIO409: Can You "Boost" Your Immune System?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:17 Thomas: Welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is Episode 409, I'm Thomas Smith and joining me today is Dr. Rick. We're sick with Dr. Rick, or how to try to not get sick with Dr. I don't know, we'll figure it out either way. Dr. Rick Sullivan is a a synthetic biologist, and a PhD in immunology. We had that really fun conversation, the immune system last time, with the, you know, with the vampires and the whatever else, the zombies, all that stuff.

This time, and in time for, you, you know, you might be doing some holiday travel right now or in the next week or two, that's a time, especially around the holidays, people are worried about getting sick. You, I remember Emergency, for example, was the thing I used to take back in college as someone who's in theater, as a way to avoid getting sick at the wrong time. Well, does that stuff work? Does C work? Does Emergency work? Is that any good? Good.

Rick's going to take us through it and some really interesting related questions. We had some good questions from patrons this time. As a reminder, on patreon.com/seriouspod, we post the interviews, what we're going to do ahead of time and give patrons a chance to ask questions. And there were some great ones this time, so thank you so much.

Ejemplo, are there gender differences in how, how people get sick, possibly, or is there such a thing as an immune debt, you know, where you're sick with one thing and so you're not as good at defending against another virus, stuff, the main topic is that kind of Emergency vitamin C boost idea. And the answer may surprise you. Let's get to the interview. But first, once again, a reminder, please pledge at patreon.com/seriouspod. You get ad -free episodes and the warm, tingly feeling in your heart and bones and any other organs or places, you are making the show happen. You have mine and Lydia's eternal gratitude. So thank you so much to our very kind patrons for making the show happen. For if you're not a patron, may hear an auto -add or two. Apologies for that. So after that, we'll get to the interview with Dr. Rick Sullivan. We're once again joined by Dr. Rick. Rick, we're sick with Rick. We're being sick. We're coming up with a new catchphrase for you. The segment, not

0:02:23 Rick: Man, you have no idea how appropriate.

0:02:25 Thomas: Getting sick with Dr. Rick. How are you doing?

0:02:28 Rick: I'm doing pretty good, Thomas. I actually, I was sick and

0:02:32 Thomas: I was going to say, it'd be pretty funny if you're like, I'm doing fine.

0:02:32 Rick: It's still coming off of being a cold. Yeah. I'm actually gonna struggle not to cough during this interview, it was

0:02:36 Thomas: Oh God. Sort of like, it would The contractor's house is the shittiest one on the block or whatever, you know, kind of thing.

0:02:45 Rick: I got the shittiest immune system around.

0:02:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Absolute garbage immune system. We are doing an emergency podcast, everybody. Emergency. Because wait, was this your idea or was this Lydia's? Because either way, it's great.

0:02:47 Rick: Oh, think This was uh, Lydia's idea. She suggested, like, "Hey, you know what's with all, what'swith these, you know, immune support kind of, you know, things like Emergency?" And And how should we think about them? And I mean, honestly, when I, when I read that, I started cracking up because it was just starting to come down with a cold just mere days after talking with you last time, and it's like man, the gods are like smiting me right now, I think, yeah.

0:03:17 Thomas: Could be me then. Yeah. Oh, that's great, yeah. No. Okay, so I knew that. It was my amazing wife, Lydia's idea, of course, which I was testing you to see if you knew it was her idea, which I love because these are the kind of things, you know, I've read some science -y stuff on this through the years, but I'll be honest, I tend to kind of forget this stuff or I have noticed, and this is branching off, apologies, but when you're in the world of science -skepticism, debunk -y, stuff a lot, sometimes you forget where you were on a debunk, like you're like, wait, was this a counterintuitive one or was this an intuitive -tuitive one?

And then you're like, wait, once you learn the thing, like say I learned a counterintuitive thing in 2007, let's say, then in my mind, I overwrite that as like, that's the intuitive answer. And then I like, sometimes I'll think of it 10 years later. I'm like, Wait, no, I remember this being counterintuitive. So then I'll switch and get it the opposite way. Does anyone else do this? Or am I just an idiot? We'll find out.

0:03:25 Rick: Yeah. Yeah Exactly. Right. Oh, yeah, no, total, it's it's the Trivial Pursuit questions that are like the really obscure, like, throw you off ones, and that's always the right one is because it's so obscure that it like sticks with you and then you're like, oh yeah, that's fact, you know, and really it's like an outlier or something, you

0:04:15 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Yep. Yep. So emergency vitamin C. I used to take this in college. It's a, I did theater and it's, is a place where people are very nervous for good reason about getting sick at the wrong time. And so, it was always like, oh, I am getting a little sick. Let me pop this up. And here is the thing. I have always just loved vitamin C stuff because it is always like citrusy and delicious. And so I am, I have already thought like, why not? But let's talk about it. Is it doing anything? What might it be doing? You know, all those basic questions.

0:04:41 Rick: Yeah. Yeah. I will say this, is like, I mean, I started to dive into this, like, well, I mean, yeah, I had my sort of knee jerk reactions, like, oh yeah, I remember taking Emergency, or, you know, I'm not a big like vitamin person, but my wife is, uh, people around me, you know, I get the supplements. I don't pushed hard either way. And so I was like, I should read up on this. And, oh my goodness, is there a lot of debate out there on like, like, you know, there's all kinds of articles that are, you know, in journals, peer-reviewed journal articles that have widely different opinions, and, uh, to support their opinions too, um,

0:05:17 Thomas: Oh, wow.

0:05:30 Thomas: Well, make sure to only give us the right ones, if you don't mind.

0:05:32 Rick: Exactly. I mean, I've kind of gone back and forth a little bit of readings through some of these and and really trying to understand it. I mean, it's what's undeniable and and very clear across the board is vitamin C is a very useful, useful compound that our bodies don't make. We need to eat it somehow, or, you know, you can have it, you Know, IV and, of vitamin C, I guess it's very inefficient.

0:05:47 Thomas: Hmm. Oh, do they have that version of emergency?

0:05:55 Rick: But yeah, right.

0:05:56 Thomas: The emergency IV edition? Someone comes and sets it up for you?

0:05:59 Rick: Yeah. And, you Knew, I was all kind of prepared to kind of come to, know, when I was first thinking about this, of thinking of like, what are witty analogies I could use of like, you that you need to take a bunch of vitamin C is like realizing while you're having a heart attack that you should take up running and cardio, you know, take But in the end, I, cases for some people, maybe there is a good effect. I, you look down at what, what vitamin C and how it interacts with the immune system, it's quite fascinating.

It does a lot of really positive things, seems to really help, um, talked about them last time, the neutrophils, uh, are the, the parts of your immune system that are, they're actually really kind of short -lived cells, but they're incredibly, these are the ones that spit out their DNA if they come across, you know, bacteria and things.

And also, they a lot of these reactive oxygen species, these sort of chemicals that they'll also release and burst out to try to kill pathogens when they get up around them and are trying to kill them off. And so, because they're working with all this nasty stuff, C is great antioxidant. So they tend to really soak up a lot of the vitamin C that's around them and really concentrate it inside of them. And it helps protect them.

And so that's a good thing, much, you know, the CDC and reading a lot of stuff as recently as 2020 is, you know, for the general population, we get pretty much saturating levels of vitamin C from our diet. So, taking vitamin C every day to ward off, know, you getting a cold is probably not going to do a single thing. I mean, you're going to get that cold or you weren't. It wasn't vitamin C or the lack of it that was the problem for most people.

0:06:17 Thomas: That's funny.

0:07:34 Thomas: That's tend to be my anytime I've looked up vitamin stuff, it feels like we just get most of that from our diets. And if not, you from completely, I don't want to use the word natural because it's It's not very valid, but, um, often it's also from like fortifying, fortifying some of the foods, right? That's where we get a lot of our vitamins too.

0:07:52 Rick: Complete breakfast isn't fully fortified.

0:07:52 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Big glass of like cream, pure cream and an orange juice.

0:07:54 Rick: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, Totally. Totally. Mostly from your diet. There's very little evidence for the general population that taking daily vitamin C is going to be really helpful. The exception that everybody cited, though, is in the military or in elite athlete kind of situations where you're going be just punishing your body for hours on end. Can actually cause a lot of of stress on your immune system, um,

0:08:23 Thomas: Oh shit. Maybe that's why I get sick. I'm not an elite athlete, but I play hockey pretty fucking hard. Not going to lie. Maybe. Wow. What if that's part of why I gets sick so much more? Wait, are you saying maybe I should be taking some vitamins?

0:08:25 Rick: Yeah. Yeah. Well, There was a study Maybe You should take some vitamin C, I guess. So let me tell you what the study was first, and then, you know, you decide. I'm not a clinician, I guess, that's the first and foremost thing. I

0:08:40 Thomas: Sure. 35 white middle -aged beer league hockey players, uh, studied at Rand. No, but I, I for real play really hard. So I'm curious that that's interesting. Let's see.

0:08:48 Rick: Yes. And In the study, they looked at, like, you in the military, and they gave them either a placebo or they gave him vitamin C supplements for two weeks leading up to, like, really intensive drills and exercises, things like that. They found that there was a significant decrease in the amount of illnesses that those recruits or military military personnel contracted. Similar with, you know, elite athletes when they're going through intensive training periods. But I do think that it's, one thing, you know, they sort of say, you know, these are like repetitive day after day, high intensity day in, day out. And so it's kind of that, like, wears you down over time, right?

0:09:12 Thomas: Really?

0:09:24 Thomas: All yeah, well, I'm I had no idea this was coming up, but to give you an example, I, I'm kind of a, you know, I like numbers. I like data, uh, person. So I wear a chest heart rate monitor when I play just for fun. I, so I play three nights a week for also it's fucking late at night. It's that, I don't know if that matters, but it sucks. Like some games start at 11 PM and I do three nights. And I burn anywhere from a thousand to like 1100 calories playing as hard as I possibly can in about, you know, an hour and a half and Uh, it feels pretty intense to me, but I don't know, what, what do they have, like, a sort of a way of quantifying what they're considering intense level of, you kind of thing? Oh, that's

0:09:40 Rick: Yeah. It could be. -uh.

0:10:00 Rick: Right.

0:10:10 Rick: I did not dig deep enough to find that exactly if they had an actual caloric count, but you caught me on that one. I find it really fascinating. The other component of the immune system that I think is highly related to exactly what you're pointing out is the amount of energy that needs to be marshaled in order to mount an immune response actually can not often even be accomplished just through eating. Like it, you need just like incredible amounts of calories very quickly. And so the immune system is one of the first places to sort of rob calories from other places if it needs it. But you can imagine the inverse is probably going to be negative on your immune system, right? You're burning up all that energy, a thousand calories in a couple hours. And you you know, there isn't much left around if your immune system needs some on the fly.

0:10:14 Thomas: Okay hmm oh wow shit Okay, I only question here is if that's true and I get sick all the time, why am I not more fit if the immune system is using up all my calories and the hockey's using calories, why am I not making any dent in body? But no, well, it's another time, well, that's a more personal question I'm

0:11:19 Rick: Yeah. Well, yeah, I was going to say that has a lot more to do with how how, the immune system or how your body's going to rob calories from other places. It doesn't, that exactly.

0:11:21 Thomas: Just kidding uh is it only taking the good ones, yeah, no

0:11:28 Rick: Like it's the short term, like you stuff that gets depleted and then it'll kind of to go to other stuff. The body hates breaking down fat in a lot of ways and whatever. That's going to a whole different controversial thing. I know nothing about, well, I know about it when I step on the scale, but yeah, I think, you know, we end up in these situations where we're putting our body through a lot OF stress and it's repeated sustained stress. So where, you you're know not eating enough or you're malnourished if you have a vitamin C deficiency or a genetic disease that causes vitamin C deficiency, if you have scurvy, right, you're going to, you know, more respiratory infections in particular,

0:11:36 Thomas: Kidding yeah I have scurvy no, I'm just kidding, wow, this

0:12:07 Rick: But you're going to be much more susceptible to colds. So it is clear that vitamin the lack of vitamin C is something that is really detrimental yeah

0:12:13 Thomas: Is blowing my mind, I did not know this was where this was, let me, uh, I know not uh, not every one of our listeners plays hockey like a maniac like I do, but but but I am curious, I know, uh, you know, it's okay, we don't have a firm quantifiable thing on there, but I imagine, I know a lot of uh listeners, they might be uh delivery workers, they might be people who work on their feet a lot, people like to listen to podcasts while they're doing and stuff like that, you, delivery people, do you think about that? Maybe there's, there could be more people implicated in this than we might think.

0:12:20 Rick: Yeah right oh Yeah, I mean, I think, I think it's, I mean, even just chronic stress, I mean, this is some of the the problems of, you know, high anxiety and chronic stress, you know, you're kind of constantly putting your immune system on

0:12:51 Thomas: I've been nonstop stressed out of my mind for an entire year, Dr. Rick. How am I ever not sick now that I think about it? Jeez, what have I been thinking? Here I'm like, oh, Lydia has a better immune system. I don'T know. I think I'm just in the worst possible conditions for getting sick that a human could be in.

0:12:53 Rick: Yeah yeah Well, you should be Well, I mean, then all the more reason to uh you know take some vitamin C, I guess, or something, right, again, I'm not a physician, no medical advice, uh uh I'm

0:13:11 Thomas: I guess I better take some vitamin C, yeah. Wait, you're not a physician? What is a physician then?

0:13:19 Rick: Not a physician, uh, is a medical doctor, so a PhD in immunology, so I, uh, yeah yeah I can't

0:13:24 Thomas: Oh, okay, yeah, nah, just say you are. No, cool with that, right?

0:13:31 Rick: Oh man, there's a story some other time for that. Anyway, but you know this is, this was surprising to find out actually how many beneficial roles of vitamin C plays. So it's not just the antioxidant role, but it does seem to improve. So there another study done in which they just looked at patients had pretty low levels of vitamin C for whatever reason. Like think they were saying it was like 25. 20, Let's levels in your bloodstream are going to be more like 1 to 200 for most people.

And so if you have, you % or, oh, yeah, mg per day is going to be saturating in your plasma. So people that had maybe, you one-eighth of what was normal in your plasma levels.

They did see that take they the neutrophils out of those patients, and they could see that the neutropils were not, that they didn't respond to those chemical stimuli that I talked about last time, the cytokines and the chemokines, those are, you of the major ways that our immune system communicates to itself or across the body and gets you to home into the right place of infection.

And so, it it showed that, you in those patients, neutrophils seem to be slower and less good at migrating up that gradient. And then if they did give those patients vitamin C, those neutrophiles did then seem to improve and

0:13:33 Thomas: Yeah, sure. Really?

0:14:43 Rick: All of a sudden could speed up. If you were, had a cold and had normal levels of vitamin C and they gave you more vitamin C your neutrophil didn't change. So, yeah, yeah.

0:14:52 Thomas: Okay, that's important. So it's not like, all right, I've been doing this for a long time. I'm getting a little bit of a cold, but I'm just totally fucking a bunch of those fuzzy fizzy, you know, emergency things.

0:15:00 Rick: You'll probably give yourself diarrhea from everything I've read.

0:15:04 Thomas: Yes. Awesome. I also have a lot of debt. No, I'm just kidding. That's funny.

0:15:04 Rick: Yeah, yeah near constant. Yeah.

0:15:11 Thomas: You're just hitting me on every level. I feel connecting with this podcast so much right now. So that's important because I do feel like that's the common feeling about it. You the common, I think, possibly misconception is, and maybe we should have started there. Sorry, I just got so excited about this, but I'm a cough. I'm Getting a Little Sick, and I actually want to go to work or school and not miss it for some reason. So the feeling is, well, pump a bunch of this stuff that tastes nice and orangey, and it seems like that'll Help me get over this cold. What can you tell us about that component of it? Once you're already maybe feeling a little sick, is there anything measurable there? Hmm.

0:15:13 Rick: Yeah. Right. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:15:51 Rick: Say that the, the sort of the CDC company line that I read up on this is that there is no data to support the theory that or vitamin C is going to boost your immunity and stave off infection or have a very material impact on the course of the infection for the vast majority of the population.

0:16:11 Thomas: What?

0:16:11 Rick: Are some studies, they say that that's why it's not, you know, mandated or recommended by the CDC. There isn't a guidance on that. They do in the same, you know, publications that talk about this, they do cite that there is literature out there that that suggest a moderate impact from taking a bunch of vitamin C on your cold. So when I say a moderate impact, maybe a 10 percent reduction in the time that you're sick.

0:16:33 Thomas: Wait. Are you saying in the same thing that was saying it doesn't do anything also had research that said it does do something? So

0:16:44 Rick: Yeah, this is what I mean. It's really confusing that it's kind of like, again, that's like I think they're describing situations that exist maybe more on the fringes. Right.

0:16:54 Thomas: Yeah, was this like the study, was there a certain, again, is it middle-aged hockey players, is there some, some qualification that makes it like not for everyone, but for these people.

0:17:03 Rick: I mean this was, they, they kept it very generalized and including that that 10% rate. I saw another study that pointed was out about a 14% rate, uh, but this is also something where like you imagine, like if you have a relatively minor cold and you're sick for like five days, uh, like 12 hours being healed 12 hours is faster. They look at saying, okay, is this going to prevent you from going to the hospital? It doesn't seem like you're going to see a big effect there. Might lessen some of the symptoms a little bit, especially if you've depleted your stores of vitamin C or if you didn't have enough going into it. But if you're eating regularly, you're probably fine.

0:17:19 Thomas: Yeah. Not nothing, but yeah. I also feel like that's going to be OK. I'm, I'm just speculating, but I feel like that's the kind of study that it would be hard to be super certain about a 12 percent decrease in a cult. Because imagine, I mean, I know we do the double blind stuff or whatever, but But I don't know. I just, if there's anywhere at all where I thought I was taking something that might help, I don'T know. I guess that's, they try to do the studies so they don'T do that. But I know there's so many ways for little biases to leak into stuff like that. And that's a lot of where, you the placebo effect might be coming from is those kind of ratings.

0:17:41 Rick: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

0:18:16 Thomas: If you're like, how would you rate your cold from 1 to 10 right now? And you look at, you try to make a very fine mathematical calculation about how your cold's doing. And you're like, wow, they're 12 % better or whatever. And it's like, I don't know how you would know that. I guess it's just, feel it a little better 12 % sooner, but that feels, I don'T know. I'm just a little skeptical because it feels more precise than I can imagine being with a cold. Like I'll have a cold and I'll feel like I have symptoms for a month. Like, I don't know when I would say they're better. It's like I just, my nose is always doing running running or whatever. What It's do you think? Is there anything valid there?

0:18:42 Rick: Right. Well, Then the converse thing too, right, like just you then say, okay, well, I'm sick for a month so therefore I'm just going to plug myself full of vitamin C, but that isn't, like, you weren't deficient in vitamin vitamin C, then I don't see how it's going to help you. That's where they're seeing there could be some effect. So the guidelines are based off of looking at a combined 29 different studies in this publication of more than 11,000 children and adults.

So they're looking across a whole bunch of studies. It's sort of one of the meta-analysis of a bunch of studies, and so it's like, well, some studies have found a moderate effect, but taken together whether they really didn't see something that was repeatable enough. And a lot of this, again, kind of, I think, goes back to, I mean, in the 70s, Linus Pauling had done some studies that really found and promoted the health effects of vitamin C. And I think that that a study that was, you know, really kind of sparked a big craze of, like, everybody needs more vitamin C, and then some researchers tried to repeat it and weren't able to really repeat the same outcomes, and so these are very difficult studies and I don't necessarily, I say that his study was wrong or whatnot, but if

0:19:57 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:57 Rick: It can't be repeated and it's not widely repeatable, then, you know, you might be looking at an abnormal effect that was observed in one study that you, was a fluke or could have been real, but it's again so marginal, as you're saying a 10% reduction in the time you're sick, you're not double blind, you, right. Like, I guess that's what I'm trying to get back to is like, I can't go, well, I took a whole bunch of vitamin C, so when I get better I'll tell myself I would have been sick four more days had I not done this, but not

0:20:14 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Sure. But I mean, if, you if were coming here and telling me, actually, it's, it'S very well substantiated that taking this orangey thing will help you be better 10 % faster. I'd be like, well, yeah, duh. Obviously I'm going to do that. Cause I won't, you have the counterfactual, but like, I WILL enjoy the knowledge that I mean, it's the same way with COVID vaccines, where we're like, you likely will reduce how intense COVID will be for me. But I don't know the alternate reality where I didn't do it. So is it sounding like, yeah, there's some evidence, but, you studies are and who knows if, you Now, these could be fueled by big orange. They could be bought and sold by big Orange drink.

0:20:26 Rick: Right. Right.

0:21:02 Rick: Case closed.

0:21:06 Thomas: Yeah. Like, it's not seeming, you every person out there needs to take this now. But it is seeming like, well, there's a possibility some people might be a little deficient and they should look into it.

0:21:06 Rick: Yeah.

0:21:18 Rick: Absolutely. And they have seen some groups that, you know, at really high risk, you know. People that do tend to find that they're getting sick all the time, do kind of stress you need to be taking vitamin C every single day to see that sort of benefit potentially, you small know, fringes. Does seem like it, at least in one of the studies that the one that reported the 10%, you know they were looking at people that took vitamin C pretty much religiously over long periods of time and that's where they maybe saw a mild effect, but in people that weren't taking regular vitamin C and then got sick and and started taking it after they became ill, it was sort of like had already progressed so much by the time you're symptomatic. I guess we should back up to that. By the time your symptomatic with a cold, like you've been infected for, you days already.

0:21:55 Thomas: Right. Oh, wow.

0:22:07 Rick: So This is not like all, you know, the day you start to feel sick is the day your immune system encountered the pathogen for the first time. I think that that's where this becomes a little bit more challenging, to where if a lot of these things, I mean, even, even the antivirals that we have that have been clinically proven to show you an effect in, you infections, you know, it's like you're even in COVID, you, you got to take it like the second you start to get symptoms for it to have much of an effect, because for you to have symptoms, there's probably tons of virus throughout your body already at that point. Like the virus has already gone through some rounds of replication before your immune systems had a chance to really kick off.

0:22:07 Thomas: Let's totally do this conversation inside out because let's start our conversation, Dr. Rick. Because I always, I've often said in something that I learned that I'm wondering if it's accurate, that like the things we're reacting to when we get a cold are not so much the infection, it's our immune response, right? So when we're like, oh, I got this, you know, runny nose or whatever, and people say, well, you got to boost your immune system, that's what you need to do. And it's like, well that's the thing that's doing the things you don't like, right, is that all correct?

0:22:56 Rick: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

0:23:24 Thomas: Or tell me any, you know, wrinkles there.

0:23:26 Rick: I if I caught you on this, yeah, I Think, you boost your immune system really mean? You know, I Mean, this is something that's quite complicated. So, yes, people are going to say that. But what do they really mean? They really mean like, yeah, you know, take more health into your body and be more health. Know, and think this is a situation where, you you have a really great immune system, we saw this in COVID, that could be detrimental. And even more so in the 1918 Spanish flu.

0:23:51 Thomas: Right. Wow.

0:23:52 Rick: Know, the people with the best immune systems were probably wiped out a lot faster, because it was their immune response that was killing. You, um, Because it's like a full body immune response, is really bad. You might have heard, you know, I remember hearing about it during, you know, some of the worst days of COVID, of, you know, people having cytokine storms, um, These, these full body, like, chemical releases that are basically just calling all cars for, for your immune system throughout your, your entire body. And basically your entire blood system just like dissolves and lets out into your, into your peripheral tissues.

Because remember the last time we talked about, you know, those neutrophils, or macrophages, or dendritic cells, or B cells, or T cells, they're all going to follow these gradients around to tell them where is this infection that I need to go deal with. And so it's going to leak out of, of local area and head into that tissue. And when it's leaking out, you know, other stuff comes along with a little bit of plasma, and that's where that swelling comes in, that Inflammation, you, it's a new cell showing up there that don't normally there, as well as more like plasma and stuff that's seeped out of those veins, um, then if you do that full body wide, then, like, you don't have a circulatory

0:23:59 Thomas: Really? Yeah. Jeez.

0:25:02 Rick: System that Functions Anymore And you Die, Right.

0:25:01 Thomas: That's not good. I like my circulatory system.

0:25:06 Rick: Right, so, you know, a, a lot the mortality that we see from, from different, different pathogens is actually the immune response. So much of the things that we experience is, like, have this symptom of this cold, often is result of something that our bodies have done to induce that response. A fever is an antiviral response a lot of the time, or at least people talk about it that way.

0:25:29 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:30 Rick: You can get fevers with bacteria as well. But the idea being that there are enzymes, you know, that function in our bodies. Well, they function at that temperature. And if you raise the temperature, then they don't function as well. Whereas there are other enzymes we have, things like heat shock proteins that are actually turned on and work more, work more efficiently when we get a fever.

0:25:43 Thomas: Interesting.

0:25:52 Thomas: They're like, Ooh, is it getting hot in here? Or yeah, well that's so many I also want to shout out, we, you you know, Lydia posts what we're going to be talking about. And we got a great patron question along these lines that I should make sure I shut. Minds think alike. Adrian, the science enthusiast who asked, should people retire the phrase immune boosting? I feel it's unhelpful and very outdated way to describe a complex and interconnected system that is very sensitive to too much change. This term often is used by unscrupulous individuals and companies to sell treatments, foods, and diets that do not work and preys on people's lack of knowledge and fear to who want to make themselves feel healthier. What do you think? Do you co -sign that? Anything to, you know, nitpick or what do you think?

0:25:56 Rick: Yeah, exactly. Or am I just coming down with Ebola or, you Know, something terrible. Yeah. Great. Yes.

0:26:39 Rick: Makes sense to me, honestly. I think that often the idea of immune boosting is played towards something that might you feel a little bit better, but it's only going to work on the margins at best most the time. I mean, even the good drugs that we have tend to be, you know, if you have a full -blown systemic infection, you know, that's why, like, steroids work. You know, one of the best treatments for COVID when people were in the hospital was they started using steroids. And steroids totally suppress your immune system very quickly. They kind of get everybody to just calm down. And then they can, like. Really go after, you. Antivirals. But, like antiviral the is usually are most effective very early on before that virus is really. Exploded out throughout your body.

0:27:20 Thomas: Steroids suppress your immune system. Stop it flipping out. Fever thing, before I move on from that, that has always blown my mind. I, I now, I ,I trust you, Dr. Rick, you are a physician. So I definitely believe, no, he's not. I don't want to mess that. Yeah. You're not a physician, no. No, I trust you. But I've always found it funny that it's like, yeah, normal body heat, 98 .6 -ish, if that's even the right average, but something like that. For certain bad thingies. But if I raise that temperature to 101, now all of a sudden those very enzymes are like, oh, it's too hot in here. Let's get the fuck out of here. I can't work

0:27:23 Rick: -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I

0:27:58 Thomas: In this Heat. 73 degrees or so, like that makes a big difference. I know, I was Yeah, if it were me in there, sure, yeah. I'm not working when it's 73 degrees. I'm not doing it.

0:27:58 Rick: Give up. Don't know. I mean, my wife and I fight over the thermostat, and I will tell you that those three degrees. Exactly.

0:28:15 Thomas: If you get it down to 70, I might do some work. Yeah, but they're not me. I don't understand, how are they that, how are they that sensitive? Yeah.

0:28:15 Rick: Exactly. Oh yeah. Yeah. I might pass out. Yeah, yeah. I mean, everything's really well orchestrated to work and fine -tuned, you know, I mean we, if our body temperature drops to 90, we're, we'll of be dead soon, you know? Yeah. Uh, I, again, not a physician. I don't know exactly when you die, how cold you get, but it's not, it's, it doesn't take too much. So I mean, the way that all of these, these things work really depends on the temperature, and and we see this, uh, a lot of the work that I, the my day job work, where we're, you know, the the structures and things that you're, that, uh, bodies make with RNA or proteins or DNA or whatnot, all can change quite dramatically based on temperature, because those charges and things like that will fall apart, uh, when you get at more temperature in there, or

0:28:29 Thomas: We're dead right? Yeah, that's a good point. It's not much, no, crazy Yeah,

0:29:09 Rick: They'll come together, or, you know, they'll have different physical properties based on how energetic through heat, you know, that area of that system is. Yeah.

0:29:17 Thomas: Yeah. Man, that's crazy. I have always wondered about that. Like, really? That's going to make a difference? But yeah, no, apparently that's going to make it different. Okay.

0:29:23 Rick: Yeah, but, you know, and then some of the unseen forces, we also see, like, things that you brought up around, like having a fever. Well, there's so many other symptoms, right? So, you know, one of the things I've always found kind of interesting is, you sense, I don't know about you or other listeners might resonate with this, But I definitely don't want to be around people. I get kind of grouchy when I'm sick. It's very unpleasant. And that's actually pretty good for the species.

0:29:49 Rick: It seems like, yeah, in general, but, you know, especially when I'M sick.

0:29:48 Thomas: That you don't be around people. I agree. No, I'm just kidding. It's a little harsh of the, you know, the science books to tell you that personally, but okay.

0:29:58 Rick: Yeah. You know, it took some reckoning, but you know. I turned the page on that one still. Yeah, no, it's a.

0:29:58 Thomas: Yeah, sure. Professors like, wow, We are honored to be joined by the Rick who the textbooks say should not be around people. No.

0:30:14 Rick: Exactly. That was a weird day in class. Yeah.

0:30:16 Thomas: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I, I Get a fever, it is truly I, I can't do anything, like I'm absolutely unable to do anything, I get really out of it. It's are always like, "Oh, you could tough it out when you have a fever." I'm like, no, man, I'm I'm, like, delirious. I can't even I can even walk. It's weird. I must be really sensitive to that.

0:30:19 Rick: Right. Right. What we talked about earlier of like, you know, your body is needing to raid, well, your immune system's raiding your body for energy to start to respond to all of these things. And it's in full force. If you have a fever, like your body's already mobilized, like everything, you You know, it's sent these systemic signals.

0:30:52 Thomas: Yeah. And maybe if I'm already dealing with some hockey induced, you know, calorie deficits or something, maybe that's that could make it even worse or something. Thing okay?

0:30:58 Rick: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And then again, you know, even, you know, we've talked about, you know, I don't know if your mom ever, you know brought this up, you know, starve a fever, feed a cold. You know, Let's be, you know, it's thought that when you have a fever, you know, the enzymes in your stomach that help break down food aren't as efficient as well. And so that may add to feelings of nausea and whatnot because you're just not Digesting quite As well and and that's going to slow down maybe potential energy uptake in your body, or you just don't feel like eating. You feel kind of crummy and nauseous, you your immune system still needs to have all the resources at hand to deal with it. So it wants you doing as little as possible. Like if you're, you Know, trying to do your taxes and, you run Know, a million errands and all these things, then you're actually competing. Those activities are competing for the resources that your immune system needs to just deal with what it has at hand.

0:31:02 Thomas: Um. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

0:31:48 Thomas: It Physician Says don't do your taxes, everybody, you heard it Here first. Um.

0:31:56 Rick: Exactly. Legally binding.

0:31:59 Thomas: Well, I've always thought that starve a cold thing, like that, that can't be right. It's not like you want to starve it's just you Probably feel like You Can't Eat.

0:32:05 Rick: No, you really don't. Yeah.

0:32:07 Thomas: But if you can eat, then that's good.

0:32:08 Rick: And it's wise to get food in you. Yeah, exactly. Food and liquids in you to keep you hydrated and keep energy moving into your body is absolutely critical. But what

0:32:11 Thomas: Yeah. Every single old timey saying like that is wrong, pretty much. It's almost always wrong.

0:32:24 Rick: They observe is, if you force feed a kid with the flu, you're he's gonna puke it up right yeah it's not gonna work and

0:32:30 Thomas: It's not going to work. Yeah sure. I suppose by that loose definition, then it's wisdom. You're right. It is true life -saving wisdom. Okay, but back to to vitamin C et al. any downside? So if people are listening, they're like, well, I don't know if this would help me, but like, what is it? I don't mind taking a little orange fizzy thing or whatever, or a little, I don´t mind taking my Flintstone vitamins. Actually, shit, I should get some Flintstone Vitamins if I´m going to do this.

0:32:36 Rick: Yeah right if you're gonna do this, yeah

0:32:57 Thomas: But anyway, some people might be listening and think, well you know, maybe it doesn´t do much. Maybe it´s only 10 % or maybe it´ s only certain kinds of people. It´s not hard. Is it there any cost? Is there there any downside to doing this?

0:33:05 Rick: It's zero percent right yeah well that's the thing where I I think that you this is why I think a lot of the, you know, to to to Adrian's uh earlier about a you lot of these unscrupulous actors out there that are really promoting immune boosting things that you, I think that a lot of that is to be flashy and a and bit hyperbole, uh, sure, but there's also, like, vitamin C alone, not speaking about any of the other weird you out there, but but for vitamin C alone, it seems like there's a very little downside.

0:33:35 Rick: It's really, really soluble. Your body can, you get rid of excess. Again, you're probably at saturating levels if you're eating regularly and in -balanced, even, like, mediocre diet, the right? Way most Americans eat, I guess.

0:33:50 Thomas: Is this one of the ones that meat is a thing for because I'm also a vegetarian? So am I kicking myself even more with this? Is that like, I think that's the other vitamin. Isn't that like vitamin A or something? I don't know.

0:33:58 Rick: Yeah, I don't think that that, I mean, because you get so much vitamin C from, like, fruits and vegetables, that's really the major source of it, it's less from me

0:34:05 Thomas: Okay. So what if I don't eat any fruits? What if I'm living the worst possible way to get sick the most, Dr. Rick? Have Have you thought of that? I think I might start taking my Flintstones.

0:34:07 Rick: Yeah right, that could be a little more challenging they I mean, those studies, do you say if you are malnourished, if you meet the criteria for maln nourishment then vitamin

0:34:25 Thomas: Okay, I don't know about that.

0:34:26 Rick: C is going to be really important but

0:34:27 Thomas: Oh, hold on. Let me just Google. How much vitamin C in a Crunchwrap Supreme? Let's see how much vitamin.

0:34:29 Rick: I bet there's actually a

0:34:34 Thomas: I know I'm actually going to do that for fun. I was joking.

0:34:34 Rick: Fair amount you'd be surprised Yeah. Yeah.

0:34:37 Thomas: I was like, wait, that'll actually be funny. In a CrunchWrap Supreme. Okay, it says 20%. Is that?

0:34:39 Rick: Yeah. 20 % of your day. So you need

0:34:46 Thomas: Yes, 11.

0:34:46 Rick: Five of those a day and you're fine.

0:34:48 Thomas: 11 points. You hear that, everybody? Physician Dr. Axelman says, don't do my doxes and eat five Crunchwraps a day. Well, you're the best guest I've ever had on this show. I, uh, got any more wisdom?

0:34:58 Rick: And this, this is why I'm not allowed to see patients. Yes. Best advice you could, you could ask for.

0:35:00 Thomas: Yeah. Oh boy. So I, it's, I'm getting something from my, from I'm not going to say at risk of incriminating myself how many Crunchwrap I do consume, but they have. But the point is, like, if a Crunchwrap has, you know, that much, you sounds like it's pretty easy to get this vitamin normally.

0:35:24 Rick: Exactly. Yeah, I mean, if five crunch craps can get you there, you're probably, probably you're you're probably doing fine with with maybe if

0:35:25 Thomas: Okay. That's a lot of food, to be honest. I can't eat five Crunchwraps. I'm only one man. I can maybe knock down two if I was every single day.

0:35:35 Rick: You played a hockey game on hockey days I

0:35:38 Thomas: I know, honest to God's truth, the reason I eat so many CrunchwRAPs is it is my post -hockey snack because I lose so many calories. I can't get them back I feel miserable the next day if I don't eat, like overeat like crazy. I haven't solved that problem yet. But anyway, enough about that. So it sounds like no real downside. You might get a little diarrhea if you take too much vitamin C.

0:35:39 Rick: Don't know. Yeah, and That's the most common reported, uh, side effect of too much vitamin C is diarrhea. Uh, other than that, was the in these studies, like, had a really hard time, like, other side effects between the placebo or vitamin C group, they, they were basically identical.

0:36:16 Thomas: Interesting.

0:36:17 Rick: So, hard. Again, I was coming here ready before I had really dug into this, after when you guys first pitched the topic, I was sort of off the cuff thinking like, oh yeah, the whole like, yeah, this is, it's not going to be helpful. There's no point in it, you know, all of that. And then kind of looking at, I'm like, well, this is a very marginal benefit, maybe for some people, some of the time, but the downside's pretty low. To me, that would say, like, why spend a whole bunch on it and need some like boutique blend of something, something something seems ridiculous.

0:36:42 Thomas: Yeah. I was going to bring that up. I mean, money is a downside.

0:36:47 Rick: You know, exactly.

0:36:48 Thomas: It's not like people are just overflowing with cash at this moment. Um, it sounds like the whole conceit of emergency, not much there really. I mean, if the, if The Idea is, oh, you're about to go on a flight, drink this fizzy thing that has 9,000% of your vitamin C that you need in a day, unlikely to help unless again, maybe you're malnourished and it happens to hit that amount that you need, but that sounds like if you're Malnourish, maybe just to that might be your main problem, you know, see if you can solve that. I don't know, so you get some crunch wraps in you, like old grandmother would say.

0:36:49 Rick: Yeah, Absolutely. No, Right. Yeah, mean, If it were me, and I was very worried about it and I was like gonna be diligent, I would, maybe, I mean, I don't know that I could do two weeks of vitamin C of the the emergency, I guess. I could do two weeks of vitamin C, but I don't know about the emergency. But that would be more of, you want to really sort of overdo it for a number of days before you're going to be in the situation where you actually need it, it sounds like.

0:37:42 Thomas: The emergency's got a lot of crap, too. That's not just... It sounds like your

0:37:45 Rick: Yeah, it's Not Just Vitamin C.

0:37:47 Thomas: Recommendation would be take a little bit of vitamin C pill thing, not like, you know, do this absurd overloading thing of every vitamin.

0:37:53 Rick: Yeah. Oh, Yeah, pretty much anything that's like a boutique, like name or branded or anything like that is, you know, they're doing it cause it's a blend of things and, you know, everything that I can see that has, you know, maybe some benefit is, is C, but you're going to get flooded potentially with a bunch of like, but what about this? Or what about, and maybe I didn't look into every single ingredient in there, but, you overall, if you're taking a multivitamin or have a, you know, a healthy balanced diet or even a, a, American diet, you're probably getting most of the vitamins and nutrients that are going to make a big difference in your life at levels that are going to be adequate to handle the job. But supplementing on the side for the most part seems to have a few downsides unless you don't know. Think I people obviously talk about supplements and stuff are unregulated.

0:38:43 Rick: Manufacturing facilities problems, whatever. I haven't gotten sick from taking any vitamins ever. So I know, but that's certainly the fear that, that people have, I think.

0:38:52 Thomas: Okay, let's talk riboflavin. I'm just looking at the ingredients. It actually, what the hell? It doesn't even, on the tab, on the page for emergency, on their website, it doesn't list vitamin C. Are we just, maybe that's the like, well, obviously it has this.

0:39:05 Rick: Oh, maybe we're in for, maybe I really missed the boat on that one.

0:39:07 Thomas: No, no, it, I know it. Like, that's why it's called emergency, but it's, but they're just like, obviously it has this, but all their, the tabs of like ingredients, it doesn't listen. I just clicked on ingredients. It's like, all right. Antioxidant. Wait, is vitamin C an antioxidant? Is that?

0:39:11 Rick: Right. Hmm. Is an antioxidant.

0:39:23 Thomas: Oh, okay. So they're listing it under there probably. I didn't know that. So antioxidants, B vitamins, electrolytes, probiotics, other nutrients. There's a lot there. So sounds like that's probably not necessary from what you're saying.

0:39:24 Rick: Yeah. Yeah. Mm. Mm. Of this is, I think a lot you can point to, to research out there that will show, you You know, like even like riboflavin, you know, it's a B vitamin, you might have have a protective effect with some medical conditions such as like sepsis and other things, but maybe a reduce. Yeah. Right. Maybe a reduction in some forms of cancer, but I mean, it is, this is not, again, this is like long-term environmental exposure type of thing. Right.

0:39:43 Thomas: Yeah, I have sepsis. Right. So that's the game. You can point to something, some study that says, well, there might be this effect here. And it's not like the study is like wrong per se, but it's not people. I think us non-physicians, you know, just speaking for myself, uh, are, uh, we're not good at being like, oh, well, this thing, riboflavin, is probably only going to help if specifically I'm like this one guy that has these things somewhere. We're like, that is a good thing that does good things for body, must have, you known, like, that's how we think, uh, in that exact tone as Well, and

0:40:09 Rick: Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Must eat health now, I need to Increase My health by eating health. Yeah.

0:40:38 Thomas: And I Think A, it's nuanced message, I think, but if I'm hearing you right, it's like, yeah, I mean, it's not gonna hurt, but it's also, it's not doing what most people think it's doing, I guess, right?

0:40:50 Rick: Yeah, exactly. I think that that is a a safe middle ground. And, you, the midst of my cold, while, while, uh, reading up on all this, I did take some vitamin C. I was like, hey, we have it. I have to do zero about it. I don't think it got me healthier any faster though, right?

0:40:58 Thomas: Yeah. Uh -oh We're Gonna see a paparazzi photo, Dr. Rick, with some vitamin C. Caught some Vitamin

0:41:08 Rick: I'm I'm in caught in bed with big C.

0:41:12 Thomas: Are you funded by big C? Oh, well, let's see a other actually great Patreon questions this time. Thank you so much for doing that, patrons. Uh, it's a fun thing that we, uh, doesn't always perfectly work out, but we usually throw it up every recording just in case. And actually asked, I'm curious if there's anything to this, is more general immunology question, why do women seem to handle being sick better than men? Is there a scientific reason, or are we just more resilient? Is there anything to that, that you know of?

0:41:41 Rick: Oh man. Yeah, I'm going to stay away from all of the societal reasons that I think it's probably there, but you know, I think I, so there are some, there are, there are a lot of differences, some gender differences to the immune system that seem to play out in that. But women, this is, again, at a population level, so very big numbers, not, you know, not to be applied to any individual. But it seems to be at a circulation level that it's more common to have autoimmunity in women, and it's more common, uh, to have cancer in men. And Those are kind of two ends of kind of, uh, over surveillance or under surveillance of your immune system on your body, if that makes sense, right?

0:41:42 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:42:14 Thomas: Interesting. Yeah.

0:42:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:42:25 Rick: Like, So There could be, that could indicate, could- which is your capital C, you know, in with big C, but

0:42:25 Thomas: Yeah. Big C. I knew it. The signs were there all along.

0:42:32 Rick: Uh, Exactly. But, you know, could, you know, be some indication that women's immune systems, for whatever evolutionary reason, are more primed towards over surveillance versus under surveillance.

0:42:48 Thomas: Hmm. Interesting. Yeah.

0:42:51 Rick: It could be, you strange because, you know, when a woman is pregnant, she actually, like, kind of has to become immunosuppressed a little bit so that, you you know, her immune system doesn't attack the fetus's immune system.

0:43:00 Thomas: Doesn't Yeah. Exactly. Wow. Huh.

0:43:04 Rick: I think maybe because of that role or I, who knows, I really don't know the why that it is there, but there could be some relationship with that. But there's, it has been pretty well documented that there's a higher frequency of autoimmunity in women, there's higher frequency Of cancer in men. And if you imagine, you know, autoimmunities, you, your immune system attacking your cells when it shouldn't, cancer is your immune system not attacking your cells when it should. Yeah.

0:43:31 Thomas: I Never made that connection, that's so interesting. I didn't know those were kind of like opposite sides of that coin. Wow. Men

0:43:34 Rick: Right. Yeah, exactly, yeah, so I kind of think of them on the opposite ends of kind of that same spectrum of how does your immune system react to you. It doesn't

0:43:44 Thomas: Are from cancer, and women are from autoimmune. No, it doesn't really work. Yeah, we're gonna see some sort of fucking like gad sad or whatever, some evolutionary biologist asshole, be like, it's because the women be shoppings, that's why the autoimmune, whatever. And so, no, but like, you know, there are, exactly It's because we're hunting. So we, and it's like, shut up. They were gathering and they were gathering the fruits that have vitamin C, Dr. No, that's all nonsense. No, But that'S interesting. Yeah. I mean, there are, obviously there are documented, you on average population differences and things

0:43:50 Rick: Sell it was rationally designed that way. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah,

0:44:26 Thomas: Like that. And it's, I've never made that connection that those are opposite ends of kind of a spectrum in a way. And also interesting to know that, that tend to be on that autoimmune side more, which that kind of fits just what I know of. Like there, it seems like, um, and again, this could entirely, there's also a lot of societal effects here. I'm not, I don't want to minimize any of that. I, I, it's a very complicated thing here. So that could be a factor as well. But I does seem like women tend to get like chronic illnesses a little bit more. Now I'm thinking, could that be related? Because I feel like things that are autoimmune tend to be more that kind of thing.

0:44:32 Rick: Well, I mean, I think, yeah, I guess it depends on, it really depends on what type of illness, like, you know, something like tuberculosis, which would be contracted or something. I don't know that that would really qualify here, but, you Know, a lot of things like, as you, as out, you Now, something like lupus is an autoimmune disease, and that's going to be very long-term, or MS, other and chronic diseases often have some, or at least have looked, they've looked at some autoimmune component of it. So even things like cirrhosis can be, you by a number of different factors.

0:45:07 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Sure. Right. Yeah.

0:45:34 Thomas: Interesting. This is, we'll put this in the category of Thomas's total speculation, but I, it does seem to be a problem that, you know, some of those things aren't taken seriously by doctors, you know, when women complain of certain things and I bet you if, if there is like kind of a gender difference there on average, where it's like men don't have that as much, that just leads further into that problem of, you society being like, well, men don't have have this quite as much. So you must be faking it or something like, I could see that being the shitty social dynamic that we're in. But that's just Thomas speculating. Just want to make very clear. But but that's interesting.

0:45:44 Rick: Yeah. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. I mean I think that there's, There certainly are gender differences in the types of illnesses and things that people get. And you can imagine if there's disproportionate research or time applied to fixing one than the other, that you'll see disparities.

0:46:22 Thomas: All right. Well, we've got one more really good question I want to get to from patron Carol, that if this takes us into a different territory that we got to save for later, that's OK. But Carol asks about I've seen a lot of articles recently about, quote, immune debt or how people in general are getting more sick with other things because their immune systems have been damaged by COVID. This is a very long involved question, but I'm just going to kind of borrow that first part since we're low on time. What about immune debt? Is that a thing that makes sense? I mean, if we've been battling COVID, does that weaken us for other stuff?

0:46:48 Rick: Sure. I mean, absolutely it can. I don't know about COVID in particular, but one of the things that I've studied that I'm definitely aware of is in Because the case of influenza or getting the flu, there is a higher propensity for people recovering from the flu to then get pneumonia. The flu is influenza, is virus. And it is a, a you lung infection with a virus, and there is influenzae. Pneumonia is a type of bacteria that was named because it was harvested from a lot of people that had the flu. That is one of the drivers of pneumonia. Pneumonia is one or the other, obviously, yeah.

0:47:03 Thomas: Stuff you just Put an A on everything, I get it. Yeah.

0:47:33 Rick: Exactly, yeah, for bacteria, but there an increased likelihood of catching, say, in it, or at least it's been theorized that you're mounting, I mentioned, mentioned this last time we talked, when you're mounting an immune response, you're mounting it to kind of a class of pathogens. So like a virus needs a very different response than a bacteria. And when you've fully mounted your antiviral response in your lungs, you've probably killed off a lot of infected cells. You know, those T cells are going to come in and they're going to identify the virus infected cells and they'll cause them to be destroyed.

So you're talking about some acute, you know, temporary lung damage that's being accrued as you're clearing out that virus Infection. And the local immune system there is on the lookout for viruses or for virus infected cells and is really focused on that. And it's going to use different types of chemicals. It's going to use different type of cells. It is going to us different methods in order to eradicate that virus. Well, while it's doing that, it kind of in some ways might have its back turned a little bit to a bacteria that then takes the opportunity, with all this damage, is to take root and then

0:47:52 Thomas: Right.

0:48:19 Thomas: Bastards.

0:48:49 Thomas: Yeah.

0:48:49 Rick: Turn into a bacterial infection. And now the immune system has to resolve. It will continue resolving the virus. It's not like it can only do one thing at a time, but it's now going to have to shift gears and mobilize a whole new bacteria directed response against the bacteria.

0:49:06 Thomas: That makes sense, so that could, you know, be something like an immune debt, in a way? Wow.

0:49:08 Rick: Yeah. You could think of it. I had never heard the term immune debt before, but I think of It that way. Yeah.

0:49:11 Thomas: Really? What the hell? How have you not, aren't you Mr. Immune System? Yeah.

0:49:21 Rick: I missed her. My immune system needs more boost health of immunity at the moment. So I'm sorry.

0:49:25 Thomas: Pick up a power up, a booster on your immune system, more thing I was thinking before I let you go be bed with Big C, which is you mentioned, like, oh, the 1918 influenza. And I Had heard that, too, where it was like that's why I was kind of affecting the young more than the old, was like if you had a better immune system, then that was more dangerous.

0:49:28 Rick: Yeah, yeah. Yeah right.

0:49:46 Thomas: But I just just like, in what sense, then, do you have a betterimmune system? Like, is there something where it would be good? Yeah.

0:49:53 Rick: Yeah what does better Right.

0:49:54 Thomas: Like, is it sometimes good to just flood your body with all that stuff, or is it not so much better as like more active, maybe? Or is that better in most cases or something?

0:50:04 Rick: Yeah. I mean, in cases, you know, it's going to be context dependent, right? You don't know, want a really highly active immune, very healthy active immune system that is going to recognize your own cells as being foreign and now you have autoimmunity with a really active, great immune system. So, you know, that's why people with autoimmunity were suppressing their immune system on purpose. And we, that was definitely the royal Week, and not a physician.

0:50:28 Rick: I think it really depends. I mean, a great immune system is going to keep an infection localized, hopefully, and keep it under control. And you may not even be symptomatic. Like, you know, a lot of times people think that, again, you the second that they get the sniffles or something is like earlier that day they contracted the cold, like the virus blew up their nose and within hours you're feeling it. I guess that can happen with certain things. I think like norovirus has a very, very short incubation time, like after you were exposed to it, you're going to be feeling it, but then there are others that might take several days from the time that you were actually exposed till you manifest any sort of symptoms.

And that's sort of like after it's failed to be controlled by a more minimal immune response, you could say. And so you need to kind of pull out the big guns, and that's why you start to feel crummy. That's why you're getting that systemic effect of maybe a fever, you know, like that full body wide, you know, reaction to being sick. You might be a lot of, you know, coughing and and stuff from your nose, you know, your body's trying to shed and get out anything that it sees as bad as fast as it can, you know, because

0:50:17 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Mm hmm. Hmm.

0:51:15 Thomas: Interesting.

0:51:38 Rick: Uh, it's not able to keep up with it, so it's employing a lot of different methods to just get rid of it. Um, I think, you know, you have a really, really good immune system, you may never get to the point of being symptomatic because it was really held in check.

0:51:37 Thomas: Yeah, the best immune system is the one you don't even see.

0:51:54 Rick: But that's But always going to be with like kind of common things. Like if you've never seen a new strain of flu or, you know, COVID, when COVID busted out on the scene, just nobody really had natural immunity to it. So like, it didn't really matter if you had a good immune sistem or a bad immune sistem. I mean, I guess it did. It did matter. If you had a terrible immune system, you're going to be more likely to succumb to it. But there are also people with great immune systems that die from it because of their cytokine storming and having an over immune response that ended up becoming lethal. So is kind of context dependent.

0:52:13 Thomas: Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, I'm going to use an analogy that'll make it worse for everybody to understand, but it's an immune system. It sounds like it's a good golf swing. You don't want like, oh, you're just going to come and you're going to go, wow, wow. Just power to hit the ball. That's actually sucks. But like, sometimes you need to power the ball pretty far, but more often you need, you know, you got to have a consistent kind of context-dependent golf swing that's not going to be too wild and is also not going going to be too weak. Kind of want that. Yeah. So curious, like not necessarily a better immune system to be stronger per se in that consistent sense. But all I got some Flintstone vitamins to buy. Rick's got some checks to cash from Big C. I gotta go to the bank head on over. And I have five Crunchwraps to eat as well. Might as well do both, you know? So So thanks for giving us so much of your time. There anything you want to plug this time? Throw people to at all or no?

0:52:31 Rick: I yeah, right, right. Yeah, right? Yep.

0:53:22 Rick: Well, absolutely. I neglected last time to out to my son, Atlas. He was probably one of the most enthusiastic listeners of our last, and it was really wonderful to share that with him. So, hey, buddy.

0:53:30 Thomas: Oh, that's awesome. That's so cool. That's the best kind of plug. Love it. So much for joining us. Hope you feel better.

0:53:40 Rick: You. I'm definitely on the mend. Things are getting better every day. And I've been vitamin C free for like three days now, and I'm feeling okay.

0:53:49 Thomas: Right. Rick, we'll talk another time. I'm sure plenty more questions, but we'll leave it there. Take care.

0:53:54 Rick: Again, Thomas.