South Park Science 101

[Guest guest]

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I have to admit, I was a little surprised by 's comment about " the Rectal

Challenge " being junk science, so, in the interests of education, here is a bit

about the theories involved.

1. Immune system: The immune system exists primarily to rid your body of

antigens. Primarily this means microbes. So, when you accidentallly swallow some

salmonella, for instance, your body recognizes it and kills it, usually, before

it makes you sick. It recognizes the protein coat of Salmonella as being " a bad

guy " . It doesn't attack, say, lactobacilli because it recognizes them as " good

guys " .

2. Antibody: Antibodies are the proteins your body produces to do the

" recognizing " . There is one antibody for each type of protein that needs to be

recognized. For instance, you probably have an anti-salmonella antibody. When

you get some salmonella (and everyone does, sometimes, you just don't often get

sick from it) the anti-salmonella antibodies recognize it an trigger an immune

response.

3. Immune reaction: The response your body initiates is usally invisible. For

instance, when you get exposed to salmonella, usually it just disappears. If you

get exposed to a cold virus you are " immune to " (meaning you have antibodies to

it) then you kill the virus and never know you caught it. However, if there is a

LOT of the virus, as happens if it gets a chance to replicate because you don't

have antibodies to it, then the immune system gives a BIG response and you get

watery eyes, runny nose, fever: all started by YOUR immune system to flush out

the virus. Similarly, if you get a BIG does of salmonella, you'll get diarrhea,

nausea, fever ... to flush it out.

4. Globulin: Immuno Globulin is another word for antibodies. They are called

" Ig " for short, and they come in different classes: IgG, IgE, IgA. IgE is the

class normally involved in colds etc. IgA protects your intestinal tract. I

think it is found throughout your intestinal tract, but probably is not as

active in the mouth and stomach, because the stomach is very acidic and kills

most pathogens.

5. Bad guy recognition: Any bacteria, virus, or bit of protein that the immune

system thinks is " bad " is called an " antigen " . Antigens are recognized by the

shape of the proteins. Your body is supposed to know that YOUR cells are not

antigens, and it's supposed to know that the beef you had for dinner isn't an

antigen either. If it is where it is supposed to be, anyway, which is in your

gut. Now if you inject beef into your veins, it's not a good thing, and it might

be recognized as an antigen and you'd mount an immune response to it. Ditto a

donated heart. However, your IgA system is supposed to NOT mount an immune

response against normal foods you eat. The IgG system mounts a defense agains

foods that get into your *blood*, which is not where they are supposed to be,

but they get there if you have leaky gut.

6. Survival of proteins: Clearly, MOST bacteria don't survive the stomach. The

stomach acids kill most bacteria, and pathogens in particular. The stomach acids

also break down most proteins or hydrolyze them. However, also clearly a lot of

microbes and proteins DO make it past the stomach, otherwise no one would ever

get salmonella or parasites.

7. Source of microbes in the rectum: The body has to protect ANY opening into

the body, including eyes and nose and any wound, even if humans and animals

don't have a habit of sticking things into those openings. As for how bacteria

get into the rectum from outside ...well, we won't go there. However, it is

*clearly* true that bacteria get into the rectum from the other direction,

because those salmonella bacteria we used in our example will in fact wind up

there eventually (if they survived the other 30 feet worth of antibodies) as

well as any bacteria involved in dysbiosis.

8. If you want to see whether or not the gut wall recognizes a particular

protein as an antigen, you can take a sample of gut tissue, and expose it to the

antigen, and watch the results. This is similar to how the skin test works for

IgE antibodies.

9. Inherited bad guy recognition: Much of the time, your body learns to

recognize an antigen by being exposed to it. For instance, when you catch one

type of cold, you develop antibodies to that cold, and never catch that cold

again. Sometimes the body " unlearns " too, so for rabies shots on dogs for

instance, " booster " shots have to be given to maintain the antibodies. Whether

the body retains or forgets the " learning " depends (on what, no one is quite

sure, but it seems to depend on the antigen).

However, you ALSO have inherited antibodies. Smallpox is a good example of this:

Westerners could, and did, catch smallpox, but most survived. When smallpox

reached the Indians and South Seas islanders though, it wiped out like 95% of

them. One lady I know is related to some descendants of the South Seas islanders

that survived -- only 5 survived out of 200 islanders -- and their take on it

was that the ones who DID survive had been descended from some white sailors who

jumped ship years earlier. In any case, you are born with recognition systems

for some of the common microbes, so you don't have to get really sick from them

to have some immunity. This is a good thing, because with something like

smallpox you only get one shot.

10. Autoimmune disorders: Autoimmune diseases happen when your body gets

confused and thinks YOUR tissue is an antigen.

11. Allergies: Allergies happen when your body gets confused and thinks common

inhalants (animal dander, latex, pollen) are antigens (IgE allergies) or food

(IgG and IgA allergies). IgG allergies happen in the blood, where the food isn't

supposed to BE in any case. IgA happen in the gut.

12. " Gluten intolerance " is thought to be a situation where the IgA system

thinks one peptide string in gliadin is a microbe, and it is thought be be

mainly inherited (it only occurs in folks that have certain HLA genes). When

gluten isn't eaten, the IgA levels go down, but the system will return to full

reactivity when it is eaten again.

So ..... as far as the rectal challenge, it's based on the science above. All of

which, AFAIK is generally accepted as " good science " . You can use any piece of

gut tissue to check for antigen recognition, however, the gut tissue at the

" nether end " is the easiest to reach.

-- Heidi Jean

Heidi Jean