Many parents
sometimes wonder why their kid’s would say beneficial for their kids to be
exposed to as many viruses and bacteria as possible. We as adults, when sick, feel the stress and
fatigue of having to wait for our bodies to fight whatever viruses we may
have. Watching and caring for a child
that is going through that same ordeal is overwhelming and leaves you with a
sense of helplessness at times. Bacterial
viruses are treatable through prescribe antibiotics; however, there are no
medications that are available to treat nonbacterial viruses. As doctors say, you can only pucker down and
ride it out. So why would the doctors
say that it may be beneficial for you to be exposed to as many viruses as
possible?
According to an
article published in The
New York Times, “Study Finds Surprising Benefit of Viral DNA: Fighting Other
Viruses,” human cells may have found a way to domesticate invading viruses
and use their DNA to fight other viruses.
Viruses once successful invaded a human cell, will insert their DNA into
human genes. Initially, the newly
replicated viruses can still escape and continue to infect others; however,
they eventually lose these abilities in proceeding generations and become
fragments in the human genome.
In one instance,
British researches found that
Fv1, a protein virus-fighting origin The protein protects the mice from invading
viruses and prevents them from insertion of their DNA into the mouse’s genome. Therefore, prevents replication of attacking
viruses render them unable to further invade.
ated from a mouse-infecting virus.
In another instance,
according to Cedric Feschotte, (photo to the right)
and his colleagues at the University of Utah, a protein called interferon is
produced when a virus attacks and activates other genes to fight invading
viruses. Through their experiments, they
found that when exposing a virus to human cells at the viral switches near the
interferon network, there was nearly no affect in activating the immunity
genes. However, when they exposed the
cells to altered viruses, they found had a weak defense. As a result, they concluded that many of the
genes switches that helps human cells defend from viruses, in fact came from
viruses.
So, as these studies
indicate, exposure to viruses are not necessarily bad and actually indeed
beneficial. Your body, once exposed to
the viruses creates antibodies in a sense to help fight off invading
viruses. Human cells are able to harness
the viral DNA and use it to their own defensive advantage. Maybe our doctors do know what their talking
about. Maybe one day, researchers are
able to find and understand more in regards to viruses and create a possible
way to stop them from invasion.
This is a very interesting article. I would like to see more research on it
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