Do our immune systems suffer when we are no longer around others?

seadoug

seadoug

Well-known Member
Location
Texas
I'd say yes, and I have my theories. When I was working I traveled frequently and attended conferences with literally thousands of people. I got a cold maybe once per year. Now that I'm retired I'm usually only around people at the grocery store or the gym and I'm not close to them.

I've found that every time we've traveled recently I've gotten sick. Last October, we took a cruise through the Panama Canal and I came home with what I might describe as mild Covid. We joined our family for Christmas a couple of weeks ago and I came home with a nasty cold. I'm just getting over it. It seems that every time I'm in crowds these days I catch something. Is it because of all the new strains of illnesses that I haven't been exposed to now that I'm not around others? I guess I need to get out more!
 

Yep I believe absolutely it does for the same reasons you state. The exact same thing happens to me. Now, since I retired, and my marriage broke down I spend a vast pecentage of my life alone at home, I find when I go out and mix with people..I'II almost always pick something up...99% of the time..

Just 2 days ago I had a mechanic come out to my car at home.. and he chatted almost non- stop... and 2 days later I had the sore throat from hell.. I rarely ever get sore throats... but it's same with Colds..I'm not a person who is prone to colds and flu.. but since my situation has changed .. i find that I'm picking up a cold far more often than ever before.
 
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I believe so.
I don't avoid exposure to germs or viruses as it seems as if I have an immune system of kryptonite.
Can't remember the last time I was down with a bug.
 
I don't travel anywhere, but the disease comes to us from around the world especially in the winter. I think perhaps we're just getting older and our bodies slowly lose the ability to fight. We get a slight sniffle which affects our already declining amount of sleep, and the lack of proper rest sets allows it to continue making us even less resilient.

These last 2 weeks with packed grocery stores and a couple parties have been troublesome. We call it the "Ketchum crud" which seems to be a mix of illness constantly morphing itself so it easily defeats the immune system.

As an aside, at a house party why do people surround the kitchen island covered w food yakking at the tops of their lungs? Usually there is a nice sitting area w comfortable chairs to take a load off that goes unused for the first hour until people calm down a bit.
 
seadoug said:
You know you can't make that statement without an explanation!
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There are names for both.
We are born with an innate system. This system marks foreign things that enter our body.
We begin to develop the second system, the adaptive system once we are exposed to germs at birth.

Reference: Virology 594 in Pre Med; College: UAB 1995
Edit: I referenced this as it was one of my graduate level courses; most difficult course I've ever taken, right up there with biochemistry.
 
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Both system's strength is genetic; including the decline timeframe, depending on lots of things besides genes.
The adaptive system is strengthened throughout life by exposure to pathogens, including immunizations.

The adaptive system is triggered to make antibodies when you get immunizations.

Innate system works against us about the time we hit 55.
This is because as we age, we tend to get more inflammation in our bodies. Example, worn out joints. Inflammation in the body, for any reason causes the innate system to mark inflamed body (self) cells (not invasive cells) and then too many markers (an enzyme if I recall correctly) are put out by the innate system. Then the adaptive system can't keep up as we age - it gets overwhelmed. Too many "fires" to put out.

The adaptive system declines because the "worker" cells, such as T cells they begin to age because their telomeres shorten to the point replication (division) is hindered and other things cause the cells to mutate and be worthless to the immune system.

Essentially, older people get sick easier when exposed, because not as many adaptive system cells (cells that destroy invasive germs) are available to fight the infection.

(This is all recall from my head, not Ai. Pre-med courses over a lifetime and courses in Biology of Aging; not boasting, just so I can be corrected if I wrote something way out of whack on accuracy)
 
Olivia said:
I have had the misfortune of sitting next to college students flying back to college from Hawaii and they've been sniffling and coughing and the next morning l was sick for the rest of my three week vacation in Vienna.
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Stressors, depending on the LEVEL and TYPE of stress and LENGTH of time of the stressor (event), strongly affect your immune system.
Therefore exposer to pathogens, from others, during long flights do not seem to cause MORE sickness per se; it is very LONG flights or multiple flights over TIME. Those are very stressor filled and an immune system struggles.

Another strong stressor to the immune system is SLEEP deprivation.
 
seadoug said:
I'd say yes, and I have my theories. When I was working I traveled frequently and attended conferences with literally thousands of people. I got a cold maybe once per year. Now that I'm retired I'm usually only around people at the grocery store or the gym and I'm not close to them.

I've found that every time we've traveled recently I've gotten sick. Last October, we took a cruise through the Panama Canal and I came home with what I might describe as mild Covid. We joined our family for Christmas a couple of weeks ago and I came home with a nasty cold. I'm just getting over it. It seems that every time I'm in crowds these days I catch something. Is it because of all the new strains of illnesses that I haven't been exposed to now that I'm not around others? I guess I need to get out more!
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Yes, I have noticed that. I attributed it to the Covid vaccine but maybe your theory is correct.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I live alone and am disabled, so my social life is small. I see my GP medical doc every 6 months. Each time, I go to that clinic, I know I'm coming home with a "cold".
If you shop at Walmart, you'll meet people who will definitely add new germs to your immune system data bank.
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When older people are forced to stay home a lot it becomes a "0" point for stress.
IF discounting stress of being lonely if one is a very social personality.
The opposite is true for those who are fine being alone and "homebodies.

Then, if one has not been out of the house for three weeks?
The stress meter goes up. Immune system takes a hit.
Is likely exposure to germs that you have been exposed to before, but have now mutated over the last three weeks into new versions.
A constant battle.

Just the stress at Walmart makes me stay away from the place.
As I grow older, I avoid stress like the plague.
I get depressed seeing the decline of civil society in Walmart.

Older people should STAY away from filthy homeless people.
You will get exposure to fungi, mold, you name it.
I do have some sympathy for some homeless.

An ER one night: Assigned to a homeless man.

I had to put trash bags over his feet when when I finally PRIED his shoes off him.
Everyone who tried to come in to help me would gag at the smell.
We added an industrial fan to blow the odor out the door as it was "the MICROBE/Fungi" odor.

Removing his shoes it was as if we had opened a pathogen lab incubator.
 
I don't think living alone lowers our immune systems, but it's pretty well established that loneliness does. Some folks are perfectly content to live alone or to not be around others too often. I doubt that their immune systems are hampered at all. But people who are truly lonely are in a health risk.
 
I wonder how many fad diet regimens contribute to a life-long weakening of immunity to both known and novel infectious agents?

Eschewing dairy, meat, fish, gluten, and so many other things humans have consumed once they crawled beyond subsistence diets. Not to mention animal fats.

Politically correct paleo-dieters also ignore the fact that the Indians hunted animals selectively. The explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who spend many years with the Indians, noted that they preferred “the flesh of older animals to that of calves, yearlings and two-year olds. . . It is approximately so with those northern forest Indians with whom I have hunted, and probably with all caribou-eaters.” The Indians preferred the older animals because they had built up a thick slab of fat along the back. In an animal of 1000 pounds, this slab could weigh 40 to 50 pounds. Another 20-30 pounds of highly saturated fat could be removed from the cavity.

This fat was saved, sometimes by rendering, stored in the bladder or large intestine, and consumed with dried or smoked lean meat. Used in this way, fat contributed almost 80 percent of total calories in the diets of the northern Indians.​

Fauxtrition might be one of the most serious health hazards in urbanized post-industrial populations.
 
CooCooforCoCoPuffs said:
Likely in a dual way. They add exposure to pathogens, and they (usually) calm people thereby lowering stressors, or not letting stress raise and tax our immune systems.
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Maybe that is also a reason I get sick when we travel. We board our cats so I'm not around them.
 

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