Consensus View

If asked, many scientists would probably agree with the statement ‘Natural infection gives better immunity than vaccination’. Indeed, if one survives the infection, there are certainly many pathogens for which natural infection induces stronger immune responses and more long-lived immunity than does vaccination.

Immune Systems = Fingerprints

Not only is our greatest human difference nothing to do with how we look, it is down to our immune systems, and there is no hierarchy in them.  Our immune systems are:

• Highly individual and complex

  • Are almost as specific to each of us as our fingerprints

• Diverse in how they respond to different diseases

  • Diversity is essential to how our species survives disease

  • Diversity comes down to our inherited genetic makeup

    • The greatest diversity in all of the 25,000 genes that make up the human genome is in our few immune system genes

    • The genes that vary most between us all are the ones that influence the immune system

Multiple factors affect our immunity:

• Lifestyle 

  • Stress can negatively impact immune function

    • Chronic long term stress produces cortisol, which neutralizes immune cells

  • Sleep has a massive impact on the immune system

    • It’s under the control of circadian rhythms and disturbing it can throw out your immune system

• Microbiome

  • Although gut microbiome directly affects the immune system, precisely how isn’t yet clear

Superhuman Health?

For doctors and immunologists, the notion of superhuman health remains at best unproven and at worst a fiction. The unparalleled diversity of our immune systems makes generalizations about stronger or weaker immune systems meaningless.

So why do some people simply seem to be better at fighting infection than others?  Maybe...

• People at the top end have been primed through early exposure to bugs, fully vaccinated, and so on

• Each person is wired to be slightly better at fighting off some illnesses and slightly worse at fighting off others

• Healthy diets translates into better immunity

Perhaps we should view viruses not as the enemy but as the educators of our immune systems.

Understanding of the way the immune system operates - the innate and acquired systems working in tandem to neutralize infection so that a cold is, in fact, evidence of an immune system working robustly

References

1. The secrets of people who never get sick

2. Coronavirus—What Makes Some Patients Sicker than Others?

3. Why women live longer than men?

4. Natural Immunity

5. Why is Covid-19 more dangerous for older people?

6. Trained Innate Immunity, Epigenetics, and Covid-19