News and Research
Immune System Booster
Part Six

The following articles cover research on many topics about how to boost the immune system in humans and animals:

Article 14: Case Researchers Substantiate Bacterial Link To Preterm Birth Through Mice Studies Researchers discovered that a bacterium (Fusobacterium nucleatum) found in periodontal disease enters the blood, specifically targets placentas and amniotic fluid of pregnant mice and triggers preterm or term stillbirths as well as early death for live-born mice. The researchers also injected mice with the live bacteria, Fusobacterium nucleatum, from the placenta and amniotic fluids of women who had given birth to preemie babies. These bacteria also provided the same results in mice to forge an even stronger link between the oral bacteria and preterm births and its transmission to the placenta through the blood...

Article 13: Mouse Model Mimics Real-World Plague Infection An experimental plague vaccine proved 100 percent effective when tested in a new mouse model for plague infection developed by scientists. The scientists developed their model to mimic the natural transmission route of bubonic plague through the bites of infected fleas. The flea-to-mouse model provides a more realistic test setting than previously used methods, enabling a better assessment of a vaccine's ability to protect against a real-world challenge. The vaccine is an effective immune system booster...

Article 12: Rochester, BCM Test Bird-flu Vaccine In Humans Doctors are beginning the first test in the United States of a vaccine designed to protect people against one form of bird flu. While the vaccine under study is not designed to protect against the precise bird-flu virus causing the current outbreak in poultry and in people, scientists will learn whether it protects against another strain of the virus that infects birds and people. While only about two dozen people worldwide have died in recent months after becoming infected from a strain of flu known as H5N1 that is normally found in birds, bird flu is seen as a potent threat to human health because of its potential to rip quickly through a human population. A typical flu virus that normally circulates in humans causes tens of thousands of deaths each year, even though most people have some immunity against this "normal" flu. But avian flu is feared by doctors because hardly anyone carries any defenses...

Article 11: Mouse Antibodies Thwart SARS Virus The mouse immune system develops antibodies capable of single-handedly neutralizing the SARS virus, researchers report. Vaccines can act as immune enhancers to produce antibodies or specialized cells or both to stop invading viruses. "This is good news for people developing vaccines that would prime the immune system to produce antibodies against the SARS virus," says Kanta Subbarao, M.D., an investigator in NIAID's Laboratory of Infectious Diseases and lead author on the study. "Our results also indicate that drug researchers can use laboratory mice as a model to evaluate whether a drug blocks SARS." Both findings could help lessen the time it takes to develop an effective vaccine or antiviral drugs for SARS...

Article 10: DNA Vaccine Protects Against Anthrax A new DNA vaccine against anthrax provides complete protection against aerosolized spores in rabbits. "The naked DNA approach is vaccination at its simplest. The gene encoding the vaccine is introduced into the host and expressed in vivo where it stimulates a protective immune response," says Matthew Bell. Having previously shown the effectiveness of a DNA vaccine in mice, Bell and his colleagues tested the vaccine on a higher form of mammal: rabbits...

Article 9: Protein Helps Immune System Mount 'Instant Strike' Against Deadly Flu Viruses Researchers have identified a protein in the immune system that appears to play a crucial role in protecting against deadly forms of influenza, and may be particularly important against emerging flu viruses like the avian flu. The researchers believe that a vaccine made with a live but weakened strain of flu virus – such as the inhaled flu vaccine introduced last year – may activate this part of the immune system and offer the best defense against avian flu...

Article 8: In African Highlands, Climate Extremes Are Critical Factor In Malaria Epidemics Seasonal fluctuations in a region's climate, rather than consistently high annual temperatures or levels of rainfall, play an important role in causing malaria epidemics in the African highlands. Because individuals in these highlands lack the strong immune system boost that people have in regions where malaria transmission occurs year-round, their mortality rate is far higher. Under normal climatic conditions, malaria is rare in the highlands because of the region's cool weather. The mysterious re-emergence of epidemic malaria since the late 1980s in the East African highlands after a six-decade hiatus has baffled researchers...

Article 7: Chicken Pox Vaccine Effectiveness Decreases After First Year, But Still Yields Excellent Protection From The Virus Yale researchers have found a major decrease in the effectiveness of varicella (chicken pox) vaccine after the first year of vaccination, but the vaccine is still very effective overall. "The effectiveness of the varicella vaccine does drop substantially from 99 percent the first year after vaccination to 84 percent two to eight years after vaccination," said first author Marietta Vazquez, M.D. "But eight years after vaccination, the overall effectiveness is 87 percent, which is still excellent." They did not include the question of when a booster shot would be needed in the study...

Article 6: Disease-fighters In Our Mouths Provide Clues To Enhancing The Immune System Studies of natural antibiotics in our mouths may lead to a boost for the immune system for oral infections, as well as ways to boost the infection-fighting powers of mouthwashes, denture coatings, and wound dressings. "Innate immunity describes the defenses that we're are born with; they're coded in our genes. In contrast, we develop the antibodies of our acquired immune system over time as we're exposed to bacteria and viruses," said Dr. Beverly Dale...

Article 5: Study Shows Link Between Antibiotic Use And Increased Risk Of Breast Cancer A study provides evidence that use of antibiotics is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. The authors - from Group Health Cooperative (GHC) in Seattle; the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.; the University of Washington, Seattle; and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, also in Seattle - concluded that the more antibiotics the women in the study used, the higher their risk of breast cancer....

Article 4: Studies Offer New Insight Into HIV Vaccine Development Mutations that allow AIDS viruses to escape detection by our immunity response may also hinder the viruses' ability to grow after transmission to new hosts. The discovery may help researchers design vaccines that exploit the notorious mutability of HIV by training the immune system to attack the virus where it's most vulnerable. The work appears alongside a study of HIV-infected people performed by scientists at Harvard Medical School and Oxford University...

Article 3: Early Fevers Associated With Lower Allergy Risk Later In Childhood Infants who experience fevers before their first birthday are less likely to develop allergies by ages six or seven. The exposure to pathogens acts an as immune enhancer. The study lends support to the well-known "hygiene hypothesis," which contends that early exposure to infections might protect children against allergic diseases in later years. "The prevalence of asthma and allergies has increased dramatically worldwide in recent years," says Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of NIAID. "This study provides evidence that diminished exposure to early immunological challenges could be one of the reasons for this trend."...

Article 2: Natural Killer Cells Are Made, Not Born Call it the immune system's version of nature versus nurture. For years, scientists regarded natural killer cells as a blunt instrument of the body's immune defense system. Born to kill, these cells were thought to travel straight from the bone marrow, where they are manufactured, to the blood, circulating there and infiltrating the sites of early tumors or infectious agents in the body. Now, Rockefeller University scientists have learned otherwise. Natural killer cells, Münz and his colleagues say, have to be nurtured. Their ability to destroy tumor and infected cells is not present at birth.....

Article 1: Avian Flu: Shut Down Wild Bird Markets, Experts Say A group of scientists and wildlife health experts from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) say that closing Asia's wild bird markets would reduce the spread of Avian flu. Of note: The markets place tens of thousands of wild and domestic birds in close quarters, allowing diseases to make the jump between wild animals, livestock, and ultimately humans, WCS says. The group also expressed concern that policies calling for widespread killing of birds living in the wild to prevent disease would do more harm than good...