“Look within. There is a fountain of goodness within, and if you dig, it will always bubble up.” – Marcus Aurelius
Another day, another dogma destroyed. Scientists do not put much stock nostalgia. When new information appears, we grieve for five minutes, then we swallow it and accept it. Today’s old dogma is about our thymus, the gland above our heart. coming of agealong with our pimples and our idealism.
What overturned this paradigm were two studies used by General Brigham AI to review thousands of CAT scans. They found that even though the thymus had shrunk, it still played an important role, and a healthy thymus reduced all-cause mortality by 50%. So even adults can have a blocked thymus gland, and if you’re in good health, you’re lucky.
A very simple study from 2023 showed that the thymus gland is not a player. The study looked at heart surgery patients, some of whom also had their thymus removed. When the researchers compared patients with and without thymus, the news was dramatic. Over the next five years, those without a thymus had double the risk of cancer and almost triple the overall death rate. This is because a functioning thymus houses immune cells that target pathogens and cancer cells.
Without a thymus gland, the chance of developing an autoimmune disease was 55% higher. This is because a healthy thymus ensures that immune cells do not target your tissues. Without one of these, your immune system will do very little.
These are great numbers. The thymus is not a self-filled shell, but more like a fountain of youth. But how does an organ that most people don’t know about affect?
Everything depends on immunity. Most cells—from human cells to bacteria—have a peach-fuzzy surface made up of short strings of sugar and protein molecules recognized by our immune system. Impurity in our own cells and homegrown gut microbes means the immune system is cooling down, but impurity in pathogenic microbes triggers an immune response.
Some of these pathogens are old enemies, and our innate immune system can recognize and dispatch them at a moment’s notice. We’ve struggled with them for so long that we’ve burned this answer into ourselves DNA.
But like masters of disguise and wolves in sheep’s clothing, germs try to sneak into our microbial flock. How can we fight a germ we’ve never seen before?
Welcome to the fascinating world of the adaptive immune system, which creates a dazzling array of slightly different molecules called antibodies in the hope that one of them will latch on to that wolf’s special sheen. The antibody acts like an “eat me” flag, and the identified invader is absorbed and digested by the immune cells.
Immunity, when it works, is a wonderful balancing act that can distinguish friend from foe, ready to destroy never-before-seen pathogens, but also warm to a variety of beneficial bacteria. Importantly, our immune system must be kept from attacking our own cells. But how do immune cells distinguish our own cells from others?
The interesting answer is that they learn it at an independent school. After finding a randomly generated antibody, an immature immune cell called a T cell is screened against a library of human markers. This is where the library is located in the thymus. T cells that bind to any part of this human library are held back because they can attack your own cells and cause autoimmune diseases like diabetes, sclerosis, lupus, or rheumatoid arthritis — often accompanied by diseases. worry and depression.
Some of these problem cells become regulatory cells called T-regs, which serve to dampen inflammation and prevent autoimmunity. When T-regs detect that their cells are being killed in an autoimmune response, they jump in and break up the fight. They are important players in the byzantine world of immunity.
With insults like your thymus, it starts to shrink and get fat over time smokingobesity and inflammation. Both obesity and inflammation start in the gut, so get more fiber and enzymes for your thymus. diet. As a side benefit, these foods improve your mood gut-brain axis.
Fibrous vegetables feed the beneficial microbes in the colon, which in turn produce short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, a wonder substance that nourishes and heals the cells lining the gut, keeping pathogens and toxins away from the bloodstream and thymus.
Enzymes such as yogurt, pickles, kraut, and kimchi provide probiotics that kill pathogens as they travel through the gut. These two food groups can go a long way to reducing inflammation, helping your thymus to stay young and productive.
The implication of this new research is that it’s not too late to keep your thymus in shape, which can add years to a healthier and happier life. Best of all, you control the tube for this fountain of youth.
