Reddit mentions: The best books about immune systems

Thank you for posting and I am so sorry for what you are going through. It is very difficult. I hope you feel better once you get treatment.

I don't know where you are at with everything but there are some things that might be helpful when you are ready to think about them.

I have read that male hypothyroidism is a little bit more rare than female. You may want to do this anyway but if you have a family history you may want to get checked for Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Standard treatment is similar to hypothyroid with medication but there are some dietary changes that might dramatically make you feel better if you suffer from Hashimotos. I also say this because many doctors do not standardly test for Hashimotos.

If you can find a doctor and see them regularly and get everything worked out that would be great. If it looks like you are going to have to pay out of pocket. Depending on your financial situation and dealing with the VA you may want to look at using a local lab and ordering your own tests and then sending them to the doctor (or the VA) so you don't have visits you don't need. I think places like Labcor may have sets of tests you can get. If nothing else it might help you keep track of your numbers so you can monitor your health and only see the doctor when you need to.

Here is some good reading that can help you better understand the condition as well as ask good questions from doctors:

• Living well with hypothyroidism
  
• Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms when My Lab Tests Are Normal
  
  Thank you again for posting and please update in the future! I hope you start feeling better.

I am not a doctor, but I was misdiagnosed several times as having bipolar disorder before being properly diagnosed with GD.

Take this as well meaning advice from a friend, but I found success in helping with a lot of my symptoms doing a combination of paleo autoimmune protocol and /r/keto though I also decided to see a therapist as well which really helped me deal with my mood swings. You might want to investigate those routes.

I know it's tough on you and I can't imagine the pressure you're feeling. My own husband and I went through some really rough times early on because of GD. I personally decided to keep my thyroid and eventually found remission but it took me about 8 years to get there. It took a lot of work from me, and support from my spouse. I also went through a lot of doctor shopping before I found one who would work me in a manner in which I was comfortable.

I want to recommend for you to both have a look at Elaine Moore's GD website. It's chock full of helpful information, she also has a book Called Graves' Disease: A Practical Guide. Another good resource is the Stop Thyroid Madness Website.

It might not hurt for you both to seek some therapy either separately, together or both in any case I wish you both luck and I hope you're able to find peace.

As far as I know, there hasn't been much experimental work examining the consequence of hand-washing only on the development of autoimmune disease or immune dysregulation. But there is a significant amount of evidence that the Hygiene Hypothesis is correct in at least some important respects. It is too much to describe in detail here but we can review a few examples to give you a sense of why immunologists generally support the idea.

The incidence of autoimmune disease and helminth exposure is inversely correlated -- people in parts of the world where exposure to parasitic worms is common rarely develop autoimmune diseases to the extent that those in developed, ultra-hygienic countries do. (The latter also happen to be the places on Earth where the highest amounts of antibiotics are used.) What's more, in mouse models of autoimmune disease, such as NOD (type I diabetes) and EAE (multiple sclerosis), disease severity is reliably reduced when helminth therapy (e.g., immunization with S. mansoni eggs) is administered. This suggests that the relationship is not merely correlative and may be causal. Induction of the anti-inflammatory cytokines TGF-β and IL-10 are thought to mediate this effect.

In addition to secreting immunomodulating compounds that bias the host immune response to promote tolerance of their presence, certain commensal bacteria, archaea, and fungi, as well as parasitic worms, induce the differentiation of T regulatory cells (Tregs) that dampen inflammatory responses generally. Early exposure to diverse microbial populations is associated with decreased iNKT cell numbers and less inflammation, which is likely why offspring born by Cesarian exhibit a higher incidence of immune disorders than those exposed to vaginal flora during natural birth.

Thus, broadly speaking, there is substantial evidence to support the Hygiene Hypothesis, that early exposure to microbes "programs" or "tunes" the immune system to function appropriately, and that dysbiosis produced by frequent washing with detergents and decreased exposure to commensal organisms we've evolved for hundreds of thousands of years with, contributes to impaired and/or inappropriate immune responses.

Further reading: It's been a few years since I read it but I found Jessica Snyder Sachs' book Good Germs, Bad Germs to be an accurate, accessible introduction to the role of commensal microbes (mostly focused on bacteria) in maintaining immune function -- perhaps you will find it interesting. I have not read Martin Blaser's Missing Microbes but it also looks like a valuable general audience book on similar topics.

I'm unsure which type I have, but type 4 is one of the suspects. I don't have adequate healthcare, but I research the ever loving shit out of everything. My mom is also a nurse and I went to school with her while she became one (I was a well behaved kid who was home-schooled at the time). Anyway, I'm good at understanding medical stuff and health stuff.



So much of this is about your diet, and getting the right amounts of key nutrients and vitamins. I had horrible endometriosis like symptoms before going dairy free. My older brother was in a wheelchair before he went gluten free. He has chiari and a whole slew of other stuff, including endometriosis before having his ovaries taken out (he's transgender, if you hadn't).



I'm the youngest, so that could explain a lot of the reasons I'm the healthiest, but I also eat like some kind of freak. Gluten free, diary free, mostly vegan, no corn/canola oil, high omega 3, low omega 6, etc etc. Each of these choices are based on hundreds of hours of research. I also recommend this book (amazon link, but I'm sure you can pirate the pdf) to help understand environment. Look into epigenetics if you want to have a little fun. Make sure to drink a ton of water and many people take salt pills too :D



Just opinions. Good luck. Oh! And deff see if you have a group that meets in your area, I've found that helpful in unexpected ways.

I wish this was an easy answer but for be it has been almost a 20 year battle to find out what my body likes and needs. I will say you symptoms sound like mine back when I had leaky gut. The first step it to heal the gut and clam down the immune system then I highly recommend getting a food sensitivity panel and your 23&me results so we can examine your genetics. I am feeling awesome now but I do follow a specific diet for me with a lot of supplements and enzymes. Here are some books that have helped along the way..

https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Genes-Breakthrough-Program-Optimize/dp/0062698141/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542661699&sr=8-1&keywords=dr+ben+lynch

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https://www.amazon.com/Endometriosis-Health-Diet-Program-Your/dp/077880562X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1542661718&sr=8-2&keywords=endometriosis+diet

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Good luck!

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There's a TL;DR at the bottom for convenience lol.

It sounds more complicated than it really is. Basically I looked up low histamine diets on the various MCAD/POTS groups I was in on Facebook, and they had a few documents about some things there to start with. It was either Christmas or my birthday (I forget which one) and my parents got me these books (book one, book two). There's another book or two around here somewhere but I can't find it at the moment to get the info.

They got me the printed form, but these books seemed like they were printed as an afterthought, and were meant to be an ebook instead (price confirms theory). Low histamine is a pain to stick with, especially if some of the staple items that they suggest to eat cause issues for you (like me), but me and my girlfriend went through the various plans and basically picked out meals from each of those books and a couple other meal plans we found online. She was previously a strict vegan for a handful of years so she has recipes for that we incorporate into our meal plan with twists on the ingredients as needed.

We make sure to try and purchase as healthy as possible ingredients, least processed stuff, less dyes, less artificial sugars, etc. I stay away from dairy with exception of eggs. They have to be either hard boiled or fully cooked scrambled - ie pretty much the dry chalky charred point or they'll give me a histamine fit that will turn into a IBS-D fit with me running straight to the bathroom. Essentially we just kind of tried different things to see what we all liked, and what was easiest/cheapest to make out of the plans, and then kinda went from there.

TL;DR: What I'd recommend is to educate yourself on the major histamine trigger foods and eliminate them or at least educate yourself on histamine foods in general. This book goes over a lot of the bigger ones if you want a quick read to get up to speed. Then create a food journal because with MCAD we are all so vastly different it's hard to really give detailed diet plans to one another. We all have to kind of start somewhere and see what works for our own selves.

I'd echo the comment by /u/adenocard above about not pursuing it too far, but if you are interested in learning it in a bit more detail, I recommend the 14-lecture series on YouTube by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Part 1 is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jshw2sHrk8Y

Additionally, Janeway's Immunobiology is an excellent text for readability, even though it will go into detail that you will never need to know again. I generally use it as a reference when I'm curious about a particular point. Here's the Amazon listing: http://www.amazon.com/Janeways-Immunobiology-Kenneth-Murphy/dp/0815342438/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

Lots of good suggestions here, but something I found that helped me was reading about others with this disease. I found theglutendude.com, especially the "newbies" section, was very helpful. Then he wrote this book: https://www.amazon.com/Crappy-Happy-Living-Celiac-Disease/dp/1974424642 I also read a couple of the serious doctor-written books to help understand the disease (Dr. Green and Dr. Fasano). I think most people go through a difficult time at first, and your encouragement will absolutely help.

Personally, learning immuno from a big picture perspective first was crucial to for me before getting bogged down with memorizing IL-this or THat. I really liked "How the Immune System Works", it was a quick read and explained things in layman's terms for dumbdumbs like me. Your call if you want to invest in a new text so close to your exam though. Good luck!

http://www.amazon.com/Immune-System-Includes-Desktop-Edition/dp/0470657294

this book How The Immune System Works by Lauren Sompayrac It's like <100 pages and a super easy read/very approachable. Don't pirate a PDF, buy a physical copy and read it and sleep with it and shower with it. It is incredible. Immuno went from one of my worst topics to one of my best after reading it.

The language of life: How cells communicate in Health and disease is a great book about how cells make decisions and how they communicate and operate.

While it's primarily focused on the immune system (but it touches on a lot of biology) , I've found How the Immune System Works to be hands down the most readable biology book I've ever read. It's a bit focused on small elements but it contains some nice broader concepts.

>I was making the case which you can read in the studies above that OspA in desseminated infection can induce immunosupression through indirect mechanisms.

Which as I pointed out a very long time ago is pretty meaningless since OspA is expressed in the tick stage.

>Question, can not TLR2 agonists supress immune system?

No.

>Can not OspA interfere with the response of lymphocytes to proliferative stimuli including a blocking of cell cycle phase progression?

According to a single paper that was never cited and only used purified lymphocytes, maybe. But the immune system works together. Without T cells and macrophages together that's not very useful information.

>Yeah, I'm interested! What books do you recommend?

Janeway's [Immunobiology] (https://www.amazon.com/Janeways-Immunobiology-Immune-System-Janeway/dp/0815342438/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505745700&sr=8-1&keywords=immunobiology+janeway+8th+edition) has been the gold standard for years. David White's [The Physiology and Biochemistry of Prokaryotes ] (https://www.amazon.com/Physiology-Biochemistry-Prokaryotes-David-White/dp/019539304X) and [Molecular Genetics of Bacteria] (https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Genetics-Bacteria-Larry-Snyder/dp/1555816274/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505745797&sr=1-1&keywords=molecular+genetics+of+bacteria) are the best microbiology references. For something more specific, ASM Press periodically puts out books on specific groups of bacteria.

Try "The Skinny Gut Diet". I've just finished listening to Missing Microbes and so far, apart from a little dumbing-down and reference to the questionable "leaky gut", Skinny Gut Diet seems to be a good guide to getting some practical value out of the idea that gut bacteria have a major effect on obesity.

If you'd rather avoid something structured like a diet book and just dive straight into a more scientific exploration, feel free to skip straight to Missing Microbes, although then you'll have to translate it into a diet yourself.

There's an interesting book on anti-vaxxers called Calling the Shots and the author found that some of the only times parents would vaccinate was when they wanted to go internationally and the kids were going to come (or if the kids needed them to start a fancy school or college). Basically, it if interfered with their lifestyles they got them vaccinated. This was especially true when they were going to countries they said were "dirty" like India.

Thank you for sharing your continued opinion about acclaimed CFS history books and their authors. Have a nice day.

https://amazon.com/Oslers-Web-Labyrinth-Syndrome-Epidemic/dp/0140263470/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518672486&sr=1-1&keywords=osler%27s+web&dpID=51D5GCZB17L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

I recommend How the Immune System Works - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470657294?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00

The simple explanations really helped me, I think the book gives a good foundation.

Much appreciated!

I actually plan to study medicine myself, and I've seen the flashcard flow chart. From your post, I take it you recommend beginning with zanki, and thus relying on Pathoma and Sketchy?

It'll be a few years until I'll start studying, but I've been thinking about—as a primer—doing Incremental Reading on these first.

• Anatomy. Atlas of Anatomy by Schuenke et al https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Anatomy-Anne-M-Gilroy/dp/1604067454
  
• Physiology. Physiology by 5th Edition by Costanzo https://www.amazon.com/Physiology-STUDENT-CONSULT-Online-Costanzo/dp/145570847X
  
• Immunology. How the Immune System Works by Sompayrac (looks like it's written in Classic Prose) https://www.amazon.com/How-Immune-System-Works-Desktop/dp/0470657294
  
• Microbiology. Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple by Gladwin, Trattler and Mahan https://www.amazon.com/Clinical-Microbiology-Made-Ridiculously-Simple/dp/1935660152
  
  Dunno what you think about that?

This is the best book for understanding how the immune system works.
Or you can check out what Khan Academy has for immunology.

Did you only start feeling this way after your thyroidectomy? That would point to your thyroid dose not being optimal. OTOH, if you've always felt poorly, then some other issue like diet or genetic enzyme deficiencies could be the cause.

A low fat, low calorie diet can leave you malnourished and lead to weight gain. Contrary to popular advice, we need saturated fat. I would recommend The Perfect Health Diet and completely avoid processed vegetable oils and food colors. Some of your medications listed above indicate you have problems breathing. Yellow #5, tartrazine, or E102 (different names for the same food color) cause breathing issues in some people. If you read food labels and stop eating anything with these food colors and processed vegetable oils (soybean, sunflower, safflower, canola, etc.), your breathing may improve.

If your genes are causing issues, I highly recommend Dirty Genes by Ben Lynch. He lists common symptoms associated with certain gene defects and what things you should avoid. Sulfites can cause severe asthma in some people--read food labels. It's in wine, beer, balsamic vinegar, sun-dried tomatoes, etc.

Your thyroid dose seems too low given all your symptoms. Compare your dose to this formula to calculate a combo T4 + T3 dose. You might replace some of your T3 with desiccated thyroid to see if you get better results.

A very in-depth, but accessible book about lupus, as recommended by my rheumatologist:

https://smile.amazon.com/Lupus-Book-Guide-Patients-Families/dp/0199929408

This one isn't strictly about lupus, but put me on a dietary/lifestyle change path that put my lupus into remission:

https://smile.amazon.com/Autoimmune-Solution-Spectrum-Inflammatory-Symptoms/dp/0062347489

This one is also more general to autoimmune diseases, but contains lots of helpful info:

https://smile.amazon.com/Autoimmune-Wellness-Handbook-Chronic-Illness/dp/1623367298

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Dirt-Good-Germs-Friends/dp/1427798044/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Written by a professor of mine. Often in microbiology (and especially as a child with a developing immune system), what doesn't kill you really DOES make you stronger

Forget janeway for casual interest. You want “how the immune system works” https://www.amazon.com/How-Immune-System-Works-Desktop/dp/0470657294

Whoa, did I post this while sleepwalking? This is my story too, right down to the numbers. I am on 100 mcg of levothyroid and my weight has kind of "leveled out" and won't go away...hence me lurking on r/loseit for exactly this kind of story. I'm a scientist so a lot of the advice I've found out there for hypothyroidism is hokey - there's some decent information in Living Well With Hypothyroidism, though you should verify anything you read with multiple sources. Even then, some things may not work for everyone - nothing has for me, yet! I'm very interested to see what the suggestions are in this thread.

Thanks, it's nice to know there are some unbiased observers out there!

You would be surprised how vehemently vitriolic and quickly dismissive people become at the mere mention of CFS, esp. with respect to the potential XMRV link. And w/o fail, they are people who know absolutely nothing about either.

Reddit seems to be rife w/ these self-proclaimed super-scientists who have read some article about one of the negative studies and now courageously declare that "science has spoken" and the link is dis-proven. They seem to have this pervasive view that science is some transcendent, pure process that marches toward truth, unimpeded by such human frailties as politics and self-interest. Therefore, they need not be bothered with the details, history, and politics of the disease in question.

And unfortunately, for sufferers of CFS, it is probably the disease most beleaguered by politics in modern times. To gloss over much, for 30 years now the CDC has overseen the effective burying of this disease (knowingly or not). They have diverted most of the Congressionally designated research funds to other diseases (and were rebuked by Congress). The little they didn't divert, they spent on what can only be called an active effort to "psychologize" the disease despite ever mounting research showing one consistent biological abnormality after another. Meanwhile, some (of the est. million+ in the USA alone) sufferers have been rotting away in the confines of their beds for 30+ years. For someone who understands this historical context, the flippant, callous ignorance with which some people dismiss this promising research is just...crushing.

Sorry for the long tirade. I just find this subject both fascinating and heartbreaking. For anyone interested in the the history and politics of medical science, you will likely not find a more interesting case study that CFS. I would recommend starting here

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Well-Hypothyroidism-Doctor-Revised/dp/0060740957/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341950595&sr=1-7&keywords=thyroid

I liked this book tremendously!

Anybody as scared about Ebola as I am? Reading this book didn't exactly make it better lol http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ML160SM .

Previous semester immunology, but if you're interested, you can check out Janeway's Immunobiology

Or, you know, do a google search.

This was in the 3rd result:

>Congenital Immunodeficiency: These disorders are caused by a genetic abnormality, which is often X-linked (see Genetics: X-Linked Inheritance). That is, only boys are affected. As a result, about 60% of people with congenital immunodeficiency disorders are male.

http://www.merckmanuals.com/home/immune_disorders/immunodeficiency_disorders/overview_of_immunodeficiency_disorders.html

Them, plus Janeway's Immunobiology, Carey and Sundberg's Advanced Organic Chemistry part A and part B, Anslyn's PhysOrg, Ptashne's A Genetic Switch, Gilbert's Developmental Biology, Fersht's Structure and Mechanism in Protein Science and the NEB Catalog form a reference shelf for Biochem/Chemical Biology that I don't suspect will need updating for another decade or two.

EDIT: Except, of course, for switching out the NEB catalog every year for the new edition.

The publisher is one of "those kind" that publish a new version every year. This seems to the most recent one, but the changes are so minor you'll probably do fine with the cheaper, previous edition instead.

EDIT: I linked to Amazon because I don't know any other international well-known book supplier. The prices on Amazon for that book are BRUTAL though. I got it for 50 euro myself elsewhere.

In that case i would get something like USMLE RX or Kaplan for a year if you are really struggling with questions but if you are struggling with understanding the content .https://www.amazon.com/How-Immune-System-Works-Desktop/dp/0470657294 , this book saved me

There's a LOT of uninformed bullshit floating around here, so let's go over how vaccines actually work. I'll break it down for you real easy like.

1. The purpose of the immune system is to separate harmful non-self stuff from non-harmful self stuff, and then destroy the harmful stuff.
   
   
2. There are 2 separate immune systems: innate and adaptive. The innate immune system has a set repertoire of things it can respond against, but it does a damn good job of it. The adaptive immune system learns and remembers.
   
   
3. We're going to use tetanus as an example. It's a shitty example because it is incredibly lethal, but it will do.
   
   
4. You sat on a rusty nail. It made you bleed. Clostridium tetani bacteria are now in your blood stream.
   
   
5. Luckily for you, the innate immune system can see the LPS and other molecules on the tetanus bacteria and instantly moves to destroy it.
   
   
6. But it doesn't get all of it. The tetanus bacteria, at home in your body, begin to quickly replicate. If your body doesn't do something about it fast, you're fucked. Lockjaw, death from paralysis, dehydration, and neural degeneration, but not before incredibly painful seizures. Have fun with that.
   
   
7. The adaptive immune system takes at least 5 days to get humming. Some specialized cells, dendritic cells, have been acting as messengers to get C. tetani antigens directly to the cells of the adaptive immune system, and they, in turn, are just now getting their shit together. These are your T and B cells, and together they will pump out a brew of chemicals that will light up the C. tetani bacteria like something really fucking bright and easy to see.
   
   
8. Now that the C. tetani bacteria are lit up blazing bright, the destroyer cells of the innate immune system (macrophages, neutrophils, and some others) converge upon them like really really hungry bears seeing fat lambs in a corner. They destroy the pathogens efficiently and rapidly and begin to clear the infection.
   
   
9. Against all odds, the T and B cells manage to secrete enough antibodies (coats the pathogen brightly) and cytokines (coordinate, amplify, and [eventually] end the response of the destroyer cells and their supporting cell types) that in turn direct the destroyer cells to kill of all the C. tetani. You are a lucky bastard. Now most of the T and B cells that fought off that infection will die off (they'd cause issues if they stuck around), but some will remain alive to form an immunological memory.
   
   
10. If your immune system ever "sees" C. tetani again, those immunological memory cells will instantly drop into ass-kicking mode and circumvent that whole 5 day waiting period thing to fight off the infection faster and more awesomely than you would ever have hoped, most usually to the point where you don't even notice it going on.
    
    Now, if you have survived a C. tetani infection and been naturally immunized, you are a very lucky son of a bitch and should really, at this point, devote your life to the curating of highly improbable shit because you're now eminently qualified.
    
    Vaccines replicate step 7 as laid out above, but without the risk of death (whooping cough), disfigurement (polio), or disabillity (mumps). They do this by presenting bits of dead pathogens to your immune system along with a chemical, known as an adjuvant, to tell your immune system that this is something to react against. So the adaptive immune system spins up, without any actual pathogen threat, against that specific pathogen and then winds down to form an immunological memory that will kick the ass of that pathogen if it ever tries to come in.
    
    Vaccines aren't something to fuck around with. The fact that we're even asking the question of whether or not they should be mandatory is indicative of a massive First World Problem. No one can remember how terrible polio, mumps, whooping cough, scarlet fever, etc. were, so we see denying vaccination as no big deal. Meanwhile, those same diseases are still endemic, and still killing millions of people every year, in developing nations while we sit inside our chicken nugget lard boat and bitch about trivialities. Vaccinate your shit already, folks.
    
    Motherfucking source. Go read this shit and get educated; the immune system is a mind-bogglingly complex thing that involves every facet of biological study, although I was most fascinated with the mathematical modeling thereof when I still did research.