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CR vs. common illness


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Out of a sense of Kantian obligation 😉 I should update this thread.
Well, back in Oct., I had an almost fax of the very mild illness I reported on last year. 

Very mild, flu-like symptoms. It lasted about month -- off and on. After meals, exercise, or activity, symptoms almost completely disappeared. Some days symptoms were worse than others, but the illness never became disabling -- daily activity and exercise were carried out as usual. 

Also like last year, after the initial recovery there was a period of about 3-4 weeks total asymptomism, and then an even milder relapse. It's as if all the unkilled bugs went in hiding, and thought they could have another go at it. I'm slightly symptomatic now and predict recovery in a week or two. 

The pattern of on/off and mildness is "typical" of prev. years. And it's largely manageable. To relive some symptoms, I use OTC meds like Tylenol  or aspirin, but at 1/2 min. dosage.

 

 

Edited by KHashmi317
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Hi Khurram!

I almost never have a cold.  However, for Thanksgiving my wife and I drove to NYC to spend the holiday with our two daughters, 3yo grandson and son-in-law.

The NYC apartment is very small -- lots of people in a small space.  I caught a cold -- one that is only now fully ending (an unusually long duration for a cold).  The worst of it was a nasal drip that interfered with sleep.  However, as usual, the cold didn't interfere at all with my daily activities -- teaching my classes at the University of Rochester, and daily exercise in the gym that I go to.

It's good to have it over though (I hope it's over!).

  --  Saul

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Saul:

Glad you're okay.

Mine was not a " cold"; rather the "flu" per the usual definition: there was a very mild fever (off and on, for most of the duration). Also, in the first day or two of illness, there  was there some loss of energy and sore throat. 

Unlike you (Saul), I'm rarely in the company of others. So I might be missing some "herd immunity".

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One of the reasons for creating this topic (re: COMMON illness) was to turn up any correlation between common illness (cold/flu) and longevity. (Anyone know?!)

I researched the topic years ago and came up with almost nothing. 

There are some general reports of male vs female longevity ... e.g., women get more colds and live longer:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/mar/02/healthandwellbeing.health5

(Correlation, but hardly a causation)

There is also "Coley toxins." Say you have some early-stage (undetected) cancer cells, and they will ultimately become dangerous. You get the flu and have fever. The cancer cells also experience fever, and at that higher temp., they begin metabolizing dirty, emitting "smoke signals". So, MAYBE, once-in-a-while fever may be a good thing for immune system to detect cancer. I think I have posted on Coley before.

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48 minutes ago, Saul said:

Just a note -- during my unusually lengthy cold, I had no fever; temperature remained in the low 98.<something>, occasionally 97.<something>.

There is also a feeling of "feverishness" that has no temp. component. I think it is formally defined as MALAISE.

In my pre-CR days, when I had cat allergies, it FELT like the flu, with  "feverishness". I never took my temp, though. 

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My recent cold, which I complained about in another thread, was actually pretty mild but for the running nose in the first two days and a lesser thermogenesis.

What I realized though, that it was an occasion for the body to inhibit systemic mTOR, stunt my bodyweight growth (proliferation) and impose some restriction (manteinance). When I have such episodes from spring to fall I usually start a fast mimicking diet, whereas in the winter I don't. It turns out that the body evidently wanted to enter a period of mantainance. I had little hunger. After 12 days, the bodyweight still keeps at a level 2.5 kg less than the inception of the cold. It's a negative aspect from the POV of bodybuilding, but probably a very positive one from the POV of longevity.

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Edited by mccoy
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On 12/4/2018 at 10:23 AM, KHashmi317 said:

There is also "Coley toxins." Say you have some early-stage (undetected) cancer cells, and they will ultimately become dangerous. You get the flu and have fever. The cancer cells also experience fever, and at that higher temp., they begin metabolizing dirty, emitting "smoke signals". So, MAYBE, once-in-a-while fever may be a good thing for immune system to detect cancer. I think I have posted on Coley before.

Slightly off topic for this thread, but there was some interesting news this week related to the above:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/12/04/blood-test-detect-cancer-within-just-10-minutes-developed-scientists/

A new blood test that sounds very promising that can supposedly detect any type of cancer you may have lingering about your body. 

As for longevity and frequency of illness - I don't know, but at least one supercentenarian I read about claimed to have never been sick a day in his life.  I would think having a super immune system would certainly help you achieve longevity.

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  • 1 month later...

I’ve been trying to research sauna usage and cancer rates because there is some suggestion that temperature triggers immune system activation and not just the reverse. Would be very interesting if true—and a lot more pleasant, too.  

Of course, I actually love baths that raise my body temperature by a few degrees. So I’d be thrilled that something I enjoy already has more than HSPs going for it!

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Saunas "pleasant"?? Depends, I guess on taste. But also, I suspect, on what you actually call a "sauna". Traditional saunas as practiced in Scandinavia, are pretty vicious affairs in my experience, whether dry or wet. I only did it a handful of times and every time I felt like I was going to die in there. Maybe if you lowered the temp exposure by 60% it would be "pleasant", but does it still qualify as a genuine "sauna"? In Finland it's sometimes combined with rushing out of the red hot sauna into the snow stark naked and then beating yourself/each other with twigs so you're really well brutalized. Maybe the recovery process is some kind of a hormetic reaction, but it would be nice to actually see at what temp and exposure you get max heat shock proteins and where the optimum lies, because as practiced traditionally, it's "pleasant" only to those who have those special predilections. Of course, YMMV, and to each their own. 

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On 2/28/2018 at 1:33 AM, KHashmi317 said:

Way back in 2001 or 2002, on the CR List, I posted on the topic of night sleeping being multi-phasic. Before electric lights, people went to bed when it got dark, and awoke at dawn. BUT: awakening in the middle of the night -- even for extended periods of time -- was the normal.

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biphasic_and_polyphasic_sleep#Historical_norm

 

Research the topic "Biphasic and polyphasic sleep" for more info.

My eyelid is twitching at this.

It is utterly untrue that biphasic and polyphasic was some great norm.  People did NOT go to bed just because it got dark.  Ever read Samuel Pepys' diary?  He would go to bed for the night at 7 pm...or 7 am...or 11 pm...or 11 am.  London shops would commonly stay open into the very early morning hours because the party-hardy rich people were also out living it up.  Vikings?  It got dark early in winter, and they came inside and started telling stories for endless hours, and when they got tired of that, they fought with each other.  They didn't go to bed.

THAT SAID, IN THE WINTER, IN NORTHERN CLIMATES, yes, biphasic sleep was pretty common.  In the summer and in hot climates, biphasic sleep was uncommon but an afternoon nap was normal.  If you were a farmer, you'd get up in the cool of the day at dawn, do morning chores, grab breakfast (breakfast wasn't ready until after the chores were done, BTW), do the main work of the day, eat the biggest meal, grab a nap, and then do evening activities and chores and lighter work before a light meal (optional--if you were poor, you probably didn't get much here) and then bed.

You can't take just one pattern and say "hey, some people did it, so everyone must have!"  They didn't.  There were lots of different patterns.  Almost all of them had a main, big sleep at night.  The other details were quite variable.

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7 hours ago, TomBAvoider said:

Saunas "pleasant"?? Depends, I guess on taste. But also, I suspect, on what you actually call a "sauna". Traditional saunas as practiced in Scandinavia, are pretty vicious affairs in my experience, whether dry or wet. I only did it a handful of times and every time I felt like I was going to die in there. Maybe if you lowered the temp exposure by 60% it would be "pleasant", but does it still qualify as a genuine "sauna"? In Finland it's sometimes combined with rushing out of the red hot sauna into the snow stark naked and then beating yourself/each other with twigs so you're really well brutalized. Maybe the recovery process is some kind of a hormetic reaction, but it would be nice to actually see at what temp and exposure you get max heat shock proteins and where the optimum lies, because as practiced traditionally, it's "pleasant" only to those who have those special predilections. Of course, YMMV, and to each their own. 

I don't like saunas.  I love hot baths, though.  My hot bath is at temperatures that would make most people scream and hide.  110F or higher. 🙂  HSP, for sure. (Most  commercial hot tubs are put at 105F max, BTW.)

I suspect that saunas are similar in that you just get used to it.  My baths are very pleasant to me.  I can get the same effect by sitting in a car at 150+F, but I don't like the sticky sweatiness.  In the bath, it washes away.  I've tried both wet and dry saunas--I like the bath better.  It's instantly relaxing.

The heat exposure should raise your core temp to the 99-100F range to be effective.  My normal body temp is always under 97.5 at rest, and yes, my hot bath raises my core temp quite handily.  I have chronic pain from a point mutation on the SCN4A gene.  The HSP release causes pain relief over a fairly extended period of time, so I was doing this before I heard of the sauna effect because of the pain-control feature.  I didn't know why I hurt less, even the next day, but I knew that I did.

Edited by Genny
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  • 2 years later...

Should add sinusitis (sinus infection) to the list of common illnesses . Very common in western countries… and easy to self diagnose via well known symptoms.

I think THIS indeed may be the once a year “minor “ CR ailment I previously mentioned. Usually in the “background “, symptoms waxing and waning over period of week. Can carry on as usual but it is annoying!

This time it’s hitting a bit harder with more “sinusitisy” features… and it has been going for two weeks. 
I took my calorie intake down by 150kcal about a year ago. So for this current illness, the actual “healing “ process may be attenuated… like CR wound healing.

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… continuing with the topic of sinus infection…

I think sinusitis was one a year illness my two siblings and I came down with. So… fever, sore throat, cough, runny nose, body aches, loss of energy and malaise.

Miss several days of school… and after the customary doctor visit, the SOLUTION was ALWAYS the same and it worked EVERY mothereffin’ time.

What’s weird is that many “authorities “ and “experts” have nothing but broad-spectrum speculation on what triggers and sustains this very common disease. Take Wikipedia, e.g. , look at the “Causes “…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinusitis

 

Edited by KHashmi316
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2 hours ago, Saul said:

Maybe a low level Coronavirus infection?

  --  Saul

As the “authorities “ say… lotsa things can cause sinusitis… including coronaviruses, bacteria, et. al. ET. Friggin’ AL.

And, o’ ‘course, EVERYTHING that sniffles is Covid… I’m convinced of it 😉

Edited by KHashmi316
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