During this cold and flu season, a strong immune system is essential. But is the state of our immune system at the mercy of our environment or is it mostly genetic?
Researchers, who published their findings are published in Cell this week, looked at 210 twins and found that it is actually much more about environment than heredity.
“The idea in some circles has been that if you sequence someone’s genome, you can tell what diseases they’re going have 50 years later,” Stanford’s Mark Davis said in a news release. Our genes play a key role in some diseases, of course, but the immune system must be highly adaptable to cope with infections, injuries, and tumor formation, which can all occur unpredictably, he added. “The immune system has to think on its feet.”
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The researchers looked at 78 pairs of identical twins (same genome) and 27 pairs of fraternal twins (share half of their genes on average). During three separate occasions they took their blood samples and looked at more than 200 immune-related parameters.
“What we found was that in most cases,” Davis says, “there is little or no genetic influence at work, and most likely the environment and your exposure to innumerable microbes is the major driver.”
Things like diet, dental hygiene, vaccines, previous infections, and exposure to toxins were the big factors that differentiated the immune systems within twin pairs. Twins even produce different amounts of antibodies after receiving a flu vaccine.
Age also play a prominent role in how environmental factors influence the immune system. This was apparent in the study when comparing twins in their 60’s and those under the age of 20.
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“At least for the first 20 or so years of your life, when your immune system is maturing, this amazing system appears able to adapt to wildly different environmental conditions,” Davis explains. “A healthy human immune system continually adapts to its encounters with hostile pathogens, friendly gut microbes, nutritional components and more, overshadowing the influences of most heritable factors.”
[Photo from Flickr user Anirudh Koul]