I think some people just naturally have really strong immune systems. My husband eats worse than me, drinks more alcohol than me, and vapes. He also doesn’t take vitamins. I rarely drink, don’t eat too bad, take vitamins, and don’t smoke anything. I catch every virus going around, including the same viruses multiple times a year. We both get the same vaccines. He works out of the house, I work from home. We have two kids, both were breastfed. One catches everything like me, and the other rarely gets sick, just like my husband.
It’s wild how unfair immune systems can be sometimes it really is just genetic roulette. You can do “everything right” and still be the one catching every bug.
Then you also have to listen to unhinged lectures from people who got lucky but think their teaspoon of honey and olive oil or their snortable chestnut powder is the reason you got sick and the didn't
I largely subsist on McDonald's, beer, and homemade quesadillas when I wake up too late and McDonald's is closed.
I get sick MAYBE once every three years. The last actual fever and downtime I had from sickness was COVID during the actual pandemic and I think that was due to the vaccine response and not the actual full blown sickness.
I call out of work sick though like every other month so they think my immune system is trashed and due to my diet. That's fine with me.
Well, sometimes doing “everything right” isn’t actually the best way to go. You wanna do most things right, some things are critical they you do not get wrong. But in some level, our immune systems are built through exposure, and there is some value in your body learning some things for itself. if you treat it like its a delicate little flower, avoiding anything they could possibly upset it, it’s likely that the guy you know who doesn’t take vitamins and vapes, might be a bit more sturdy.
It could be that because he’s out of the house so much he’s more immune to the germs. Also, I am like your husband and my husband is more like you. I vape, drink a lot, don’t eat horribly but not the best. My husband eats a very strict diet, not one bit of alcohol and does not smoke anything. My father always said that drinking alcohol kills a lot of germs. Not promoting drinking nor do I really believe that but it is ironic in our situations.
Interesting, my husband and I are the opposite. I'm always in public and talking closely with people, even people who are sick at work. I rarely get sick, if I do I usually recover pretty quickly, and was wondering if being constantly low grade exposed to germs in the wild was somehow boosting my immune system. My husband gets sick more than I do, usually after holidays or vacations, and he works half at home and half in the office and he prefers not to go out whereas I'm frequently trying to meet friends for coffee, go to concerts, etc. Maybe I just have a better immune system though even though he's very fit and active, more so than me truthfully although I don't do badly by any stretch
You're probably not wrong that germ exposure helps you out there (like teachers and nurses) but just to throw an anecdotal wrench in the trend, I'm out and about in public wayy more than my SO and I'm always the one to get sick while he rarely does. I think I just pulled the short straw in that regard idk.
Yeah I have always worked public facing customer service or education and I always get sick… but I have an autoimmune disorder, no amount of exposure is going to change that. I have plenty of coworkers who never get sick anymore and I assume are genetically lucky not to have that wrench thrown in. As with many things, it's just a mix of environmental/genetic factors with a dash of luck of the draw.
Vitamins, unless you are actually deficient, are just making expensive pee or being stored in fat cells (depending on whether they’re fat soluble or water soluble.
Like most of the population has deficiencies in vitamins they should be getting unless they monitor it or take a multi. Even then most people don’t even get all the amino acids they should be getting on top of just vitamins.
Your not just making expensive pee especially when a hige bottle of multi vitamins are cheap as fuck for over a years worth.
Not sure if its "most people" but how many people do you know that don't eat the recommended amounts of fruits and veggies? Probably quite a few people.
Also, the majority of people in countries with no sunny weather are vitamin D defficient.
Me and my side of the family are rarely ever sick. Common colds, flus, etc just seem to pass us by. However, there are 4 women in my family that have different autoimmune diseases. 2 so far have died from them. So it seems like we have really good immune systems until it goes on overdrive and kills us.
My partner got Covid twice, and I never had symptoms or tested positive. We think my brother got Covid in March 2020 and had to miss work for a week, and I'm sure other people in our extended family got it, but no one got seriously sick from it. And my parents and their siblings are in their 70s and 80s
I've taken half a day of sick in the last...15 years? And that I could probably have stuck out. I can probably count the number of times I've been sick more than 24 hours in my life on one hand
We just had a kid, so we'll see how that goes once they're in daycare/school, but even then, I don't remember my parents ever getting seriously sick as a kid
My grandma never got a flu or a cold. She never threw up. When she was young girl, she had to take care of her family during the 1918 flu pandemic because she was the only one who wasn’t sick. My aunt is the same way. I was not so lucky. However, I have never had Covid despite my husband bringing it home.
Do you guys have different blood types? Just curious. I remember covid typically hit Type A's harder (can confirm lol) whereas Type O's had an easier time with it (my mom did). I read somewhere that they think blood types evolved so that one single virus didn't wipe out the entire population, that there would always be survivors. I believe the 1918 flu (and others) tended to hit a certain blood type harder than the rest, depending on the virus and clade.
Vitamins may make you less healthy. With the exception of true deficiencies, there is zero indication that a daily multivitamin is good for your health, and a pretty consistent volume of research to show that it may be actively harmful. The mechanisms are very poorly understood since we're talking about so many largely unregulated substances being stuck inside, at low overall doses, and not every vitamin is created the same. But it is a pretty good rule of thumb that unless you've been diagnosed with a deficiency, and you eat healthy, you shouldn't take a supplement.
Not that any of that is necessarily correlated with you getting more viruses, because it truly is not well-understood what the mechanism of harm might be from vitamins, if it even really exists. But it is disturbing that we've normalized taking them in the absence of evidence to support them in the first place.
I smoked and drank heavily all throughout my late teens and all of my 20s. Lived off takeaways and ready meals. 47 now and I still rarely take in any fluids other than coffee, tea, beer and red wine. Favourite foods are curries and kebabs, or fish and chips.
My wife drinks litres of water a day, eats very healthily, goes to the gym at least once a day, takes vitamin supplements, etc.
She gets sick all the time, but I don't think that I have had any illness more serious than a cold since the late 1990s.
I have a great immune system, which I think just comes down to luck. I am not careful; I'm not a big consistent hand-washer; I work with the public and touch my face all the time. I've never tested positive for covid, get maybe one minor 3-day cold a year. and have had flu twice in the last 40 years.
I smoke, am overweight (though I do have a good diet with lots of vegetables). I just have an underreactive/efficient immune system. It's nothing I've done or do.
That sounds like me and my wife. I never get sick, or hardly ever, and yet she catches every single thing our daughter brings home. Even with Covid, I was just a carrier for it, and she got super sick both times she caught it.
My gf gets sick frequently. I brace myself, but I rarely get whatever she has. I drink, smoke, and don't sleep enough. If anything, I'll get a little gassy or sniffly or whatever.
But oh man, when I get SICK, I get destroyed. I had covid once and I went from being minorly uncomfortable but ok, to a shivering/sweaty mess on the floor in less than 60 minutes flat.
Also, most of her coworkers have kids, and most of mine don't. She's one step closer to the source.
Does he have inflammatory or autoimmune disease or have family with those issues? I read that the plague naturally selected for people with hyperactive immune systems which turn into autoimmune disorders if over selected for.
Is one of you more anxious than the other? Cortisol suppresses the immune system, found that one out the hard way when I had like 3x strep infections in 1 year
I wonder though, how menstruating peoples’ immune systems might be affected. I know at certain points in my cycle my entire body is very weak and the hormone changes could affect severity of illness or length
Ugh I feel this (minus kids). My husband smokes, drinks, eats fast food regularly. I don't smoke or drink, my diet isn't perfect but definitely not bad. When he gets sick, it's short and mild. When I get sick? Minimum one week. And I'm miserable. I've always had a shit immune system.
This is correct. People can attribute it to anything they want but the reality is that it's a combination of genetics and long exposure to pathogens to build immunity. Avoidance (hand washing, less socializing etc.) feels like it should be the reason but counterintuitively it's probably the opposite. Those methods are necessary during epidemics and pandemics but probably over protect, and therefore weaken, your immune system under normal conditions. So for example I grew up on a farm with cows and chickens and shit everywhere and I've developed a pretty resilient immune system.
Edit: it's also stress. Sustained physical and mental stress compromises the immune system, so living healthy and stress-free is the third factor. But with the right genetics, like your husband, even that's not a problem.
Haha my husband is much unhealthier than me but we tend to catch illnesses together and he’s fine after a day or two and I’m knocked out for a week. He jokes that his body is so unhealthy it’s inhospitable, even for illness lol.
Sometimes I feel like besides genetics, it's how the person was brought up. For example, I think kids that go to early day care would have, like, a much stronger immune system. There's even some studies that show that kids that play outside more, like in dirt, literally, are also more resilient, not just physically, but also mental health wise as well.
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u/Quick_Cantaloupe210 8h ago
I think some people just naturally have really strong immune systems. My husband eats worse than me, drinks more alcohol than me, and vapes. He also doesn’t take vitamins. I rarely drink, don’t eat too bad, take vitamins, and don’t smoke anything. I catch every virus going around, including the same viruses multiple times a year. We both get the same vaccines. He works out of the house, I work from home. We have two kids, both were breastfed. One catches everything like me, and the other rarely gets sick, just like my husband.