Vegetarians / Vegans Resistant To Flu!

[NC EcoMaMa]

Some great news for us veggies!
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit.../25/2003454413

We currently have the flu, and it is such a mild case I didn't think that is what it was. I though we had a mild mild bug, but most of my husbands office had the swine flu over the last month and many of them were out for weeks. We have had symptoms, mild for three days and it is almost finished for us. Another vegetarian that had contracted it told me about this resistance and I wanted to pass it along.

Japan discovered shortly after the swine flu started how a kind of alkylated protein fragment (peptide) selected from plant phages can bind with sialic galactose molecules on receptors on cell walls and so inhibit influenza viruses from infecting the cells.

Peace,

Jo

[Lydiah]

Good News!

[jplain]

I would be happy to be wrong about this, but I don't read anything in that column that suggests that veg*ns are more resistant to H1N1 or any other influenza virus than omnis.

There's some discussion of alkylated peptides that might be able to inhibit infection, but they're talking about peptides derived from phages. Phages are plant viruses. I don't have any reason to believe those particular phages are present in our food supply...and the author doesn't claim they are either.

The mention of piggeries in Canada lacks context. Knowing that infection rates are higher near piggeries probably means that swine-human transmission is common, and so employees of piggeries (and their families) are more likely to be sickened. So working with pigs is likely a risk, but that has nothing to do with eating meat.

The take home message is that living a healthy lifestyle that includes a lot of veggies is helpful for avoiding illness of many kinds. From the information in that article, there's no way to draw any conclusions regarding whether the presence or absence of animal products affects influenza susceptibility. Regarding alkaline peptides: it is a nice hypothesis, but without any supporting evidence, it is just a hypothesis.

[es1967]

Interesting. Thanks for posting.