Submitted by leinard97 t3_11ubh99 in askscience
After a fever, once your white blood cells and immune systems have successfully eliminated the threat. How do they get rid of the dead bacteria and infection? Do they pass it down to our bloodstream, to the liver, then excreted as urine or stool?
I always thought green snot from the nose or congestion/ drainage was the body dumping vanquished pathogens and dead immune cells. Maybe just for head colds or upper respiratory infections?
The green snot comes from neutrophils and WBCs which have eaten some bacteria
thanks for the clear explanation
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Question: Flu has higher body temperatures (to fight infection?) but colds don’t?
Colds definitely do... you feel cold because your body "wants" to be warmer than usual (and it turns up/down various systems to encourage you increase that temperature).
Body temp is a secondary effect of your immune system doing it's job.
Increased body temperature is related to what is called a cytokine storm, most common in flu virus compared to the 200+ common cold viruses.
Some flu viruses cause your body to sound the emergency alarm too loud and the body overreacts. The fever is unwanted inflammation that can lead to organ failure.
Perhaps I falsely believed fever is the body ramping up it’s own natural defences and was beneficial within limits.
First part of your theory is true. The natural defenses do generate heat via inflammation. Which usually does nothing good or bad, unless it sometimes gets really bad.
Beneficial part, mostly no. You aren't cooking virus or bacteria, and heat doesn't make the defenses work faster.
However, the really interesting fact of the day is body temperature does kill fungal infections. >36.6°C will kill fungal infections. Majority of fungal infections are on the outside of your body where it's relatively cool, but if they get into your blood, travel up inside your urinary tract or reach some organs, they are incredibly difficult to treat.
Average human body temperature is dropping over time. Humans were constantly sick with some persistant virus or bacteria, an average body temperature was about 37°C (above the fungal limit). Then modern medicine started to fix those persistant infections, and average human body temps dropped to about 36°C (below the fungal limit). As a result, in modern times we find a lot more internal fungal infections that are difficult to treat.
Educating. Thank you.
Some bacterial infections don't necessarily require an adaptive immunity response. Our innate immunity cells have receptors that recognize common pathogens. We even have a system that is just an elegant sequence of proteins being modified to create a pore in bacteria. This is just kicked off by sugars on the outside of the bacteria cell wall (although one such pathway is initiated by antibodies). In fact, certain organs are "immune privileged" and (mostly) do not allow T cells and B cells to infiltrate. But in all cases the invaders are destroyed by the immune system and the debris will find its way (whether or not it goes to the spleen first) to the liver or kidneys and get excreted like any other waste.
Yes exactly! This would be the innate immunity while what I described was adaptive
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Most toxic drugs and alcohol are processed in the liver via a system called the Cytochrome C450 (CYP) system. It’s an enzyme, Most common is CYP is 450 but there’s many types. Certain drugs alter the metabolism or speed of CYP enzymes, thus increasing or decreasing the metabolism of said drug, thus altering its pharmacology
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Broad-Turnover6945 t1_jcoitf1 wrote
Great question! Physician here. The body has a really neat way of cleaning up infections and a multitude of pathways to achieve it. Typically, once your body recognizes a foreign pathogen and attacks it (either by antibody’s or special cells called T-Cells) it will pick up said offender from tissue and deliver it to the lymphatic system. This a system composed of highways that parallel veins/arteries. Within the lymphatic system are lymph nodes, this is where your body will “sound the alarm” and help to amplify the specific defense against that pathogen. It will break down the bacteria or virus that is encountered and essentially ultimately break down its components to sub unit level where their parts can be recycled.
In the blood, a similar process but with the reticuloendothelial system, one that consists of the spleen, liver, and blood that involve clearing bacteria from the system