Posted on 07/20/2023 11:03:40 AM PDT by Red Badger
PARIS – People who have a particular genetic variant are twice as likely to never get sick when they contract COVID-19, researchers said on Wednesday, offering the first potential explanation for the lucky group dubbed the "superdodgers."
Those who have two copies of the variant are eight times more likely to never get any symptoms from COVID-19, according to the study in the journal Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06331-x
Previous research has suggested that at least 20% of the millions of COVID-19 infections during the pandemic were asymptomatic.
To find out what could be behind these cases, researchers took advantage of a database of volunteer bone marrow donors in the United States.
The database included each person's type of human leukocyte antigen (HLA), which are molecules on the surface of most cells in the body.
The immune system uses HLA to see which cells belong in the body, and they are thought to play a key role in the response to viral infections.
The researchers had nearly 30,000 people on the bone marrow registry self-report the results of their COVID-19 tests and symptoms on a mobile phone app.
More than 1,400 unvaccinated people tested positive for COVID-19 between February 2020 and late April 2021, the study said.
Out of that group, 136 saw no COVID-19 symptoms two weeks before and after testing positive.
One in five of that group carried at least one copy of an HLA variant called HLA-B*15:01.
Those fortunate enough to have two copies of the gene — one from their mother, one from their father — were over eight times more likely to be asymptomatic from COVID-19 than other people, the study said.
To find out why this was the case, the team carried out separate research looking at T cells, which protect the body from infections, in people who carried the variant.
The researchers specifically looked at how T cells remembered viruses they had previously encountered.
This meant they were "armed and ready for attack when they encounter the same pathogen again," said Jill Hollenbach of the University of California, San Francisco and the study's lead researcher.
When people with the HLA variant were exposed to the COVID-19 virus, their T cells were particularly primed for battle because they remembered similar cold viruses they had previously fended off.
This theory — that recent exposure to colds and other coronaviruses could led to fewer COVID-19 symptoms — has previously been proposed to explain why children have often been spared the worst of COVID-19.
"Anyone that has ever been a parent knows that kids are snotty-nosed for five or six years, so I think that's a really reasonable thing to speculate might be happening," Hollenbach said.
She said the HLA variant was likely just one piece of the genetic puzzle behind asymptomatic COVID-19.
But the researchers hope that studying the immune response to COVID-19 could lead to new treatments or vaccines in the future.
Hollenbach said one interesting idea was a vaccine that prevents COVID-19 symptoms — rather than infection — which could potentially last longer than the currently available jabs.
The researchers warned that most of the study's participants were white, which could limit the findings for other groups, and that it covered an earlier period of the pandemic and did not include re-infections.
Yes. I had Covid and never had any symptoms. Just as I had very few (almost never) cases of “flu” after childhood.
The idea that everyone is eqqually vulnerable to everything is flat out wrong.
Ah Geez, the Dems are going to throw a fit.
The first sign is lack of a Covid vaccine card in their possession.
It would be interesting to know what part of the world these HLA folks’ predecessors came from...Northern European? Mediterranean? Where?
This is how we survive the really bad diseases, the ones that nobody has any level of ordinary “natural immunity” to (which comes from immune system familiarity, not a genetic mutation).
If such a virus hits, then potentially everyone could die, except in a large population, there will probably be some people with a genetic anomaly like this, that does give them immunity. Then, even if the other 90% of the population should perish, the remaining would repopulate, and close to 100% of their descendants would inherit the immunity.
Unless you’ve lost your wallet...
File a police report and you’re covered.
Good, they are finally getting into some possible good data.
2 of our dils and 2 semi dils (their husbands adopted my wife and I), never had Covid except maybe like a 24 hour cold. Nor were they vaccinated.
Yet, their husbands, who slept with them, ate with them, and lived with their spouses having Covid and Covid symptoms and never passed their Covid to their adult women nor their children at home, including 2 kids in college and away from home except for holiday visits with sick dads and no one else with Covid.
I attribute my success at being china virus free to not owning a TV.
After a year of this when one would tell my wife they were going to test for covid, I managed to get her to ask, "Why?". "Are you sick?" They would go nuclear and lecture my wife on public health responsibility.
Fast forward another six months and they all stopped their collective insanity. Coincidentally they all stopped at the exact same time cruises resumed. They all love going on cruise ships. I figure their concern for public health was tossed aside when their dry spell on vacations finally got to them.
One pair of our neighbors got sicker from the shots than from the disease.................
“It would be interesting to know what part of the world these HLA folks’ predecessors came from...Northern European? Mediterranean? Where?”
A great question. The women I noted in my response #8 below, not getting Covid in spite of living with those who did, were/are descendants of the upper UK and Western Europe.
They are fair skinned, blonde or ginger hair and basically very healthy women. None are overweight.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4169320/posts?page=8#8
I have been blessed- despite having some risk factors and being exposed 3 times- once at work, and twice at home on 2 separate occasions 10 months apart- first caring for my husband and then my mother in law- I never got sick or had positive home test. I have done the highly recommended supplement protocol. It must be old age though because sometime in past 2 years I stopped being able to taste coffee- it just doesn’t taste like coffee to me anymore.
If I understand how the HLA works on the antigen layer, the more “thoroughbred” you are, the simpler your antigen layer is in your cells. Therefore, it’s easier to detect anomalies and reject those cells (as viruses). But if you’ve got a lot of flavor in your ancestry, your antigen layer can be a bit noisy and it’s hard to recognize a virus anomaly from regular variations.
Thank you. Perhaps it was the genes from my mother’s Swedish/German/Viking forebears that saved me from covid.
Coffee in general has gone downhill across all brands, IMHO.
Used to fill the whole house with the smell of fresh brewed coffee, now it doesn’t...................
It’s like an entire class of virologists are learning on the job what they should’ve learned in college.
And it’s like an entire class of virologists are trying to figure out why COVID wasn’t as potent as Fauci asked it to be.
I just got weak. I stayed in bed just one day with no other symptoms. But all of the relatives who got the clot shot had side effects. And the one in healthcare tested positive for Covid repeatedly. She had boosters and kept testing positive. She was mad we didn’t get really sick because we weren’t jabbed.
Because it was Made In China.................
I can smell it, have tried several brands, but I definitely miss that coffee taste ☹️. I read a few years back that most ground coffee has ‘fillers’ that aren’t coffee and can include dirt!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.