In other annoying news stories on medical science, there was a radio thing on CBC yesterday about how There's Bleach...
In other annoying news stories on medical science, there was a radio thing on CBC yesterday about how There's Bleach in our Bodies! Man, talk about click-bait.
Yes, duh, if you ever took any level of biochemistry or anything else that got into inflammation or white blood cells and how they fight infection, you already knew that one of the neutrophil's (type of white blood cell) defense mechanisms was the Respiratory Burst, in which (among other things) myeloperoxidase (an enzyme kept in little granules inside each neutrophil) plays with hydrogen peroxide (also kind of bleachy) and chlorine ions (anions, if you're interested) and makes hypochlorous acid, aka bleach, aka Clorox, which is used for fun things like denaturing (twisting up their proteins into unusable shapes) and killing bacteria of the uninvited kind.
Reactive oxygen species and their friends are very well known parts of the immune system, and inflammation (which is part of the immune system). Every so often, they pop up again as potential flavor of the month in some study of inflammation and a possible treatment target, or disease marker, or etc. Lots of people study the immune system all the time, and we are always learning more about it. Usually specific tiny details that sometimes coalesce into a larger and genuinely useful for medicine picture.
Aside from the OMG part of the story, there was the bit where they (sort of) explained that inflammation in the body can sometimes end up hurting, not helping us. What they were really paraphrasing, which may be too generous a description, was the idea that the exact same thing that your body does when it is controlled and is helpful, can be disease-causing and harmful when uncontrolled. The body loses control of bits of its machinery for many reasons, and frequently for no reason we've yet figured out. Fine. What they said was more like, oh, yes, bleach inside your body can hurt you. Not enough auntie faces in the world.
Is it really that hard to report on science and medicine?
Yes, duh, if you ever took any level of biochemistry or anything else that got into inflammation or white blood cells and how they fight infection, you already knew that one of the neutrophil's (type of white blood cell) defense mechanisms was the Respiratory Burst, in which (among other things) myeloperoxidase (an enzyme kept in little granules inside each neutrophil) plays with hydrogen peroxide (also kind of bleachy) and chlorine ions (anions, if you're interested) and makes hypochlorous acid, aka bleach, aka Clorox, which is used for fun things like denaturing (twisting up their proteins into unusable shapes) and killing bacteria of the uninvited kind.
Reactive oxygen species and their friends are very well known parts of the immune system, and inflammation (which is part of the immune system). Every so often, they pop up again as potential flavor of the month in some study of inflammation and a possible treatment target, or disease marker, or etc. Lots of people study the immune system all the time, and we are always learning more about it. Usually specific tiny details that sometimes coalesce into a larger and genuinely useful for medicine picture.
Aside from the OMG part of the story, there was the bit where they (sort of) explained that inflammation in the body can sometimes end up hurting, not helping us. What they were really paraphrasing, which may be too generous a description, was the idea that the exact same thing that your body does when it is controlled and is helpful, can be disease-causing and harmful when uncontrolled. The body loses control of bits of its machinery for many reasons, and frequently for no reason we've yet figured out. Fine. What they said was more like, oh, yes, bleach inside your body can hurt you. Not enough auntie faces in the world.
Is it really that hard to report on science and medicine?
Cool. Hopefully you are not now in fear of your body eating itself from the inside out.
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