Nervous_Dog Posted March 12, 2004 Report Share Posted March 12, 2004 <<anyhow, i would be interested what the medical professionals on the board here have to say on that issue.>> Me too, as I said, the wife gets the runs more often than I do, but then I don't eat Som Tam Poo, just Som Tam Thai! JB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 12, 2004 Report Share Posted March 12, 2004 >>>>>>That said, I think Bangkok is just awefull poolution right now. I am on the 23rd floor, yellow haze every day now<<< 23rd floor on soi ari, 50 meters in? (from another post of yours). I know this soi very well, and would be impossible. There are no buildings that tall on that soi, until you get to the Ministry of Finance, at the very end. Jimmie Blonde, could you be an imposter? Say it's not true! It's just that I know Phahnoyotin soi 7 (soi ari) very well. HT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torrenova Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 Not directly related to Thailand but when I first went to Japan, I got sick. Japanese medicine cabinet drugs sorted me out in hours. When my ex wife (Japanese) came to England, she was sick regularly. I think its about the exposure we get in our natural environments. We become immune to the little things which upset foreigners. I suspect the Thais, given lower levels of medication and sanitary standards, are more immune to the bugs which wreak havoc on the digestive systems of some travellers to LOS. Then again, they would probably fare worse in other parts of the world, judging by my experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boo Radley Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 Hi, I think it's an interesting question. Due to the hot climate in Thailand (and other factors) their food probably has more bacteria in it (and a different mix of bacteria than farangs are used to to). Just think of the Hawkers' food lying all day in the hot sun building up bacteria. Thais have been exposed to this since children and have built up resistance, whereas the farang will likely have problems with this resulting in Bangkok Belly. Funnily enough, there's a new vaccine on the market called Dukoral which got a mention in the press recently. Wonder how effective it will be... Bye bye Delhi belly A new oral vaccine could make traveller's diarrhoea a thing of the past. But do we need such protection and will it really work, asks David Adam Tuesday March 9, 2004 The Guardian In Mexico it is known as a bout of Montezuma's revenge, in India a case of Delhi belly. But whatever it is called, it is common. An estimated 50-60% of the 50 million travellers who visit some of the world's more exotic holiday spots each year come down with what public health officials know rather less colourfully as traveller's diarrhoea. But could the era of spending several days of a long-awaited and expensive holiday seeing nothing more interesting than the toilet walls soon be over? Results announced this week from a clinical trial of a new vaccine against the most common cause of traveller's diarrhoea suggest that they might. In the trials at St George's Hospital in London, a single dose of the new oral vaccine was enough to trigger significant activity in the immune system of half of the 36 volunteers. With two doses this rose to 70%. That may not sound particularly effective, but it is already as good as some vaccines in use, including those that offer protection against typhoid. "The results exceeded our expectations and pave the way for the development of a whole new generation of oral vaccines that are safe, easy to administer and effective," says Dr Steve Chatfield, chief scientific officer at Microscience, the biotechnology company that developed the vaccine. The vaccine is still several years from being made widely available, but its developers believe it will eventually be popular among everyone from holidaymakers to service personnel stationed overseas. "This illness affects international business and leisure travellers, resulting in missed meetings at high cost to company budgets and ruined holidays," Microscience says. Travel health experts agree there is a demand for protection from the worst that foreign climes can throw at our sensitive digestive systems. "Bacterial forms of traveller's diarrhoea are the most common travel-related ailment by far, so a vaccination would be very good," says Michelle Abbott, a nurse with the Medical Advisory Service for Travellers Abroad, in Leeds. Although there are rarely any long-lasting effects, the disease can trigger irritable bowel syndrome in a few cases. Several other companies around the world are developing similar vaccines and a new oral vaccine against cholera also guards against some of the most common bacteria. But the new vaccine may not be as useful as some hope, says Ron Behrens, a travel medicine expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "I don't think there's much use for them in so much as they have a very small impact on quite a common problem. The actual benefit in reduced illness is not that huge," he says. "There are hundreds of different organisms that can cause traveller's diarrhoea that would not be affected by a specific vaccine." The new Microscience vaccine - called spi-VEC - is targeted to fight infection by a common bacteria called enterotoxigenic E Coli (ETEC). The vaccine is actually made from salmonella bacteria, rendered harmless by the removal of several important genes. Key chemicals from ETEC are added to fool the body into generating antibodies against it. Each dose of vaccine is expected to offer about six months' protection. Although diarrhoea among people in the developing world kills 500,000 a year worldwide, traveller's diarrhoea is clearly not as serious a problem as many diseases that vaccinations have been used to target, such as polio and smallpox. "Most of the new vaccines that are being developed tend to be ones that can be sold to western travellers, where the money is. I don't always think they match global needs," says Behrens. David Tough, assistant scientific director of the Edward Jenner Institute for Vaccine Research, says the work is part of a new wave of vaccine research. "There are a variety of different approaches that are being tried to generate better vaccines," he says. "Historically the biggest successes have been against viruses but there certainly is a need for vaccines against bacteria, because resistance to antibiotics is becoming a major problem, and vaccination is being looked at now as more of an alternative." Despite the trend towards developing vaccines against "inconvenient" money-spinning conditions, a lot of work remains targeted against the major killers, including HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. The current TB vaccine has been around for almost a century and is widely administered. But the resurgence of the disease in recent years has raised fears that the vaccine does not protect into adulthood. Last month the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $82.9m to the search for a replacement Tough says researchers are also considering novel ways of administering vaccines besides the standard jab. "Immunisation in the nose is something that's being looked at," he says. "It may actually generate a better immune response as many of the infections we get enter through the nasal cavities." Evidence suggests that generating an immune response through a spray in the nasal tissues may be more protective than injecting into the muscle. "With things like influenza, there may be an improvement if you vaccinate that way," Tough says. Flu remains one of the most difficult viruses to develop an effective vaccine against, because the illness is caused by dozens of different strains that readily mutate. Research into a vaccine against the common cold has stalled for the same reason. Each version of the cold virus carries its own antigens, the substances that induce the formation of specific antibodies. So you might soon be able to enjoy a more comfortable holiday, but winter colds will remain as miserable as ever. Source: Guardian Online Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous_Dog Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 <<23rd floor on soi ari, 50 meters in? (from another post of yours). I know this soi very well, and would be impossible. There are no buildings that tall on that soi, until you get to the Ministry of Finance, at the very end. >> I dont work where I live! JB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 Hi JB, Khao jai khrap HT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crash999 Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 flyonzewall said:i would say that in general our immune system is a lot stronger than the one of average thais as we have been brought up in very clean environments. once we got used to all the bacteria here we seem to have the ability to fight off things much easier. i have far less diarria problems than my missus. also when travelling to places like india i generally have no problems anymore, while the missus has constantly some diarria. I would have thought it'd be the other way around- that the more someone's body battles against disease the stronger immune system would be developed. Over time if people are brought up in a disease-free environment then their immune system doesn't develop the ability to battle the various diseases- as per what happened to the Aztecs and Incas after the conquistadores brought smallpox to central america. Any docs want to weigh in on this? Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stars99hk Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 Have to agree with Crash on this one. One of the problems in the "developed" world today is everything is sanitized and disinfected, our food is irradiated and our meat is pumped full of antibiotics. Which gives the immune system nothing to fight against so when you travel to places where hygene is not so good you tend to get more frequently sick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 >>>as per what happened to the Aztecs and Incas after the conquistadores brought smallpox to central america.<<< i am a bit out of my dephth here, but i have read that the situation with the indians had also something to do with their genetics, that their genetic diversity was just not big enough in the millenia of isolation, while we europeans (and asians) have been used to those deseases for many thousands of years. what we are talking here are little things like some bacteria giving you the runs, things we can get used to easily by exposure to them. what i can see with many asians (or anybody else having brought up in those partly catastrophic hygienic conditions) is that their immune systhems have been constantly weakened from childhood on. i dunno, i am out of my dephth, but i have seen it so many times in all my years in asia, that most of us westerners, once used to conditions here, have much stronger immune systems. when i was in india, i was eating always on the streets, had any sort of water. something none of my indian friends could do without falling sick straight away. same is here in thailand - even if we eat exactly the same food my missus falls sick much faster than me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 stars99hk said:Have to agree with Crash on this one. One of the problems in the "developed" world today is everything is sanitized and disinfected, our food is irradiated and our meat is pumped full of antibiotics. Which gives the immune system nothing to fight against so when you travel to places where hygene is not so good you tend to get more frequently sick. that might be now, but when i was a child 30something years ago that was not the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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