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Comment by Yen | Hacker News Reader

As someone who doesn't know very much about the immune system - I wonder if this 'resetting' property could be used to treat allergies or other minor autoimmune problems.

Also, I'd appreciate a medium-level overview of the immune system, if anyone has a good link.

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Anecdotal evidence, for sure (and IANAD/IANYD), but I've found that fasting eliminates my food sensitivities (both water fasts and apple fasts, where you just eat an apple or two a day, have done the trick for me). They eventually come back after a month or so (no science behind it, but it feels like a slow buildup of whatever was initially bothering me), at which point, I can fast again with similar positive result. I find it's safer/healthier than living on Prilosec...

This book[1] is the best resource for a "medium-level" overview I've come across. Once you get beyond that, you're entering textbook and then paper territory.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Immune-System-Includes-Desktop-Edition...

Pathology resident here, starting a flow cytology rotation next month (diagnosing disease by studying live immune cells with lasers and antibodies). My best advice is to realize this stuff is really complicated. Start by synthesizing your own hematopoietic cell lineage diagram from existing versions (google image search for them) and use that as your foundation when reading texts.

As someone with an esophageal autoimmune response I'd be very curious to know this as well.

ee?

Yes though not a typical presentation of EE (EoE?). It ramped up dramatically around my 24th birthday and appears to be connected with my body's response to histamines. As such most doctors haven't known what to do with me and we've been feeling our way blindly along. If fasting even partially resets immune response i'd be interested.

There is always Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_system

I'm not familiar with what is out there as far as materials, but I would speculate that beyond that to get an overview you would end up looking at a medical textbook (with shorter treatments being more specific).

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