Immune System

Stick to the food pyramid. Eat a rainbow range of foods. Love thy garlic. Food scientists, holistic healers and practitioners of folk medicine may differ in their approach to sound nutrition. When it comes to staying healthy in flu season, though, they share a basic belief: Flu, a viral infection, cannot be prevented, but it may be discouraged by eating foods that enhance the immune system. The same holds true for that other viral scourge, the common cold. Whether or not you receive a flu shot this season, a healthy diet can only improve your chances of avoiding the nasty bug that causes discomfort at the very least and, in the most extreme cases, death.

It sounds simple enough. A vaccine that looks like water and comes in doses of just half a milliliter. But this year, it also has people spending the night in line at a Giant supermarket or attending a senior expo lottery. If only it was as abundant as water, because apparently, there's no easy solution to this season's shortage of flu vaccine. A cause is simple to pinpoint. The shortage resulted from the loss of half of the United States' expected supply after British health officials found contamination in Chiron Corp.

Cylex Inc. will use $6.4 million of newly received venture money to boost market acceptance of a testing technology the company says helps doctors to better measure the health of a patient's immune system, the Columbia-based biotechnology company said yesterday. Using the trademarked product name of "ImmuKnow," Cylex is making and marketing a test kit doctors use to monitor the immune-system health of organ-transplant recipients. The company will next position Immu- Know as a product physicians can employ to manage the treatments of patients with cancer, Hepatitis C, HIV/AIDS and other diseases that attack the immune system.

Schistosoma is not a pleasant creature. A parasitic worm about a centimeter long, it begins life by infecting snails and eventually emigrates to whatever body of water its host inhabits. When the creature crosses paths with a human, it grabs hold and burrows under the skin, making its way to the intestines or bladder, where it can live for more than a decade, gorging on blood cells. The worm, which infects 200 million people globally, can cause a variety of problems, from fever to liver damage.

JUDI BARTNICKI, 53, had been an artist all her life. Then multiple sclerosis struck four years ago, doing its worst damage in her left hand, the one she needs for painting and drawing. "I kept trying to paint and I would drop everything," she said. Finally, her fiance, David Richardson, figured out a way to tape her paintbrush to her left hand. Painting is still painful, the Georgetown resident said, "but I am so happy to be able to do it. I am doing my best work." MS is a nasty, chronic disease in which the immune system attacks the myelin sheath that insulates nerves.

Scientists at Rockefeller University have prevented diabetes in mice predisposed to develop the autoimmune disorder, a feat that may hold promise for people with Type 1 diabetes. Kristin Tarbell and her colleagues at the New York institution extracted a specific population of immune system cells called dendritic cells from the mice and placed them in a lab dish with a small number of immune regulatory cells, called suppressor T-cells. The dendritic cells have the power to stimulate the regulatory cells to duplicate themselves.

Doctors have long said that repeatedly losing and regaining weight won't sculpt the body of your dreams. Now researchers say that so-called yo-yo dieting might even make you sick. A recent study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington says frequently losing and regaining weight may weaken the immune system, leaving the dieter more susceptible to illness. In a study of overweight but otherwise healthy women, scientists found that people who intentionally lost and regained weight five times or more in the past 20 years had a weakened immune system compared with those who maintained the same weight for five or more years.

The term too pretty to eat certainly applies to the line of fine chocolates created by New York designer Maribel Lieberman. The MarieBelle chocolates, tucked into Italian leather boxes, feature silk-screened works of art on every piece. But you want to overcome your resistance to eating such pretty pictures to taste the chocolate, made from at least 60 percent cacao. The pieces come in 22 flavors, including cardamom, Earl Grey tea, hazelnut, lavender, passion fruit and saffron. Prices range from $7 for two pieces to $47 for 25 pieces.

It's a rare person who has never taken comfort in tea. Suffering from a cold? Add honey and lemon and soothe your throat. Feeling blah in bleak midwinter? Add a spoonful of sugar and a splash of milk, and let a cup of tea brighten your spirits. If you think just any warm beverage could play the part, the Tea Council of the U.S.A. has news for you. Researchers are proving what our hearts have always known - tea is good for you. So good, in fact, that you might want to consider it health food.

WASHINGTON - The Army and the National Institutes of Health are continuing with a $119 million AIDS vaccine experiment, even though some of the country's best-known HIV researchers say it likely won't work. Since September, about 500 high-risk individuals in Thailand have agreed to take a vaccine designed to stimulate the human immune system to attack the AIDS virus on two fronts. Researchers plan to give the shot to 15,500 more people over the next two years. There appears to be no question whether the vaccine is safe.