Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/K1gxsErYkQc How many times have we heard our mothers and grandmothers say “Dear..... you better go to sleep to fight off that cold.”  The latest research just published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine now proves that she was dead on! Immunologists from Germany’s University of Tübingen studied T cells from healthy volunteers as they slept or while they were pulling all nighters.  For your reference, T cells are the white cells that kill cold viruses. The “sleeping” T cells had significantly more surface activators called integrins.  These sticky integrins help the killer T cells attach and destroy target cells.   The targets in question could be our respiratory lining cells infected by cold viruses and making more virus to perpetuate our misery.   More importantly, the target cell could also be a cancer cell on its way to your brain, lungs, or liver. Just as sleep bumps up your T cell integrins, stress does just the opposite.  So be sure to get those ZZZZZ and fight stress by