How Your Immune System Works & How to Improve It | Dr. Max Krummel

0:00A famous immunologist in the 1970s drew this parallel in wartime and said in World War II, submarines had two sets of books.

0:08One of them was a book that gave them the sound profile of all the U.S.

0:12submarines.

0:13And so they could listen to the whirr of the engines.

0:15And if they heard a whirr of the engine that had the certain cycle of a general motors engine, they wouldn't fire.

0:21So that's the sort of like self, I know what self is.

0:24And then they had another book that was the engine sounds of the known diesel engines of whatever engines of the German submarines.

0:31And if they heard that, then they absolutely would fire.

0:33And that's a self versus non-self discrimination problem, just like the immune system has to do.

0:38But what I bring you with aging is this concept that as you get weirder and different, your body is getting like more complex, then those books start to have every possible, possibly every possible permutation of every biomolecule could be made by your body at that point.

0:53And then a virus doesn't necessarily have anything unique about it.

0:56Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.