There have been reports of YouTubers I watch getting sick after eating food in third world countries. However, these countries are also home to a large number of people who do not get sick from eating the same food. I think this suggests that the locals may have developed stronger immune systems. What do you think?
Not necessarily, it is likely that a tourist is just not used to these specific pathogens. While the people living there are used to them. So their immune system isn’t better per se just more adapted to the environment.
Also “survivorship bias” sadly plays a part in this. The healthcare is low quality or nonexistent. Everyone seems to have an excellent immune system because most everyone that didn’t… died.
Not sure what country you’re talking about but as someone born and raised in a third-world country with free, universal healthcare I can tell you I’m offended.
Man I really think this highlights how badly we need to stop using the word third-world. Thanks for pointing that out. It is antiquated and just used arbitrarily these days. I was trying to convey war-torn countries, countries with too much unrest to support a universal healthcare system, etc. Those descriptions are not descriptive of every third-world country.
Free does not mean good.
Third world implies: poor, unstable and high mortality rates.
Depends on what part of the 3rd world we are talking about. Majority of African nations for example do not have UHC yet. Asia is a better off in this regard but not the entire continent.
Same sort of idea if you went to a small culture in a third world country who isn’t used to eating any fast food, and gave them McDonald’s. They’d be diarrheaing all over the place because they’re not used to it.
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The gut microbiome is absolutely wild. We are just delusionally egocentric mobile meat-homes.
I find the OP’s question very intriguing and have kind of arrived at this same conclusion. My only tweak would be that they may, in fact, have more effective immune systems purely due to the fact that access to medicine or areas free of pathogens aren’t as common. Obviously, though, that would be compared to a person who exists in those same conditions but with access to good medical care which is a bit paradoxical.
EDIT: I made this more complicated for myself by thinking, further, that nutrition would also play a huge role in this