Is it possible to be immune to norovirus

Eating a diet heavy in fruits, vegetables and whole grains, exercising regularly and maintaining a healthy weight will keep your immune system strong and prepared. Hand sanitizer is great when there are no other options for washing your hands, but anytime there is a sink and soap around, always use that first.

You should vigorously rub your hands with soap for 20 seconds when washing them, which seems like a long time, but is worth every second to avoid a stomach bug.

Purchasing fruit from a grocery store or market means you have no idea where that produce has been. Thoroughly washing all produce and seafood before eating or cooking adds another buffer between you and potential viruses. As tempting as it may be, stop touching your face. The fastest way for germs to travel from a surface to your mouth is by you touching that surface then touching your face.

This virus causes severe diarrhea, nausea, and stomach pain. Now, in a new study published in Immunity this week , researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have used a mouse model to show that, even in immunized animals, noroviruses can escape the immune system and still spread by hiding out in an extremely rare type of cell in the gut.

While most infected people clear the virus within a few days, some individuals continue to shed virus for weeks to months after. Such persistently infected people may be a source of outbreaks, but it was unclear why the immune system fails to eliminate the virus in these cases.

The Penn investigators defined and tracked T-cell responses in mice infected with either an acute or chronic strain of mouse norovirus to gain insight into mechanisms of viral clearance and persistence. At first, they hypothesized that persistent norovirus infection caused T cells to become exhausted rendering them non-functioning, similar to other chronic viral infections such as HIV or hepatitis C.

To their surprise, however, T cells remained functional even after months of norovirus infection. The team then looked at the earliest stages of response by the immune system and found two phases to that response. During the initial days after infection, T cells reacted strongly to the virus and controlled it.

Among the thousands of genes that distinguished the two groups, there were significant differences in the activity of 29 immune-related genes that could predict who would go on to become sick and those who would remain well, says senior author Ephraim Tsalik, assistant professor of medicine at Duke University. We found there were differences with the subjects that seemed to predict who would become sick.

We interpreted those as signals that show an innate resistance to infection. There may be certain genetic traits that can increase or decrease your chances of being infected after exposure to a pathogen. Scientists hope to replicate the study, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases , with other types of infections, including viral and respiratory illnesses such as the flu.

A household with children is the perfect example, says Tsalik, who has three kids who often come home bearing the newest cold or stomach bug to make the circuit at school or sports practice.

Meanwhile, my wife gets one cold after another.