Blastic NK-cell lymphoma means something has gone *really wrong* in immune regulation.
It’s a malignancy of the cells that are *supposed to destroy infected cells*.
NK cells - "natural killer” cells - are the immune system's first-strike unit.
They're the ones that find and kill virus-infected cells before antibodies even show up.
If you start seeing more NK-cell cancers, something’s driving chronic activation and mutation inside that system.
Something up here.
Now, think about Covid infection:
Every infection triggers a massive NK-cell surge.
Those cells get overstimulated, exhausted, and sometimes permanently altered.
Post-COVID studies show lingering activation markers, basically, NK cells stuck in attack mode for months.
That means they keep dividing...
Keep generating oxidative stress...
Keep collecting DNA damage in a high-inflammation environment...
And all that while the repair pathways (like p53) are being suppressed (by cytokines like IL-6 and TNF-alpha).
At the same time, the immune brakes are off.
T cells are depleted and exhausted.
Interferon signalling is blunted.
So when an abnormal clone of NK cells appears, the immune system doesn't clear it. *It lets it grow*.
Add to that the reactivation of latent viruses (EBV, CMV, HHV-6) all known to cause NK/T-cell malignancies...
COVID reawakens them, repeatedly.
Each reactivation wave means another round of inflammation and oxidative stress and immune dysregulation.
The problems aren't just in adults... there's stuff going on in kids too.
So you end up with this:
A system of immune cells pushed to divide too often,
mutating in an inflamed environment,
with the tumour-suppressor side of immunity switched off.
And from that, you get what we’re seeing here. A surge in blastic NK-cell lymphoma.
I wonder what else is going on in that lymph system...
Oh boy.
😮
Oh boy.
Oh boy oh boy
Erm.
👀
👀
👀
👀
And then strange things going on with other aspects of the immune system...
And this running away...
And then damage to all that lets this kind of damage loose...
And that this...
Hmm.
Those gut infections are really exploiting something these last four years, aren't they...
Oh my word.
👀
This is all just nuts.
This damage is in adults, kids, infants, everywhere.
It's in these kind of diseases where the end result is scarring of internal organs after immune hyperactivation:
This is in KIDS AGED 0 to 9.
You might expect this to pop up as a result of immune dysregulation in the gut...
Oh boy.
What the what.
What does inflammation in the brain cause...
More tomorrow... this list is long.
Maybe a few more...
👀
👀
This is in *kids*
👀
This is in *young adults* 👀
flip.
Nothing to see here, just a doubling of TUBERCULOSIS OF BONE.
Oh dear.
Hmm.
I didn't expect so many people to read this thread, or I would have included a bit like this, explaining that not every condition is rising like that...
I think one of the most important conclusions people are missing from the data in the recent big studies is that covid infections cause radically diverse long term effects in different age groups.
So much so that it could appear as if they've been infected with different viruses.
But it's not the virus that's different, it's the immune system, the metabolism, and the way the body repairs the damage done by the infection.
The word mucinous is going to become much more common.
Yes, bookmark this tweet, it looks bland, but it's important.
oh, okay. I won't leave you hanging.
I've written a lot recently about how we're missing the big picture of how covid infection is doing cumulative damage to interfaces in the body - linings, membranes, barriers, walls, filters.
I don't want to rewrite that all here, but I don't want to bust the flow of this thread, so at the end of it, I'll post the thread I wrote on linings.
I know, I know, you're going to laugh at me for saying that you're more likely to have problems with cramp after you've had a covid infection, but it's all very simple science.
Loads of people have been mentioning cramp recently, and like so many other conditions, yes, covid infection makes it more likely, and makes it worse.
It's just an extra factor on top of all the normal factors for cramp.
Muscles are fussy about blood flow.
They need a steady supply of oxygen to contract and, crucially, to relax.
Covid messes with the small blood vessels that supply it, so muscles end up slightly under-fuelled, and under-fuelled muscles cramp.
A couple of very important studies out just in the last 24 hours confirming what we've been saying for years and years now: Covid infections affect your immune system *badly*.
Here's a few things you may have missed in them.
This is almost entirely post vaccination data
This is not an unprotected population.
Baseline immune measurements come from a period when vaccination coverage was already high, and the immune damage appears *after mass infection*.
So two things there:
The effect didn't appear until after infection.