Robert Whitfield MD explains how the immune system tolerates foreign materials in surgery, using Joseph Murray's Nobel-winning kidney transplant between Siamese twins as a key example. Synthetic biologics like compounded peptides can trigger local reactions in sensitive patients, a risk that varies depending on whether materials are autologous, allogeneic, or wholly foreign.
Because as I said, their job is to fight foreign invaders. And when they release their mediators when they perceive a threat, what they're doing is they're calling other components of the immune system in to help deal with that threat. And unfortunately, we're the innocent bystanders of our immune systems trying their best to help us. So.
Yeah, just like you're saying, like, you go back to the foreign invader aspect, which is, you know, I, I always try to enlighten folks when they, either on my show or I have a chance to talk to them about surgery in general. And so surgery has a unique position at, in that it demonstrated tolerance. So the, the surgeon who won the Nobel Prize, Dr. Joseph Murray, transplanted a kidney from one Siamese twin to another because they had the exact same immune composition, because that's the only way you can do that operation and not have rejection, which is what Dr. McCann is really ultimately talking about tolerance. So when you put something in that's not your own. So we often hear. And whether it's a famous influencer. Oh, my God, let's take a. What influencer do we want to talk about? Whether it's Gary Bruck or anybody's talking about peptides or exa. Exosomes, which recently was talked about by Brigham Bealer on Joe's podcast. Like peptides right now. And that's not the, probably the best example, but peptides are amino acids, and in this setting, they're going to be. Those are in synthetic. So we. Those. And even with those, you can get little skin reactions. So if you're a mast cell activation center patient and you think you're going to get put on compounded tirzepatite or, or compounded BPC157 with whatever, because the recent warnings of the FDA about peptides. So there's autologous, which is your own, basically, and there's something that's allogeneic, and then there's something, you know, like we're discussing now, which is a completely foreign substance you're putting into somebody. So whether it's a, a, I always use the knee, hip, breast, dental, cardiac, neurologic. I, I think for everybody listening who doesn't know anything about my career, I did six years of general surgery, two years of plastic surgery, a year of oncologic reconstructive surgery.
