[Felvtalk] Thymus gland & FeLV
Marsha
martia at lynxe.com
Fri Jun 6 10:12:33 CDT 2014
I was looking up human health stuff last night, meandered into info
about the thymus. Did you know it is largest at puberty/adolescence,
then atrophies in older adults, turning into fat? On the surface it
would seem to be critical to life and immune function, and it's absence
in a baby can be life-threatening. Yet an adult can have it removed
(say if it is cancerous), and still be OK. There are other things that
pick up the slack in an otherwise healthy adult.
It made more sense to me why kittens are more vulnerable to FeLV
infection, as their thymus is small and hasn't hit its full stride in
what it does with T-cells.
So I ended up Googling "thymus & FeLV". I haven't yet begun to explore
the results I got, but the summaries look intriguing.
Marsha
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