Is immunity-boosting injection effective?

At present, there is no "universal booster shot" that can improve overall immunity in all scenarios and for a long time with one shot. Whether the various immune-related injections we often say are effective and how long their effectiveness lasts depends entirely on the type of injection and the individual's physical foundation.

At the peak of COVID-19 last year, an elder in my family was hospitalized with white lung. At that time, the doctor prescribed gamma globulin combined with treatment. The inflammation did subside faster than expected after a week or so of treatment. However, when we were discharged from the hospital, the doctor specifically told us that this drug is for emergency use only for people with severe disease and immunodeficiency. Normal people do not need to take it. It is like temporarily hiring a group of foreign aid bodyguards to help you survive the dangerous period. The half-life is only 2-3 weeks. A month of foreign aid will be metabolized and it will be ineffective. It is impossible to take an injection for more than half a year. Moreover, for normal people, taking it casually may cause allergies and increase the burden on the kidneys, which is completely unnecessary.

As for the many sub-healthy people who catch colds when the seasons change and always feel tired, they follow the trend and take thymusfacin, and there is no claim that it is effective. I have a friend who was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, and her immune function was suppressed during the treatment. The doctor asked her to take thymusfaxin twice a week to regulate her immunity. After taking it for almost half a year, she clearly felt that this year's season change did not last for half a month after a cold like in previous years. If you take a single injection, the medicine will not have enough time to help you regulate your own immune cell function, and it will be the same as if you had not taken it.

Of course, not all immune-related injections are ineffective. The various vaccines we often take are actually targeted "immunity-boosting shots." For example, a flu vaccine injected once a year can reduce the probability of severe influenza within a year. The HPV vaccine can be taken ten times if completed as required. It can prevent the corresponding HPV infection within a few years. However, the effects of these injections are targeted at specific pathogens. It does not mean that the overall immunity will increase after the injection. You will still get the flu vaccine if you should get it. It is not the universal booster injection that "can cure all diseases" as everyone imagines.

Recently, many medical and aesthetic institutions and private clinics are promoting "immune cell infusion injections" that cost tens of thousands of yuan per injection. They say that one injection can fully boost immunity and prevent you from getting sick for 3-5 years. I have a best friend who works in the Internet and almost placed an order before. I specifically asked an immunologist from a public tertiary hospital. The reply I got was that there are currently no such products approved for ordinary healthy people in China. Most of them are in the clinical trial stage, or simply illegal and non-compliant. The effects are not supported by evidence-based medical evidence. In severe cases, they may induce abnormal cell proliferation. It is purely an IQ tax.

In fact, most people think that their "low immunity" is caused by staying up late, sitting for long periods of time, and messing around with meals. If you really want to improve your immunity, you must sleep for 7 hours a day and exercise for half an hour 3 days a week. This is much more reliable than spending tens of thousands of dollars on unknown injections. The good thing that one injection can once and for all improve your immunity has not been invented yet, at least.