Comment by londons_explore
4 days ago
The ISS is a good example of a fully isolated environment. No new bacteria or viruses arrive there apart from spacecraft arrivals.
I've been curious for a while what human health would look like if there was a small group of people isolated for many decades. Would they effectively be disease free after the first few weeks?
As well as removing flu and colds, might it also reduce things like heart disease and Alzheimer's which we have weak evidence are linked to transmissible diseases?
The downside to doing that is that their immune system would be weak in the end. We survive cold and flu because we have had them before, but someone going many years without the yearly viruses would get hit 100x harder, even potentially dying.