Compared to not-eating and drinking? No.

How so? Wouldn't most pathogens be food or water borne if you're not in a crowded city in close proximity to other humans or livestock?

Either way I don't see how what you say is true. If I stop eating or drinking how does that make me catch the flu or something the immune response helps against?

It seems having it active when I eat would be the most useful, which is why I wondered why it worked how it does.

>Wouldn't most pathogens be food or water borne if you're not in a crowded city in close proximity to other humans or livestock?

In that eating and drinking is essential, and for the primitive man, not guaranteed everyday...

>If I stop eating or drinking how does that make me catch the flu or something the immune response helps against?

It just makes you die in a couple months from not eating, and a week or so from not drinking :-)

I don't really see how that relates, when I say "getting sick" I don't think most people from here would include starvation or dehydration in that bucket, but maybe that's a regional difference. I meant things you catch (virus, bacteria, parasites) because we're talking about immune response.