the cause of Lupus This therapy has long been overlooked by doctors trying to treat autoimmune diseases.
but, study A paper published this week pinpoints the cause of lupus, which causes an overproduction of certain cells that attack the body’s organs and tissues. The incurable disease afflicts hundreds of thousands of people in the United States.
Researchers hope to balance these cells to help suppress lupus. Currently, treatment involves immunosuppressants that reduce inflammation and pain, but the drugs often do not effectively treat the disease and their side effects inhibit the body’s ability to fight off infection, researchers say.
“So far, all of the treatments for lupus have been blunt instrumental, broad-spectrum immunosuppression,” said dermatologist Dr. Jaehyuk Choi, an associate professor of dermatology at Northwestern Medicine. statement“By identifying the cause of this disease, we have discovered a potential treatment without the side effects of current treatments.”
Choi’s colleagues at Northwestern University and researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston participated in a study published this week in Nature. They compared blood samples from 19 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (the most common type of lupus) and 19 patients without autoimmune disease.
More than 200,000 people in the United States have lupus. Centers for Disease Control and Preventionbut not for profit Lupus Foundation of America Estimates put the number at nearly 1.5 million. Most people with lupus are women and people of color. The disease is more prevalent among black women, who are more likely to develop severe disease and die more often than other women, the CDC says. Most people with lupus survive, but Lupus Foundation He said about 10 to 15 percent of lupus patients die prematurely from complications of the disease.
Until the study was published this week, scientists hadn’t determined what causes lupus: Experts had theorized that it could be due to genetics, environmental factors such as chemicals or viral infections, or immune or inflammatory influences, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Lupus patients Typically, people experience extreme fatigue, muscle and joint pain and swelling, skin rashes, such as a butterfly-shaped rash on the cheeks and nose, fever and hair loss. It causes problems throughout the body, including kidney failure, seizures and memory problems. It attacks the brain and central nervous system and causes heart damage, the NIH said.
The findings from researchers at Northwestern University and Brigham and Women’s University are still early days and based on a small blood test sample, but they may offer some hope.
Researchers have identified a new cause of lupus: The patients they studied had a chemical imbalance that controls how T cells, a type of white blood cell that is part of the immune system, respond to infection.
Choi said in an email that lupus patients have too much of a protein called interferon, which helps fight infection, but not enough of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) protein, which controls the body’s response to infection. The result is an overabundance of disease-promoting cells that attack the body. Replacing the missing AHR molecules with active ones could help heal wounds instead of causing more damage, the researchers said.
The researchers injected the AHR-activating molecule into blood samples from lupus patients and appeared to reprogram the cells that cause lupus and promote healing, they said in a news release.
Choi said the study suggests a possible new therapeutic strategy for treating lupus, with the goal of targeting disease-causing cells to better protect patients from the disease.
