Posted on 10/01/2006 6:32:34 PM PDT by blam
Body reveals its inflammation 'off switch'
18:00 01 October 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Deb MacKenzie
Researchers have shed light on how the body switches off its immune response, a key step towards understanding autoimmune diseases and controlling inflammation.
When immune cells die, they transform into “sponges” that soak up the molecules responsible for causing inflammation, researchers have discovered. The new information may lead to better drugs to treat inflammatory disorders, such as eczema.
Inflammation is characterised by a red, painful swelling around a wound caused by blood fluids, proteins and immune cells flooding into an area of the body in response to germs or damage. Its biological purpose is to allow immune cells to get from the blood to the trouble spot to fight infection.
But too much inflammation can be devastating. It is what causes death in diseases such as flu, while chronic, misdirected inflammation causes conditions from eczema to arthritis. As a result, researchers have been looking for ways to "turn-off" the inflammatory response.
Ultimate scavengers
Now, Charles Serhan and colleagues at Harvard University in Boston, US, have discovered an important natural braking mechanism. In a healthy inflammatory response, immune cells called leukocytes are attracted to the site of injury, where they are activated by molecules called chemokines. The leukocytes emit powerful germ-killing chemicals, and then commit suicide.
The researchers discovered that dying leukocytes act like sponges, soaking up chemokines, preventing them from attracting more leukocytes. It is the body’s way of controlling inflammation – a good thing, since too much of their germ-killing chemicals can damage healthy surrounding tissue.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
fascinating.......bookmark
00:01 02 October 2006
NewScientist.com news service
John Pickrell
Osteoarthritis, a degenerative and debilitating inflammation of the joints, may be a sign that sufferers are ageing more quickly than healthy people of the same age, a new study suggests.
Guangju Zhai, Tim Spector and colleagues at St Thomas' Hospital in London, UK, looked at telomere length – a measure of relative ageing – in the white blood cells of over one thousand people. They found that those with osteoarthritis had shorter telomeres and were an average of 11 years “biologically older” than non-sufferers of the same age.
Telomeres are caps on the end of chromosomes made up of multiple repeats of “nonsense” DNA. Every time a cell divides, the telomeres become a little shorter, providing a convenient way to measure the relative age of a cell. When the telomeres have shortened to nothing, the cells can no longer divide and they die. This is part of the natural ageing process .
Many factors can make telomeres shorten, such as genetics or the damage caused by oxygen free-radicals. These are toxic chemicals produced as a by-product of metabolism or by other factors, including tobacco or sunlight. Smoking and obesity have both been shown to make telomeres shorten more rapidly.
Expectations confirmed
To test whether there was a link between the rate of ageing and osteoarthritis, Spector and his team took a group of 1100 people, mostly female twins, and used hand X-rays to test for osteoarthritis. They also tested for telomere length in the white blood cells of the participants.
(Click on the site for the rest of the article)
Very interesting read.
Crohn's.
yep. and they mention psoriasis and ezcema too ...
M.S., and a host of other autoimmune diseases may have a potential for a cure here.
blam, thank you for the post. I am bookmarking this article. A wonderful discovery.
bttt and a ping for a non-flu medical development
self ping for later
btt
Interesting articles.
Yup. I just had my annual check-up and my cholestoral level was up. I told my doctor I wasn't taking a higher dose of cholestoral medicine so he added 500mg of niacin a day to my cholestoral lowering regime.
My spelling of cholestoral is correct, yours is wrong.
Well just D**n , I used the official spelling checker right here on Free Republic.....
.......................
Spell Checker likes my version better.....rejects yours.....
Gives me this...... cholesterol
Okay, how do you spell potato?
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www.cholestoral.org
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Dan?
Is that you?
Ask your Doctor about Zetia,...helps move up the good LDL level and push down the bad....reading the label ....says do not use with alcohol...wonder if that includes beer.....?
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