TheHorse.com | Can Nutrition Boost the Equine Immune System? TheHorse.com The innate immune system is the general, first line of defense against pathogens (disease-causing organisms) or trauma. You're born with it, and it has no specificity or memory. The adaptive immune system learns to remember specific pathogens so it ... |
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Can Nutrition Boost the Equine Immune System? - TheHorse.com
Drinking beer could soon come with added health benefits, thanks to a team of researchers in Singapore.
A new speciality beer now includes the probiotic strain Lactobacillus paracasei L26, which was first taken from human intestines.
The bacteria has the ability to neutralise toxins and viruses and even boost the immune system, the scientists claim.
Studies have shown that eating food and drink with live counts of probiotics are more effective in delivering health effects than eating those with inactive probiotics.
GETTY
Recommendations by the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics is to have a minimum of 1 billion probiotics per serving in order to attain the maximum health benefits.
The idea of a probiotic beer was the brainchild of student Chan Mei Zhi Alcine, who consumes dairy-based probiotic drinks daily.
The health benefits of probiotics are well known, she said.
While good bacteria are often present in food that have been fermented, there are currently no beers in the market that contain probiotics.
Developing sufficient counts of live probiotics in beer is a challenging feat as beers contain hop acids that prevent the growth and survival of probiotics.
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Developing sufficient counts of live probiotics in beer is a challenging feat
Miss Chan said the recipe, which included the optimal count of live probiotics - took nine months to develop.
For this beer, we used a lactic acid bacterium as a probiotic micro-organism, she said.
It will utilise sugars present in the wort to produce sour-tasting lactic acid, resulting in a beer with sharp and tart flavours.
The final product, which takes around a month to brew, has an alcohol content of about 3.5 per cent, said Miss Chan.
GETTY
The NUS research team has filed a patent to protect the recipe for brewing the probiotic sour beer.
Associate Professor Liu Shao Quan from the NUS Food Science and Technology Programme said: The general health benefits associated with consuming food and beverages with probiotic strains have driven demand dramatically.
In recent years, consumption of craft or specialty beers has gained popularity too.
Alcines invention is placed in a unique position that caters to these two trends.
I am confident that the probiotic gut-friendly beer will be well-received by beer drinkers, as they can now enjoy their beers and be healthy.
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The BEER that's good for you - THIS alcoholic drink boosts gut health and immune system - Express.co.uk
LEE SUCKLING
Last updated05:00, July 6 2017
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When it's not warm outside we often drink less water, but dehydration can lower the body's defences.
The middle of winter is here. No matter how healthy you think you are, the flu virus and various colds are abound and they're ready to infect your system.
There are some ways to boost your immune system and stay healthy for the rest of the chilly, virus-laden season, but a lot of what we think true is mythical.
First and foremost, hydration is key. When it's not warm outside we often drink less water, but dehydration can lower the body's defences. The eight glasses of water per day rule still rings true, however, an easier way to ensure you're never dehydrated is to look at the colour of your urine. If it's a pale yellow or clear, you're getting enough water.
While you're thinking about fluids, make sure you're drinking cow's milk. Milk is a good source of protein and also contains vitamins A and B12, which benefit your immune system. There's also milk's calcium factor, which you know keeps bones strong too.
READ MORE: *Any truth to common myths about being sick? *Three things you can do to avoid catching the flu at work *Manifesto: Unravelling the myth of the man flu
Owing to a lack of sun, our bodies can become vitamin D deficient in winter. You can consider taking a vitamin D3 supplement until the sun's rays come out again, though food sources such as fish, eggsand mushrooms do contain good doses of it.
Not only does the body not produce vitamin C by itself either, if you're physically or mentally stressed you require 20-40 times more of it to maintain optimal levels. This can't be neglected in winter, so it remains important to eat citrus fruits.
Having a good level of zinc in your body too (it comes from beef and lamb, nuts and seeds, and shellfish) may help shorten the length of the common cold. When combined with vitamin C, zinc is can also help heal scrapes and wounds faster.
Aside from these primary dietary interventions, your best bet in having a strong immune system throughout winter is to keep up (or increase) your exercise, and consume protein to repair your muscles. The immune system runs on protein, which is why the old wives' tale of chicken soup for generally illness is potentially true: chicken is high in protein, and the broth is a good source of fluids.
Some winter wellness old wives' tales are no more than myths, however. Echinacea was proven in Annals of Internal Medicine journal to be ineffective in preventing or treating colds. In this randomised controlled trial, there was no difference in health outcomes for those who took a placebo, or those who took no supplement at all. So-called "small preventative effects" of echinacea haven't been ruled out in other studies, but there's no good evidence to support them either.
Any other supplements that market themselves as beneficial for "immune system defence" (or similar) are also unlikely to be based on any science. There's very little evidence that any supplement can boost the chemical components of your immune system that system's repertoire is made up of thousands of genetic elements.
The vitamins and various other treatments from health stores that claim they can prevent or cure general coughs and colds are not backed up by solid proof. They may be helping specific parts of your system (e.g. boosting vitamin D, C, and zinc quantities), but cannot be relied on to improve your overall immune system during winter.
It's also important to understand that from a scientific point of view, there's also a big downside to having a seasonally-souped-up immune system.
Researchers from University of Cambridge found that while a seasonally-increased immune defence system helps fight off infections such as colds and the flu, it also raises inflammation in the body. The study found that the immune system's activity boosts during winter to stave off infections and relaxes during summer when it is less needed.
Unfortunately, what this winter boost of inflammation does is raise your risk of heart attacks, stroke, severe cases of depression and other mental health disorders, and Alzheimer's disease. Generally, as these Cambridge scientists suggest, the enhanced risk factor for disease when one's immune system is seasonally-boosted may outweigh the benefits of being able to fight off less serious colds and influenza viruses.
* Lee Suckling has a masters degree specialising in personal health reporting. Do you have a health topic you'd like Lee to investigate? Send us an email to life.style@fairfaxmedia.co.nz with Dear Lee in the subject line.
-Stuff
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Can you really boost your mid-winter immune system? - Stuff.co.nz
What if curing cancer was as easy as getting an injection? Thats just what a pair of studies published this week in Nature tried to figure out.
The two teams of researchers conducted independent Phase I trials of personalized vaccines designed to prime the patients immune systems against melanomas, a category of skin cancers. In a scientific double whammy, both studies found that their vaccinessometimes in combination with other immunotherapieswere able to prevent recurrence of the cancers in nearly all their subjects.
We can safely and feasibly create a vaccine that is personalized to an individuals tumor, says Catherine Wu, senior author of one of the studies and associate professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Its not one-size-fits-allrather, its tailored to the genetic composition of the patients tumor.
Wu carried out her study with colleagues in Boston at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute. The other study was conducted in parallel by researchers in Germany, led by study first author Ugur Sahin, the co-founder and CEO of BioNTech, a biotechnology company that focuses on personalized immunotherapy treatments.
Both studies targeted the same type of cancer: melanoma. These skin cancers (best known for their link to UV radiation from tanning) are a good first target, Wu says, because scientists have a good understanding of the mutations that cause them. These mutations are the key, says Mathias Vormehr, a co-author on Sahin's study and a scientist at BioNTech.
"In principle, you can target any tumor that has mutations," Vormehr says. "And mutations are a main feature of tumors."
The goal of a cancer vaccine is to turn the patient's own immune system against the cancer by teaching it to fight the tumor cells. This is similar to other vaccines like the flu vaccine which contains dead or weakened flu viruses that can't actually do harm but can model what the the immune system should be prepared to fight.
Past attempts to create cancer vaccines have used gene-carrying viruses to reprogram immune cells to recognize cancerous cells. Others removed some immune cells from the patient's blood, taught them to recognize the cancer cells outside the body, then re-injected the trained immune cells into the patient to go to work.
The recent studies in Nature used neoantigen vaccines. Antigens are small proteins that decorate the outside of cells, and "neoantigens" refer to ones that are found only on cancer cells. Because they aren't found on any healthy cells, neoantigens make a perfect target for the immune systemafter all, you wouldnt want the immune system to start attacking its own healthy cells. Normally, cancer cells evade the immune system by weakening its effects and by feigning the appearance of normal cells. But, if the immune system learns to recognize the neoantigens delivered by the vaccine as harmful, it could then recognize and fight the cancer cells, too. Delivering mass amounts of neoantigens at once, which is what the vaccine would do, could trigger this recognition and the immune system might see neoantigens as harmful from then on.
Since all tumors are different, the vaccine had to be personalized. To figure out which neoantigens were unique to a patient's tumor, the researchers sequenced the tumor's DNA and each group of researchers developed their own computer algorithm to identify the unique segments of DNA that encoded the instructions to assemble these neoantigens.
This is the point where Wu and Sahins studies diverged. The goal was to get the neoantigens into the patient to prime their immune system. Wus team loaded up the vaccine with the neoantigens themselves, while Sahins vaccines delivered the corresponding RNA a cellular intermediary between DNA and proteinsso that the patient's own cells could create the neoantigen. Sahin's team chose to use RNA because RNA serves a two-in-one role in the vaccine, Vormehr says. Vaccines normally have an added component that boosts the immune response, and RNA can accomplish that on its own.
(Remember that these cancer vaccines arent preventative, like the ones that you take for the flu. They are therapeutic vaccines, designed after the onset of cancer to target each individuals tumor specifically.)
Both studies found that vaccination resulted in suppression of the cancer in many of their subjects. In the cases where the cancer was not successfully eliminated, Wu and Sahin both tried adding another treatment called checkpoint therapy, which keeps the cancerous cells from avoiding detection by the immune system. And two was, in fact, better than one: They found that the combination of the two methods improved vaccine response.
Of the six subjects in Wus study, four had stage III cancer and 25 months after vaccination, there was no sign of tumors. In the other two subjects, who had stage IV melanomas, they saw improvement with additional checkpoint therapy. Likewise, in Sahins study, eight out of 13 initially tumor-free subjects remained tumor-free 23 months later; normally half of them would be expected to relapse, Vormehr says. Of five subjects who relapsed, two responded positively to the vaccine, and a third responded when the vaccine was combined with checkpoint blockade therapy. Looking more closely, both sets of researchers found that their subjects' immune systems were learning to react to the neoantigens.
Using very different delivery systems, we arrived at very similar conclusions, Wu says. It gives more robust grounds for proceeding into future directions.
The purpose of the initial study was just to look for anti-tumor activity, says Matthias Miller, a senior project manager and co-author of the BioNTech study. In both cases, the trials were relatively small and did not have un-vaccinated control subjects. In a Nature News & Views piece that accompanied the two studies, Cornelis Melief, a professor at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands who was not involved in either study, called for further Phase II clinical trials with larger samples and controls to more rigorously demonstrate the effectiveness of these vaccines.
One limitation of the studies was that not all cancer patients have neoantigen mutations that can be used to design these personalized vaccines, says Sasha Stanton, a physician-scientist in the University of Washington's Tumor Vaccine Group who was not involved in the study.
"Neoantigen vaccines are very exciting in metastatic cancer or in locally advanced cancer," Stanton says. "They are less beneficial in prevention and earlier stage cancer."
Additionally, the process is time intensivefor example, in Wu's study, it took three months for the patient to receive the vaccineand not all patients can remain stable for that long, Stanton says. Production of the vaccine will also have to become more streamlined, Wu says, but she believes the timeframe can be brought down to 4-6 weeks. Miller is also optimistic about the accessibility of the BioNTech vaccine.
"It will be affordable," Miller says. "It can definitely reach the broader public upon improvement of the process."
BioNTech is working with Genentech, a pharmaceutical company, to further develop their vaccine, while Wus team is participating in a multi-center combination therapy trial sponsored by Neon Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company founded by Wu. If future trials are successful, Wu says, there will be many opportunities to apply personalized vaccines to other types of cancer; glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer, is one possible target.
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Personalized vaccines could help the immune system fight cancer - Popular Science
A father of two has taken the decision to undergo chemotherapy, despite not having cancer.
Roy Palmer lost the use of his legs 12 years ago as a result of his multiple sclerosis and has been seeking successful treatment ever since.
But it was while watching Panorama that the 48-year-old realised a combination of stem cell treatment and chemotherapy could be the answer he was looking for, GloucestershireLive reports.
The latter is strongly associated with cancer treatment , but its properties in rendering the body's immune system almost useless are a key part of the stem cell programme Roy hopes will see him up and about again.
He and his wife Helen decided they needed to make some calls and get appointments organised to be able to try and get this pioneering treatment going.
The onset of MS in Roy's case had been swift. In less than a week what began as pins and needles ended with him having no use of his legs.
Even with intense physiotherapy and a combination of steroids and drugs Roy relapsed several times and has been off his feet for 12 years. However when he saw the treatment that is out there, in a Panorama documentary, he and his wife cried.
Roy, 48, said: I just couldnt believe what I was seeing, the stories that I saw on the programme about how well people have been doing and the stem cell treatment actually worked.
I am really pleased that I am going to be able to start the treatment. I lost the use of my legs in 2005. I was encouraged by another woman that has been through it and she was in a wheelchair and now walking.
In the process to have treatment Ive had so many knockbacks being told that I did not fit the criteria but now I am finally getting the treatment.
His treatment will see him travel to the Imperial College Hospital in Hammersmith where a course of drugs will be administered to draw stem cells from Roy's bones into his bloodstream. Over a course of time, those stem cells will then transfer to a pack similar to a blood transfusion bag and be frozen.
It is then that Roy will undergo an intensive course of chemotherapy to render his immune system virtually useless - so much so he will live in isolation for four to six weeks to minimise risk of infection.
The treatment is called HSCT. The MS Society website states that: HSCT aims to 'reset' the immune system to stop it attacking the central nervous system. It uses chemotherapy to remove the harmful immune cells and then rebuild the immune system using a type of stem cell found in your bone marrow.
Roy's wife Helen, 45, said: After the chemo they will reintroduce the stem cells, and because his body will be at zero, it will be rebooted and the MS stopped in its tracks.
Roy has been on lots of different drugs over the years and his body has gradually got used to them and they stop working.
Roy has suffered with his hands not working properly and blurred vision which they call a brain fog. His legs ceasing to work has been a huge set-back for Roy as he used to work as a courier.
Roy said: I want to be able to get out the door without having to use the ramp, it is not a huge deal to anyone else but it is to me.
My goal now is to be able to reach the end point and be able to walk again.
Roy and Helen have two children Jack, 21 and Abigail, 12, and they are fully supportive of their fathers treatment.
Helen said: I am really pleased that we went to see the GP to get this going. Roy was desperate for this treatment.
It is difficult and my father is travelling from Wales to come and look after the children and I am really grateful to that.
The children are really supportive of their dads treatment and look forward to him coming out the other side.
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Dad set to undergo gruelling chemotherapy to kill his immune system despite not having cancer in bid walk again - Mirror.co.uk
A gene mutation may explain theuncontrolled, inflammatory immune response seenin autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseaseslikemultiple sclerosis, scientistsat the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) report. Its a discovery that, they said, appears tobe a big step in the right direction.
According to the study, published in the journalScience Immunology, alterations in theFOXP3 geneaffect specificimmune cells called regulatory T-cells, or Tregs. Those mutations hamper Tregs in performing a crucial regulatory role, leading to a loss of control over the immune systems response to a perceived threat.
We discovered that this mutation in the FOXP3 gene affects the Treg cells ability to dampen the immune response, which results in the immune system overreacting and causing inflammation, Ciriaco Piccirillo, the studys lead author andan immunologist in the Infectious Diseases and Immunity, Global Health Program, at the RI-MUHC, said in a news release.
Tregs are known to be the immune system playersresponsible for keeping other immune cells under control, preventing them from attacking the hosts own tissues, while maintaining a properimmune response against harmful agents. The normal activity of Treg cells is essential for preventing excessive immune reactions.
TheFOXP3 gene is also well-known, and documented, to be essentialfor proper Treg cell function. However, the mechanisms by whichFOXP3 gene is involved in Treg cell activities are still poorly understood.
In the study, Suppression by human FOXP3+ regulatory T cells requires FOXP3-TIP60 interactions, the research team in collaboration with researchers at University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington School of Medicine, and Teikyo University School of Medicine in Japan evaluated the impact of aFOXP3 gene mutation in autoimmunity response.
Taking advantage of cutting-edge technology, the team studiedsamples from two patients carrying a common FOXP3 gene mutation, which caused a genetic immune disorder called IPEX. Interestingly, the researchers found that this genetic variant did not reduce the number of Treg cells or the levels of FOXP3 protein. Instead, the mutation altered the way Tregs could suppress other immune cells to prevent overactivation.
What was unique about this case of IPEX was that the patients Treg cells were fully functional apart from one crucial element: its ability to shut down the inflammatory response, saidPiccirillo.
Understanding this specific mutation has allowed us to shed light on how many milder forms of chronic inflammatory diseases or autoimmune diseases could be linked to alterations in FOXP3 functions, addedKhalid Bin Dhuban, the studys first author and a postdoctoral fellow in Piccirillos laboratory.
The team developed a compound capable of restoring Treg cells ability to control the immune system in the presence of this specific FOXP3 gene mutation. Tested in animal models of colitis and arthritis, twochronic inflammatory diseases, the compound reduced inflammation and restored normal Treg function.
Researchers now plan to developsimilar drugs that may be of use inother diseaseswhere Treg cells are known to be defective, including multiple sclerosis,type 1 diabetes, and lupus.
Currently, we have to shut down the whole immune system with aggressive suppressive therapies in various autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, said Piccirillo. Our goal is to increase the activity of these Treg cells in certain settings, such as autoimmune diseases, but we want to turn it down in other settings, such as cancer.
This discovery gives us key insights on how Treg cells are born and how they can be regulated, Piccirillo added. With this discovery, we are taking a big step in the right direction.
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FOXP3 Gene Mutations May Explain Immune System Excitability in MS and Other Diseases - Multiple Sclerosis News Today
(Reuters Health) - Children whose parents separate and are not on speaking terms may be more vulnerable to catching colds as adults than kids whose parents stay together or go through an amicable breakup, a recent study suggests.
"There is evidence that children whose parents divorce are at increased risk for illness both during their childhood and as adults," said lead study author Michael Murphy, a psychology researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
"However, our study indicates that parental separation itself may not account for this increased risk," Murphy said by email. "This is important because parental divorce is a common experience, affecting more than a million children annually in the United States alone."
For the study, researchers quarantined 201 healthy adults, exposed them to a virus that causes a common cold and monitored them for five days to see how their immune systems reacted and if they developed a respiratory illness.
Adults whose parents lived apart and never spoke during their childhood were more than three times as likely to develop a cold as participants who grew up in two-parent households, the study found. However, adults whose parents separated but communicated with each other were no more likely to catch a cold than people who came from intact families.
People whose parents separated and stopped speaking were 3.3 times more likely to develop a cold than people whose parents remained together during their childhood, the study found. These people also had higher levels of a marker of inflammation, which might help explain why they were more susceptible to catching a cold, the researchers speculate.
Participants in the study were about 30 years old on average, and 92 of them, or 46 percent, reported that their parents had divorced or separated during their childhood. Among the people with separated parents, 51 said their parents weren't on speaking terms.
All of them were given nasal drops containing rhinovirus 39 (RV39), a virus that causes the common cold.
Then, for the next five days, researchers collected nasal secretions to check for evidence of the virus and inflammation as well as to assess how much mucus people produced and how congested they were.
Overall, 149 participants, or 74 percent, developed an infection with RV39 and 60 people met the criteria for a cold based on having both an infection and objective symptoms, researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Limitations of the study include its reliance on participants to accurately recall and report on whether their parents communicated after a separation, the authors note. Even though researchers accounted for a number of factors that can influence the odds of catching a cold such as medical and psychiatric history and prescription use, it's still possible something other than divorce or parents' communication influenced the results.
"Although it's natural to suggest there's a causal process in play here from early parental divorce to later health, it's just as likely that the children of adults who never spoke with each other after their separation share many of the same personality dispositions as their parents - perhaps hostility, addiction or depression - and it is these variables that actually place the young adults at greater risk for colds," David Sbarra, a psychology researcher at the University of Arizona who wasn't involved in the study, said by email.
Even so, the findings add to growing evidence linking divorce-related stress to an increased risk of physical health problems, said Sharlene Wolchik, a psychology researcher at Arizona State University who also wasn't involved in the study.
"The good news is that we know a fair amount about the protective factors that reduce this risk," Wolchik said by email. "When divorce is followed by a new family structure in which parents have high quality relationships with their children, children spend sufficient time with each parent so their relationships can be meaningful and children are not directly or indirectly exposed to conflict between the parents, children can be resilient and thrive despite the stress of divorce."
SOURCE: bit.ly/2u2zLwn Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online June 5, 2017.
(The story refiles to correct journal name in paragraph 10)
The Trump administration on Friday named Georgia public health Commissioner Dr Brenda Fitzgerald to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Eli Lilly and Co won a years-long patent dispute with Actavis on Friday after the UK Supreme Court ruled that the generic drugmaker's versions of Lilly's top-selling cancer drug Alimta directly infringe on certain Lilly patents in Britain, France, Italy and Spain.
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Nasty parental divorce may leave a mark on adult immune system ... - Reuters
Colon cancer. Uterine cancer. Pancreatic cancer. Whatever the tumor, the more gene mutations lurking inside, the better chance your immune system has to fight back.
That's the premise behind the recent approval of a landmark drug, the first cancer therapy ever cleared based on a tumor's genetics instead of the body part it struck first. Now thousands of patients with worsening cancer despite standard treatment can try this immunotherapy -- as long as genetic testing of the tumor shows they're a candidate.
"It's like having a lottery ticket," said Johns Hopkins oncologist Dr. Dung Le, who helped prove the new use for the immunotherapy Keytruda. "We've got to figure out how to find these patients, because it's such a great opportunity for them."
Today, doctors diagnose tumors by where they originate -- breast cancer in the breast, colon cancer in the colon -- and use therapies specifically tested for that organ. In contrast, the Food and Drug Administration labeled Keytruda the first "tissue-agnostic" treatment, for adults and children.
The reason: Seemingly unrelated cancers occasionally carry a common genetic flaw called a mismatch repair defect. Despite small studies, FDA found the evidence convincing that for a subset of patients, that flaw can make solid tumors susceptible to immunotherapy doctors otherwise wouldn't have tried.
"We thought these would be the hardest tumors to treat. But it's like an Achilles heel," said Hopkins cancer geneticist Bert Vogelstein.
And last month FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told a Senate subcommittee his agency will simplify drug development for diseases that "all have a similar genetic fingerprint even if they have a slightly different clinical expression."
It's too early to know if what's being dubbed precision immunotherapy will have lasting benefits, but here's a look at the science.
Who's a Candidate?
Hopkins estimates about 4 percent of cancers are mismatch repair-deficient, potentially adding up to 60,000 patients a year. Widely available tests that cost $300 to $600 can tell who's eligible. The FDA said the flaw is more common in colon, endometrial and gastrointestinal cancers but occasionally occurs in a list of others.
"Say, 'have I been tested for this?'" is Le's advice for patients.
Mutations and More Mutations
Most tumors bear 50 or so mutations in various genes, Vogelstein said. Melanomas and lung cancers, spurred by sunlight and tobacco smoke, may have twice as many. But tumors with a mismatch repair defect can harbor 1,500 mutations.
Why? When DNA copies itself, sometimes the strands pair up wrong to leave a typo -- a mismatch. Normally the body spell checks and repairs those typos. Without that proofreading, mutations build up, not necessarily the kind that trigger cancer but bystanders in a growing tumor.
The Plot Thickens
Your immune system could be a potent cancer fighter except that too often, tumors shield themselves. Merck's Keytruda and other so-called checkpoint inhibitors can block one of those shields, allowing immune cells to recognize a tumor as a foreign invader and attack. Until now, those immunotherapies were approved only for a few select cancers -- Keytruda hit the market for melanoma in 2014 -- and they work incredibly well for some patients but fail in many others. Learning who's a good candidate is critical for drugs that can cost $150,000 a year and sometimes cause serious side effects.
In 2012, Hopkins doctors testing various immunotherapies found the approach failed in all but one of 20 colon cancer patients. When perplexed oncologists told Vogelstein, "a light bulb went off."
Sure enough, the one patient who fared well had a mismatch repair defect and a "mind-boggling" number of tumor mutations. The more mutations, the greater the chance that at least one produces a foreign-looking protein that is a beacon for immune cells, Vogelstein explained.
It was time to see if other kinds of cancer might respond, too.
What's the Data?
The strongest study, published in the journal Science, tested 86 such patients with a dozen different cancers, including some who had entered hospice. Half had their tumors at least shrink significantly, and 18 saw their cancer become undetectable.
It's not clear why the other half didn't respond. Researchers found a hint, in three patients, that new mutations might form that could resist treatment.
But after two years of Keytruda infusions, 11 of the "complete responders" have stopped the drug and remain cancer-free for a median of eight months and counting.
Catherine "Katie" Rosenbaum, 67, is one of those successes. The retired teacher had her uterus removed when endometrial cancer first struck, but five years later tumors returned, scattered through her pelvis and colon. She tried treatment after treatment until in 2014, her doctor urged the Hopkins study.
Rosenbaum took a train from Richmond, Virginia, to Baltimore for infusions every two weeks and then, after some fatigue and diarrhea side effects, once a month. Then the side effects eased and her tumors started disappearing. A year into the study she was well enough to swim a mile for a Swim Across America cancer fundraiser.
"Nothing else had worked, so I guess we could say it was a last hope," said Rosenbaum, who now wants other patients to know about the option.
2017 Associated Press under contract with NewsEdge/Acquire Media. All rights reserved.
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Landmark Cancer Drug Spurs Immune System | Sci-Tech Today - Sci-Tech Today
Scientists now know how respiratory syncytial virus evades the immune system, a discovery that could potentially lead to a vaccine or treatment.
By age two, most children have been infected with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which usually causes only mild cold symptoms. But people with weakened immune systems, including infants and the elderly, can face serious complications, including pneumonia andin some casesdeath.
We solved the structure of a protein that has eluded the field for quite some time, says Daisy Leung, assistant professor of pathology and immunology, and of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, co-senior author of the study in Nature Microbiology.
Now that we have the structure, were able to see what the protein looks like, which will help us define what it does and how it does it. And that could lead, down the road, to new targets for vaccine or drug development.
Each year in the United States, more than 57,000 children younger under 5 stay in the hospitaldue to RSV infection, and about 14,000 adults older than 65 die from it.
There is no approved vaccine for RSV and treatment is limitedthe antiviral drug ribavirin is used only in the most severe cases because it is expensive and not very effectiveso most people with RSV receive supportive care to make them more comfortable while their bodies fight off the virus.
For people with weakened immune systems, though, fighting RSV can be tough because the virus can fight back. Scientists have long known that a non-structural RSV protein is key to the viruss ability to evade the immune response. However, the structure of that protein, known as NS1, was unknown. Without seeing what the protein looked like, scientists were unable to determine exactly how NS1 interfered with the immune system.
Its an enigmatic protein. Everybody thinks it does many different things, but weve never had a framework to study how and why the protein does what it does, says co-senior author Gaya Amarasinghe, an associate professor of pathology and immunology.
The researchers used X-ray crystallographya technique that involves crystallizing the protein, bouncing X-rays off it, and analyzing the resulting patternsto determine the 3D structure of NS1. Then, in a detailed analysis of the structure, they identified a piece of the protein, known as the alpha 3 helix, which might be critical for suppressing the immune response.
To test their hypothesis, they created different versions of the NS1 protein, some with the alpha 3 helix region intact, and some with it mutated and then tested the functional impact of helix 3 and created a set of viruses containing the original or the mutant NS1 genes, and measured the effect on the immune response when they infected cells with these viruses.
The viruses with the mutated helix region did not suppress the immune response while the ones with the intact helix region did.
One of the surprising things we found was that this protein does not target just one set of genes related to the immune response, but it globally modulates the immune response, says Amarasinghe, also an associate professor of molecular microbiology, and of biochemistry and molecular biophysics.
The findings show that the alpha 3 helix region is necessary for the virus to dial the bodys immune response down. By suppressing the immune response, the virus gives itself a better chance of surviving and multiplying, or in other words, of causing disease.
RSV usually can only cause disease in people whose immune systems are already weak, so a vaccine or treatment that targets the alpha 3 helix to prevent immune suppression may be just what people need to be able to successfully fight off the virus.
Other researchers from Washington University in St. Louis and Georgia State University are coauthors of the study.
Support for the work came from the National Institutes of Health; the Defense Threat Reduction Agency of the Department of Defense; the National Science Foundation; the Childrens Discovery Institute; and the American Heart Association.
Source: Washington University in St. Louis
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How this common virus evades the immune system - Futurity - Futurity: Research News
Lung transplants are difficult and risky. Only about 20 percent of organ donors have lungs that are usable; just over half of those patients fortunate enough to receive a donation survive through five years.
Researchers at the University of Virginia think they can improve outcomes for lung transplant patients. The university recently received more than $8.6 million in federal grants for a series of projects meant to take on the problem on multiple fronts.
Dr. Irving Kron and Victor Laubach are spearheading research into ex-vivo lung perfusion, or the use of therapy to rehabilitate donor lungs that may be considered unsuitable because of a donors medical conditions or complications during transportation of the organ.
Lungs are especially sensitive, said Laubach, a molecular physiologist at UVa, and the lungs of most multi-organ donors cant be used because they are badly damaged when the brain is deprived of oxygen. By attaching the donor lungs to a ventilator and treating it with drugs to prevent inflammatory injury and infections, doctors can make lungs suitable for transplants.
We are using that platform to treat those lungs to recondition them and improve their chances of becoming transplantable, Laubach said. If we do that, well significantly increase the donor pool.
Researchers at UVa envision the Medical Center becoming a hub for donor lungs that can be treated and made suitable for transplants.
Dr. Christine Lau is leading a trial of the anti-inflammatory drug regadenoson commonly used in stress tests in heart patients on donor lungs. Experiments on animals have shown that when the drug is pumped into lungs prior to a transplant, it reduces the patients inflammatory response one of the main causes of injury in patients.
[A transplant] causes your immune and inflammatory system to be up in arms, Lau said. What this drug does is shuts down those reactions.
Participation in the trial is completely mandatory, Lau said, but she estimates that more than 90 percent of lung transplant patients at UVa would be eligible for it.
Dr. Sasha Krupnicks research focuses on the patients specifically on suppressing the immune cells that attack the transplanted lung that are less harmful than the current approach.
Currently, transplant patients receive a cocktail of drugs that suppress the entire immune system, putting them at higher risk of infection. Krupnick is experimenting with the use of cells or antibodies that focus on the problem actors in a patients immune system.
What weve discovered is that when we transplant an organ, theres a certain cell population that infiltrates the organ and produce nitric oxide, Krupnick said. If harnessed in the right way, they can kill the harmful T cells.
Ideally, patients would receive an injection before the procedure, reducing the need for drug treatments afterward. Most patients would be off the drug regimen 10 days after the transplant, Krupnick said.
UVa researchers also are hoping to prevent the injuries that go undetected immediately after lung transplant surgery. Many patients go one to two years after the procedure before showing signs of reperfusion injuries, which are typically caused by the bodys rejection of the new organ.
The tools surgeons currently have are fairly crude; it comes down to a chest X-ray, Laubach said. This new grant we have is going to enable us to use new imaging probes.
Using SPECT (short for single photon emission tomography) imaging, doctors should be able to detect these problems and intervene more quickly, which could save lives, Laubach said.
Laubachs team also is planning to use imaging to look at the causes of these injuries, and to get a better understanding of why the body so often rejects transplants.
By looking at all phases of the lung transplant process, UVa researchers are hoping they can make it less difficult for surgeons and less risky for patients. It will take a team effort to make that happen, Laubach said.
We have probably one of the best lung transplant research programs in the country, if not the best, he said. The collaborations have allowed this to happen.
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UVa researchers working on lung transplants get $8.6M boost - The Daily Progress
The term 'beer belly' has a whole new meaning thanks to researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS), who have developed a probiotic beer that boosts the immune system and promotes a healthy stomach.
The new invention was a daunting task according to the inventor, who says that hops used in beer createan inhospitable environment for probiotics.
"The health benefits of probiotics are well known. While good bacteria are often present in food that have been fermented, there are currently no beers in the market that contain probiotics. Developing sufficient counts of live probiotics in beer is a challenging feat as beers contain hop acids that prevent the growth and survival of probiotics," said ChanMei Zhi Alcine,the undergraduate researcher at NUS who picked probiotic beer as her final-year project - and claim to a Nobel Prize if beer connoisseurs have their way.
The healthy brew is made with the probiotic strain Lactobacillus paracasei L26, which regulates the immune system and neutralizes toxins as well as viruses. The strain also gives the suds a sharp, tarty flavor.
"For this beer, we used a lactic acid bacterium as a probiotic micro-organism. It will utilize sugars present in the wort to produce sour-tasting lactic acid, resulting in a beer with sharp and tart flavours. The final product, which takes around a month to brew, has an alcohol content of about 3.5 per cent," explained Chan.
Her supervisor - Dr. Liu Shao Quan - added that the project is the perfect marriage of the craft beer movement with health-food trends.
"The general health benefits associated with consuming food and beverages with probiotic strains have driven demand dramatically. In recent years, consumption of craft or specialty beers has gained popularity too. Alcine's invention is placed in a unique position that caters to these two trends. I am confident that the probiotic gut-friendly beer will be well-received by beer drinkers, as they can now enjoy their beers and be healthy."
When those healthy ales hit shelves is up to the researchers, whohave patented probiotic beer to protect their recipe. So it looks like Chain's post-graduate project willbe raking in the dough with her healthy suds.
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This Probiotic Beer Boosts The Immune System, Promotes Stomach ... - Civilized
Two researchers from the National University of Singapore have developed a sour beer that is infused with a probiotic strain of bacteria, Lactobacillus paracasei L26.
L. paracasei is known to neutralize toxins and viruses, and help regulate the human immune system. It is already incorporated into a variety of dairy products to help improve gut-health.
Chan Mei Zhi Alcine, a student in the Food Science and Technology Program at NUS said she regularly consumes dairy-based probiotic beverages, and wanted to apply similar techniques to brewing a gut-friendly beer flavor.
The health benefits of probiotics are well known. While good bacteria are often present in foods that have been fermented, there are currently no beers in the market that contain probiotics, said Alcine in a university release.
With the help of Associate Professor Liu Shao Quan, the duo spent nine months perfecting their recipe and ensuring they had the optimal amount of live probiotics in the beer.
They isolated the L. paracasei bacterium from human intestines and grew the probiotic, as well as the yeast, in pure cultures.
The team altered some aspects of the conventional brewing and fermentation processes to successfully create the beer with the live probiotic.
The final result was a sour beer with an alcohol content of 3.5 percent. It takes about a month before it is ready to drink.
For this beer, we used a lactic acid bacterium as a probiotic micro-organism. It will utilize sugars present in the wort to produce sour-tasting lactic acid, resulting in a beer with sharp and tart flavors, said Alcine.
But, as she also explained, developing sufficient counts of live probiotics in beer proved to be challenging because the hop acids in beer prevent probiotics from growing and surviving.
Alcine and Shao Quan have filed for a patent to protect the sour beer recipe. The duo believes they hit a sort of sweet spot in the market according to Shao Quan, food and beverage products containing probiotics have increased in recent years, and a similar trend has been seen with a boost in craft and specialty beer flavors. The sour beer they developed could be an attractive option for consumers in both groups.
But further researcher may be needed to test how effective the live probiotics in the beer are for gut and immune health before they can market it as a gut-friendly beer.
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Probiotic Beer Aims to Boost Immune System - Laboratory Equipment
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Mavenclad Reduces MS Relapses by Reseting the Immune System - Multiple Sclerosis News Today
June 29, 2017 Killer T cells surround a cancer cell. Credit: NIH
Cancer hides in plain sight of the immune system. The body's natural tumor surveillance programs should be able to detect and attack rogue cancer cells when they arise, and yet when cancer thrives, it does so because these defense systems have failed. A team of investigators led by Niroshana Anandasabapathy, MD, PhD, at Brigham and Women's Hospital have uncovered a critical strategy that some cancers may be using to cloak themselves - they find evidence of this genetic program across 30 human cancers of the peripheral tissue, including melanoma skin cancer. Their results are published June 29 in Cell.
"Our study reveals a new immunotherapy target and provides an evolutionary basis for why the immune system may fail to detect cancers arising in tissues," said corresponding author Anandasabapathy, of BWH's Department of Dermatology. "The genetic program we report on helps the immune system balance itself. Parts of this program prevent the immune system from destroying healthy organs or tissues, but might also leave a blind spot for detecting and fighting cancer."
The authors studied immune mononuclear phagocytes - a group of disparate cells that act as the "Pac man" of the immune system. When these cells detect foreign invaders and dying normal tissues, they devour or engulf their components. These cells then present these components on their surface teach T cells to maintain tolerance to healthy tissues, or to fight infections and pathogens. Despite differences in function, all immune mononuclear phagocytes found in the skin- (a peripheral tissue like lung and gut) share a common set of genetic programming, which is further enhanced when they enter the tissue. This program is conserved in fetal and adult development, and across species. And, the research team reports, is co-opted by multiple human cancers of tissue.
The team finds that this program is prompted by an "instructive cue" from interferon gamma - a molecule that plays a critical role in regulating immunity. The authors find IFN-gamma for mononuclear phagocytes in development but that IFN-gamma and tissue immune signatures are much higher in skin cancer than in healthy skin. Having an immune response measured by IFN-gamma and tissue signatures correlated with improved metastatic melanoma survival outcomes, making these signatures potential biomarkers for cancer survival.
The authors reasoned such a program might contain key molecules that help the immune system reduce inflammation, but that might also leave a blind spot to cancer detection. One of the key genes the researchers detected is suppressor of cytokine signaling 2 (SOCS2). When this gene was turned off in a mouse model, the immune system was able to robustly detect and reject cancer in models of melanoma and thymoma (cancer of the thymus). They also observed improved vaccination responses, and heightened auto-inflammation suggesting this gene normally dampens auto-inflammatory responses and contracts protective immunity.
"Our research suggests that these cancers are co-opting tissue-specific immune development to escape detection, but we see that turning off SOCS2 unmasks them," said Anandasabapathy. "This sheds new light on our understanding of how the immune system is programed to see cancers and also points the way toward new therapeutic targets for treating cancers that have these signatures."
Explore further: Researchers identify key mutation that suppresses the immune system in melanoma
More information: Nirschl CJ et al. "IFN-gamma-dependent tissue immune homeostasis is co-opted in the tumor microenvironment" Cell DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.06.016
Journal reference: Cell
Provided by: Brigham and Women's Hospital
University of California, Irvine researchers have identified a specific mutation that allows melanoma tumor cells to remain undetected by the immune system. The finding may lead to the development of better immunotherapies ...
Targeting a molecule called B7-H4which blocks T-cells from destroying tumor cellscould lead to the development of new therapies that boost the immune system's ability to fight cancer, according to a review published ...
(HealthDay) -- Growth of the deadly skin cancer melanoma may be triggered by the immune system turning on itself, according to a new study that also identified the mechanism that causes this to happen.
Internal conflict between cell types explains why the immune system struggles to recognize and attack pancreatic cancer. Curbing this infighting has the potential to make treatment more effective, according to a study led ...
Researchers from Mayo Clinic have quantified the numbers of various types of immune cells associated with the risk of developing breast cancer. The findings are published in a study in Clinical Cancer Research.
A new step in cancer immunotherapy: researchers from the Netherlands Cancer Institute and University of Oslo/Oslo University Hospital show that even if one's own immune cells cannot recognize and fight their tumors, someone ...
Cancer hides in plain sight of the immune system. The body's natural tumor surveillance programs should be able to detect and attack rogue cancer cells when they arise, and yet when cancer thrives, it does so because these ...
An immune-related protein deployed between neighboring cells in Drosophila plays an essential role in the cell degradation process known as autophagy, according to new research by Eric H. Baehrecke, PhD, at UMass Medical ...
New findings from mouse models reveal that the type of immune response that helps maintain healthy metabolism in fatty tissues, called type 2 immunity, also drives obesity-induced nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). ...
Investigators at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and international colleagues have discovered a genetic cause and potential treatment strategy for a rare immune disorder called CHAPLE disease. Children with the condition ...
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital immunologists have discovered how immune cells called T cells become "exhausted"unable to do their jobs of attacking invaders such as cancer cells or viruses. The finding is important ...
An enzyme implicated in autoimmune diseases and viral infections also regulates radiation therapy's ability to trigger an immune response against cancer, Weill Cornell Medicine scientists found in a new study. Their discovery ...
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New insights into why the immune system fails to see cancer - Medical Xpress
TAMPA (FOX 13) - In 2014, at the age of 41, Barbara Popoli was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer,or IBC.
"The first doctor that saw me actually went pale and he excused himself from the room," she remembered. "It was already inoperable and it had spread to 20 lymph nodes."
It was a shock since Barbara had never heard of IBC. It began with swelling in her breast and arm.
"And the skin started to get pink and the texture of my skin started to change and instead of feeling smooth like a tomato it started to feel rough and dimply like the outside of an orange," she continued.
Even more dismal were her odds of survival.
"I have never met so many people who have passed so quickly. Anywhere from 60 to 80 percent pass away within just a couple of years after having it," she said.
After a year and a half of traditional treatments including chemo, immunotherapy, and radiation, she joined a clinical trial at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. The experimental therapy helps restore immune cells that fight the cancer.
"I think this is a big deal for patients because we've identified that there is a deficit in this cell type so we're actually offering a specific therapy to correct that particular defect," explainedDr. Brian Czerniecki, who is heading up the study at Moffitt.
The defect that may also be present in other breast cancers, including DCIS, lies in T-cells called CD-4'S.
"We identified people who didn't have a complete response to therapy, have a loss of a particular type of immune cell called the CD4 cell, the same cell that the AIDS virus attacks," he said.
To fix the problem, a large catheter inserted in the neck is connected to a blood-filtering machine. A bag collects white blood cells that are then transformed and multiplied into over a hundred million cancer-fighting cells.
Treatments consist of injections of 20 million cells into a lymph node in the groin. So far, results are promising.
"Everyone to date, so far, their immune response has boosted up to where almost to the point where healthy women are walking around," Dr. Czerniecki said.
Side effects are flu-like symptoms, usually lasting about 24 hours. The side effect means the immune system is responding to the therapy.
Barbara hopes it's enough to keep her cancer from coming back.
"There's not a lot of options for us except chemo," she continued. "If we can stop it and let people get back to a healthy life, it's going to be amazing."
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Experimental therapy uses immune system to fight breast cancer - FOX 13 News, Tampa Bay
Your immune system is the mechanism that your body uses to defend itself from viruses, bacteria, and many types of diseases.Sometimes, it tends to get weak: a poor diet, stress, or some kind of illness can all prevent it from performing its basic functions.
Your immune system is your defense, your immune response to certain external agents that can come inside of you and harm you. It is made up of a network of cells, tissues, and organs that work together to protect your body. You definitely know it, these protective cells are what are called leukocytes or white blood cells. They are in charge of attacking those organisms that causes sicknesses. These cells are found in the thymus, spleen, and bone marrow. They are called lymphatic organs.
If for whatever reason you have a lowered level of leukocytes at any given moment, you will not be able to take onthose external elements that make you sick.So it is important that you are aware of certain kinds of signals so that your doctor can immediately determine the origin of this weakness and you can take it on. So, lets take a look at the signs of aweakened immune system.
It is veryis true that fatigue can have a lot of causes.But when they are continuous, when you wake up in the morning for example and feel exhausted,when you end up tired from the smallest things, when the difference in temperature causes you to get depressed or nausea, etc This are all symptoms to keep in mind.
Urinary tract infections, stomach problems, inflamed and red gums, experiencing diarrhea oftenare examples that your immune system is not handling the external agents that come in your body like it should. It is not producing the proper response and it cannot defend you against certain viruses or bacteria.
How many colds do you tend to catch?One every month? Does your throat always hurt? Do you suddenly catch the flu? You should see your doctor so they can do a test on your levels of white blood cells. Your immune system may not be defending itself like it should.
Some people experience allergic reactions more often than others.They cannot respond to certain pollen, dust, and environmental agents that impact your skin or mucus, and that immediately affect health. If that is the case for you, it is possible that you have a weak immune system.
We all know it.A good diet is a synonymous with good health.But sometimes we only get that when we are already experiencing a problem, when we are already sick. It is necessary to have varied and balanced nutrition at all times, which is rich in fruit, vegetables, and lean protein, and low in excess sugar, fats, and alcohol. Citrus fruits are always excellent health, so dont forget to eat oranges, mandarins, papaya, grapes, tomatoes, etc.
Get a restful and repairing sleep.This is essential for keeping your immune system strong and for letting yourself recover energy and perform essential functions. Insomnia and concerns, the things that make you wait up constantly, are enemies of your health.
We also know this, but sometimes it gets by us.Washing your hands before eating, before handling food,after touching animals, after getting home from outside or work It is also important to take care of the cleanliness of your food. Wash the vegetables that you are going to cook well. Submerge them in water and get rid of any remnants. This is all essential forprotecting your immune system.
Stress is not only an emotion. If it turns chronic, it can cause serious problems.Toxins accumulate in your body, weaken your immune system, make you sick So keep it in mind. Establish priorities, learn to love yourself, find time for yourself and do things you like to do.
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5 Symptoms of a Weakened Immune System - Step To Health
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Three Parts:Eating the Right FoodsTaking Vitamins and Other SupplementsAdopt a Healthy LifestyleCommunity Q&A
White blood cells, also known as leukocytes, are the body's natural defense against infections, and are a major part of the function of the immune system. They eat away foreign bacteria and other organisms that invade the body, and they are therefore responsible for immunity (the ability of the body to fight infections). Some people may have weaker immune systems genetically; others may have weaker immune systems because of viral or bacterial infections.
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Talk to your doctor about immunoglobulin injections. If you have an especially weak immune system, you may need intravenous injections of immunoglobulins (polyvalent IgG antibodies) extracted from donor human blood. This is always by a doctor's advice and only if you have primary immune deficiencies, autoimmune diseases, severe inflammatory diseases, or acute infections.
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How can I lower the level of white blood cells in my blood?
You don't want to do this, unless told to do so by your doctor. Your white blood cells are critical for immune health, so unless you have excess that are causing other issues, you want to maintain them as well as possible.
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How to Strengthen Your Immune System - wikiHow
The hormones produced by your adrenal glands, particularly the stress hormone cortisol, play an important role in regulating your immune system. If your cortisol levels go too low or too high, this can lead to regular infections, chronic inflammation, autoimmune diseases or allergies. Maintaining a balanced level of cortisol is an important part of staying healthy.
One of cortisols many functions is to reduce inflammation. When your body encounters a pathogen, the immune system responds by quickly attacking it. This causes inflammation, which is often a good thing (it means the immune system is working). In those with healthy immune and endocrine systems, cortisol works to moderate the inflammation caused by an immune system response, but it does not completely eliminate it.
Cortisol levels can become imbalanced during the different stages of Adrenal Fatigue. In fact, your cortisol levels will largely depend on which stage of the condition you have reached. If you are still in the early stages, your cortisol levels are likely to be elevated, along with epinephrine and norepinephrine. If you are in the later stages of Adrenal Fatigue, your cortisol levels will be much, much lower. Neither result is beneficial for your immune system.
During the early stages of Adrenal Fatigue, your HPA axis is firing on all cylinders and producing lots of stress hormones. This means that your cortisol level is high, which suppresses the immune system and reduces inflammation.
Why does the body do this? Simply put, the immune system is a non-essential function for the kind of short-term stressful situation that our endocrine system is designed to counter. Reducing the immune systems effectiveness for a few hours, while we escape whatever physical danger is threatening us, is a pretty safe gamble. But the problem is that modern stress does not simply go away after a few hours. Todays stressors tend to be long term and entrenched, which means that cortisol levels can stay elevated for months or years.
Needless to say, a suppressed immune system leaves us vulnerable to disease. And those of us who are under long term stress tend to suffer disproportionately from cold and flu viruses, as well as bacterial infections.
Lets take one of the most stressful events in life losing a love one as an example. In 2011 researchers at the University of Birmingham conducted a study into the effect of bereavement on neutrophils (a type of white blood cell). They concluded that:
The emotional stress of bereavement is associated with suppressed neutrophil superoxide production and with a raised cortisol:DHEAS ratio. The stress of bereavement exaggerates the age-related decline in HPA axis and combines with immune ageing to further suppress immune function, which may help to the explain increased risk of infection in bereaved older adults.
Looking at Cushings Syndrome can also be a useful guide. This condition is sometimes known as hypercortisolism and is recognized through excessively high levels of cortisol. From reading the above, you might expect that Cushings sufferers tend to be vulnerable to regular infections. And in fact, according to the Cushings Support and Research Foundation, Cushings syndrome, with its elevated cortisol levels, certainly suppresses the immune system. Patients with Cushings syndrome are at risk for many unique and unusual infectious diseases.
Chronic stress puts your health at risk (Mayo Clinic) Neutrophil function and cortisol:DHEAS ratio in bereaved older adults (University of Birmingham) Stress-induced immune dysfunction: implications for health (Dr. Ronald Glaser, 2005) What effect does Cushings have on the immune system? (Cushings Support and Research Foundation)
If elevated cortisol is bad for our immune systems, then lowering our cortisol levels must be a good thing, right? Not necessarily. If your cortisol falls too far below the optimal level then you are completely removing the safety valve that prevents your immune system from over-reacting to threats.
During the later stages of Adrenal Fatigue the adrenal glands become tired, depleted and unable to produce the hormones that your body needs. Cortisol levels begin to fall rapidly and the Adrenal Fatigue sufferer quickly switches from having too much cortisol to having very little indeed.
This means that the regulating anti-inflammatory effect of cortisol is absent. Without sufficient cortisol, there is nothing to prevent severe, chronic inflammation. In effect, the immune system is running out of control. Low cortisol leads to increased production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which lead to an over-activation of the immune system and inflammation. According to Dr. Thomas Guilliams, an immunologist, The result is amplification of numerous inflammatory pathways and increased susceptibility to developing inflammatory diseases, including autoimmune diseases, mood disorders, atopy, malignancy, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic pain syndromes, obesity, glucose dysregulation and fibromyalgia.
Beyond Adrenal Fatigue: From Anecdotal to Evidence Based Medicine (Dr. Thomas Guilliams)
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Adrenal Fatigue And Your Immune System
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The Immune System - McGraw Hill Education
The immune system is a collection of billions of cells that travel through the bloodstream. They move in and out of tissues and organs, defending the body against foreign bodies (antigens), such as bacteria, viruses and cancerous cells.
There are two types of lymphocytes:
B cells- produce antibodies which are released into the fluid surrounding the bodys cells to destroy the invading viruses and bacteria.
T cells (see picture opposite) - if the invader gets inside a cell, these (T cells) lock on to the infected cell, multiply and destroy it.
The main types of immune cells are white blood cells. There are two types of white blood cells lymphocytes and phagocytes.
When were stressed, the immune systems ability to fight off antigens is reduced. That is why we are more susceptible to infections.
The stress hormone corticosteroid can suppress the effectiveness of the immune system (e.g. lowers the number of lymphocytes).
Stress can also have an indirect effect on the immune system as a person may use unhealthy behavioral coping strategies to reduce their stress, such as drinking and smoking.
Stress is linked to: headaches; infectious illness (e.g. flu); cardiovascular disease; diabetes, asthma and gastric ulcers.
Stress responses have an effect on digestive system. During stress digestion is inhibited. After stress digestive activity increases. This may affect the health of digestive system and cause ulcers. Adrenaline released during a stress response may also cause ulcers.
Stress responses increase strain upon circulatory system due to increased heart rate etc. Stress can also affect the immune system by raising blood pressure.
Hypertension (consistently raised blood pressure over several weeks) is a major risk factor in coronary heart disease (CHD) However, CHD may be caused by eating too much salt, drinking too much coffee or alcohol.
Stress also produces an increase in blood cholesterol levels, through the action of adrenaline and noradrenaline on the release of free fatty acids. This produces a clumping together of cholesterol particles, leading to clots in the blood and in the artery walls and occlusion of the arteries.
In turn, raised heart rate is related to a more rapid build-up of cholesterol on artery walls. High blood pressure results in small lesions on the artery walls, and cholesterol tends to get trapped in these lesions (Holmes, 1994).
Stress can also have an indirect effect on illness as it is associated with all manner of bad habits (coping strategies), for example smoking, drinking alcohol to excess, poor diet due to lack of time, lack of exercise for the same reason, lack of sleep etc.
All of these are likely to have an adverse effect on a persons health so could cause some of the ill-effects attributed to stress per se.
Short term suppression of the immune system is not dangerous. However, chronic suppression leaves the body vulnerable to infection and disease.
A current example of this is AIDS - Acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Here the immune system is suppressed leaving the vulnerable to illness. Stress would just lead to frequent illness and infections.
Stress responses increase strain upon circulatory system due to increased heart rate etc. This may increase a persons risk of developing disorders of the heart and circulation e.g. coronary heart disease (CHD). Individuals with type A personality have a greater risk of developing CHD.
Stress responses have an effect on digestive system. During stress digestion is inhibited. After stress digestive activity increases. This may affect the health of digestive system and cause gastric ulcers
The executive monkey study by Brady (1958) seems to support this theory.
Aim: To investigate whether stress of important examinations has an effect on the functioning of the immune system
Procedure:
Findings: The blood sample taken from the first group (before the exam) contained more t-cells compared with blood samples taken during the exams.
The volunteers were also assessed using behavioral measures. On both occasions they were given questionnaires to assess psychiatric symptoms, loneliness and life events. This was because there are theories which suggest that all 3 are associated with increased levels of stress.
Kiecolt-Glaser et al found that immune responses were especially weak in those students who reported feeling most lonely, as well as those who were experiencing other stressful life events and psychiatric symptoms such as depression or anxiety.
Conclusion: Stress (of the exam) reduced the effectiveness of the immune system.
Evaluation: Difficult to unravel the relationship for certain. Does stress cause illness or does being ill make you more prone to stress?
Also many of the studies do not take into account for the other factors which affect peoples lives. These can be drugs, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, general health, diet, physical activity, sleep patterns, age and medication. Although many studies try to control these factors it is very unlikely to gain complete control.
Brady, J. V. (1958). Ulcers in" executive" monkeys. Scientific American.
Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K., Garner, W., Speicher, C., Penn, G. M., Holliday, J., & Glaser, R. (1984). Psychosocial modifiers of immunocompetence in medical students. Psychosomatic Medicine, 46(1), 7-14.
McLeod, S. A. (2010). Stress, Illness and the Immune System. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/stress-immune.html
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Stress, Illness and the Immune System | Simply Psychology