Northwestern Medicine research shows a way to treat and reverse lupus
Lupus is one of the most common autoimmune diseases, and now, a key mystery that paves the way for a cure has been solved.
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The cause of lupus has long eluded doctors trying to treat the autoimmune disease.
However, a Research Published this week, it identified the cause of lupus based on molecular abnormalities found in patients’ blood. Lupus overproduces special cells that attack the body’s organs and tissues. The incurable disease affects hundreds of thousands of people in the US.
Researchers are trying to balance it with cells to help control lupus. Treatment currently relies on immunosuppressive drugs to reduce inflammation and pain, but the drugs often do not effectively cure the disease and their side effects limit the body’s ability to fight disease, researchers said.
“Up until this point, all lupus treatments have been the obvious tool. It’s broad-spectrum immunotherapy,” said study co-author Dr. Jaehyuk Choi, associate professor of dermatology and dermatologist at Northwestern Medicine. press release. “By identifying the cause of this disease, we have found a drug that does not cause side effects of current treatments.”
Choi’s colleagues at Northwestern and researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston participated in the study, published this week in the journal Nature. They compared blood samples from 19 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, the most common form of lupus, and 19 patients with the autoimmune disease.
More than 200,000 people in the US have lupus, he said Centers for Disease Control and PreventionBut not for profit Lupus Foundation of America The number is estimated to be around 1.5 million people. Most people with lupus are women and people of color. The disease is more common in black women, and they suffer from more severe forms of the disease and die at higher rates than others, the CDC said. Most people survive lupus, but the Lupus Foundation About 10 to 15% of people with lupus die prematurely due to complications of the disease.
Before the study was published this week, scientists did not know what causes lupus. Experts say genetics, chemicals or viral infections, or immune and inflammatory effects are possible causes, the National Institutes of Health said.
People with lupus typically experience extreme fatigue, pain or swelling of muscles and joints, a skin rash like a butterfly on the cheeks or nose, fever, and hair loss. It can cause problems in the body, including kidney failure, seizures and memory problems. It attacks the brain and central nervous system and can cause heart problems, the NIH said.
The findings of Northwestern and Brigham and Women’s researchers may offer some hope, although the results are preliminary and based on a small sample of blood tests.
Researchers have identified a new cause of lupus. The patients in the study had a chemical imbalance in their T cells, a white blood cell part of the immune system that controls how well they deal with infection.
In an email, Choi said lupus patients have too much interferon, a protein that helps fight infection, and not enough aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) proteins, which control the body’s response to the disease. This causes disease-promoting cells to attack the body. Researchers say that replacing the missing AHR molecules with active ones can heal wounds rather than make them worse.
The researchers added AHR-activating molecules to the blood samples of lupus patients, which appeared to stimulate the healing of lupus-causing cells, according to a news release.
Choi’s study offers new therapeutic approaches in the treatment of lupus. The goal is to target disease-causing cells to better protect patients from the disease.