United States: As per the expert reports, an autoimmune system affects around 1.5 million people in the United States, with most of them being women.
However, in the case of lupus disease, patients suffer further due to damage in multiple organ systems.
More about Lupus
The Chicago doctors are describing the why and how of reversing the course of action of the disease.
According to Lashon Gurrola, who was suffering from Lupus for 25 years, “Daily symptoms can include most definitely pain, fatigue,” and, “On CT scan major organs were inflamed, my colon, my liver inflamed.”
Furthermore, Jae Choi, MD, PhD, who is a dermatologist at Northwestern Medicine, stated, “You have your immune system which normally protects you from bacteria, viruses, and fungi,” and, “Actually, instead of protecting you, it makes proteins that can damage the organs.
Gurrola added, “The sun is not friends with people with lupus, so I do get rashes on the skin,” as wgntv.com reported.
What more happens in autoimmune disease?
As per the experts, in a person with an autoimmune disease, the body begins producing antibodies, which could cause damage to the skin, lungs, brain, and kidneys.
As a result, the patients are advised by health experts to take those medications that would suppress their entire immune system.
Choi added, “Even though they do a good job at helping you deal with the disease, they actually make you more vulnerable to other infections,” as wgntv.com reported.
How to cure Lupus?
A team of researchers examined blood samples of people with Lupus as well as of those without. They found an imbalance in chemicals in those with Lupus, where more injury-causing cells and fewer wound-healing cells could be identified.
Therefore, as a cure, the team aimed to rebalance the body’s chemistry in lupus-prone bodies.
Choi said, “We don’t eliminate the cells. We think we can reprogram them from causing disease to causing wound healing.”
In order to act, Choi and his teammates added a mediator to the blood, which is a special molecule that happens to be deficient in patients. However, this positively affects the lupus-causing immune response and not the entire immune system.
Choi said, “We really have to push to say we’ve done some basic science, but we need to make these into drugs, and so our real goal is to identify ways to make this chemical into something you could take by pill in any clinic in the world,” as wgntv.com reported.
Moreover, Gurrola said, “If there is some new research that can highlight the why and how that is beneficial,” and, “Because once you know what you are fighting and how this came to be, you have some answers and you’re not living blind.”
As per the experts, the further action is to raise the level of research to reach the production line, where the team hopes to partner with a pharmaceutical company and make the treatment available to patients in a year or so.