4 ms·

Here's something I've never understood, although I suspect the question is an open one even among medical professionals: Given that inflammation is an immune r

Here's something I've never understood, although I suspect the question is an open one even among medical professionals: Given that inflammation is an immune response, is it the inflammation itself that's bad, or the underlying condition? If we only treated inflammation symptoms without curing any of the underlying diseases, would there be a significant improvement in outcomes? Or would they be worse because you'd be interfering with the body's response?

fennecfoxen 7y ago
The article describes negative effects of inflammation which persists long after the underlying condition has been addressed, due to persistently elevated levels of the HMGB1 protein. It notes that "anti-HMGB1 treatment given several days after a serious illness can reduce cognitive decline in mice" and proposing that these results might some day be replicated in humans.
ramraj07 7y ago
Inflammation is catch-all term that in this context can only mean "excessive immune activity", just like "protest" in society can mean a bunch of things. Hence, the only safe thing to say in the general case is that it depends!
lnanek2 7y ago
There's plenty of cases where inflammation is not helpful at all, such as arthritis and psoriasis. When the body is attacking itself in an immune disorder, there's really no down side to preventing the body from attacking itself. Unfortunately, such disorders become more and more common the older you get, so you can think of it as the immune system accidentally triggering rather than it triggering too much on some particular thing. It's true, though, that for really severe inflammation disorders that doctors start prescribing systemic immunosuppressants, which then result in the patient getting real illnesses more often. Often the patient has such a bad condition at that point - my psoriasis leads to skin flaking off in bloody patches and smearing blood on the things I touch and my hands feeling like sand paper to other people, for example - that they prefer this overall. Even the localized topical immunosuppressants like hydrocortisone cream have negative side effects like skin thinning, but I think everyone using those agrees it's better than the extra inflammation.
solinent 7y ago
Inflammation is an immune response, so it is required to keep foreign agents from spreading, essentially. My understanding is that immune cells can become damaged, when this happens they malfunction and inflame the system when it doesn't need to be inflamed.

fennecfoxen 7y ago

The article describes negative effects of inflammation which persists long after the underlying condition has been addressed, due to persistently elevated levels of the HMGB1 protein. It notes that "anti-HMGB1 treatment given several days after a serious illness can reduce cognitive decline in mice" and proposing that these results might some day be replicated in humans.

ramraj07 7y ago

Inflammation is catch-all term that in this context can only mean "excessive immune activity", just like "protest" in society can mean a bunch of things. Hence, the only safe thing to say in the general case is that it depends!

lnanek2 7y ago

There's plenty of cases where inflammation is not helpful at all, such as arthritis and psoriasis. When the body is attacking itself in an immune disorder, there's really no down side to preventing the body from attacking itself. Unfortunately, such disorders become more and more common the older you get, so you can think of it as the immune system accidentally triggering rather than it triggering too much on some particular thing. It's true, though, that for really severe inflammation disorders that doctors start prescribing systemic immunosuppressants, which then result in the patient getting real illnesses more often. Often the patient has such a bad condition at that point - my psoriasis leads to skin flaking off in bloody patches and smearing blood on the things I touch and my hands feeling like sand paper to other people, for example - that they prefer this overall. Even the localized topical immunosuppressants like hydrocortisone cream have negative side effects like skin thinning, but I think everyone using those agrees it's better than the extra inflammation.

solinent 7y ago

Inflammation is an immune response, so it is required to keep foreign agents from spreading, essentially. My understanding is that immune cells can become damaged, when this happens they malfunction and inflame the system when it doesn't need to be inflamed.